Chapter 404 - 369: The Charm of the Gladiator Arena

Chapter 404: Chapter 369: The Charm of the Gladiator Arena

「Double Star Bar.」

"Twelve Psychic Power Crystals, six thousand Psychic Power in total. They’re all filled."

When Black Star saw Guan Tong arrive, he immediately handed the items over.

Guan Tong inspected them and confirmed that all the Psychic Power Crystals were indeed full. He then paid the agreed-upon price in Sublimation Coins.

After putting the crystals away, Guan Tong asked, "So, is the collection going smoothly?"

"It’s not just going smoothly, it’s going *too* smoothly!" Black Star said with a laugh. "As soon as the news got out, tons of people were scrambling to sell me their Psychic Power."

Guan Tong nodded.

That was what he had expected. Trading their automatically regenerating Flowing Psychic Power for a hefty sum of Sublimation Coins at a 1:1 ratio was a good deal for the vast majority of Ascenders.

"However..."

"However?"

"Collecting Psychic Power on this scale, the news is bound to spread. There’s no hiding it," Black Star warned. "I accepted this commission, so I definitely won’t leak any related information. But there’s no guarantee some people won’t start targeting you, the client."

Guan Tong understood what Black Star meant.

Collecting Psychic Power on a large scale would definitely attract attention.

They would wonder what someone collecting so much Psychic Power was planning to do, and they might decide to target the buyer. After all, such a generous offer proved he had to be very wealthy.

But this was unavoidable. Guan Tong could have been more discreet with his acquisitions to avoid attracting attention, but that would have been far too inefficient.

In the age of the Apocalypse Rules, where new rules appeared one after another without pause, time was extremely precious for everyone who aimed to make it to the end. There was no room for slow-paced development.

"Thanks for the warning. I’ll be careful. I’ll bring the crystals back in a bit, and I’ll come by for the second batch tonight."

"Alright, take care!"

Black Star watched Guan Tong leave, then glanced at the Sublimation Coins in his Terminal Panel.

"Did he pay in full?" White Star asked, walking up from behind him.

"Of course. Each batch is a transaction worth tens of thousands. Even if he’s some world-class powerhouse, I wouldn’t agree to front the cash for him."

White Star pursed her lips. "Someone like him wouldn’t skip out on his bill."

Black Star looked at her. "White Star, didn’t you want me to stop working with him before? What, have you changed your mind now?"

"...I was just worried it was dangerous. But after interacting with him these past two times, I feel like he’s actually pretty easy to talk to. He’s not as cold-blooded and terrifying as the rumors say."

"I can’t blame you for having that preconceived notion. After all, the way this powerhouse first made a name for himself was terrifying."

Shadow’s first claim to fame seemed to be during the marathon rule, where he took first place with an unbelievably high score, but that didn’t cause much of a stir.

What truly shot him to fame was the first Ascender Challenge that followed.

In that competition, Shadow killed countless competitors in the battle to defend the Holy Grail... Even though dying on Holy Grail Island only meant being eliminated, not truly dying, those he eliminated personally experienced the pain of being pierced by Shadow Thorns.

From that time on, the word "ruthless" became inseparable from Shadow’s image, and subsequent events like assassinations further reinforced this impression. Even though evidence later emerged that there were reasons for his actions, once a stereotype is formed, it’s not so easily changed.

White Star’s wariness, and even fear, stemmed not only from these rumors but also from personal experience. Not long after Black Star took a commission to sell Guan Tong information on Rijeka, Rijeka was assassinated... When she heard about Rijeka’s death, she couldn’t help but worry that Shadow would come to silence Black Star.

Even though that didn’t happen, she didn’t want to take any more commissions from such a dangerous person. But Black Star had persuaded her, and after this latest interaction, she felt he wasn’t as terrifying as she had imagined.

"Still, don’t let your guard down completely," Black Star didn’t forget to warn his sister, who had been so presumptuous before. "A powerhouse is still a powerhouse. Who knows what their triggers are? We just focus on the commission, don’t ask about anything else, and we won’t get on his bad side. Got it?"

"Mhm."

"Alright, once he brings the crystals back, we’ll have to fill them again. Let’s go contact some more Ascenders. We’ll have them swap in for the last group."

"Okay, I got it."

The two went to contact the Ascenders they knew for Guan Tong’s commission. Meanwhile, after leaving the Double Star Bar, Guan Tong used Body Shifting to get to a safe location and took out the [Wordless Book].

Turning to the page with "Psychic Power" written on it, he took out the Psychic Power Crystals and began the conversion process using the book’s power.

The conversion ratio was 10:1. Only 1/10 could be kept, with the other 9/10 lost in the process. It was, admittedly, very wasteful.

But Guan Tong had no other choice; this was the current limit of his conversion ability. He had tried to increase the storage ratio but failed. It seemed he would have to wait until his Psychic Power limit broke through to the next stage for any possible improvement.

Soon, the six thousand points of Psychic Power were converted into 600 reserve Psychic Power, which was displayed on his Terminal Panel.

He would take the crystals back later, absorb another batch at night, and he would have gained 1,200 reserve Psychic Power for the day. At 1,200 a day, that would be 36,000 a month.

’The efficiency is still a bit low...’

Guan Tong sighed.

’My plan is to spend a total of seven million Sublimation Coins to buy Psychic Power, which will convert into seven hundred thousand in reserve. At the current rate of thirty-six thousand a month, it would take almost twenty months to finish the conversion.’

Twenty months was almost two years. Guan Tong couldn’t afford to wait that long.

Therefore, he decided that in the meantime, he would have to acquire other items capable of storing and transferring Psychic Power to speed up the conversion.