Chapter 12
The deal was struck.
Even though that should have been impossible.
Not only were they barely acquainted with each other…
If they were being honest about age, he was probably old enough to be far more than just an older-brother figure.
Everyone in Black Flame clearly had a past. Their real ages were probably nothing like their appearances.
The streets gradually emptied around them. After crossing another road, they entered a quiet tavern, slipped through a small back door beside the kitchen, and headed out the rear exit.
The kitchen staff acted as though neither of them existed.
Behind the tavern was a narrow, uneven alley paved with cracked stone slabs. Dark green moss crept through the gaps, and stubborn weeds swayed faintly along the walls.
It had probably rained not long ago. The stones were still slick.
Su Cheng lost her footing almost immediately.
Kai, walking beside her, caught her with quick reflexes.
His hand closed around her arm. His broad palm braced against her elbow, easily supporting her entire weight with one hand alone.
“…Thanks,” Su Cheng said hurriedly. “Yeah, I seriously need more exercise.”
Kai released her. “Everything has to start somewhere. Since you’ve already decided to become an adventurer, things will change.”
Su Cheng tilted her head and looked at him.
She knew he was considerate by nature. The type who understood when not to pry. Even now, he still hadn’t mentioned what happened in the guild hall.
They passed through several twisting alleys lined with squat stone houses, their gray-blue walls weathered and peeling.
After two more turns, a staircase descending underground appeared ahead.
Kai stepped onto the uneven stone stairs first, then stopped and turned back, extending a hand toward her.
Su Cheng tested the steps and immediately realized they were just as slippery.
Silently, she took the captain’s hand.
Their size difference was absurd. Rather than holding hands, it felt more like her entire hand had been swallowed into his palm.
He wore gloves made from some kind of beast hide. The rough texture of leather brushed across her skin.
In that brief contact, she could feel the taut strength beneath the leather, the powerful force coiled in his fingers and palm.
She hopped down another step and instantly slipped again.
Fortunately, he was still holding her steady.
Su Cheng curled her lips. “…Do all mages going to the underground district have warrior-level agility?”
“No,” Kai answered casually. “When you see bruised-up mages in those shops later, there’s about a fifty percent chance they fell here.”
Su Cheng burst out laughing. “And the other fifty?”
“They probably fell somewhere else,” he replied evenly. “This isn’t the only entrance. Just the closest one for us.”
She laughed harder. “Are you joking or serious?”
Kai neither confirmed nor denied it. “At least I’ve seen it happen myself.”
By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, Su Cheng caught a strange scent in the air. Harsh medicinal fumes mixed with the musty smell of ancient books.
Several cloaked figures hurried past them, heads lowered beneath hoods as they climbed upward.
One of them promptly slipped on the stairs.
Thankfully, he was going up instead of down. He grabbed the railing, climbed back to his feet without a word, and continued on.
Su Cheng: “…”
Strangely comforting.
Beyond the arched stairwell lay another dim alley.
Stalls lined both sides of the path, selling every bizarre thing imaginable.
Colored crystal bottles held strange insects and stones. Liquids floated motionlessly inside empty glass containers. Bones engraved with intricate runes sat piled together, their origins impossible to identify at a glance. There were also things resembling magic scrolls, covered in all kinds of unfamiliar scripts.
Su Cheng couldn’t help lingering on them.
In a major city like Amber City, both the Church and the Magic Association maintained strict oversight. Truly high-level contraband was difficult to find within the city proper.
Even in the underground market, most goods were merely untested magical materials with dubious origins.
Following the captain through a maze of turns, she eventually found herself in a dead-end alley.
It was unusually quiet here. No stalls. No pedestrians.
At the very end stood an old stone house.
A crooked bronze sign hung above the entrance. Faded runes lined its edges, flickering faintly with dull blue light.
They pushed open the door.
The first-floor hall was dimly lit. Rusted pipes twisted across the ceiling, wrapped in chains and dark green vine-like plants. More than a dozen chandeliers hung from the chains overhead, yet only two remained lit, casting weak light over rows of wooden counters cluttered with bottles and jars.
The cabinets were cracked everywhere, looking as though they might collapse at any moment.
The air smelled of sulfur, herbs, and metal.
Behind the counter sat the owner, who narrowed their eyes and sized the two of them up.
Kai walked over. “Mature Bloodthirst Vine crystal cores. Dissolving fluid refined from Redtail Scorpion oil. High-grade Froststone powder…”
He rattled off more than a dozen materials in one breath.
The owner had an incredible memory. Without writing anything down, they quoted prices immediately, following the exact order he’d listed them in.
One type of gel was out of stock, apparently because the Church had seized all the raw materials.
Kai frowned slightly. “I only need a small amount. You don’t have any left at all?”
The owner sneered. “Even the big workshops outside can’t get their hands on it. What chance do small-time merchants like us have? They’re busy supplying the royal army’s honored mages.”
Then she twisted her mouth bitterly. “Besides, the Church lords are only conducting ‘routine inspections.’ If we dare argue back, wouldn’t that make us heretics?”
While they spoke, Su Cheng continued examining the shop.
Several honeycomb-shaped alcoves had been carved into one wall of the hall. Inside each alcove was a miniature magic formation, and at the center of every formation floated a glowing sphere roughly the size of a fist.
Looking closer, she realized those weren’t ordinary lights.
They were condensed elemental spirits.
Su Cheng stared blankly at them.
Each sphere was over ten centimeters wide, packed with an astonishing density of elemental spirits. The magic formations bound them tightly together, forcing them into compressed clusters.
Logically speaking, a concentration of elemental spirits that large should have been impossible to miss.
Yet she could barely sense them at all.
Only the wind spirits registered faintly at the edges of her perception.
And with the spirits bound inside the formations, she couldn’t control them to cast magic anyway.
Which wasn’t surprising.
Her wind affinity resonance was ranked High-tier. Above that existed Special-tier. As a disposable side character, she was never meant to have the best setup.
Still…
For an elemental mage, the feeling was miserable.
Unable to resist, Su Cheng extended her spiritual perception, focusing carefully on the fire spirits.
Crimson runes flowed across the tiny formation like molten lava. Violent fire elements surged restlessly inside, raging against the restraints that imprisoned them.
She wasn’t sensing this.
She was seeing it with her eyes.
The moment she closed them, the spirits vanished entirely, as though they didn’t exist.
Unbidden, Su Cheng remembered last night.
After tasting the succubus’s blood, her sensitivity toward elemental spirits had skyrocketed.
Back then, she’d felt an intoxicating sense of control, as though everything in the world lay within her grasp.
But the enhancement had apparently been temporary.
Now she had fallen back to normal.
Even if her “normal” still qualified as genius-level talent, once someone had experienced something greater, it became impossible to remain satisfied with less.
“…Yes. Humans are always like this.”
A voice suddenly echoed in her ears like a hallucination.
Blood throbbed violently against her temples.
A deep vibration climbed her spine, like iron hammers striking bone. Heat flared painfully at the back of her neck.
Her consciousness blurred.
“You’re beginning to understand the rules of the game,” the voice said softly. “Do you want to truly experience that feeling?”
“What?” she murmured dazedly. “What do you mean?”
“As long as you’re willing,” the voice continued, “your elemental resonance can evolve even further. Those elemental spirits will never again vanish from your perception. Isn’t that what you desire?”
Su Cheng froze.
Then she understood.
Her already-clouded thoughts dissolved completely beneath a surge of overwhelming ecstasy.
“…Really? I’m willing!”
She heard laughter.
A rich, mellow male voice tinged with unmistakable amusement.
“Then the deal is made.”
The voice was unbearably close, as though someone were speaking directly beside her ear.
Dizzily, she turned her head.
Dark golden light drifted before her eyes.
Within the shifting glow stood the figure of a tall man. His features were devastatingly handsome, his expression gentle.
His hair was black as ink. His skin gleamed bronze-gold beneath the light.
One eye shone gold, the other silver, like twin coins balanced upon a scale. Intricate patterns fractured across his irises, while black triangular tattoos cut through the corners of his eyes.
At first glance, his eyes resembled weights placed on either side of a balance.
“As payment,” the man said with a slight smile, tilting his head, “before sunset, offer me a traitor blessed with Special-tier talent.”
Su Cheng snapped awake.
That face!
She had seen the manifestation of the God of Contracts before.
It was this face exactly.
Su Cheng’s expression changed instantly. “No, I didn’t agree to that! The deal doesn’t count!”
This was the God of Contracts.
Lin Yun had once been warned repeatedly by the old man inside the bracelet: never casually touch the core authority of a god.
In other words:
Never fight the God of War.
Never do business with the God of Wealth.
And never make deals with the God of Contracts.
The man blinked, smiling with almost frightening gentleness.
“Oh?” he said softly. “Are you trying to go back on your word?”
“Your Highness!” Sweat broke across Su Cheng’s forehead. “I… I didn’t mean that. But normally, shouldn’t all the terms be explained before a deal is considered complete…?”
The god bent down toward her.
His manifested form towered over ordinary humans, nearly twice her height.
His upper body was bare.
Bronze skin stretched over a powerful frame carved with brutal precision. The rise and fall of his broad chest resembled waves of gilded wheat beneath sunlight.
A thick red-gold chain slanted across his torso and wrapped around his waist, engraved with serpentine dragon-like creatures.
Blood-red agates formed their eyes. Emeralds and sapphires pieced together shimmering scales.
Cold. Magnificent. Dazzling.
The man raised one arm.
Muscles tightened beneath his skin like coiled roots. The chain around his waist suddenly pulled taut, scraping lightly against his abdomen with a delicate chiming sound like wind bells.
Then he lifted a finger and pressed it gently against her lips, silencing the words she hadn’t finished saying.
His skin was burning hot.
C
