“G-Give it… to me for free?”
Helos was momentarily stunned by the old man’s words. For free? A rare material that looked this valuable was being given to her for nothing?
It was worth noting that before Julius arrived, almost no one would ever offer her anything for free. She never expected such a stroke of luck to happen to her. This old man was far too strange.
“Old gentleman, I couldn’t possibly!”
Helos snapped back to her senses and hurriedly said, “This looks very expensive. I can’t take it for free. Please, name a price.”
As she spoke, she reached for the coin pouch at her waist. Although she didn’t have much money on her at the moment, she could at least pay a deposit and have her brother send the rest later.
But the old man seemed extremely impatient.
He didn’t even open his eyes. He simply waved his hand again, his tone cold. “I said I’m giving it to you, so I’m giving it to you. Why all the chatter?”
He glanced at Agatha, who was still rummaging through the shelves and already clutching a large pile of bottles and jars.
He said coldly, “It looks like you’re done picking. Take your things and get lost! Don’t disturb my reading!”
Hearing this, Agatha had no choice but to awkwardly carry her “treasures” to the counter and carefully set them down.
The pile looked substantial, but most were just scraps of materials and odd little parts; they likely weren’t worth very much.
However, the old man didn’t ask her for money either. He simply waved his hand impatiently again, telling them to scram. It was as if money was the most worthless thing in the world to him.
Helos still wanted to insist. She felt uneasy taking things from others for free, especially in a shop with such an unclear background.
“But —”
Just then, the old man suddenly opened his eyes.
A terrifyingly dangerous light flashed within those cloudy pupils.
He pulled out a simple staff that looked like a withered tree branch from somewhere, which emitted an eerie, ghostly blue glow. A dim blue magic stone was embedded at the top of the staff.
The moment the old man gripped the staff, the stone suddenly flared to life.
A wave of mana so powerful it was suffocating instantly filled the cramped shop! The air even began to let out *pop* sounds of ionization. The ghostly blue light at the tip of the staff grew brighter and brighter.
The old man’s raspy voice dropped low, carrying an undisguised threat: “I said I’m giving them to you! If you don’t take your things and get lost right now, I’ll personally ‘use magic’ to send you out!”
Gavi instantly entered a combat stance, shielding Helos. The points of light in her eye sockets flickered with a dangerous red glow. Eleanor’s expression changed drastically.
She instinctively pulled Helos behind her, gripping the Saint Emblem hidden in her sleeve and staring warily at the old man.
Even Agatha, who had been excitedly counting her spoils, was frozen in place by this sudden, terrifying mana. She didn’t even dare to breathe.
The old man’s strength was far more fearsome than they had imagined — he was at least a high-order magician!
Helos couldn’t say anything more. Facing such a moody and unfathomably powerful old man, she knew that if she persisted, she might actually enrage him.
She gently pressed down on Gavi’s arm, which had already begun to lift in preparation to eject an armor-piercing spike, signaling her to stay calm.
Then, she exchanged a look with Eleanor and Agatha, seeing the same desire to retreat in their eyes.
“Then… thank you for your gift.”
Helos gave the old man a slight bow, then picked up the ebony box from the counter. She turned to the dazed Agatha and said, “Agatha, let’s go.”
Agatha finally snapped out of it and hurriedly gathered her pile of items in a scramble.
The old man didn’t even look at them, merely waving them away impatiently.
Helos didn’t dare stay a second longer. Pulling Eleanor along and signaling Gavi to follow, the group quickly walked out of the eerie shop.
The four of them practically fled from the dark alleyway. It wasn’t until they returned to the sunlit, bustling main street that they all let out a collective sigh of relief.
“Whew… that scared the life out of me…”
Agatha patted her chest, saying with lingering fear, “That old man was way too scary. That mana just now… it felt like he isn’t just any ordinary Mage.”
“He’s certainly strong.”
Eleanor nodded, also shaken, her face still a bit pale. “And the aura about him was very strange. He didn’t seem like an orthodox Mage.”
“Well, magic is inherently diverse. Some unorthodox Mages aren’t any weaker than those from traditional backgrounds,” Agatha remarked with a sigh and a shake of her head.
“But he doesn’t seem like a bad person? He actually gave us such precious items for free? Our luck is just too good!”
She curiously leaned in to look at the ebony box in Helos’s hands.
Helos looked at the box, her heart full of mixed emotions.
She felt that the way the old man had looked at Eleanor at the end was quite strange, and his reason for giving her things for free was too flimsy.
‘Fate? Yeah, right,’ she grumbled inwardly.
Regardless, the key materials for crafting the alchemy bomb were finally in her hands.
She carefully tucked the box into her bag. There was no reason to refuse a gift, especially when it was something she desperately needed.
By now, the sun had reached its zenith; it was noon.
Eleanor watched her sister put the box away, then looked at the sky. “Alright, since we’ve got what we came for and it’s getting late…”
Helos nodded. “Let’s find a place for lunch and then head back to the Academy. I want to go to the Archives this afternoon to look up some information.”
“Mhm, mhm! I also need to get back and try out my new catalyst!” Agatha nodded repeatedly. Her haul from today made her impatient to head back and show off her skills.
However, just as Helos was about to move to find a place to eat, a hand suddenly gripped her arm tightly.
The young lady turned her head in confusion, only to see Eleanor looking at her with a beaming smile.
The smile was as sweet as ever, but for some reason, Helos read a hint of ‘murderous intent’ within it.
“W-What is it, Sister?”
A sense of foreboding rose in Helos’s heart.
Eleanor took a deep breath, the smile on her face becoming even more ‘gentle.’ She said every word with deliberate emphasis:
“My dear sister, and Miss Agatha. Think about it. Throughout this entire morning, haven’t I been very patient, accompanying you as we squeezed through those dirty, messy alleys to look at jars and scrap metal?”
Helos and Agatha nodded instinctively.
“So…”
Eleanor’s smile grew even more radiant, and her grip on Helos’s arm tightened slightly.
“For the afternoon, shouldn’t it be your turn to accompany me to the places I want to go?”
Looking at her sister’s ‘kind’ smile and feeling the pressure on her arm, Helos felt a chill run down her spine.
‘Oh no… how could I have forgotten about this!’
***
Meanwhile, inside the mysterious shop.
Once the figures of Helos and the others had completely vanished at the end of the alley, the old man, who had been lounging lazily in his chair, slowly sat upright.
He lifted his head. Beneath the shadow of his hood, a glimmer of ghostly blue light flashed in his cloudy eyes.
He seemed to be using some special magic to confirm whether the youngsters had truly gone far away.
After confirming it was safe, he slowly pulled an ancient-looking scroll made of a special material from his robe.
He carefully unfurled the scroll.
What was drawn on the scroll was neither a Magic Array nor a map, but a lifelike portrait.
In the painting was a silver-haired girl with purple eyes. Her appearance was almost identical to the Helos who had just left, though her gaze was colder and her demeanor more mature.
The old man gazed at the portrait, a meaningful smile appearing on his wrinkled face.
That smile held a bit of surprise, a bit of realization, and a trace of satisfaction, as if he had seen a prey take the bait.
He let out a raspy, low chuckle.
“Heh… so what that girl Lilith said was actually true?”
“The [Saintess], huh… what an interesting little thing.”
His finger lightly brushed over the pale purple eyes of the girl in the portrait, his cloudy eyes shimmering with a calculating light.
“However… just having ‘valiancy’ and ‘vitality’ isn’t enough. The marks on this girl aren’t perfect yet.”
“To become a true [Saintess], all four marks are indispensable.”
He rolled up the scroll and leaned back into his lounging chair, the corners of his mouth curling into an even more eerie arc.
“In that case, let this old man add a little more ‘flavoring’ for her…”
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.