Chapter 40

Scavenging for bargains?

Looking at Ah Xue's uncompromising attitude, then at the massive chest of equipment, Palin hesitated for quite a while. Ultimately, unable to resist the temptation of finding a hidden gem, he handed over ten gold coins.

Under Ah Xue's watchful gaze, he began to sift through the pile of gear.

As a mage who had also worked in a merchant caravan, Palin had a decent eye for appraising equipment. He picked through the items, left and right, and soon found something of considerable value.

It was a piece of leather armor that had been mostly destroyed, with only about a third of the back section remaining intact. After a careful inspection, he felt the leather seemed to be made from some kind of fire-resistant Magic Beast hide. Although only a small piece remained, with proper tailoring, it could still be fashioned into something like a fireproof chest guard, or at worst, a pair of fireproof gloves.

A pair of gloves capable of defending against fire, even if they didn't count as enchanted equipment, would be worth at least a hundred gold coins. All he had to invest was a bit of labor.

This discovery invigorated him. Not rushing to finish, he set the tattered leather aside as a candidate and continued to bury himself in the search.

However, his luck seemed to have run out; after quite some time, he hadn't found a second item of value.

Finally, Palin couldn't help but whisper in his heart, "Your Majesty, what do you think... is the most valuable thing in this chest?"

Sui Xiong, who had long since been confident in his assessment, smiled. "That depends on what kind of thing you want."

"Your Majesty... what do you mean by that?"

"There are many valuable things in this chest, but the most valuable one might not be what you truly need," Sui Xiong said. "Think clearly about what you want most before you ask me again."

Palin was stunned for a moment, then instinctively replied, "What I want, of course, is powerful equipment."

"Powerful equipment—what exactly is that concept?" Sui Xiong countered.

Palin fell into deep thought.

Just as Sui Xiong said, how should "powerful equipment" be defined? It couldn't just be based on price.

For instance, to a gaming enthusiast, a top-tier keyboard and mouse set would certainly be considered powerful equipment. And if it were a set DIY-ed by a computer expert, with an extra row of custom hotkeys on the keyboard that allowed complex, high-difficulty techniques to be executed with a single press, that would naturally be even more powerful.

Back when Sui Xiong was in college, he knew a junior who was a computer genius but a terrible gamer. After being brutally crushed for over twenty matches by Sui Xiong's "bullying-a-child" style of play, the junior got angry. He spent over a month crafting a powerful set of gear, with a keyboard featuring nearly twenty more keys than a standard one, each corresponding to a highly practical technique. Relying on this artifact, the junior, whose gaming skill was far inferior to his, slaughtered him for forty or fifty games in a row and swept the entire school, becoming an unrivaled powerhouse in the amateur non-competitive scene.

If it weren't for the fact that even amateur competitions forbade such "cheat" gear, perhaps that junior really could have used this esports artifact to break into the professional circuit.

Of course, equipment powerful to that degree in terms of practical combat definitely wasn't in this chest. But second-tier items? Those were definitely here.

Palin thought for a long time before finally deciding what he really wanted.

"Your Majesty, is there a spellbook left behind by a powerful mage in this chest?" he asked.

"Of course there is. Dig deeper; inside a tattered thick cloth garment, there is about half a spellbook. The spells recorded are of a high level—perhaps a bit too profound for you right now. It might actually be quite suitable for Satan."

"But I must warn you, the spells recorded in this book... are very unusual. They might bring you trouble."

Palin pondered for a moment, but ultimately made up his mind. Following Sui Xiong's instructions, he quickly found the half-destroyed spellbook.

For a spellcaster, the spellbook of a predecessor is the crystallization of experience and wisdom, a symbol of heritage, and a temptation impossible to resist. Even if it meant trouble, he couldn't refuse the allure of this treasure.

The pages made of Magic Beast hide were aged, but the text written in special ink remained clear. These characters were in the Ancient Elvish commonly used by many mages—complex and verbose, yet capable of expressing meanings clearly and accurately with minimal ambiguity. It was considered one of the essential languages for any mage.

To become a mage, one needs to know many languages. Beyond the Common Tongue, there is the precise Ancient Elvish, the mana-imbued Draconic, the Dwarven Runic that can be cast directly as spells, the specialized languages needed to communicate with celestial and infernal beings, and the Arcane Tongue often used among mages... just listing these common ones would likely exceed ten.

Even though Palin was just a novice mage, the essential Ancient Elvish didn't stump him. He could read the contents of the spellbook at a glance—incidentally, Satan, who hailed from a southern powerhouse of magic and had been educated in a famous magic tower, knew thirty-one different languages; he was practically a walking, universal translator.

Palin took one look, and his gaze became as if welded to the spellbook, unable to shift even an inch.

"This... could it be... a Dragon-Slaying spell?!"

A Dragon-Slaying spell?!

Hearing this, Ah Xue paused, frowning as she looked at the boy who had been soliciting customers. The boy was also stunned; he thought and recalled carefully, but remained blank.

Palin, his gaze entirely captured by the contents of the spellbook, naturally didn't see this. He stared unblinkingly at the book, muttering to himself, "Dragon-Slaying spells... do they really exist?"

"That depends on how you define it," the boy who had been soliciting customers had regained his composure. He leaned in and said with a grin, "If your requirement is 'a sleeping dragon lying before you, defenseless, allowing you to chant for half a day before blasting it with a spell to kill it,' then such spells probably exist."

As he spoke, he walked naturally behind Palin to look at the records in the spellbook with him.

Palin was amused by him. He traced the pages of the tattered spellbook with his fingers, his eyes fixed on the complex spell model. After a long while, he finally grasped its basic principle.

"Judging by the principle of this spell, the requirements don't seem that strict. As long as it hits, it can inflict massive damage on a dragon," he said.

"But so-called 'massive damage' is actually quite limited for a dragon," the boy's eyebrows furrowed slightly, though he still smiled. "A dragon's vitality is not something an ordinary creature can compare to."

As he spoke, a gray shadow appeared behind him, whistling through the air as it smashed toward Palin's head.

The shadow was shockingly fast. If it had landed, Palin's skull would have been shattered and his brains splattered, leaving him dead beyond a doubt. But before it could strike, Palin's bracelet vibrated slightly. A translucent phantom of a jellyfish emerged in the air, waving its tentacles. A blade formed of freezing cold energy appeared out of thin air, intercepting the shadow before a ring of cold light could even finish shielding Palin's head.

Bang!

The violent collision was accompanied by a dull thud. The blade shattered, and the shadow was repelled. A look of shock and suspicion appeared on the boy's face. He retreated hastily, and within a step or two, his hands had transformed into terrifying claws, with a thick, long tail dragging behind him.

It was that long tail that had just attempted to ambush Palin.

The familiar, friendly smile from before was completely gone. What radiated from the strange-looking boy was not only fierce killing intent but also a terrifying pressure.

It was the pressure naturally emitted by a predator at the top of the food chain facing its prey—or rather, a powerhouse facing the weak.

If Palin had been alone, even if he had luckily dodged the ambush, he would have been chilled to the bone by this pressure, left with nothing to do but flee or beg for mercy. But now, it wasn't just Palin who was tense and uneasy; his enemy was the same.

"Who... exactly are you people!" the boy, now in his terrifying form, roared in shock and anger.

Sui Xiong did not answer his question. Instead, he spoke of something else entirely: "To be honest, the 'Dragon-Slaying spell' in that book doesn't have much power. If a dragon in its true form were hit by it, it would likely only suffer minor injuries. But if a dragon were foolish enough to take human form, then one spell would be enough to wipe out its entire family, you know."

"Also, you dared to ambush my believer. Are you prepared to accept your punishment!"

Before the words had even faded, the transparent jellyfish's body suddenly burst apart, transforming into countless specks of light that merged with the frigid magic permeating the air. It expanded several times over in an instant, and a thick tentacle formed of ice whistled through the air, lashing out fiercely toward the child who had taken on such a monstrous form.

A cold glint flashed in the child's eyes, and he met the tentacles with his claws, refusing to give an inch. He had always been confident in his own strength; even those Magic Beasts renowned for their power could never hope to gain the upper hand against him in a contest of force.

With a thunderous boom, the tentacles and sharp claws collided heavily. The massive jellyfish floating in the air shuddered, while the child was sent reeling, his feet carving two distinct furrows into the solid floor as he was pushed back four or five paces in one go.

"How is this possible!" He widened his eyes in shock, unable to believe that he had actually been bested in raw strength.

"You'll find out if it's possible once you're beaten into the dirt!" This time, Sui Xiong swung out four tentacles at once.

During their brief clash just moments ago, he had already gauged the strange child's strength. The opponent could, at best, block the attacks of two of his tentacles; by doubling the attack now, he would surely be able to knock him down in one strike!

However, these four tentacles failed to hit their target, blocked instead by rings of white, frigid light.

Earlier, the smiling boss Ah Xue had flown into a rage upon witnessing the child's sudden sneak attack. While glaring fiercely at the brat who had acted on his own initiative, she had channeled her magic to cast a powerful barrier around Palin.

Gritting her teeth, she began rolling up her sleeves, looking exactly like an enraged parent about to grab a feather duster to thrash a troublemaking kid.

Yet, before she could even make a move, Sui Xiong had already begun fighting the child, and the battle was completely one-sided.

This left her quite conflicted, unsure of what to say or do for a moment. But once she confirmed Sui Xiong's identity, an expression of shock and anger immediately appeared on her face.

Seeing that the child was about to be severely injured at Sui Xiong's hands, she hurriedly stepped in to rescue him. She shot the child a vicious glare before focusing all her energy on confronting Sui Xiong. With a soft chant, a frigid pressure rose from her body.

"A young god? Playing with frost in front of me—you've picked the wrong target!"

Thanks to readers: Proud as a Dragon, Desperate White Crow, Orochi, 1979007807, Naughty Cat, NOKLA6120, and Perverted Seed-chan for their enthusiastic tips. Reader support is the motivation for my updates!