The Black Goat

"A Sheng, do you think that guy lied to us? Was it really... a person, not because of the Black Tide?"

Cheng Sheng and Song Cai stood by the roadside with quite a few other people who had also been stopped, looking toward the cordoned-off Kunsha District.

"The wanted notice probably wasn't fake."

Cheng Sheng had calmed down, but he wondered why the Qingsha City police were so certain that the person described in the wanted notice had committed the Sucha Street murders.

Had a witness survived at the scene?

Or did they have more conclusive evidence...

Police sirens sounded from time to time beyond the distant cordon, and Cheng Sheng's eyes flickered.

The Black Tide existed in this world, so it wouldn't be strange for supernatural powers to appear too.

That made him far more eager to follow the black book's guidance and perform the sorcerer initiation ritual, as he had already planned.

Most of the time, the Black Tide was still some distance removed from ordinary people. As long as they didn't go out to sea and court death by actively seeking it out, they could use their experience to avoid it when it occasionally appeared.

But someone like the Sucha Street murderer, who possessed supernatural abilities, was far too dangerous, full of unstable and uncertain factors.

You had no way of knowing whether, one day, you might be walking perfectly normally down the street when something came out of nowhere and smashed you into a puddle of mangled flesh.

If I don't want to end up like the poor bastards in those videos, I have to find a way to gain some ability to protect myself!

At that thought, Cheng Sheng's gaze gradually grew resolute.

"Let's go. There's nothing to see."

Cheng Sheng looked away and called Song Cai to leave with him.

The two walked along the street for a while without speaking. Even the usually talkative Song Cai kept his head down, as if he were thinking about something.

Song Cai had watched all dozen or so videos that were spreading like wildfire on the Dark Forum. The truth behind the Sucha Street massacre had dealt a huge blow to the teenage boy's view of the world.

Suddenly, Song Cai spoke. "A Sheng, want to go to the martial arts school together tomorrow?"

Cheng Sheng froze. After searching his memories carefully, he finally recalled that the body's previous owner seemed to have signed up for a martial arts class, though he hadn't attended in a long time.

The people of Nantu were tough and fierce, and martial prowess had been prized there since ancient times. Martial arts and fighting had always had a large following in Nantu.

Because of the Black Tide, the government also encouraged ordinary people to strengthen their bodies, and there were even related bonus points available on the major exam. That was why the previous owner and his two close friends had signed up for the same martial arts class.

But the three of them had always fished for three days and dried their nets for two, and after failing the major exam, they had stopped going altogether.

"Do you think that wanted criminal who killed people on Sucha Street might have trained in martial arts?

I've seen videos on the Dark Forum of martial artists fighting tigers, leopards, and giant pythons barehanded. If someone were even stronger and reached a level like Jin Mengkong's, would they be like what we saw in the videos..."

Cheng Sheng wanted to say that the effects shown in those videos simply didn't look like anything that could be achieved through natural training.

Major fighting competitions were occasionally broadcast on television, and the people in them were impressive too, but they weren't fast enough to escape a camera's capture or able to treat concrete like blocks of tofu... They were still within the bounds of normal human ability.

But he didn't understand this world's fighting system, so he thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right. Call me tomorrow."

"Where are we going now? Want to go back to the arcade?"

The ideas bubbling up in Song Cai's head had gotten him a little excited, and he couldn't resist wanting to play games again.

But Cheng Sheng declined. "You go back first. I need to buy some things."

With that, he paid Song Cai no further attention, flagged down a passing tuk-tuk, and got straight in.

"Hey!"

Song Cai chased the vehicle for a couple of steps, raised a hand, then lowered it again. He couldn't help muttering, "What the heck? It's not like I said I couldn't go shopping with you..."

They had agreed to come out and have fun together, but Cheng Sheng had left him behind before they even got started. Alone now, Song Cai felt a little bored.

He stood by the roadside, considering where to go next, when a familiar tuk-tuk slowly pulled up beside him.

"Little brother, your friend's gone, and you're all alone."

The tuk-tuk driver, whose teeth were black all over, took out a betel nut and offered it to Song Cai. A slightly lecherous smile appeared on his face. "Want a ride? I'll take you somewhere good."

"Where?"

Song Cai cautiously took a step back, but the driver beckoned him closer, leaned toward his ear, and whispered a few words.

When Song Cai heard them, his face instantly turned bright red. He instinctively lifted a leg to leave, but the driver grabbed him.

"Trust me. Try it once, and you'll know how good it feels.

You're a student. Since it's your first time, you might even get a discount..."

Song Cai hesitated for a while, but in the end, he shyly climbed into the vehicle.

If Cheng Sheng had still been there, he would have seen that the tuk-tuk was taking Song Cai in the direction of Qingsha City's largest red-light district...

"All that money for this little bit of silver powder!"

In Pana District, Qingsha City, Cheng Sheng walked out of a silver jewelry shop, his face full of pained regret.

He clutched a small cloth pouch no bigger than his palm. It contained about two hundred grams of silver shavings and powder, which had cost him a full two thousand Nan currency!

I don't know if it'll be enough. If it isn't, there's nothing I can do. I'm already out of money...

Standing by the roadside, Cheng Sheng looked at the pedestrians and vehicles coming and going along the street and let out a quiet breath.

According to the first page of the black book, the materials needed for the sorcerer initiation ritual were sulfur, bone powder, silver powder, blood, black candles, and salt.

Most of these things weren't hard to obtain-

Nantu was in the tropics, and many places needed to keep snakes and insects away in everyday life, so sulfur was common and could be bought at a roadside supermarket.

The black book didn't specify what kind of bone powder was needed, so Cheng Sheng had bought cow bone powder used to feed livestock. It was cheap.

If human bone powder was needed... it wasn't impossible to get, either. Amulet shops and even handicraft stalls might have some, though the price would be higher.

There wasn't much to say about the black candles and salt, and he had just gotten the silver powder.

Now all that remained was the last item: "blood."

"The ritual requires three kinds of blood: my own, a black crow's, and a black goat's..."

Black crow blood was easy. He could buy one from a pet shop, or simply catch one himself and bleed it.

The troublesome part was the black goat blood.

Qingsha City was on the coast, and its livestock industry wasn't well developed. Cheng Sheng had visited several markets in succession and barely seen any live goats, much less a black one.

He had just checked on his phone and found that there were a few farms around Qingsha City.

I'll have to call them one by one after I get back, find out where they have black goats, and then, when they slaughter one, go over and ask them for some blood...

If Cheng Sheng had money, he could simply buy one and have someone keep it for him, then have it slaughtered and its blood drawn fresh whenever he needed it.

The problem was that he had no money in his pocket. One small bag of silver powder had almost emptied out the little pocket money he usually had left over.

An adult black goat would sell for at least fifteen hundred to two thousand Nan currency.

"Forget it. Home first."

After all that running around, it was already three in the afternoon. The sky was heavily overcast, and it might start raining again at any moment.

Cheng Sheng hadn't expected to get everything for the ritual taken care of in a single day anyway.

Even if he bought all the materials, he still had two things to consider.

The first was where to perform the ritual.

The second was, when performing the ritual for the first time...

What should he choose as a sacrifice?