"Stop! I'm a merchant, not a fighter!" Seeing the clearly ill-tempered girl look ready to fly into a rage after missing her first strike, Jiu Ming hurriedly spoke up.
"Shut up!... Aren't you scared?"
"Scared... Mao!"
Give me a break. If I stood still and let you hit me for thirty-five... no, thirty seconds, could you kill me!? If not, what do I have to be afraid of? That intimidating aura of yours? Don't make me laugh. I'm not even a little scared deep down, so how could I be afraid of something like that!
"Then go die."
BOOM... The entire hall shook violently. Jiu Ming's mouth twitched as he looked at the wreckage around him, then he shook his head lightly. At least he wouldn't have to pay for the repairs himself.
The strange girl in front of him could definitely take down that Snake King—Jiu Ming meant the Thunder Snake King, the one connected to the Lightning Bead in his possession. Sigh, here we go again!
The already thoroughly wrecked hall was once again reduced to rubble, as if Godzilla had trampled it... This was downright inhumane.
"...All right, customer, go ahead."
She'd only attacked twice. He still had 330 Origin Power, and the protection mechanism counted even a duration of less than a second as a full second!!
Never mind. Jiu Ming soon came around to it. It was still better than being charged per hit. This wasn't too much of a rip-off.
He snapped his fingers, and the sofa behind him, which had already been reduced to scraps, was restored. He sat down without hesitation. "Once you're done, hurry home and get some sleep."
He couldn't afford to look weak.
"Not breaking anything else?" After waiting half a minute and seeing no reaction from the girl opposite him, Jiu Ming raised a hand. The ruined hall returned to normal.
BOOM—
You damn woman! Jiu Ming felt his blood pressure rising.
"Take your time looking through this. If you're not interested when you're done, just turn around, walk back out, and say goodbye."
His eye twitching, Jiu Ming tossed over a small booklet. What if she couldn't understand it?
No problem! Anyone who came here and wasn't blind—or missing their eyes—could definitely read it.
"Hey, hey, that strange look in your eyes... I'm warning you, don't get any funny ideas." After reading the very thin booklet, she stared at Jiu Ming with a rather peculiar expression. "And don't even think about using some bizarre method to get me out of here!"
His instincts told him something like that might happen!
"I've seen my share of sweet talk, you know. I'm a man with a past!" He might still be fooled, but he wouldn't be stupid enough to let his IQ drop just because she tried acting cute and asking for comfort...
"That thing in your hand."
"Oh? This? I just got it two days ago, and I like it a lot. If I were to sell it, it'd be very expensive."
Jiu Ming tossed the Super Energy Crystal in front of her. A very strange crack suddenly appeared beneath it, and, as Jiu Ming stared in astonishment, the crack swallowed the crystal whole...
Had he miscalculated?
How could he have!
Under the Mysterious Shop's rules, there were quite a lot of restrictions when he obtained something that belonged to someone else. But when it came to something of his being taken by someone else, Jiu Ming was also "protected"—and the rules seemed even more unreasonable in his favor. He couldn't turn things he stole from others into Sealed Cards, and anything others stole from him would simply stop working.
The Divine Sword had turned into scrap metal worse than a beginner's weapon. Even if the Super Energy Crystal in his hand was taken from him this way, it would be nothing more than a pretty glass bead in her hands.
Not to mention that this was inside the Mysterious Shop, not the outside world. The shop's rules were at their strongest here.
The Super Energy Crystal, which should have been swallowed, passed back through the crack as though it had merely touched the air, then landed in Jiu Ming's hand again.
That scared me!
The corner of his mouth twitched. If they'd been outside, he might really have lost it because of that moment of carelessness.
A spatial ability?
"I've decided to raise the price."
Jiu Ming raised an eyebrow, his tone turning less polite. Damn it, she'd provoked him again and again, and started things off with such a murderous aura, too. Who was she trying to scare? Did she think she could take out her bad mood on other people?
"Why are you asking me for money?"
"Why does everyone bring up money?" Jiu Ming scratched his head. "Money's the most useless thing here! Natural treasures, rare curiosities, special abilities—all of those are fine. But don't bring up money."
Money, that vile thing...
How many customers who came here had brought up money now?
Name: Gap Type: Skill Attribute: Space Notice: Avoid frequent use Remark: Careful, the Gap might swallow you~ Forced collection cost: 88888.8 Origin Power Note: When the target of forced collection is an ability, the target will not permanently lose that ability... So beware of the pursuit you'll face afterward.
What kind of irresponsible remark was that?
That was right—it was exactly that irresponsible. The girl had demonstrated her ability, but there was no further explanation. At a time like this, it all came down to whether the person selling it was a responsible shopkeeper.
Ah... that's a lot of eights. Are you messing with me?
Forced collection meant taking it permanently, not the limited, one-time kind. The price difference between limited and unlimited abilities was dozens of times at the low end, hundreds at the high end. And the price also varied depending on the ability user's level.
Take a fireball spell, for example. How could one mastered by a magic apprentice compare to one wielded by an existence like the Magic God?
In other words, the true value of the ability the girl possessed was over 110,000 Origin Power!
Good grief!
That was incredible.
"...Trade confirmed?" Remembering how unfriendly she'd been at first, Jiu Ming asked without much hope. In response, she gave him a deeply contemptuous look.
Are you an idiot?
She hadn't said it out loud, but Jiu Ming understood what she meant.
"So you were just messing with me." He shook his head and picked up the half-restored packet of tea leaves. "Here, here, here. Take this as a freebie. Now hurry home."
"I think we should have a proper talk." Realizing she couldn't get the better of Jiu Ming, the Blonde Girl let out a soft breath, reined in her aura, and revealed a perfect smile. "What do you think, little shopkeeper?"
"Yeah, as long as we can talk..." Just don't try to rip me off. Jiu Ming nodded and pointed to the seat opposite him. "Have a seat."
Then Jiu Ming finally got to see an expression other than the murderous look she'd worn at first: the sort of expression people had when they saw something novel. It seemed she'd never seen a sofa before.
But, girl, you're good at changing expressions...
"Ahem. I've only just 'opened for business,' so I don't have many products yet. But I prefer accepting commissions—"
Whether he accepted or not would depend on what she asked him to do.
"Is that so? Could you show me what you have?"
"Oh, sure!"
A Fifty-Year Aged Preserved Egg, a fifty-day Life Point Card, a steel pipe with an absurdly high armor-piercing rating, the Defective Electricity ability, and the Super Energy Crystal she'd been staring at this whole time.
"Here. That's all I have for now."
A row of cards lay spread across the coffee table in front of them. Jiu Ming wasn't worried in the slightest that she'd suddenly grab something and run...
The girl calmly looked over the items in front of her. First, she completely ignored the Fifty-Year Aged Preserved Egg. Could that thing even be eaten!?
Who had teeth strong enough for that!?
Then came the fifty-day Life Point Card. It made her think a little more highly of Jiu Ming. A trade involving life?
That was an extremely rare thing. Still, it was only fifty days, and she didn't care about it at all. In the span of her life, that amount of time wasn't even a drop in the ocean. Only short-lived humans were so fixated on something like that.
A mere fifty days.
The girl also didn't realize that Jiu Ming had only laid the items out for display. She believed in them without needing him to explain or demonstrate anything to prove they were real.
Those were some of the Mysterious Shop's rules...
Next was the Iron Rod, which Jiu Ming said could pierce all kinds of extreme defenses. It only had one use left. It looked decent, but it was no use to her at the moment, so she didn't need it.
The Defective Electricity ability?
What a strange name.
"This thing? You can think of it as getting a superpower when you use it. The kind that makes sparks fly and sends electricity crackling everywhere."
Jiu Ming picked up the card. A few streaks of light flashed across it, and it vanished from his hand. A string of unstable electric currents immediately crackled around him, making quite an intimidating display.
"That's all? It might scare ordinary people."
She clicked her tongue softly. After seeing its power, the girl immediately looked disdainful. It was far too weak! Even if she stood there and got shocked, it wouldn't hurt her. She could completely ignore it, even if she were electrocuted all day without moving.
At the same time, she became a little wary. If abilities could be traded, would their original owners still have them after the trade?
"Well, it doesn't even have one percent of the original's power." Jiu Ming shrugged. So what if it was weak? He didn't care! It was a lightning-based ability, after all. With that lightning-based Super Energy Crystal in hand, Defective Electricity could probably be boosted to rival the Railgun...
"Oh?" More than a hundred times weaker? Then perhaps the original ability was worth paying some attention to. "But you don't have the original, do you? You're trying to fob off this defective version on your customers?"
"Of course not. I guarantee that everything here is completely honest!" Jiu Ming said solemnly, provided you hadn't crossed him!
"This is all I have for now, customer. You've asked so many questions. What you're really interested in is this, isn't it?"
"Let's be clear about this. The ability you showed earlier is worth a little more than six times as much as this thing."
Was the multiplier too low? Of course not!
Quantity could sometimes overwhelm quality, but more often than not, quantity could never compare to quality!
Good-quality high-energy crystals that could actually be bought were worth between twenty and fifty Origin Power each. A few hundred of them might be worth as much as this Super Energy Crystal. So what?
In terms of usefulness, not even a few thousand of them could compare to this Super Energy Crystal!
That was why the difference in Origin Power value alone couldn't fully determine an item's true worth.
"But you don't have six things of the same type."
"Of course not, so this is a little hard to negotiate. Then, customer, do you have anything of 'lower value'? I won't take too much of a loss. Maintaining this place costs me something, too."
"Actually, I wouldn't mind trading it for just this one thing. Even if it doesn't match my attributes, it should still help a little..."
Before you continue