Shree Yan and Yi Ner entered the shop, a small bell above the door announcing their arrival with a thin, tinny chime. A middle-aged man worked in the shop, hunched over a ledger at the counter, ink-stained fingers tapping absently against worn wood. The shop owner's eyes noticed Shree Yan and Yi Ner almost immediately, lifting from his work with the practiced alertness of a man who never missed a paying customer.
The shop worker's eyes turned warm and he rushed forward to Shree Yan and Yi Ner, wiping his hands hastily on his apron as he came.
"Young master Shree Yan, I'm so surprised to see you here in my shop..."
"After your awakening test and getting a golden color, you became our clan's hope. I also think that you would do the best for our clan... My name is Gome, the owner of Lawati Shop." He introduced himself with a shout, bowing slightly at the waist, his smile wide enough to show teeth.
"I'm not here to talk to you, don't talk much, just tell me, are you selling the hidden stone?" Shree Yan replied in a cold tone, his gaze already drifting past Gome toward the shelves lining the walls.
Gome clenched his teeth and thought, *This little punk... what happened to him? Before he wasn't like that, he was like a crybaby who only lived with his mom.* He changed his expression, smoothing the flash of irritation back into practiced hospitality.
They weren't alone in the shop; there were many people in the shop, browsing shelves stacked with jars and small carved trinkets, so he controlled his emotions, keeping his voice pitched low and pleasant.
He didn't even think about fighting Shree Yan. Shree Yan could easily take him down; he could do nothing to Shree Yan. The right choice for him to survive was to do nothing, a fact he understood with the clear, cold instinct of a man who had survived this long precisely by knowing when not to push.
"Ohh, no, young master, you are so rude. Come with me, I will lead you to the place that you are searching for." Gome was irritated but he didn't show emotion, gesturing toward the back of the shop with an exaggerated sweep of his arm.
Yi Ner's mind started thinking about Shree Yan in shock, watching the exchange from a half-step behind. *This young master acts strange from what I heard about him. He doesn't act like this. But suddenly he changed.* Yi Ner's mind couldn't believe what she was seeing after watching Shree Yan act like this, her earlier assumptions about him quietly unraveling with each cold, clipped word he spoke.
Gome led Shree Yan and Yi Ner to the second floor; they climbed the wooden stairs, each step creaking faintly under their combined weight, the air growing thicker with dust the higher they went.
On the second floor there were many weapons and shields, but they were just lower tier, arranged haphazardly along the walls, some clearly overdue for a proper polish. In the center of the floor there were three big wooden tables, their surfaces scarred from years of use, and on top of the tables, stones were wrapped in sand, and that sand was a special kind meant to cover them perfectly, pale grey and fine as powdered chalk. There were ten hidden stones in total on the tables, arranged line by line, four to a line on every table, each one indistinguishable from the next to an untrained eye.
Gome took Shree Yan and Yi Ner to the tables and asked, gesturing broadly, "Young master, which hidden stone do you want to choose?"
"I want the middle table," Shree Yan replied, already stepping toward it without waiting for further invitation.
Shree Yan sifted through the table, fingers moving with deceptive slowness over each sand-covered stone, and chose the middle one, and his gaze began observing the real stone, something behind his eyes shifting into focus as the borrowed sight did its work. He found it. He took the middle hidden stone. Five to five.
"Young master, are you sure, are you choosing this one? If there is nothing inside, please don't complain to me." His expression showed mild annoyance, one eyebrow raised in polite skepticism.
Shree Yan couldn't be wrong with his decision. After seeing his previous memories, he wouldn't choose wrong, the certainty settling into his shoulders as something closer to boredom than confidence.
Shree Yan replied with a calm expression, saying nothing further, simply holding the stone loosely in his palm.
Gome frowned slightly. "Young master, your total price is 15 star stones. I will give this to you at a low price. The normal price of a hidden stone — I usually sell it for 20 star stones, but for you, I only want 15 star stones," he said, spreading his hands as though offering an extraordinary kindness.
This is human nature: greedy, selfish, and tricky. Humans always run after money and try to trick everyone. Sadly, most people are stuck in this situation, so they don't have a way to escape it.
Gome wanted to swindle Shree Yan, the calculation obvious in the too-quick way he'd named his price, but Shree Yan knew that the man was trying to trick him. Meanwhile, Yi Ner did nothing; she was just observing Shree Yan's actions, standing quietly near the stairwell with her hands folded in front of her.
Shree Yan smiled lightly and came closer to Gome's ear and whispered in an icy tone, close enough that only Gome could hear it, "Gome, did you really think that you could trick me?"
"Don't try to fool those you cannot handle. If you are still thinking you can fool me, Gome, I can kill you."
Gome felt so much pressure from Shree Yan's aura, pressure he had never felt in his entire lifetime, the sensation settling over him like a physical weight pressing down on his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs.
Gome's expression darkened with fear, his cheeks covered in sweat, small beads gathering rapidly along his hairline and dripping down toward his collar.
He stepped back and back, heels catching against the leg of the nearest table, and said with a mixed expression of fear of death and shock, "Who are you? You are not the Shree Yan that I know!" He continued in a trembling voice, "You are a demon! You are..."
Before he could finish speaking, Shree Yan rushed at him and killed him, cracking his neck silently, the motion so quick that even Yi Ner barely registered it as more than a blur. The body slumped without a sound, folding to the wooden floor like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, and for a moment the shop's ordinary noise — footsteps, distant haggling — went on outside as if nothing had happened at all.
Shree Yan turned to Yi Ner and gestured with his hand.
He signed for her to be silent.
Yi Ner's breath caught in her throat, her eyes fixed on the body now still against the floorboards, but she said nothing — whatever fear or doubt crossed her face, she swallowed it down, forcing her expression back into something flat and unreadable.
He walked forward to Yi Ner and said, his voice carrying none of the cold he'd used on Gome, "Even if he wasn't that important, he could still create trouble for me."
Yi Ner was completely baffled. "Young master, why are you telling me that?"
Shree Yan smiled. "When facing my clan's elders and my father, they will ask me, 'Where is he?' because last time I met him there were so many people who saw me with him."
She was still baffled by his words. "And what do those words mean to me?"
Shree Yan replied in a soft tone, watching her carefully as he spoke. "You are going to be my witness. I know you're going to help me, right? Just tell them what you witnessed."
Yi Ner replied softly, lowering her gaze slightly, "Yes, young master, I will tell them the truth and what I saw."
Shree Yan asked Yi Ner, "Do you have a space ring? We need to store this dead body in a space ring."
Yi Ner answered him politely, already reaching for her hand, "Yes, young master, I have one."
Yi Ner gave him the space ring from her right finger, the small band cool and unremarkable against his palm. Shree Yan took her space ring and turned to Gome's dead body and stored it in the space ring, the body vanishing into a faint shimmer of compressed space, leaving behind nothing but a thin smear along the floorboards. Then he picked up the hidden stone.
Shree Yan ordered Yi Ner, "Yi Ner, we need to leave this shop quickly."
Yi Ner accepted Shree Yan's order without hesitation, already moving toward the stairs.
Shree Yan grabbed her hand tightly. He quickly used the one-step skill. He had obtained this skill from breaking through to Star 1, the world blurring briefly around them as they covered in an instant what should have taken minutes to walk.
A few hours later.
Shree Yan and Yi Ner had already come home. Shree Yan sat in his room upon a bed, the afternoon light slanting low through the window, painting long shadows across the floor. Now he was thinking about cleaning the sand.
He put his hand on the hidden stone and started cleaning off all the sand that covered it, brushing away fine grey grains with careful, patient strokes of his thumb.
Shree Yan cleaned the sand, and the stone needed to break.
He broke the stone, cracking it cleanly between his palms. A small brightness touched his eyes. It was...
It was a saangee worm. Shree Yan was happy to see the saangee worm, but not that much, setting it carefully into his open palm.
The true happiness he would feel would come after using the saangee worm's eyes and finding out — that was the one worm he needed much more, for the future.
Now he began refining it. He gave one drop of blood, the small crimson bead falling onto the worm's pale, glistening surface.
After a few minutes, he easily succeeded in refining the saangee worm, the faint warmth of the bond settling quietly into place behind his eyes.
---
Author's note: Hello, readers!
I have some good news for you! I believe you can now read the chapters without the English translation issues that were a problem before.
And even better, I think I can now release chapters daily!
And honestly, I was so surprised when I saw that my book had reached 49.8K views on just Chapter 8!
You guys are also giving me Power Stones, leaving reviews, and supporting the book in so many ways.
And we already have 10 fandom members with only 8 chapters published! That's absolutely awesome!
I'm truly grateful for all of your support. Thank you so much, everyone! I'll keep doing my best to bring you more chapters and make the story worth reading.
Thank you so much for all your support and for continuing to read my book. I truly appreciate every one of you.
I hope I won't disappoint you with my story, and I'll do my best to make it worth your time.
Wow, honestly I can't believe it!!
Once again, thank you so much, readers, for reading and supporting my book!