Master of Kaidan
Chapter 81 Impression Increased

Chapter 81: Chapter 81 Impression Increased

The morning light filtered through a small square window into the prison, casting a square patch of illumination on the floor, yet such brightness could not add even a hint of warmth to the cold, damp cell.

Feng Xue stretched his body to relieve the stiffness from maintaining a knee-hugging sitting posture for an extended period. It seemed that due to the law of conservation of luck, after successfully refining the translation taro, Feng Xue had drawn a Black Ball six consecutive times, which scared him into halting his increasingly addictive card-drawing behavior. Instead, he devoted all his time to creating flashcards. By the end of the night, he had accumulated a thick stack of them.

Now that he had paper and pen, Feng Xue had the budding desire to write his own Secret Manual and try Refining it to see what might happen. Although he hadn’t been any legendary hermit in his previous life, the Knowledge he had acquired from the assassin entries could potentially be transformed into a Skill Book, which would be splendid.

However, considering the likelihood of surveillance in this place, he abandoned the idea.

Although the boss of this place didn’t seem too clever, at the end of the day, anyone capable of mass hunting in Infinite City and having a reliable group of subordinates had to possess above-average intelligence, no matter how unsmart they appeared to be.

The other party might refuse to find him an English teacher out of caution or decline to arrange an interpreter he couldn’t trust, but it was unreasonable for them not to machine-translate what Feng Xue had written down.

Even if the intelligence machines of this era were a few years behind from when he had traversed, he couldn’t recall exactly when the feature to extract text from photos was introduced.

Even if that feature didn’t exist, it wouldn’t matter. All the other party had to do was deconstruct the individual Chinese characters and simply ask different people about them. At worst, they could just type them into a computer and then do the machine translation—the method of an illiterate person finding a supreme Secret Manual and seeking translation assistance had been overdone in novels decades ago.

Putting aside impractical thoughts, Feng Xue recalculated the number of days he could exist in the Real World and realized it was roughly ten minutes longer than before. This was the result of yesterday’s efforts from Chen Xiyao and that prison boss.

Don’t underestimate these ten-plus minutes—if it were in Infinite City, that could translate to ten or twenty days!

"Sigh, it feels like coming from a place with an extremely low cost of living to a world-class metropolis with high living expenses, and just when you want to earn some money to spend back home, you find it’s hardly enough to cover living expenses."

Feng Xue sighed softly, then anxiously looked at his hand, but felt a sigh of relief at not seeing the bag of salt.

The mechanism for salt appearance was strange; it wasn’t "appear when you make Sarcasm," but rather "appear when you think of making Sarcasm." However, this seemingly uncontrollable occurrence was actually not the case, for when you harbored the thought "hold back from Sarcasm," it meant you "did not want to Sarcasm." Since this "not wanting to Sarcasm" conflicted with the "thinking of Sarcasm" standard for its appearance, it would not manifest.

Nevertheless, constantly keeping one’s nerves on edge was equally exhausting, and Feng Xue, in an inadvertent moment, forgot to maintain his "not wanting to Sarcasm" mindset. Fortunately, it seemed his complaint did not count as Sarcasm, and he managed to avoid an accident with the salt.

"Can’t relax just because I’ve received good Items! Keep the nerves tight, keep the nerves tight!"

Chanting this mantra to himself, Feng Xue stood up and stretched. He was getting ready to go back to continuing his flashcard production when he suddenly heard the sound of an iron gate opening nearby. The prison guard who had brought him food yesterday came over and placed a bowl of oatmeal porridge at the feeding window.

Compared to the slightly overly spiced fried chicken, oatmeal porridge did not really suit Feng Xue’s palate, but he still quickly ate it up. Following the guard’s lead, he went to the Ritual venue prepared by Jeston.

...

In the Columbia Federation, New Harbor, within a large manor-style villa, an elderly gentleman enjoying breakfast looked expectantly at the butler who walked into the dining room holding a splendid little box.

"My silly son’s gift has arrived?"

"Yes, sir, it has already been identified and no harmful elements were found." The butler held the gift box with both hands, waiting for the master to finish his meal, but at this moment the old gentleman obviously couldn’t wait any longer. He casually pushed the plate in front of him aside, and the servant beside him immediately understood and quickly removed the tableware and dishes from the dining room.

"It really is a splendid piece of art." The old gentleman opened the box, looking at the crystal inside that wasn’t entirely pure, but even after having seen countless exquisite gemstones in his lifetime, the admiration in his eyes seemed genuine.

"Bring me a glass of water." After fiddling with it for a while, the old gentleman finally spoke to the butler, but the butler, already aware of the crystal’s effects, was well prepared. As soon as the master spoke, a whiskey glass was brought before him.

The old gentleman immersed the crystal into the water, and a soft, non-blinding light immediately filled the dining room. Bathed in such radiance, the old gentleman’s originally excited expression slowly became calm:

"How many magic items has Jeston obtained this time?"

"Seventeen in total," the butler easily reported a number, causing a touch of sentiment to appear on the old gentleman’s face:

"Seventeen... That’s the annual output of a top-tier ghost hunter team. His absurd Trojan Horse Plan, it actually succeeded..."

"From the current situation, the third young master’s prison has indeed taken in a batch of prisoners with untraceable origins."

Upon saying this, the butler seemed to have just remembered something and added:

"Apart from the garment sent to you, the remaining sixteen items are all various cold weapons, which do not include this crystal."

"Oh?" The old gentleman’s originally calm expression suddenly changed slightly. He narrowed his eyes, and his tone became somewhat playful:

"That means either my foolish son was outrageously lucky to have collected such a fine item by killing and capturing ghosts or... Heh, I didn’t expect my most inept son to bring me such a surprise."

The old gentleman said this, then suddenly stopped speaking, meticulously taking the crystal out of the glass, wiping it with a soft cloth while his gaze seemed vacant.

After a moment, he continued:

"Take one of my unused black market accounts and give it to Jeston with fifty million pre-deposited, increase his monthly allowance by three percentage points, and ask him if he needs more manpower... Also, give my eldest a message for me: don’t treat everyone like fools."

"Understood, sir." The butler nodded his head and disappeared from the dining room, while the old gentleman continued to play with the crystal stone, lost in thought.

...

"Hey? The feedback force of the ’Money Printer’ tag has increased?" Feng Xue, performing a ’spiritual dance’ in a private booth, paused for a moment, then glanced at Jeston with the corner of her eye.

Listening to his and Fran’s unsubtle debate over topics concerning herself, she silently offered a look of sympathy.