Chapter 294: Beast Master

Tony unrolled the heavy parchment scroll, his dark eyes scanning the neat rows of flowing runic text despite the deep fatigue humming in his muscles.

The young servant lady stood quietly by the edge of his jade bed, her hands neatly clasped, her eyes darting between her exhausted master and the mountain of five hundred glowing crimson talismans stacked perfectly on his desk.

The room was thick with the scent of high-grade beast blood ink and raw primordial aura, a testament to the absolute monster of a mass production line Tony had just pulled off in the dark.

As his gaze traveled down the list, Tony’s Truth Eye subtly analyzed the hidden energy fluctuations mapped onto the script. The parchment was divided into two distinct sections: the standard, domesticated creatures bred inside the academy’s grand beast dens, and the wild, volatile monsters captured by rogue mercenaries for the outside city market.

The academy beasts were reliable but incredibly tame, consisting mostly of high-grade spiritual panthers, iron-clad bears, and gale hawks. To Tony’s calculating strategic mind, these creatures were far too standard; they lacked the absolute, untamable lethality required to act as a true villain’s secondary soul on the grand chessboard.

"Young Master," the servant lady spoke softly, her refined voice breaking the silence of the meditation chamber. "The elders at the grand beast dens are charging a minimum of fifty thousand high-grade Aura crystals for even a baseline, juvenile spiritual panther. They say that the maintenance of their bloodline matrices is incredibly expensive. But if you look toward the absolute bottom of the second section... there is a highly volatile anomaly currently sitting inside the outside city market’s underground auction house."

Tony’s eyes locked onto the final row of text, his signature villainous smirk slowly returning to his face as he read the description. Entity ID: Crimson Shadow Griffin (Ancient Lineage). Status: Untamable / Core Sealed. Attributes: Primordial Shadow and Spatial Void. Asking Price: 300,000 High-Grade Aura Crystals.

According to the merchant logs written on the parchment, this legendary creature had been captured from a deep, fractured dimensional spatial rift near the northern border. It possessed a rare, ancient bloodline trace that could allow it to phase through physical objects and manipulate the absolute laws of gravity, making it a terrifyingly perfect match for Tony’s Invisible Shadow Shot and his hidden strategic plans.

However, because its internal temper was incredibly fierce and murderous, multiple high-tier master elders had failed to tame its consciousness, forcing the vendors to place a heavy, core-suppressing iron seal around its neck to keep it paralyzed. They were selling it at a massive, desperate discount just to rid themselves of a dangerous liability.

"Three hundred thousand high-grade crystals," Tony muttered smoothly to himself, a low, amused chuckle escaping his chest as he rolled the parchment back up. "A magnificent, astronomical price for a common commoner, but a simple mathematical variable to a businessman who prints his own wealth in the dark."

Right at that exact second, the heavy entrance doors of the Cloud-Mist Pavilion gently creaked open, and a soft, familiar scent of spiritual ink and azure herbs lightly drifted into his nostrils.

Lady Selena Faith walked into the private chamber with smooth, elegant steps, her deep-gold merchant robes rustling softly against the floor as she carried a premium, purple-attribute spatial leather bag in her hand. Her violet eyes instantly locked onto the towering mountain of five hundred completed Blazing Nova Talismans resting on his desk, and her entire face violently flickered with a sudden, momentary flash of pure, jaw-dropping shock, though she quickly forced her royal composure back into place.

"You are truly an absolute, unprecedented freak of nature, Tony Clark," Selena spoke softly, her refined melody carrying a mix of deep admiration and total, dizzying awe as she set the purple leather bag gently onto his bed. "My guild’s tracking arrays confirmed that you didn’t leave this room for a single microsecond last night, yet you have actually managed to draw five hundred flawless, high-tier explosive talismans without destroying your own meridians. The central district’s black markets are currently screaming for your weapons, and the noble clans are willing to bid double the price to secure a single sheet."

She lightly tapped the purple leather bag, causing a brilliant, blinding pulse of silver light to erupt from the opening, revealing a mountain of high-grade Aura crystals and premium imperial banknotes.

"The previous batch of seventy-five talismans was just the beginning. I have fully liquidated your secondary shares across the northern trading sectors, and your absolute net profit returns from the guild’s distribution lines amount to exactly three hundred and fifty thousand high-grade Aura crystals. You are officially the fastest-rising financial force in the entire inner peaks."

Tony’s lips curled into a wide, ruthlessly brilliant grin as he looked down at the staggering mountain of wealth resting on his bed.

With a casual wave of his hand, he swept the entire purple leather bag directly into his private system storage space, his standard lazy posture perfectly returning to his frame as he stood up from the bed, his exhaustion completely wiped away by his burning, villainous ambition.

"Your timing is exceptionally magnificent, my beautiful painting partner," Tony said smoothly, his tone dripping with shameless confidence as he unslung the magnificent Void Dragon’s Shadow Bow from his shoulder, checking the silver runes on the frame. "I happen to have just targeted a legendary, ancient-lineage companion beast inside the outside city market that requires exactly three hundred thousand crystals to purchase. Grab your best wooden sketchboard, Lady Selena, because we are taking a little luxury carriage ride into the central district right now to collect my secondary soul."

Selena Faith stared at him in utter, unadulterated shock, her mind completely baffled by his absolute decisiveness.

"A three hundred thousand crystal beast? Tony, you just arrived at the academy, and buying an untamed monster from the outside markets is an incredibly dangerous gamble! The vendors out there are treacherous, and they regularly use clever illusions to mask defects!"

"Then let them try their little tricks on my board," Tony sneered coldly, his voice vibrating with an immense, terrifying wave of villainous pride as he strode toward the pavilion entrance. "They are about to find out that trying to cheat a true villain is the fastest path to an absolute graveyard."

Early the next morning, a high-grade spiritual carriage bearing the golden crest of the Golden Phoenix Merchant Guild rolled smoothly down the grand mountain passes of the academy, heading straight into the bustling, packed streets of the central city market. The city was a spectacle of absolute, high-tier martial chaos, filled with towering stone structures, crowded bazaar tents, and thousands of cultivators trading ancient scrolls and medicinal pills under the harsh morning sun. Tony sat lazily inside the carriage, his dark hunting cloak draped loosely over his shoulders, while Selena sat right across from him, her violet eyes serious as she checked the ledger crystals of the local auction houses.

The carriage finally came to a halt before a massive, dark iron pavilion situated at the absolute rear of the slave and beast district—the infamous Grand Abyssal Beast Exchange.

The air inside the plaza was thick with the roars of caged spiritual monsters and the loud, aggressive shouting of various wealthy buyers. Tony stepped down from the carriage with slow, deliberate steps, his magnificent dragon-bone bow completely concealed beneath his cloak as Selena followed closely behind him like an elegant shadow.

As they entered the main, dimly lit showroom of the exchange, a sharp-faced, incredibly greasy-looking head vendor dressed in loose silk robes immediately hurried forward to greet them. His eyes carried a sharp, calculating gleam of intense greed, and the moment he noticed Selena’s premium gold merchant badge, a wide, highly hypocritical smile plastered across his face.

"Welcome, honored representatives of the Golden Phoenix Guild, to my humble establishment!" the head vendor barked out loudly, rubbing his hands together smoothly as he bowed deeply before Tony. "I am Master Silas, the chief coordinator of this sector. Are you looking to purchase a standard protective mount for your inner peak journeys, or perhaps a rare elemental pet to amuse the young ladies?"

Tony didn’t waste a single fraction of his breath on empty pleasantries or polite protocol. He took a step forward, his tall frame casting a relaxed but commanding shadow over the short vendor, his dark eyes locking onto the man’s face with a chilling, razor-sharp edge. "Save your pathetic, scripted flattery for the common commoners, Master Silas," Tony said smoothly, his baritone voice carrying an absolute authority that made the vendor’s smile instantly freeze.

"I am here for the Crimson Shadow Griffin with the ancient lineage that you have been keeping sealed in your deepest vaults. Bring it out into this clearing right now, and let us see if your merchandise actually matches the weight of the three hundred thousand crystals I carry in my pocket."

Master Silas’s heart instantly skipped a frantic beat, a cold sweat breaking out across his back as his mind entered a state of chaotic excitement and intense calculation. The griffin was a legendary, ancient beast, but its murderous temper had turned it into a completely useless, locked asset that no noble family wanted to touch due to the high risk of a spiritual backlash. Silas had been desperately waiting for a wealthy, arrogant young master from the academies whom he could easily trick into buying the broken creature to clear his books.

"Ah! A young master of absolute, supreme vision!" Silas shrieked in artificial excitement, waving his hand frantically toward his dark-armored guards in the shadows. "Hurry up, you lazy dogs! Bring out the legendary Crimson Shadow Griffin from the alpha vault immediately to display before our honored guest!"

Within minutes, a series of heavy, metallic clanking sounds echoed from the dark rear corridor as four massive, peak-level guards carefully rolled a giant cage made of pure, reinforced black spiritual iron into the center of the showroom.

Resting inside the absolute center of the cage was a magnificent, terrifying creature that looked like a colossal combination of a shadow lion and a mountain eagle, its feathers a deep, blood-red crimson that faintly shimmered with natural spatial runes.

However, a massive, thick iron collar wrapped around its neck, humming with dense suppression arrays that kept its physical limbs completely paralyzed and its powerful consciousness locked in a dormant state.

Tony stepped closer to the black iron bars, his standard lazy smirk remaining on his face, but with a brief thought, he fully unleashed his Truth Eye at its absolute maximum capacity to scan the internal framework of the creature.

The moment his supreme vision pierced through the black iron bars, Tony’s eyes subtly narrowed into a cold, ruthlessly dangerous glare. Through the Truth Eye, he easily perceived that Master Silas had laid a highly sophisticated, forbidden illusion array over the griffin’s body.

The bloodline traces and the spatial core of the beast were actually in a state of severe, slow decay due to a hidden soul wound it had suffered during its capture—a defect that would cause the creature to spontaneously combust and die within less than a month after the core seal was removed. Silas was using the heavy iron collar’s suppression light to intentionally mask the terminal wound, trying to execute a total, fraudulent scam to swindle a massive fortune from an unsuspecting buyer.

Tony slowly turned his head to look back at the greasy head vendor, a deep, terrifyingly calm smile spread across his face as his posture radiated the absolute, unyielding defiance of a true supreme villain who had just caught his prey in a trap.

"A truly magnificent ancient creature, Master Silas," Tony murmured smoothly, his tone dripping with an incredibly dangerous, casual arrogance that made Selena’s heart instinctively tighten in suspense. "Your illusion array is exceptionally beautiful, and your hidden soul wound is masked with absolute perfection. Tell me, old thief, do you truly believe your pathetic life force is sturdy enough to survive the absolute consequences of trying to execute a fraudulent scam on my name?"

-P