Hearing the deal Noa had made, Feng Fan smiled and looked around the store.
"But I see no sheath here," he joked, expecting a reaction out of this unknown entity.
Feng Fan's eyes carefully studied Noa. He guessed that the man before him wasn't an ordinary mortal.
Not a mighty elder in hiding. Nor an immortal from different realms.
Something even more divine. Someone he shouldn't be joking around with.
Feng Fan remembered the demonic cultivators—or the evil beings who claimed the name. They raged and demanded obedience.
But this one?
He made deals.
And for the first time in his life, Feng Fan couldn't tell if he was simply poached—or if he was already owned.
Then he locked his eyes with Noa.
It was an accident.
But the cultivator knew that the man felt both wrong and correct, both reliable and deceitful, and something in his gut twisted.
He wanted to apologize and agree with the offer this instant.
Yet finding the words was harder than he thought. Especially when his eyes were still locked on Noa.
With each passing second, Feng Fan watched Noa and sensed no qi, his mind descending into greater chaos.
That wasn't a human.
Maybe a god in disguise or something far more dangerous.
"Not yet. But I will add them in the future, along with blades and every other product I can come up with."
Meanwhile, Noa answered softly, maintaining his nonchalant persona, as if the divine suspicion mattered no more than a passing breath.
Taking a deep breath, Feng Fan didn't waste time and took Noa's hand.
The warmth of the skin felt like a human, but after building ideas in his mind, the touch amplified his emotions.
Though he no longer showed them.
"Happy to work with you," he announced.
As for Noa, he trailed his sight and stopped it on the system notifications.
» [Milestone Achieved]
» [You stole a key piece from another path and rewrote the fragment of the world's story]
» [You gain a tiny, passive charisma boost when dealing with taboo beings]
[Host, great job! You're doing fantastic—keep up the amazing work!]
'That's what I like to hear,' Noa thought. 'But did my luck work with this negotiation?'
[Of course, it was a negotiation,] the system added.
Then Noa considered his next steps for a moment. Now that he had his first recruit, whose path he had altered and controlled, Noa had to figure out what to do with him.
"My products are free for you. Including the ones I currently sell or would add shortly. Everything that would help your cultivation and the revenge would be provided by me," he announced, and sounded less like an authority but more like a guy next door.
But Feng Fan knew not to be fooled by the kind words.
"And what do you expect from me in return?" he asked, his head lowered.
Noa smiled and spoke casually.
"Nothing... Not yet, at least—until you have some worth to me."
Hearing this, Feng Fan wasn't surprised—it was exactly what he had expected.
"But you should already know that you can't take an item more than once in a single day. Now you can go and do your business. Either train or cultivate, it's up to you to decide. And you don't have to wash your head millions of times; it's a waste of your efforts."
Feng Fan nodded, bowed, and left the store, reverence evident in each step.
Noa was left with his own thoughts. The emptiness of the store sparked countless possibilities in his mind and hinted at the future this world could offer him.
Getting new customers was harder than he believed.
There were no options for his first real employee either. But he wasn't in a hurry, and considering the floors he wanted to add to his building, he was lost in his imagination.
Nevertheless, Noa was having a blast. Everything he had experienced was so novel to him that it hid his anger and sadness away.
Scrolling through the rooms he could build, ancient artifacts he could add, and products he could create, Noa spent hours studying the system interface.
Until the sound of the door opening brought him back to reality.
'Is that a new client?' he wished inwardly and glanced towards the man who had just walked inside.
His strong presence immediately drew the attention. Clad in long robes embroidered with blooming flowers, he carried an aura of dominance. His blue eyes swept across the room, as if taking everything in sight and searching for something or someone interesting.
He couldn't notice the Eye of the Future, or just simply skimmed through it, thinking it was an ordinary decoration.
But the entire store and its impressive spiritual energy didn't escape his radar.
"I am named Elder Jin. Pardon for my intrusion in your humble store," he stated plainly after striding towards Noa. "The whispers of this place reached my ears, and I wished to see it for myself."
"So?" Noa asked. "What do you think, Elder Jin? Was it worth your precious time?"
The man snorted at his words.
Instead of answering, he turned back and wandered through the store, observing every little detail.
"It's hard to tell," he said.
The strong qi flowed in and out of his breath. But that was it. Nothing else really excited him, and the energy wasn't enough for him to think highly of this place.
However, the whispers he heard weren't about the store itself, but the products the mysterious entity was selling.
Before Elder Jin looked at the products, he scrutinized Noa from head to toe. There was nothing special about the man he was seeing. He exuded no threat or measured strength, as if Noa was merely an ordinary human.
Watching the empty vessel, devoid of any spiritual energy, led Elder Jin to underestimate Noa.
He was quick to make a judgment based on first impression.
Then he shifted his attention back to the bottle and the packaged toy on the shelves. He grabbed both of them and paid for them in a rush, ignoring the steep price.
Without wasting a single second, he unpacked the fidget spinner and followed Noa's instructions.
The toy whirled on his finger.
But nothing happened.