“I have detected the presence of Spirit Artifacts among your wares, merchant,” Their apparent leader strode forward, flanked by his fellows. He did not draw his weapon, however, which was already a plus. The threat, however, lingered; Cultivators were known to kill for no other reason than to take what they wanted, without having to pay. Like Mages, they abused their power whenever possible, even at the expense of lives. And, fair enough, Jin could respect that; this whole world was his playground and one could argue that he was doing the same thing. But when all was said and done, Jin was a merchant; if the gentlemen wanted to bargain, then they would bargain. But nothing would ever be given for free.
Jin peered into the man’s soul and found plenty of pride, anger, loss, and anguish; the majority of his thoughts were centered on the very recent massacre in the Blade Wind Sect that was likely being kept under wraps so as not to cause a panic.
Ah, he lost a close friend during Hideo’s rampage and he wasn’t even there when it happened. And he was here to drown his sorrows… by feeding his Oniomania? Even his companions seemed mildly confused by his actions, but kept it to themselves to avoid a fight.
Huh, it seems even Cultivators had their own weird addictions.
“I wish to see them,” He continued. It was hard to take the man seriously, given his lack of courtesy and respect, but such things were a given when dealing with humans who thought themselves above mortality. Oh, how they made life so interesting for him! Jin smiled. “You will show them to me.”
Jin inwardly shrugged. He did have a few Spirit Artifacts in his collection – not a lot, but some of them were likely priceless, depending on who was doing the buying.
“Why, of course, good sir,” Jin reached into his cart and pulled out a wooden chest. He placed it on the table, where his other wares once rested, before they were sold, and opened it. The Cultivators visibly reacted to the contents held within. Resting within the chest was the legendary Arashi no Tsubo and the Inazuma no Kyu; both artifacts were positively bursting with heavenly Qi, the likes of which did not belong in the cart of some vagrant merchant.
Jin eyed their reactions and grinned; their souls flickered at first with shock, followed by confusion, followed by recognition, and, lastly, came want. The items definitely got their attention.
The Cultivators’ breaths hitched and their leader, the man with the addiction, reached for the handle of his weapon, Qi flaring. There was intent to kill, especially because the man believed that there would be no consequences if he engaged in such violence. True enough, the local authorities would likely turn a blind eye if a powerful master from the Blade Wind Sect cut down a foreign merchant and stole his goods; in fact, such unfortunate happenings were rather common in the Nihono Empire. The Cultivator before him was mature enough in his development as to have the capacity to destroy the entirety of Choza by himself, barring the Adventurers, Mages, and other Cultivators who might protest such a thing.
However, Jin had standards and, more importantly, there were rules that he had to follow; engaging in direct combat was one of the prohibitions that he could not break – not yet, anyway.
Not that he would break it if he could. Direct combat sounded boring. Making people kill each other with but a small and simple nudge or whisper, on the other hand, was fun. He wouldn’t be able to do that just yet, of course, given his budgetary limitations; but, five more souls and he’d be on a roll.
Just five more souls, Jin mused; only five more souls before a good chunk of his powers were made available. And, only then, could he really start playing with this world as his mentor, Gaunter, did with countless others.
In the meantime, Jin could only have fun in small, often limiting, ways, using equally limiting methods. In a way, that also made things more interesting; having limits forced him to be creative with his solutions and how he executed them. Dealing with the band of Cultivators before him, for instance, required a creative solution that hopefully wouldn’t involve any violence that involved him.
Jin grinned; the next phase would be the most fun – haggling and negotiating. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mister Arima; that is your name, isn’t it? Why bother with violence when we can trade, like civilized beings, yes?”
At the mention of his name, the Cultivator visibly stiffened and looked just about ready to draw his weapon. He would’ve done so if Jin appeared any more threatening; but, in the Cultivator’s eyes Jin was nothing more than a simple and unassuming merchant who had neither the natural talent to wield Qi or the mental aptitude to harness Mana from the cosmos. He wasn’t a threat – far from it, in fact.
And it was precisely those very thoughts that Jin nurtured in the man’s mind, making himself appear small and nonthreatening – too small to ever be worth the time to kill.
The Cultivator’s mind was rather easy to influence, given how little he trained it in favor of his physical prowess.
Jin gestured at the treasures before them. “These, like all my wares, are for sale; there is no need to draw your weapon when you can draw your purse, instead.”
Arima’s eyes narrowed; he did not draw his blade, but he did keep his hand firmly upon the handle. The other cultivators at his side did the same. “How did you come to know of my name, merchant? Speak, before I lose what little patience I still have and take those artifacts by force.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Jin lowered his head in clear and obvious gesture of placation. “Why, even a travelling merchant, such as myself, have heard the famous tales of the noble Yoritobu Arima, greatest of his peers and a master of the Blade Wind Sect, slayer of the Gargant Dragon of the Emerald Hell and savior of the village of Kanimoto! It is difficult not to hear of your name, good sir! You are a legend across the Nihono Empire.”
The flood of pride, arrogance, and joy that surged across the man’s soul, following Jin’s answer, was palpable. Still, it did little to detract him from the sorrow of losing a friend to a mere Outer Disciple who, by all accounts, wasn’t even capable of a breakthrough. Whatever the case, Jin carefully nudged the man’s sadness and even added in a few thoughts of suicide and death, because his world was suddenly oh so dull without his friend. In fact, going out in a blaze of glory sounded rather-
Arima sighed heavily and withdrew his hand from the handle of his katana. “How much for these two artifacts?”
Jin huffed inwardly; the Cultivator’s impatience ended Jin’s nudging of his thoughts. Eh, you win some and you lose some; plus, his mental manipulation was never his strong suit. And it wouldn’t be his strong suit, until about twenty souls or so.
Still, the fact that he got the normally-violent Cultivator to disregard his more barbaric initial choice was already a win – kind of. Getting the mortal to commit suicide would’ve been a better win, but that was neither here nor there. Jin mustered his best smile and answered, “The Arashi no Tsubo will costs 60,000 Mon, while the Inazuma no Kyu costs 50,000; however, if you decide to buy both, then I’ll happily sell you the both of them for only 100,000 Mon. Sounds like a real bargain, eh?”
“Such artifacts are priceless,” Arima began, eyes locked upon the cackling forms of the Spirit Artifacts within the chest. “Why do you lower the prices to such an extent? Just one of these should fetch a price that can buy you an entire city; 100,000 Mon is nothing.”
Jin shrugged. “They may be priceless to you, but – to me – they are nothing more than interesting baubles and trinkets that might function well as paper weights. They’re useless to me and, quite honestly, I only stumbled across such items through sheer accident.”
That was a lie. In reality, he pilfered the two artifacts off the corpse of his first victim, a Nascent Soul Cultivator who was a little too kind and too trusting for his own good. But, one might argue that the whole affair was technically an accident, given how he hadn’t designed any of it to happen. He just happened to stumble into a Cultivator named Jin, talked with him a bit, shared a few good laughs and stories, ate his soul, and then stole his name. And then stole his clothes and his cart.
“Very well,” Arima nodded and reached into his pocket. The man’s soul was weary, but a flood of happy hormones that came from the act of buying something temporarily abated the anguish of losing a good friend. The Cultivator pulled out a single, golden coin with a blue diamond, embedded in the middle, and studded with perfectly aligned emeralds. It was 1 Kogane no Hoseki, the currency used by the rich-rich-rich people whenever they bought massively expensive things that would’ve required several tons’ worth of Mons to procure. A single Kogane no Hoseki was worth 150,000 Mons. Arima smiled, “Keep the change; it means nothing to me – mere paper weight.”
What the-?
Jin peered into the man’s soul and found an overabundance of pity. Ah, Jin realized, his nudging might’ve led to this foregone conclusion that Jin was such a weak and pitiful weakling merchant, who’d inadvertently given him the keys to taking over the Blade Wind Sect and becoming its new Grandmaster. A single Kogane no Hoseki was nothing, compared to gaining power over an entire sect. Jin looked even deeper and saw Arima’s ambitions, which he’d shared with his recently diseased friend; apparently, the burgeoning Cultivator was of the thought that they, meaning himself and his fellow Cultivators, shouldn’t be constrained within the walls of Sects. They should be out there, carving empires and conquering the world at their pleasure.
Huh, that sounded like a wonderful prospect to take advantage of.
With the right nudge, Jin could channel such a thing into a cascading rush of chaos, pain, death, and agony – a good, sizeable, and nourishing snack. Inwardly grinning, Jin cast upon the artifacts a curse; whosoever has either of the items in their possession will slowly be drawn to greater acts of aggression, be quicker to anger, be slower to rationalize, be quick to mistrust and betray, and be slowly consumed by madness. However, embedded upon the curse was a boon; whosoever holds either of the two items will also gain power quicker; in what way said power materializes was up to the holder. And whatever pain, malice, suffering, evil, and anger were directly or indirectly brought on by the artifacts would become food for Jin.
The curse took effect instantly with the three Cultivators none-the-wiser.
The curse costed him quite a bit of power, nearly all of it, actually, but it was ultimately a long-term investment.
If his hunch was correct – and he could only rely on hunches for now, since he didn’t have enough souls to see into the future – Arima would succeed in taking over his sect; the act of doing so would see untold amounts of bloodshed, feeding him in the process. Soon after that, the ambitious young man would turn his attention to the local region; with the artifacts spurning him on, Arima would begin conquering and subduing the surrounding villages and towns. He would become a rebel leader and many Cultivators would side with him; Arima would then start a war that would consume the Nihono Empire. Rivers would run red and the soil would ooze crimson; the skies will weep incessantly and millions upon millions would suffer the effects of the war. Children would die of famine or be killed by their parents. Young men would march off to war and die, breaking the hearts of their mothers, fathers, and wives.
And Jin would feed off the despair and hopelessness, the pain and misery; it would be a feast for him. And, where anguish thrived, desperation was rife; and, where the desperate gathered in droves and masses, Jin would find the fools who were willing to give up their souls for even the tiniest glimmers of hope.
It would be a feast!
It’d take several decades, maybe even a century, for everything to descend into such madness. The small pebble that would soon start an avalanche has already fallen from its perch.
“A pleasure doing business with you, good sir,” Jin grinned, taking a step back as Arima took the chest, eyed its contents for a moment, and closed it. The Cultivator nodded once, before turning away. His underlings followed him, like whipped dogs. For a moment, Jin’s eyes blazed crimson. “I hope the artifacts serve you well… friend.”
It was as Old-Man Gaunter said; there were plenty of opportunities if one had the patience to wait and see what happens.