5:30 in the morning, Athens, Earth
In a shady hotel room, Lex Foster was half asleep, he could not afford to be careless when he was being hunted down in the city by powerful people. He had to force himself to sleep yet still stay aware of his surroundings.
However, even if he was in deep sleep, he would have immediately woken up by the notification inside his mind. After waking up he checked out the notification.
Your Request has been accepted; please grant permission to initiate the Special Transfer of Mercenaries.
Upon activation, a strange fog started to fill his room, and soon, in front of him were three people. While he was somewhat surprised by the teleportation, he was even more surprised when he found that they were not human; after all, unlike humans, they had an extra eye. While usually, people would think of a third eye to be at the temple. Their third eye was actually just three eyes in a series. The middle eye looked inverted but the other two looked quite human.
“Hello, I'm Lex Foster, I would like you to escort me to the sea.” Lex introduced himself.
If Lex had paid attention, he would have found out that just like him, the three people in front of him were also extremely surprised. In one moment, they were on Serninon, but the next moment,t, they had reached somewhere far away. You could easily tell just by the energy density as well as the presence of different energies in the atmosphere. But most importantly, the Willpower in them had seen a unique hike.
The three “mercenaries,” however, were experienced people; they did not ask anything; after a simple introduction, they asked for a map and possible places where they could find enemies and started to immediately form a secure route to the nearby source of large water, in this case, the sea.
Their first step was scouting using Elemental Eagle; while it couldn't recognize friends and foes, with Lex’s help, they had actually found a recording stone, or something even better as this particular device that worked on a basic energy called electricity could not only record things, it could do it many times over. Lex called it a Camcorder.
The Guild Master of the Mercenary Guild was someone who had formulated many different plans; not only that, but they also had someone extremely adept in Security, the Head of House Security himself.
Lex was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of strange beasts which could do many things. He was so excited that he almost asked them how he could get one himself. But knowing the System, he knew that if he did ask, the system would probably give him some quests that were too hard. After all, his wish to find a Ship that could travel without a crew was what led him to this situation in the first place.
On the other side of the city, a woman in her early thirties was practicing swordplay. Her long sword but the winds so swiftly that it was as if no movement had been done. Two other young women entered the training area from the side door.
“My lady, we've found the location of the culprit. He's with three unusual people and moving towards the sea.” One of the girls reported.
“Good, finally you've done something worthwhile. Prepare everyone, we'll be setting up ambushes in the area.” Head Priestess Phoebe announced.
“Glory to the Goddess.” The young girls said in unison.
“May you win the war before it starts.” Phoebe completed the chant.
The priestesses of Athena were a small group of young women who worshiped the Goddess Athena and were tasked to protect items and places that were significant to the goddess. However, due to the distance and their lost connection, the divinity they got was rather low. Still, it was enough to give birth to Tier 3 or even Tier 4; however, currently, they only had a single Tier 4, Phoebe herself, but she could not leave this place as they had to guard it at all times. It was the most important and significant place related to Athena.
Soon you could see a group of girls riding bikes in the city and going towards the seaside. This was the group that would be following the culprit; on the other hand, a group had been called that was using a helicopter to reach their destination and set up an ambush.
As for why didn't the girls on the motorcycles engage in the fighting? They were all Tier 2s and knowing that opponent had Three Tier 3s with him, they'd be idiotic if they tried
Attacking. Even when that guy was alone, he had single-handedly knocked out 4 Tier 2s, and even facing a Tier 3, he was able to flee. So they could not underestimate his comrades either. Thus setting up an ambush was their best shot.
While there, the chase was at its peak; the actual culprit was currently on a public train with Brígh and the Head of House Security. They had disguised themselves, at least somewhat, but still when, there was an illusion of them running around on the Streets. Of course, the illusion had been built by the Guild Master of the Mercenary Guild.
While the illusion would have been easy to recognize if there was another Spirit user because of the Spirit Energy fluctuations around the illusion. But they had a huge advantage here due to their enemies' lack of understanding of Spirit energy.
Of course, the Guild Master was also in a peculiar situation as he was running out of Spirit Energy by using the illusion continuously. But he just has to do it until he can and then hide. After all, he doesn't need to reach the ocean, only Lex had to be delivered to the ocean.
The Guild Master actually hoped that he, too, could ride one of these strange vehicles and just run away so he wouldn't need to find a good place to hide, but alas, these vehicles needed thorough training and were not something that anyone could ride.
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They had indeed gained a lot from this trip, not only the experience and information but also the benefits of being on an energy-rich planet.
Harsh, on the other hand, was still on Serninon and was calculating all the money and profits. Well, it wasn't hard to calculate but it was rather hard to find out how to earn more. He had no idea about the market and what the actual prices of most of the things were.
He needed to become stronger so he could walk out of the Store and find out what kind of things were being sold as well as general prices for everything.
Just as he was about to go back to his room, he saw another person walk into the store. It was a young man who seemed to be shrouded in a shadow. Of course, Harsh was able to see through it all as he was wearing the Spectacles of True Sight.
“Welcome to the Universal Trading Centre, how may I help you?”
“Get me off this planet; I'll give you anything I have; just get me off here.” The injured man replied.
However, before Harsh could answer anything, he got a new notification.
You've encountered a Wanted Criminal.
The Trading System does not have any morality but what about its Host? What is considered a crime, and what is morally right?
Establish Your Morality and show the Universe how you operate.
Option 1: Hand him over to the Authorities.
Reward Upon Completion: Local Identity
Option 2: There is no Criminal for a Merchant, handle him just as you would any other customer.
Reward Upon Completion: Black Market Access
Option 3: You're the Judge and the Jury in your own place. Find out the crime and take action according to your own morality.
Reward Upon Completion: Bounty Board
Harsh was confused by the options, but without knowing much about the customer, he could say nothing about him. At least he tried appraising him.
[Name: Gustav Feer
Tier: Mid Tier-3(Borrowed)/High Tier-1
Energy Type: Spirit-Willpower
Race: Hynum-Serninon
Bloodline: Shadow Anarchy (Tier-10)]
Harsh wondered why everyone on this planet, well, the four people he had met, all had Borrowed Tiers and True Tiers. But he did not put too much thought into it and instead thought about a solution to the problem right in front of him.
He could get him out of this planet but he didn't know if he should. In the end, he decided to treat him just like another customer. It would also give him access to the Black Market. He didn't know what it was, but he'd soon find out anyway, so there was no need to be free.
“Sure, we can take you out of the planet. Do you have any preference to which planet?” Harsh replied casually.
“I don't know, just get me off here before they find me,” Gustav said urgently.
“Of course, however, you'll have to pay 10,000 TP or something of equal value.”
“Would this suffice?” Gustav took out a stone the size of a fingertip.
[Item Type: Ore (Refined)
Item Tier: 6
Item Energy: Spirit
Item Quantity: 3 Grams
Item Name: Spirit Wall Stone (Spirited)
Description: It's an Ore that is usually found in Spirit-dense areas. Rumored to be taken out of the wall between Spirit and Main Plain, it's an ore that is sought out by many Spirit users. This Ore has been refined and has an 89.71% Purity; while it can not be considered low purity due to almost all uses of the Ore requiring it to have at least 99.91% purity, this Ore does not qualify as high quality. Currently, it can be used to create extremely light weapons that can be imbued with Spirit Spells, Function as Core of High-level Spirit Circuits, fed to metal-type Spirits to acquire their trust, or can be refined more and used for alchemic recipes of Tier-6, heart core of homunculi or as a conductor for Space Stones.
Item Price: 6,000 TP per Gram]
After appraisal, Harsh put the stone to himself and replied.
“This should be enough. Just wait a few moments in the reception, and we'll take you to another planet, Harsh replied.
You see, the Shop, or as it was called, Traveling Shop, was actually more like a Ship. After fumbling out the functions, he found out that the shop worked based on his System Authority, which was currently 1, and it uses a Base Planet, currently Earth. It travels around the Base Planet. That means whenever he appears somewhere randomly, the shop is actually using Earth as its center and redirecting itself using Earth's coordinates. This also means that he could travel to all planets he had been before as long as he does not change the Base.
Currently, the Traveling Shop could travel about as far as a few dozen Star Systems or, in other words, Local Interstellar Cloud.
So technically, for Harsh, it was absolutely free to travel. After all, the Shop gave him free access to travel everywhere, so he could just hop to another planet and leave this guy there.
However, there was indeed a limit to how much he could travel. Excluding the random transportation that happened every day, he could travel 3 times. Of course, this did not include sending people to fulfill their requests.
“No, no waiting; you took the payment, and mow you'll take me, now.” The young man said with red eyes, raising his weapon.
Of course, the young man knew that the person in front of him was no ordinary Serninon, but someone who could even be a Saint. However, he wasn't afraid of it because of the Contract. As long as you've accepted the terms using Spirit Energy, you're bound by it.
However, while sometimes ignorance is bliss, it is always a weakness. Gustav had no idea that the Contractors contract only works on beings that are connected to Spirit Energy such as other contractors or Spirit beasts. After all, while there have been people who had come to their planet, they were also Contractors.
On the other hand, Harsh was a bit startled; however, without showing it on his face, he took a simple decision and teleported the shop to the last planet. It was a planet that did not have intelligent life. Of course, Harsh wasn't cruel enough to send him to a planet that simply couldn't support life.
“There you go, Sir, you've reached your destination,” Harsh replied.
After dropping off Gustav, he went back to Serninon. He also needed to find out if this person was just a small-time criminal or someone extremely dangerous. If it was just a small-time criminal, he would pick him back up in a few days; if he was actually someone who deserved it, then he would just let Gustav roam on that planet alone.