Godfather's System

091. Establishment - 36

The door was knocked out barely half an hour after I was left alone. "Come in," I said, and Barzist entered, carrying a large case made from pure silver, and engraved with gold runes. A more luxurious variant of the crates was used to transfer mana stones.

"I'm here, sir," he said. "The exchange had already been completed."

"Very good," I said as I gestured for him to put it on the table. He did, and opened it for my perusal. A glance was enough to confirm that there was a hundred skill stones. "Not bad, you're resourceful," I muttered as I placed my finger over them, dragging it over the surface, as if I was checking the notification for each one.

I was, but more importantly, I was using my newly developed ability to check the surface of some randomly chosen ones, confirming their stability. Surprisingly, not only the numbers were double what I requested, but the few I had randomly chosen for a deeper assessment also showed that their internal structure was solid.

"Good work. I'm glad that you showed my initial selection was not erroneous," I said, but made sure to deliver it less of an honest statement, and more of a standard obligation. The only reason I was able to trade such an expensive item was the aura of mystery around me … a shield that would get less and less useful as time progressed.

But for now, it was still useful.

Yet, despite all the gain he doubtlessly made from the process, he had looked nervous. "Sir, there's an acquaintance of mine that would like to meet you if you have the time."

"I'm guessing he's the one that helped you to conduct the deal this quickly," I said. He nodded. "Not this time," I said as I stood up. "I still need to do some things, but I'll be here either tomorrow or the day after that. If he can also arrange everything on this list, I'll meet with him," I said.

The list was filled with materials that I had discussed with Zolast, but none of them were actually needed for the mission. Instead, they were the kind of items that would likely be supplied by the same sellers that would have the materials we need.

At least, that was what Zolast claimed. Considering I had no idea what he was doing, I had no choice but the accept that part of the analysis directly.

The total price of the items was decent. They were expensive enough to be rare … but not expensive enough to rival the cost of an Ability stone.

I had two reasons for presenting that list. First, I wanted to use their connections to identify the contacts I could use to purchase those items, which, combined with my earlier scouting, would give me the path to purchase the required items with minimal fuss.

More importantly, I was selling the idea that I would return … and return with more riches, which should be enough to convince the rest to act patiently rather than target me aggressively right now.

"I'll communicate it, sir," he said, then continued hesitantly. "But, what should I say about the cost."

His hesitancy was understandable. With the price of the materials I requested, I could have requested them to be included in the price of the Ability Stone as well. It would still be a profitable trade for them … but it wasn't worth damaging the image I was building for them.

"Depends," I said as I stood up, letting out a dismissive sigh. "I'll give another ability stone if I have time to hunt. If not, I'll pay him in gold or weapons. Just tell him to put the requested price in both … and it'll be your job to total price manageable. I might not care about a bit of gold, but I don't like being treated as a fool either."

With that, I grabbed the silver box and stood up, not even bothering to speak more. Amusingly, I could see that my rudeness increased his fawning expression.

Barzist accompanied me out, and I left the inn, acting obvious to the presence of the well-dressed man that was carefully observing me from a concealed corner, no doubt the acquaintance Barzist had talked about. Not a noble, I decided immediately. He didn't have any sign of anger after I had rejected his attempt to meet me.josei

He was another gang operator, probably a trusted operator in one of the two places Barzist had visited in the inner city to get me the samples.

When we left the inn, Berzast was following me with the twenty of his members, making a spectacle of my move. Though, considering I was walking while carrying a pure silver box, I didn't exactly need any help in that aspect.

No one bothered us until we arrived at the gates, but they didn't stop following me even at the gate. I let them follow me until I arrived at the outer defensive line, subtly observing the reaction of the guards and the other gangs toward them, which seemed to have improved greatly since our first meeting.

Being the only associate of a mysterious party was helping them greatly. Pity it would bite them hard sooner or later.

"You don't need to follow me," I said once we passed the outer defensive line, and I continued walking into the smaller forest area — which was much smaller since the last time I had used it due to aggressive logging — and continued walking.

People continued following me, but their numbers were smaller than I had expected, and their competency was higher. Not to mention, they had enough Perception to stay at a distance and still successfully follow me.

I walked for ten minutes, expecting them to make a move, but instead, they stayed in the distance, letting me walk away without an issue, their numbers peeling off one by one.

Yet, I had a feeling that people weren't the only way I was being traced. Carefully, I infused the silver chest with my mana, trying to feel the runes that covered its surface in a way similar to what I had been doing to the skills.

Luckily, even though the structure of the box was incomprehensible to me, I could still sense the individual runes, which were the ones made of Vitality, and which ones actually used mana.

In particular, there were three mana runes, two with some kind of resonance, and one with none. Luckily, breaking something was easier than repairing them, so I was confident in experimenting with it. If it failed … well, then it failed.

Still, before doing that, I waited for my followers to get bored or act. They started to drop more and more, while I continued to walk, the beasts that were attacking me not even enough to slow me down, which was not exactly the case for my followers once we arrived deeper into the forest.

Until they were only two left. I waited until I had stepped behind a large hill that would cut their sight, then put the silver box on the ground, put a black cloak on, and used Speed and Concealment to rapidly draw a circle, and approach them from behind.

Focused on their tasks, they failed to notice my presence until I stood behind one of them, my eyes glowing once more. "Following people is not a healthy habit," I said as I slashed my sword, slicing half his hair, and a tree as well.

"You too," I said, pointing at the other follower, and threw a smoke pellet on the ground, the smoke enough for me to retreat away, so when it was dispersed, I was Fekar once again, walking away steadily, as if I hadn't even skip a beat.

Despite the warning, they had stayed in place, watching me for another half a minute before leaving. Hopefully, their superiors would be smart enough to interpret the warning correctly.

Once I was confident that they left, I turned my attention to the next stage. I planned to destroy the three runes I identified as magical, but before doing so, I opened the box and quickly transferred five skills I had identified as in the best condition to my pouch, then poured the rest under a tree.

The moment I did that, I felt a flicker of energy from the third rune that was passive. With a sigh, I touched that rune, and the other two, a push of mana all that was required to destabilize the structure and stop whatever they were doing.

But whatever message that was supposed to send had already gone.

I rapidly put the rest back in the silver chest, and dashed away to a different location. It wasn't because I couldn't bear to part with it, but it was another test. With the skills back in the storage, I used Speed to dash away, stopping only two miles away, letting Concealment activate once more while using Charisma to keep the beasts away.

And, waited.

Barely a minute later, I watched a flying cart descend. I wasn't exactly a connector of them, but it looked a lower quality than the army used — slower and more fragile, at least — but its surface was covered with several marks and other objects.

Including a sigil of House Maell.

I stayed hidden as four soldiers stepped down and started looking for me, increasingly desperate. However, their search pattern indicated that they expected me to be hiding in the immediate vicinity. One of them even used some kind of spell, and a visible cone of mana exploded, going about a thousand feet before it dispersed completely.

After using it in all directions, he stopped, showing signs of exhaustion, and they stepped into their cart once more, confident that I was gone. They probably suspected that I had a flying cart of my own waiting for me, because they still moved with a rough search pattern as they moved away.

"I wonder how they slipped that rune into the box," I wondered. It would be simple to conclude that the black market contacts sold my supposed identity to House Maell and collaborated by giving the box to me, but I didn't want to hurry up to reach that conclusion.

A noble house could easily have a spy that added the third rune to the mix without letting the black market operators be aware of it. Of course, it was equally likely that the black market was under the unofficial command of the House Maell in the first place.

After all, while it might counter-intuitive to a law-abiding citizen, there were many occasions where the owner might choose to sell their items in the black market rather than the official channels, which would allow them to bypass the various restrictions.

Considering skills were restricted goods, it was a very likely probability.

However, regardless of the case, it meant that my next trip would not be just as smooth, meaning I needed to find a different way to approach them.