Bankrupt on Opening Day

As for the Spirit Sword Technique...

Chen Xuan stepped out of the shop, picked up a fallen leaf from the ground, silently recited the incantation, and hurled it forcefully at a ginkgo tree some distance away.

With a soft whoosh, the leaf embedded itself in the trunk like a throwing knife!

He walked over for a closer look and found that the leaf had completely pierced the bark and sunk deep into the wood, leaving only a two-finger-wide gash on the surface.

The effect was way too incredible...

Chen Xuan marveled inwardly. If that leaf hit someone, wouldn't it be fatal? Even if it missed a vital spot, it could instantly leave the target unable to resist.

He knew cultivators had their tricks, but it was honestly terrifying that a technique rated White Grade could produce such an effect.

Afterward, Chen Xuan tried out some other uses. For instance, he attached the spirit sword to his fingertips. It looked as though his nails had grown slightly longer, yet it could easily cut through chopsticks and leave scratches on ceramic tiles.

Presumably, it could also slit someone's throat without anyone noticing.

Who would this ability be suitable for selling to?

"Looks like I'll have to be more careful when choosing sales targets next time," he muttered. If the Spirit Sword Technique fell into the hands of someone with bad intentions, the consequences would be unthinkable.

After checking the ability, Chen Xuan remembered his performance points.

Shopkeeper's Rules had clearly stated that this reward could be claimed immediately.

He returned to the counter, took out the Red Notebook, and flipped to the relevant page. Sure enough, it clearly stated that performance points could be used to raise the Store Manager Rating or exchanged for other rewards. But regardless of his choice, he had to submit a report by email.

So the LV1 of colored abilities could be raised?

Chen Xuan immediately opened the store management section of the Butler APP and found the performance point rewards category according to the examples in the rules.

Scrolling down, he found that most of it was blank. Only the first option, "Store Manager Rating," was available.

And it only took four performance points to rise from LV1 to LV2.

This system was practically just like career advancement in the workplace... The higher the sales, the faster one climbed, and the higher the pay. The problem was that employees' salaries were set by the boss. If he was merely the manager of a branch store, then the Ability Store surely had some organization akin to a boss or board of directors.

Yet that did not seem to be the case.

Because the manual even explained how ability rarity was determined. It specifically stated that legendary abilities akin to SSR were one of a kind, with a rarity of being the only one in existence.

In other words, the "???th Shopkeeper" was unique.

Abilities of other grades, meanwhile, could have multiple instances.

White Grade was directly called a common ability in the manual. It did not even count as R.

It couldn't be that the Red Notebook was full of nonsense, could it? After going through an actual transaction, Chen Xuan no longer dared to casually question the authenticity of its contents.

Since thinking about it was useless, he simply set the question aside and decided to raise his store manager level first. Since it was a reward mechanism, climbing higher could not possibly be a bad thing.

The moment he clicked Store Manager Rating, an email template popped up on the desktop. It had no recipient, and the applicant still had to fill in a reason for promotion.

"What a hassle... Can't it just calculate my performance directly?" Chen Xuan scratched his head helplessly and could only fill out the email honestly. As for the reason, he naturally praised himself in a subtle manner, as though writing a genuine job application. He did not choose to be perfunctory, worried that if the APP made things this troublesome, there had to be a troublesome reason behind it.

After finishing, he clicked send, and nothing else happened.

Clearly, this was not a process that provided real-time feedback.

Ding-dong-dong~~

The wind chime suddenly rang.

"Hey, boss, you in?" someone called.

Another customer already?

Chen Xuan immediately put on an enthusiastic smile, looked up at him, and said, "Welcome!"

The newcomer was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a tank top, shorts, and glasses. Chen Xuan quickly made his assessment. Hmm... in his prime, with sturdy, powerful limbs. Although he was dressed plainly, perhaps he preferred to hide his greatness in the city. In any case, no customer who walked into this shop could be ordinary.

So... what kind of ability did he desire?

"A pack of Baisha, and a bottle of Tsingtao."

"Ah? Oh..."

"Got Mala Tang?"

"Uh... no."

"Then why've you got Mala Tang on your sign? Seriously."

"..."

Only after the uncle left did Chen Xuan recover his senses. The process of checking him out had been even more unbelievable than receiving Liu Shuyue!

—This shop was both an Ability Store and a general store serving Tianlu Residential Area?

Just imagining cultivators and retired old ladies visiting the shop together made his scalp tingle.

Wait...

Wasn't this bad?

Chen Xuan suddenly realized that not only did he have to receive those ability-seeking customers, he also had to keep the store running like a small supermarket. The difficulty had multiplied several times over!

So the lines in Shopkeeper's Rules—"all expenses for operating the shop shall be borne by the shopkeeper" and "under no circumstances may the shop be allowed to go bankrupt"—had been traps all along!

The next day, Chen Xuan did not go to work. He resigned directly.

They agreed readily enough. After all, since he had brought it up himself, they could save this month's salary too.

And now that Chen Xuan was a shopkeeper, there was naturally no way he could keep wasting time for one month's pay. He needed to devote all his energy to the Ability Store.

After spending the entire morning punching numbers into a calculator, he finally arrived at a rough estimate of the cost of running the shop.

It was mainly divided into two parts. One was the purchasing cost of all merchandise: cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, snacks, and other items had to be restocked after being sold. The other was fixed expenses such as rent, water, electricity, and natural gas.

That was right. This mysterious shop, which revolved around ability trading, still had to pay water and electricity bills to the state utility companies. It even had a dedicated bank account for rent, with payments automatically deducted each month.

After calculating everything, the shop's monthly operating costs came to around thirty to forty thousand yuan.

Chen Xuan had thought that sold goods would restock automatically, but reality was entirely different. After an entire night, no new cigarettes had grown on the shelves, and no new drinks had appeared in the freezer. Even the rag he had used to wipe away the blood Liu Shuyue left behind had not become clean and new again.

Other than its ability trading feature, it was no different from an ordinary neighborhood general store, just with somewhat more refined decor.

Chen Xuan currently had fifty thousand yuan in savings.

This was what remained after his failed business venture. It had been more than enough to cover his rent and meals before, but with the shop's planned expenses added in, he could last at most a month and a half before it had to close from unpaid bills.

The situation was extremely urgent!

Performance points were no longer the priority. What mattered was actual money.

The moment Chen Xuan recognized this reality, he came up with an idea. At his current income level, earning wages to support the shop was out of the question. The most practical approach was still related to abilities—turning abilities into cash!

"Selling abilities directly..." Chen Xuan pondered silently. He had spent the entire previous night testing things, and had ultimately reached a conclusion the manual had never mentioned: losing an ability did not mean being affected by the Forgetfulness Curse, nor would it disrupt normal life.

For example, after removing Can Sleep a Lot, he could still fall asleep at night. After trading away Broadly Read Through the Ages, he had not forgotten all history either. Basic knowledge such as widely known dynasties and famous figures still remained, but he no longer remembered any specific events involving them. He guessed those keywords had perhaps gone beyond the realm of history and become part of his self-awareness. Moreover, once he searched up those historical stories online, he could remember them again.

This completely dispelled his last trace of concern about ability trading.

Although he could currently only exchange abilities for abilities, no one said he could not charge an additional fee. Take the two gray abilities, Can Eat a Lot and Can Sleep a Lot. Their rarity might be at the bottom, but for wealthy people who could not eat well or sleep soundly, they were absolutely valuable abilities worth spending a great deal of extra money on. Add an insignificant ability as a bonus, and such a transaction seemed quite easy to arrange.

The problem was that he did not know any such bosses, and his connections made it difficult to find suitable targets in a short time.

This idea was undoubtedly difficult to put into practice.

Naturally, Chen Xuan thought of a second method: using his abilities himself to earn his first pot of gold.