Chapter 162: Preparing to Open a Shop 1

Daphne hesitated for a moment before asking softly, “But... wouldn’t that be inappropriate?”

“There’s nothing inappropriate about it,” Kent replied at once. “If I go, I’ll only end up stealing the Grand Elder’s credit. Don’t forget, we were the ones who discovered this whole affair first. If we show up, the Grand Elder will have no choice but to tell everyone the truth, and then we’ll be the ones who get all the recognition.”

He paused, then continued with a perfectly serious expression.

“But if we stay away, then we’re giving that favor to the Grand Elder instead. Later, if anything happens, he’ll naturally put in a good word for us.”

Faced with Daphne, Kent could only come up with this crooked bit of reasoning to coax her into agreeing.

“Then... let’s go.”

The moment Daphne heard that the Grand Elder might speak well of both her and Kent in the future, her thoughts immediately wandered in a rather different direction.

Her voice became barely more than a whisper, and a deep blush spread across her cheeks.

Kent breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he heard her agree.

How could he possibly know what Daphne was really thinking?

He simply assumed that his explanation had worked.

Although a trace of guilt stirred in his heart, Kent still could not bring himself to tell her the real reason.

After all, Daphne was simple-minded and innocent—and, strictly speaking, still a “minor.”

“Guildmaster, we detected magical fluctuations inside this defensive tower.”

Inside one of the towers, an elderly mage wearing the badge of a ninth-rank magician spoke in a grave voice.

Two other mages of the same rank stood beside him.

In front of the three elderly men stood a middle-aged man.

All four of them wore solemn expressions as they stared at the ancient teleportation array before them.

The old mage continued, “The three of us examined the area carefully. Someone definitely entered this place through the ancient teleportation array.”

He pointed toward the floor.

“Look. There are still footprints here.”

His brows furrowed.

“But for some reason, whoever came here left again through the same teleportation array.”

The middle-aged man’s voice rang out with authority.

“Have you determined who it was?”

“We can confirm that it was a human spatial mage,” the old man replied respectfully. “And not a weak one.”

He gestured toward the traces around the array.

“The person remained here for some time. Judging from what was left behind, they must have consumed a tremendous amount of mental power.”

“As for where this spatial teleportation array leads, we still haven’t been able to decipher it.”

The old mage looked again at the ancient formation, his expression growing even more serious.

“But judging from its construction and the complexity of its magical runes, I suspect this is one of the highest-grade teleportation arrays ever created.”

The middle-aged man’s expression changed slightly.

Then his gaze hardened.

“Investigate.”

His voice was cold and commanding.

“Use every connection we have.”

“Check every intermediate-rank spatial mage you can find. Focus especially on adventurers and mercenary groups.”

The three elderly mages listened in silence.

The Guildmaster continued issuing orders without pause.

“Notify the Warriors’ Guild, the Thieves’ Guild, the Alchemists’ Association, the Temple of the Goddess of Nature, the Temple of the Earth Goddess, the Temple of the God of War, the Temple of the Goddess of Harvest, and every other major temple.”

“Contact the merchant guilds as well.”

“And issue an S-rank mission through both the Adventurers’ Guild and the Mercenaries’ Guild.”

His gaze swept across the three old mages.

“I want everyone looking.”

“We must find this spatial mage.”

His eyes shifted back toward the ancient teleportation array.

“With that mage in our hands, we may finally be able to unlock the secrets of this ancient formation.”

“Yes, Guildmaster!”

The expressions of all three elderly mages changed at once.

So many powerful organizations mobilized for the sake of finding a single person...

There was no need for further explanation.

They now fully understood just how important this intermediate-rank spatial mage had become.

The three men bowed deeply and accepted the order.

On the journey back to Muan City, Kent and Daphne spent much of their time joking, teasing, and bickering with each other.

Without either of them quite realizing it, the distance between them rapidly began to disappear.

At the beginning of the Great Trial, Kent had not felt anything particularly special toward Daphne. He had simply thought that the young girl was adorable and that having her as a little sister would not be a bad thing at all.

But after everything they had gone through together—danger, hardship, and more than one brush with death—things had gradually begun to change.

Daphne had never tried very hard to hide the way she felt about him.

And Kent, despite all his efforts to deny it, slowly realized that his own feelings toward her were changing as well.

That realization troubled him more than he cared to admit.

Whenever those emotions surfaced, he would immediately remind himself of all sorts of reasons why he should resist them.

She’s still underage.

I already have a girlfriend.

He repeated such thoughts to himself again and again, as if doing so could force his feelings back into the neat little box they had once occupied.

Unfortunately, emotions were rarely so obedient.

The whole matter left Kent deeply conflicted.

After more than a month on the road, Kent and Daphne finally returned to Muan City.

Strangely enough, once they were back, Daphne suddenly became reluctant to spend much time alone with him.

Kent suspected that she was simply embarrassed.

He did not press the issue.

In fact, the timing suited him perfectly.

There were far too many things he needed to sort through after everything that had happened recently, and he had already decided to shut himself away for a while and carefully reflect on his gains and experiences.

Kent settled into his room and began taking stock of his current strength.

During the journey back, he had finally completed the process of integrating the magical power and soul energy he had absorbed.

As a result, his mental power had surged all the way to the peak of the eighth rank.

His magical power, however, had only just broken through into the seventh rank.

Even so, Kent was more than satisfied.

After all, he possessed affinities with every magical element.

For an all-element mage like him, the amount of magical energy required for advancement was enormous—far beyond what an ordinary mage would need.

Fortunately, magical energy itself was not something Kent lacked.

His spatial ring already contained large quantities of high-grade magic cores and magic crystals.

More importantly, Kent possessed an advantage that ordinary mages could only dream of.

He could absorb virtually any kind of magic core or magic crystal, regardless of its elemental attribute.

That alone gave him an enormous advantage.

What Kent needed most now was not more raw power.

He needed to turn his peak eighth-rank mental power and seventh-rank magical reserves into actual combat strength.

Possessing power and knowing how to use it were two entirely different things.

His proficiency with magical incantations still needed improvement, and there were many elemental branches for which he did not even know the appropriate spells.

Simply having immense magical reserves would not solve that problem.

“Divine Alchemy...”

The words suddenly surfaced in Kent’s mind.

His eyes lit up.

Divine Alchemy could do far more than simply improve his mental power.

It also demanded extremely precise control over that power.

When Kent had constructed the supposedly “beginner-level” magical key earlier, he had been forced to divide his attention among several tasks at once.

Maintaining the flow of magic.

Suspending molten metal.

Controlling his mental power.

Tracing and stabilizing the magic formation.

That sort of training was invaluable.

It was not merely increasing his mental power—it was teaching him how to use every fraction of it more efficiently.

Alchemy also required constant manipulation of magical energy, making it an excellent way to improve his control over magic as well.

And while refining items, Kent could also process and accumulate rare magical materials.

No matter how he looked at it, Divine Alchemy was one of the best possible paths for him at the moment.

Then there was the matter of Origin Power.

Kent clearly remembered that his own Origin Power had emerged from an impulse deep within himself, and the framework he had instinctively used to understand it had come from the Five Elements theory of Earth.

Now that he knew Origin Power was connected to the laws of heaven and earth—laws that one had to comprehend before stepping into the divine realm—Kent could not help but wonder whether the Five Elements were, in some way, a description of those very laws.

The thought immediately sent his mind racing.

The Five Elements.

The Eight Trigrams.

Yin and Yang.

Concepts that he had once regarded as vague, mysterious, and almost impossible to verify suddenly seemed to possess an entirely different significance in this world.

Kent felt a surge of excitement.

Could those ancient theories from Earth actually contain fragments of the laws governing heaven and earth?

Perhaps they were not as mystical and impractical as he had once assumed.

Still, Kent quickly forced himself to calm down.

He decided not to pursue Origin Power for the time being.

Comprehending laws was still far beyond his current level.

The last time he had touched upon such power, luck had played a far greater role than he cared to admit.

Without complete confidence, Kent had no intention of experimenting with it again.

He valued his life far too much for that.

Instead, another idea began to take shape in his mind.

“A shop.”

Kent’s eyes gradually brightened.

“I’ll open an alchemy shop.”

The Underdark had existed in relative isolation for countless years.

There was a very good chance that many artifacts from the ancient era were still hidden somewhere within it.

And if magic had truly flourished to such an extraordinary degree during that age, then anything left behind from that time could be immensely valuable to him.

The more Kent thought about it, the more certain he became.

He would open a store and use his own alchemical creations to trade for magical materials, unusual objects, and anything else that caught his interest.

That way, he could accomplish several goals at once.

Creating alchemical items would continuously train his mental power and magical control.

The constant practice would also allow his alchemical skills to improve at an astonishing rate.

At the same time, he could use his products to acquire rare materials without having to search for everything personally.

And most importantly, there was always the possibility that someone might bring him an artifact left behind from the ancient era.

Compared with the surface world, the Underdark was far more isolated.

That very isolation meant that countless forgotten relics might still be lying unnoticed in the hands of people who had no idea what they possessed.

For Kent, that possibility alone was enough.

The decision was made.

He was going to open an alchemy shop.