Chapter 99: Persistent Ghost
Anse was right. After lunch, it got increasingly noisy outside the small manor, with people coming to visit one after another.
This was a high-end residential area. Those who could enter all had some status—well-known adventurers, professionals, or city-state nobles and high-ranking officials.
Mrs. Tim was not someone to offend, so they had the butler and Sandre receive the guests.
Most people came for Anse or the thing in his hands, some beating around the bush, others being direct.
Anse followed Sandre’s suggestion and, using meditation as an excuse, saw no one. Brat handled all matters on his behalf.
These people’s intentions were unclear, their forces and backgrounds complex. It was better not to see them. Truly sensible or important people wouldn’t come to visit while Tim was away, as that would be impolite.
There was another reason: his charisma was too high!
Ever since seeing him, the women of Tim’s household kept parading in front of him with all sorts of bizarre excuses.
Even Tim’s daughter Tina came several times, wearing different clothes each time.
This made Anse realize that necessary disguise was essential, or there would be plenty of “entanglements” wherever he went.
Brat, on the other hand, was enjoying it. His position as guard captain at Lingang Hospital in Baldur’s Gate wasn’t entirely due to being a professional; his emotional and intellectual intelligence were both top-notch.
It didn’t sound remarkable, but it was indeed rare. After all, even in his previous life, many people only seemed normal on the surface.
Anse hid in his room, enjoying this rare leisurely time.
Looking at the azure bay outside, he thought that if there were no monsters, settling here would be a good choice.
With nothing to do, he tried using half-dragon or wyvern blood to break the vault curse on the magical items in the dragonhide pouch, but the effect was practically nil.
Instead, his own blood worked better, but with alien races besieging the city and combat possible at any moment, he didn’t bleed recklessly to maintain his status.
There was another way to break the curse: make the treasure part of another dragon race vault.
He was a true dragon, after all.
But this method was useless for young dragons; a young dragon’s true dragon power was too weak to erode and expel another dragon’s curse.
Moreover, young dragons lived with their parents and had to hand over even half a gold coin; they had no vault of their own.
“Wait a bit longer.” Anse wasn’t in a hurry.
The vault items stolen by the dragonhide pouch were random, mainly coins, gemstones, and common magic items. Items like elemental orbs were relatively few.
——
As evening approached, Tim finally returned.
But he didn’t come back alone; he brought a group of people with him.
The villas were not far apart. Anse saw from the window, and soon after, Sandre came personally to invite him over.
Anse brought Brat and Giant Tail. Finn and Nolnos stayed home to prevent the pile of things from being stolen.
Sandre led the way ahead. As soon as they entered the living room, a dozen pairs of eyes turned toward them.
They hid their emotions well, making it hard to tell from the surface, but the holy symbol in Anse’s arms grew hot, indicating there were people of evil alignment among them, putting him on silent alert.
“Let me introduce.” Tim stood up and came to Anse’s side, quietly giving him a wink. “This is Mr. Anse, from Baldur’s Gate. He has always fought on the front lines against the alien invasion and once fought side by side with paladin Land in Livington…”
Tim’s intelligence was likely hearsay, not very accurate and somewhat exaggerated, but in front of so many people, Anse couldn’t correct him.
“This is Grand Reader Italo Calvino from Candlekeep…” Tim pointed to a white-robed old man of medium build.
He looked very aged, with shriveled skin and white hair and beard, but his back was straight, and his rare silver-gray eyes were sharp and bright.
Anse bowed slightly. A person’s reputation was like a tree’s shadow. There were only eight grand readers in Candlekeep, who rarely went out and held esteemed status.
Candlekeep was a rigorously structured monastery of knowledge. The supreme leader was the Keeper of the Tomes, the deputy was the First Reader, and below them were the eight grand readers—these formed the core management.
There were also chanters, guides, guards, and others, not many in number but strong in strength.
Grand Reader Italo’s gaze swept over Giant Tail and the floating elemental orb nearby, then locked onto Anse, his expression calm: “This is a delightful encounter, Mr. Anse.”
“Mm.” Anse was puzzled and silent for a second. “Same here.”
Tim looked at them both, feeling something was off, and hurried to introduce the others: “This is Duke Hokenberg Selig, lord of the city of Blue Water City…”
“Good evening, Your Excellency.” Anse’s expression was unchanged, but inwardly he was silently mocking, because this duke was self-proclaimed.
“Haha, I saw that battle today—it was truly spectacular…” Selig was dressed in ornate noble attire, short and thin with dark skin; when he smiled, his eyes almost disappeared.
As he approached, Anse’s holy symbol in his chest suddenly grew scalding hot, and a sliver of white light shone from his collar.
Selig seemed to realize something; his smile stiffened for an instant before he retreated to his seat as if nothing had happened.
Anse and Tim exchanged a glance, both secretly amused.
Seeing this, the other lords mostly refrained from approaching, merely nodding in greeting, their expressions turning much cooler.
Anse remained calm; lawful evil nobles were common and nothing to be surprised about.
However, after this incident, the lords seemed to lose interest in deep conversation and directly stated their desire to buy the materials in his possession.
Anse certainly wouldn’t refuse. He had no moral hang-ups; selling to anyone was the same as long as the price was right.
Lord Selig didn’t talk money. Instead, he smilingly took out two boxes from his bosom and placed them on the table in front of him.
“Dragon materials are rare and hard to price. I’ll trade you for these.” His eyes were full of confidence.
Anse’s heart skipped a beat. He stood up, took the boxes, and opened them to inspect.
As expected, inside were one earth elemental essence and one water elemental essence.
He held them up to his eyes; yellow-brown and deep blue lights reflected on his face as a smile quietly bloomed on his lips.
“Talk about things falling into place effortlessly.”
In the past, the charred corpses of a wyvern and half-dragon probably wouldn’t have traded for two elemental essences, but now with spellcasters in decline, magical items and materials were flooding the market—perfect for him.
“I can’t refuse. Deal!” He didn’t hesitate much.
“Good, then shall I have my men take the items now?” Selig stood up, seeming a bit eager.
“No problem.” Anse stowed the elemental essences and had Brat and Giant Tail go with them to hand over the materials.
The lords left together, and soon the living room held only Anse, Tim, and Grand Reader Italo.
“I feel like I sold at a loss.” Anse shook his head regretfully.
Deals were like that—if you didn’t haggle or the other party agreed too readily, you always felt like you’d lost out.
“No loss.” Tim was amused by Anse’s expression. “He just acquired these two elemental essences and went to great lengths to get them.”
“Looks like… he has urgent need?” Anse asked doubtfully.
Ordinary magical materials couldn’t compare to finished magical items, after all—manufacturing took time, cost, and risked failure.
No matter how urgent, magical materials couldn’t instantly become magical items, so he felt something was off with Selig.
“Not sure about that.” Tim shook his head slightly. Selig was unpredictable, and his earlier behavior showed no clear anomalies.
Grand Reader Italo spoke calmly from the side: “I know a bit about this matter.
Recently, Lord Selig has been in close contact with an organization called the Blue Flame Cult. He might be seeking to gain dragon race bloodline through some ritual to regain spellcasting ability…”
Anse frowned; he hadn’t expected the Blue Flame Cult’s reach to be so extensive.
Lord Selig was a level 7 arcane knight. Cooperating with the Blue Flame Cult to regain spellcasting ability wasn’t impossible.
Using half-dragon or wyvern flesh as ritual materials sounded far more normal than using sorcerer blood.
“From what I know, this ritual is imperfect, with strong negative effects.”
As he spoke, he focused his mind on Italo. The dice spun for a long time, but still detected nothing.
