Night settled over Eldoria like a wet blanket that had been left out too long, heavy and smelling of damp earth mixed with woodsmoke from dying fires.
Lucien pushed the crooked door of the shack shut behind them, the wood groaning like it had a personal grudge against being closed.
Inside, the air still carried that faint rot from the straw mattress and the lingering sweet-ozone trace Nyx left wherever she moved.
She shifted back to her human form without a word, silver-pink hair falling loose over her shoulders as she climbed onto the bed and pushed him down onto his back.
Her weight settled warm across his chest, knees bracketing his ribs, tail curling lazily around his thigh.
One clawed finger traced the thin golden scar that cut through his left eyebrow, the mark the Greed Bloodline had left like a signature.
The touch was light but deliberate, sending a small shiver across his scalp that had nothing to do with cold.
"You're changing fast," she murmured, golden eyes half-lidded in the dim light leaking through the cracks in the walls.
"I like it. Most hosts take weeks to stop flinching at their own shadow. You punched the headman's brat and stole his lunch money before breakfast was even cold."
Lucien let out a short breath that was almost a laugh, one hand resting on the curve of her waist because it felt natural and because the Greed inside him wanted to claim the contact.
"Yeah, well. Back home I spent eight hours a day pretending to care about spreadsheets. This feels less fake."
His thumb brushed the soft fur at the base of her tail and she made a small sound in her throat, half purr, half warning.
"Besides, that kid had it coming. Walking around like the village owed him rent on his own ego."
Nyx leaned down closer, nose brushing his jaw, her breath warm against his skin.
"Ego tastes better when it's fresh and broken. You took a piece today. The whole square saw it. That's going to spread faster than the bad harvest rumors."
He didn't answer right away.
Instead he stared at the sagging wooden ceiling, mind wandering to the way Garrick's face had twisted when the coin pouch disappeared.
Small win. Tiny, really.
But it sat in his chest like the first decent meal after a week of instant noodles.
The Greed Bloodline hummed approval, already bored and looking for the next thing to swallow.
A blue panel flickered into existence above them without being called, the golden text glowing soft enough not to hurt the eyes in the dark shack.
Lucien scanned it while Nyx kept tracing patterns on his collarbone, her claw leaving faint warm lines that faded slow.
[Points of Greed: +4,200 (Public Humiliation Bonus)]
[Daily Mission Complete: "Steal something valuable today" – Reward: +10,000 Points of Greed]
[Current Total: 15,200]
The numbers felt good. Clean.
Like watching your bank account tick up after a side hustle nobody knew about.
No flashy fireworks, no voice announcing it like some game show host. Just quiet confirmation that the system was keeping score and liked what it saw.
"Fifteen thousand already," Lucien muttered, half to himself. "For slapping around one spoiled brat and taking his spare change. This thing scales like compound interest on steroids."
Nyx lifted her head, ears perking.
"The bond sings louder when you take in public. People watching makes the greed… thicker. Sweeter."
She shifted her weight, pressing closer until her tail wrapped fully around his leg.
"What now, Master? You've got points burning a hole and three years of training time waiting in the pocket universe whenever you want it."
Lucien closed the panel with a thought.
The knowledge from the Primordial Domain Awakening sat in the back of his head like an overstuffed hard drive—bits and pieces of old cultivation manuals, forgotten runes, the vague shape of things buried under centuries of village dirt.
He reached out with it now, letting the awareness spread outward past the shack walls, past the sleeping villagers, down into the ground itself.
There.
Under the dried-up fountain in the square.
A weak pulse, like a heartbeat that had been holding its breath for decades.
Not loud. Not screaming for attention.
Just there, old and stubborn, the kind of secret a place forgets it even has until someone with the right eyes comes looking.
"There's something buried under the central well," he said, sitting up slowly so Nyx had to adjust or slide off.
She didn't slide off. She just moved with him, ending up in his lap like it was the most natural place in the world.
"Old. Weak runes. Probably been there since before this shithole was even called Eldoria. Nobody remembers it because nobody could feel it."
Nyx's tail flicked once, interested.
"Village secrets usually mean low-level junk or someone's dead grandma's jewelry. But with your domain sense… could be worth digging."
They waited until the village went fully quiet, the last dog barking itself hoarse and the fires burning down to embers.
Midnight air outside smelled sharper—cool dirt, distant pine from the woods beyond the fields, and the faint sour note of unwashed bodies sleeping behind thin walls.
Nyx wrapped them both in a thin layer of illusion, a rolling fog that made them look like nothing more than shifting mist to anyone glancing out a window.
Her hand stayed in his as they moved through the square, feet barely disturbing the packed earth.
The dried fountain was nothing special in daylight. Cracked stone, moss in the crevices, a basin that hadn't held water since before Lucien arrived in this body.
At night it felt heavier, like the ground itself was older right there.
Lucien channeled pure mana into his hands, the kind he'd farmed in the pocket universe earlier, and pressed them against the base.
The stone gave way easier than it should have, crumbling under his fingers like wet sand instead of rock.
He dug down maybe two meters, sweat sticking his tunic to his back despite the cool air, the smell of turned earth filling his nose thick and alive.
Nyx kept watch, ears swiveling, creating small distractions of fog whenever a night bird called too close.
Finally his fingers hit wood—old, sealed with faint glowing runes that tried to resist for half a second before his Greed Bloodline simply ate the resistance and turned it into extra points.
The box was small, plain, the kind of thing a desperate cultivator might hide centuries ago when the village was still worth protecting.
Lucien pried it open.
Inside lay a handful of raw mana crystals, cloudy and unrefined, plus a thin manual bound in cracked leather.
Basic cultivation technique. Nothing fancy.
The kind of starter manual that taught you how to breathe right and not explode your own meridians on the first try.
"Jackpot for a starter zone," Lucien said under his breath, lifting one crystal.
It felt rough, warm, like holding a piece of the sun that hadn't decided if it wanted to burn you yet.
The Greed Bloodline didn't wait for permission.
It surged, multiplying the crystals on the spot.
One became fifty.
The raw stones sharpened, clarified, glowing brighter as the lineage refined them, turning junk into something that hummed with usable power.
Lucien felt the rush hit his core—level climbing fast, one to eight, twelve, twenty, twenty-eight in the space of a few heartbeats.
His muscles tightened, vision sharpened, the scar on his eyebrow tingling like it was laughing.
Nyx watched with open hunger in her eyes, tail swaying.
"Fifty times. Just like that. You're turning village garbage into a feast."
Lucien pocketed the multiplied crystals into the Infinite Chaos Treasury, the manual following right after.
The empty box he buried again, patting the dirt down so it looked untouched.
The power sat in him now, steady and warm, like a full stomach after months of skipping meals.
He could already feel new pathways opening, the basic cultivation manual integrating itself and getting upgraded on the fly by the evolution trait.
They were brushing dirt off their hands when the sound came—a dry twig snapping somewhere in the darkness beyond the square, sharp and deliberate.
Nyx's ears flattened.
Lucien froze, the new power humming under his skin ready to move.
Someone was out there, watching from the treeline or maybe one of the closer huts, breath held just a little too carefully.
The fog illusion thickened around them on its own as Nyx reacted, but the damage was probably already done.
Eyes in the dark didn't need to see clearly to know something had been dug up tonight.
Lucien's mouth curved into that familiar sarcastic half-smile, even as his pulse kicked up a notch.
"Guess the village isn't as asleep as it looks," he whispered.
Nyx pressed closer, claws lightly pricking his arm, voice low and excited.
"Want me to find them?"
He didn't answer right away, listening to the night and the way the power in his veins wanted to chase whatever was stupid enough to spy.
The twig snap didn't come again, but the feeling of being watched stayed, heavy as the night air.