Chapter 142: Walk in the City

Night looked at his clones and started thinking about where to send each one.

​After some thought, he decided to let two clones roam Dream City. One would look for the Devil who had marked him, and another would look for Jeffy and old man Rogan.

​Meanwhile, the three remaining clones would be going outside the city walls to hunt.

​With that decided, he didn’t waste a breath. Blade appeared in his hand, and he tugged at his soul connection with her, requesting permission to share her skills.

​And unsurprisingly, the permission was granted.

​He raised an eyebrow when he saw a specific skill.

​[Blade Domain] (Unique)

​There was no description, but if he had to guess, it would allow him to freely use blades within the domain. It felt broken considering Blade was now a lot stronger than before.

​There were not many abilities listed, and all of them revolved around creating different types of blades.

​Perfect. I don’t have to worry about weapons now. I can create any number of blades with her just by using energy.

​The sad part was that he didn’t find the exact skill he was hoping for. He thought the spatial teleportation Blade did earlier was a skill, but apparently, it was not.

​She must have done it on her own and she used to do it so effortlessly.

​He understood how tricky teleportation was, one mistake and you would be stranded in a unknown place and that was one of the good outcomes.

Still, he was not discouraged. He held the blade in his hand and tried to replicate it manually.

​While he was focusing on it, he sent out the two clones that were supposed to roam the city.

...

​Night’s clones left Nightmare Castle and picked different directions. One would be roaming the city randomly, while another would be figuring out how to find Jeffy and old man Rogan.

​Night walked on the street, casually admiring the city, the houses, the roads, people and shops.

The each rows of houses were unique, some had bazzare structure that made him wonder how it had not fallen apart.

One house was a pyramid that was upside down, while another one was spears. He wondered what would happen if he gave them a strong push.

Night : (≖ ‿ ≖ )

​He had never gotten to properly explore the city until now.

Previously, they had always been worried he would stick out and cause trouble, but now that he was exposed, it was no longer a problem.

​He saw some interesting shops, like music shops, game shops, tattoo parlors, and even a pet shop. He didn’t enter them, but he didn’t forget to memorize their locations either.

​One reason he didn’t enter them was because he was currently looking for people. Another reason was because he was broke.

​He didn’t have anything on him to make a purchase, since his System Bank had gotten locked away with the rest of the System.

​Zero, who was watching through this clone’s eyes, guessed his predicament and offered, "My Liege, I have some spare Mana Crystals you can use!"

​Night facepalmed.

How could I forget about mana crystals? SC was the currency, but that didn’t mean there was nothing else that could be bartered and traded.

​Mana Crystals were one such resource that could be traded. From Alze-beus’s memories, he knew they could even be traded in Hell.

​A Mana Crystal appeared in his hand. Immediately, the mana surrounding him became noticeably denser, as just the presence of the stone was enough to improve the ambient mana.

​Night muttered, "It’s an Epic Grade Mana Crystal, meaning just one of these is at least worth 1,000,000 SC."

​He said ’at least’ because the value of Mana Crystals multiplied exponentially compared to SC as their grade increased. Higher grades were extremely rare, hence the difference in market value.

​"This will not do. It is far too precious," Night reasoned. "I need to exchange it for lower-quality ones."

​"I remember seeing an exchange shop on the way. Maybe I can change it there."

​Just as this clone was planning to make a small detour, a small slit in space appeared in front of it, and a fellow clone fell from it, landing face-flat on the ground.

​Thud.

​The second clone got up as if nothing had happened. Wiping the dust away from its face, it glared at the rude people pointing and laughing at it.

​The civilians guessed it was a clone, but they were still surprised when one completely out of nowhere.

Teleportation inside the city was heavily restricted ever since a whole city’s worth of population had been teleported in by a crazy Witch.

​Understanding that glaring at the onlookers wasn’t working, the clone decided to ignore them with a huff.

​What you couldn’t see didn’t exist.

​Both clones nodded at each other and went their separate ways. It seemed the Main Body had finally made some progress with the teleportation issue.

...

​Night stood holding Blade in his hands as he focused on understanding the abstract concept of cutting through space.

​After his recent escapade with the five elements, space was no longer a mystical concept to him, but something he inherently had access to, even without Blade’s help.

​If he focused on mastering it, he didn’t doubt he could teleport on his own. But having Blade’s assistance helped a lot since he was a complete beginner at this.

​After some trial and error with cutting space, he reached a conclusion. It was much easier to cut if he was aware of the other end, that is, by using his clones as anchors.

But such a teleportation method would defeat the general purpose of teleportation, since he could just access the other end anyway.

​Using the Inner World as a transit point was honestly easier than this.

​Still, that didn’t stop him from being happy.

At least there was solid progress, and the clone he had just successfully teleported was undeniable proof of his efforts.

​Though he would definitely have to be more careful with the positioning and the precise angles of the space cut next time.

​He focused on the blade again.

The space in front of him appeared in translucent layers. He raised the blade and cut at the anchor point in front of him, at the same time reaching out to the anchor point near the other clone that was standing in front of an interesting building.

​The space split, and a small opening appeared. One of the clones standing beside him jumped into the slit without fear.

​This time he made sure the angle was correct. But because he was too focused on the angles, he miscalculated the spatial distance, and the clone ended up falling on top of the other one.

​Tsk.

​Clicking his tongue, he quickly closed the space slit, not wanting to embarrass himself any further.

...

​Standing in front of the exchange store, the clone of Night entered.

This was the one of the shop that had attracted his attention, because of its size. It looked small on the outside but his Nighmare Domain told him that the shop was bigger inside.

Since he was exploring space element, he thought this would be a good experience.

Intresting...

Upon entering he noticed the difference, the space inside the store felt less stable, as if something was used to forcefully expand it beyond its natural limits.

​An employee wearing formal clothes welcomed him with a polite business smile.

​Night looked around the interior.

The store had various kinds of stones, herbs, monster eggs, and even electronic gadgets.

All of them were beautifully arranged on shelves, and below them were the values of the things that could be used for exchange.

​The tags had Mana Crystals mentioned on them, followed by other similar items. The most common ones were Spirit Gold, Spirit Silver, and Spirit Iron.

He didn’t see SC mentioned anywhere, though, which made him curious.

​Night asked the employee at the counter nearest to him, "Why is SC not mentioned here?"

​It was a big store, and every single counter had an employee stationed behind it.

​The middle-aged employee answered respectfully, not underestimating him just because he was a kid. "SC is the most common currency. If buyers wanted to use it, the System Shop already has them covered."

​"Our store is for those who are looking to use other forms of physical, less universally traded currency. You can think of it as a barter system."

​Night nodded. It was convenient, especially for someone in his current state. "How much does each transaction cost?"

​Unlike the System Shop that didn’t cut any tax or other kinds of hidden charges, independent stores like this definitely should have them.

​Otherwise, they would be doing charity, not business. Not everyone was as jobless as the System.

"_"

​The employee replied with a practiced business smile. "Five percent of the materials used. Or any other material of similar value will do. Of course, you can always choose to pay our fee with SC."

​Night’s lips twitched. Five percent? Why don’t you just rob me?

​What if he did a transaction worth 100 billion SC? Wouldn’t he just be giving them 5 billion SC completely for free?

​Of course, Night could only dream of completing such a transaction, but that didn’t stop his imagination from running wild.

One must not forget he had at least three billion SC rotting away uselessly in his System Bank, all because the damn thing was acting like a tsundere.

Still... Five percent per transaction, what a profitable business,

He was tempted to start a similar store...

Almost...

​The employee noticed Night’s obvious displeasure but didn’t say anything. It was a very common reaction; every first-time customer acted similarly, but after doing a couple of transactions, they always got used to it.

​Also, the main reason the staff didn’t have to be afraid of angering the customers was because their backer was a loyal follower of City Ruler Zora herself.

​Night, unaware of the employee’s internal thoughts, pondered exactly how many Epic Mana Crystals he wanted to trade. He had a wagon full of these crystals, and this was probably Zero’s entire life savings.

​He felt like he was taking advantage of her. He firmly decided to give her a treat later as proper compensation.

​After some thought, he pulled out one hundred Epic Mana Crystals and placed them casually on the counter.

Immediately, the whole store was flooded with such thick heavy mana that the weaker employees felt suffocated.

​What Night completely failed to realize was that, unlike him and his friends (who had terrifying resistances because of him), who didn’t feel anything in front of such pure mana crystals, normal people didn’t enjoy the same luxuries.

​Such pure mana was most of the time not a boon, but a curse to people with weak mana resistance. Mana poisoning was a very common issue with people who left the city to explore.

​Luckily, the employee standing directly in front of him had good resistance, and he managed to hold himself in place. But still, that didn’t stop a look of shock from appearing on his face.