Shout out to my new patron

  Multiversal

  Quin Chinen

  ?

  It felt like a challenge had been issued, and Red couldn't let it go. The young master was a teen with bad teeth, big ears, and shaggy black hair. His olive skin put him squarely in the Mediterranean ethnicity, which made him fit for a world of cultivation with Greek influences. The Daoist robes were easily explained away by better trade routes than back on earth. He felt the guy in front of him came from a low-tech, magic world, so definitely Xianxia with a Western theme. So, the new location was in a world with ridiculous power levels, and his first customer felt like a problematic young master type.

  Viviane smiled, but he had no desire to use her as a shield. She would be poor compared to the monsters that most likely ruled the boy's clan. A servant was tier 3, and the guards were high tier 3, meaning the clan master was likely high tier 4 or tier 5.

  Cultivators had different means of applying their power and would all have steel swords.

  He decided on a name as well.

  "Welcome to Adventurers General, where we offer solutions to problems."

  "Are you an assassination firm?" The young master asked.

  Red tried to smile through the looks the young master's guards gave him. "When you look at something, a screen should appear to give you a description of our merchandise." Red looked the guy up and down, thinking he had him pegged. So he handed him a pill case full of little golden pills.

  The young master stared at them for a long time. "It doesn't say anything about impurities."

  "They are not spiritual pills. They work strictly through natural means and a little fairy magic."

  "Is there a brothel connected to this establishment? What about your daughter?"

  Viviane seemed to move across the room so swiftly and quietly that none of the guards noticed until she was behind the young master.

  "Apologies, my young master did not mean to cause insult."

  Red placed a hand on the counter and raised it to Vicky's height.

  The young master winced. "I only meant if she was willing and of a similar maturity to myself."

  "These weapons are good against undead young master." A guard said.

  Viviane calmly returned to her position behind the counter after the guard broke the tension. She smiled pleasantly. "Yes, they were made for a particular type of undead, but they should be effective against most.

  The young master picked up one of the stakes. "It's short, and I don't want to get so close to one of the hopping corpses. Do you have them in 9ft spears?"

  "I can do custom orders, but what is the spear for? Is there a secret realm or something opening up?"

  "As if you haven't heard the news. The miasma around the Valley of Emperors is weakening. Any cultivator below the foundation realm may enter for a chance at gaining the inheritance of an emperor."

  "So you want a spear against a tomb full of undead. Well, how long before it opens?" Red asked.

  "A year, but everyone in the province is preparing. Some sect elders have even destroyed their own cultivation to get a chance to claim the treasures. The strongest of the qi gathering realm will compete for the treasures." The servant said.

  Red nodded. There was plenty of time to make something properly. He didn't even think about competing himself. There were easier ways to get himself killed.

  The young master ended up buying 30 pills at 5 silver ounces a pill, 5 needles for 300 silver ounces each, and a crossbow for 10 gold coins. Even the guards made some purchases of a needle each and some pills. He would have to increase the price of the pills again if they continued selling so well.

  Red only relaxed when the door closed.

  "You certainly upcharged them, but they didn't seem to care one bit," Viviane said.

  "Were you really angry about that young master's words about your daughter?"

  "A bit, but not enough to make an enemy you can't afford."

  Red grabbed another crossbow from storage and placed it on the display. He added more needles to the bin while Viviane watched the counter. He retrieved more pills and restocked the display before arranging the shelves for spears. Upon seeing the weapon's description, it wasn't an hour before someone else entered and bought a crossbow.

  He was running out of trash-tier crossbows. "Go and make more stock. I think there are some rules about entry into the hidden realm. They didn't touch the common tier equipment." Viviane said.

  Red hadn't noticed that. But his common tier stock was untouched. It was better equipment, but none of his customers wanted it. That put a hard limit on how much SP he would make from selling in town. He must make trash equipment as effective as common-tier to make it worthwhile.

  Making trash materials into common equipment wouldn't help him. He needed to make trash-tier equipment that overshadowed his competition if he was right.

  It was a wall he didn't think he would face. Red needed enchantments to make an even more overpowered trash-tier weapon.

  …

  The workshop smelled of Octopi Tree Sap, an uncommon ingredient that didn't elevate a trash-tier wooden weapon to common or higher. Red used the sweet-smelling sap as a varnish to weatherproof equipment. It gave his finished product a pale coloring. He listened to the electric sander's motor run as he slowly smoothed out his latest project's rough edges. He ran a hand over the smooth wood, checking for any cracks he might have missed. He felt out the resin-filled runic array he spread around the weapon.

  He stacked effect after effect in small circular orbits with common runes that never quite sent the weapon over the line into common-tier. A single tier was the difference between making a sale where he made 15 gold ounces on a single crossbow. Or that was the price several hours ago. He was trying not to look at his wallet until the end of the day when sales were looking up. He purchased another slime queen and had her wheel the cart of new crossbows to the display floor.

  He moved with practiced ease, making the complicated parts first, then the solid piece, and finally, he put together 20 crossbows. It was a process that he was perfecting while researching new runic arrays, which ended up being more homing, bigger fireballs, and harder impacts. The magazines had a little upgrade at the cost of smaller, denser bolts. Trash+++ equipment was still counted, and it was heavier than the standard.

  Magazines for the new crossbows could store 50 bolts. The bolts needed to be submerged in sap for several hours and then rinsed with alcohol. Once Red finished that process, they gained a crisp, almost metallic, feel that was enjoyable. He also went heavily into anti-undead runes, which turned out well.

  Red watched his slime queen bring more crossbows to the floor, and people were already picking them off the cart and rushing to the counter with several magazines in their hands. More gold coins entered his shop, and he could feel his SP rise.

  He returned to his workshop and didn't think twice about working on another batch of crossbows. It was what his customers wanted, and who was he to disagree with them.

  Red returned to the floor after his latest batch to see Viviane with a pleased expression on her face. "The attribute gym needs 5m to reach uncommon-tier, 5b for rare, and 5q for epic-tier. If we don't find buyers for your higher-tier equipment, you won't ever reach the epic-tier yourself. That is my assessment from working the desk." Viviane said.

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  So he needed buyers, investments, or possibly to focus more on the outbox. A buyer could pay a product's value multiple times if the demand was high enough. A quirk of the description was that he could alter the value of a product customers saw. Viviane, as an employee, could do the same. If she said they still couldn't reach the income they needed, a change had to happen.

  He checked his wallet and found 8m was enough to upgrade the attribute gym to uncommon. That wouldn't get him too rare. He needed to develop further into himself. That meant training his wood crafting skill further along with his fireball spell.

  Red worked as he had the first day after opening a shop in the cultivation world for the following week while keeping up with a steady demand for crossbows and fulfilling the Basin City order. He trained in the attribute gym with his sword technique for 4 hours daily, slowly increasing his familiarity with the skill.

  Wallet 45m

  A few weeks after waking up with the shop, he had millions of SP.

  He tapped a wooden log, pulled out fully formed crossbows, and purchased string for them. He sipped a cup of coffee and marveled at how much easier his work had become over a week of consistent work.

  Mary hadn't come by for the first shipment. It made him feel like she only wanted to hang out for his product. After getting a handle on his orders, he thought it fitting to finally start designs on the stockades to hold the fake goddesses. That sounded like a worthwhile use for his time.

  To Red, his workshop was more of a personal place than his bedroom. It's where he spends his time more often than not.

  He started with a nice piece of uncommon wood. He carved out pieces with artistic references to the goddess he remembered. It was built to hold her body back and contain the vampire. There were multiple runic arrays to both weaken and sustain her. He couldn't have his target pass out during their punishment.

  Red remembered what it felt like to be helpless, to have a belligerent foot crack his ribs while some woman watched. From the thought, his blood felt like it was boiling in his veins.

  Maybe it was petty, but he couldn't let it go.

  Red finished two stockades and chopped them into firewood. They just weren't right. "If you keep scraping them instead of finishing, you'll never complete them," Vicky said.

  The fairy landed on his shoulder. "What would you have me do?"

  "Get stronger. Don't just half-ass do what you can to gain power."

  "Do you think I should cultivate?" Red asked.

  "Nope, you should do what they do in those games and pay to win. Buy the qi attribute and level it like a whale." Well, he was making enough SP for it.

  "Maybe I'm not using my shop to my advantage. Thanks, Vicky, I needed that." He had been too passive.

  "Shop how much for a list of skills I can learn in the crimson kingdom with synergy with the qi attribute."

  Buying shop Gacha tokens was a scam, so it was better to find a teacher.

  50,000SP

  He paid it without a second thought.

  Skills and Teachers

  Blood Deity Tempering (Uncommon) Vampire Sage Ares

  Sage Arts (Uncommon) Green Hood the wandering sage

  Blood Bone Armament (Uncommon) Vampire Sage Hermes

  Cosmic Blut (Uncommon) The Twisted Knowledge Seeker

  The shop's power was never in doubt, but he was unwilling to truly utilize it. Maybe he thought he could live a quiet life as a humble shopkeeper. He couldn't remain weak as someone who disrupted the status quo by selling powerful weapons.

  For 150,000SP, he purchased a map of the crimson kingdom with Green Hood's location. He could see the guy moving on the map.

  Before leaving his shop's safety, he did the obvious and checked the price of Sage Arts (Uncommon).

  200b

  He was even in spitting distance. The location of the Green Hood, on the other hand, was in Eldren Hollow.

  Red made a door and bought a few return keys. The idea was that he could return to the shop at any time. He put in a little time and made a common-tier sword from common-tier materials. Holding something that wouldn't get heavier felt strange as he swung it. The common-tier crossbow strapped to his shoulder had 50 bolts in its magazine.

  His weapon had an attribute modifier on a weapon's description for the first time since crafting.

  …

  The guards let him leave, and he managed to ride for a few hours before stopping. A high constitution wasn't a match for saddle sores. Red opened a door back to his shop and retreated. He finished the latest shipment of crossbows before nightfall and turned them into the vampire waiting outside the shop.

  Red added potions to his horse's feed to increase her strength, dexterity, and intelligence. Maybe if she moved faster, he could have gotten to Eldren forest before he had saddle sores. On the bright side, he put another key through the door and opened it where he left his makeshift door.

  For a cheap 80,000SP, he linked the location of his doors to his map and discovered why he could return to them. Vicky added a return rune. So he spent a few hours riding toward his destination during the day before hopping back to the shop. He burned keys but knew his door network would come in handy.

  When Vicky flew into his face, Red bought a rag to wipe his sweat away. "I want to go with you."

  "It's too dangerous. We ride hard."

  "Red, let me tell you, if I have to stay cooped up here much longer, I'm going to steal your kidneys while you sleep," Vicky said.

  The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow. "Both of them, I'm not joking here."

  Red patted the fairy's head and sighed. "Yeah, ok, just be careful.

  He looked at the map, and there was a clear line toward Eldren Hollow.

  Red opened the door again and rode out fully mounted in time for a limb to smash him in the chest. He fell off his horse, which galloped for a while before turning around.

  "Did you think you were an untouchable mage?" A man wrapped in bandages wearing a blood-soaked hood stepped out from under a tree. A large man covered in long open lacerations heft a branch over his shoulder.

  Red glanced at his HP.

  HP 59/60

  4 men stepped out from behind other trees armed with crossbows. "What are you going to do now? Come on, cast a spell. We want to spill mage blood." Blood dripped on the ground from the speaker.

  "I think these people are infected and failed to turn," Vicky said.

  "All I need is the right blood." The man said.

  He choked and vomited blood on the ground. Red turned his eyes from the bandit to the dripping blood from the corpse hung up. He turned his head slowly.

  "Keep your eyes on me." There was a family above each cut and bled. The man made a motion, and someone loosed an arrow. Red felt something slam into his chest and stick to his gambeson. There wasn't any pain, and his HP showed no sign of damage. "Look at me," Red's eyes focused on the man who smiled with bloody teeth. "This is your fault. Waiting out here in the sun made me thirsty."

  The man locked eyes with Vicky's position. "Maybe what we need is fairy blood. Robin, try and shoot her down."

  Red practiced certain movements a thousand times. He drew the wooden sword from his bag of holding, crossed the distance, and slashed horizontally and upward. The man's head flew off his body as arrows fired. Red lifted his crossbow and fired.

  One of the archers took an arrow in the chest before exploding in a ball of fire. The others turned and ran. Red threw his sword at one and hit him in the back of the head with the handle of his weapon. He pumped a new bolt and fired, killing the other runner.

  "What the hell is this?" Vicky asked.

  Red turned to see the torso of the decapitated man crawl after its head. "Do you think it will manage it?" Red asked.

  "No way, it's just a human with some vampire blood. It's during the day this shouldn't be possible."

  "Solari," Red said.

  "Isn't that the name of the one you don't like?"

  "She's represented by the sun. Isn't that weird for a vampire? I think her power might grow stronger under sunlight." Red said.

  "We need more data points," Vicky said.

  Red sighed and kicked the head away just before the body's hand could grab it. Blood poured out of the stump, and it stopped moving.

  …

  Red continued his journey, making stops and hiding doors so he could leave and return when needed. Bandit attacks happened twice more with similar results. They sat in his room while a slime queen picked up the scattered drink cans. Vicky was busy playing an old handheld while Red rubbed at his jaw from his latest injury. A club to the face hurt no matter how tough he became.

  "Once is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. Solari is giving her blood to bandits, or her church is, and they're targeting me." Red said.

  "I think they are targeting anyone going to Eldren Hollow. We just happen to have gotten the furthest." Vicky said.

  Red snorted. "We're going to use Heartwood for the stockades."

  He adjusted the map, allowing him to track Solari and Lunethra. They weren't near Eldren Hollow, so their boy toy, Darien Hawke, shouldn't be there either.

  Red managed to get his Lake Bed Dance skill up to level 15, and he was growing more confident in his abilities.

  "Vicky, how would I compare myself to a vampire?"

  "Don't fight them. They have blood skills that you can't even touch yet."

  "If that Darien guy had no trouble, I should be fine."

  "During the day, maybe, but if you fought a vampire at night, you'll lose," Vicky said.

  He didn't like her confidence.

  "Mom made this for you." Vicky pulled a cloth sheet off a book she had been hiding from him.

  Dragon Taming for Dummies.

  …

  Rexy watched her pet approach through the barrier. At first, he had been a snack that fed her other snacks, but the more he fed her, the more she realized he was something she liked. He was like her own personal snack machine. Her desire to eat him hadn't gone away, but she wouldn't eat him on the spot.

  She watched him approach her from the safety of the barrier. She drooled a little at the thought of more meat. Then he did something out of order. He opened the barrier and stepped out from behind it.

  She called with a few trills to check and ensure he was certain about his decision. It wasn't too late. He could still hide, and she wouldn't entertain his existence. She waited for a slow heartbeat before giving him her undivided attention.

  He looked confident, but that would break soon. Rexy stepped in his direction, shaking the ground and letting him know she meant business.

  The man didn't flee. Her memories had become easier to view. She could remember other humans who ran and called upon her huntress instincts. He approached her, and it was not prey-like.

  "Don't run, face the dragon fully, but don't look it in the eyes because that's a challenge." Rexy could admit those were good instructions, but what if she was hungry and wanted to eat him anyway. Well, she wasn't, but still.

  He approached, and she lowered her head and breathed in his very human scent. "Look at the dragon in the snout and say something brave." The human raised his head and faced her without looking into her eyes in challenge. She would admit to enjoying it so far. "I'm going to fuck you."

  "Wut,"

  Hey guys I hope you're enjoying the chapters I have more on my patreon. There are 7 up and I might get 4 up tomorrow. But 1 ahead is only $1, 3 ahead is $5, and 7 ahead is $10. Don't feel pressured I have a day job this just helps and its a little something for ya'll.