“What about the Seventh Agency...” Jack stood by the table, his hands still frozen in their previous gesture.
Elias did not answer immediately.
Right in front of Jack, he unhurriedly slipped the small vial of moon silver powder into his pocket.
“I suggest that before that, you had better behave yourself and stay with me.”
Elias patted his pocket and looked up, his eyes appearing exceptionally deep under the dim lamplight.
“Things haven't been peaceful inside the Seventh Agency lately.”
Jack's body stiffened, a flicker of doubt crossing his clear eyes.
He clearly felt this black-hearted foreman was just making up excuses to pocket his secret savings.
Elias saw the young man's distrust, sighed, and threw out his bargaining chip:
“But I can give you a phase-based commitment.”
“Once all this damn mess is completely over, I will make sure you are alive and delivered to the Seventh Agency in one piece.”
“What?!”
Jack looked as if he had been struck by lightning, and the confidence he had barely managed to muster instantly collapsed by half.
“Then doesn't that mean my vial of moon silver powder was wasted for nothing?!”
He pointed at Elias's empty hands, his voice carrying a distinct sob.
“What use is your commitment to me?!”
“Can it be spent as gold crowns, or can it block those cultists' assassinations?!”
“Kid, my commitment is highly valuable in the waters of Moon Bay.”
Elias grinned, his smile not reaching his eyes, as he stood up and patted Jack heavily on the shoulder.
The dull thud of his slaps sounded exceptionally solid in the quiet wooden cabin.
Jack felt as though those two slaps from Elias had almost driven him straight into the floor.
But he still felt he had taken a massive loss.
A loss so painful his heart bled.
This was nothing short of a supernatural scam.
Originally, he had thought that using strategic materials as a stepping stone would at least get this lighthouse keeper—who seemed to have connections with the high-ranking officials at the headquarters—to escort him directly to a safe zone.
But who could have guessed that after paying the toll, all he got was a vague and elusive “stay with me.”
Jack gritted his teeth hard. All the cold shoulders and humiliation he had suffered along the way came rushing back like an overwhelming wave.
His flight along the way had been truly miserable.
In the past, though he was merely an illegitimate son of the family, his life had been decent enough.
But who could have expected that after that disaster erupted, he would fall straight from heaven into the mud.
During his escape, in search of shelter, he had naively gone to local police stations and even the offices of the Seventh Agency to report his case.
He thought that the family crest representing his family's glory could buy him a helping hand of justice.
But what was the result?
Those civil servants in decent uniforms chased him down the streets like a stray dog every single time, wielding pointers and batons.
So what if he had lost some weight from sleeping in the rough and had some untrimmed stubble on his chin?!
By the time he had finally managed to hide and dodge his way to Hastings Port like a vagrant.
He had finally shaved by a roadside ditch and tidied his clothes, only to find that he couldn't even enter the gates of the Hastings Port Branch of the Seventh Agency.
The moment they heard his story about “a cult wiping out his family, leaving him as the sole surviving illegitimate son,” they immediately concluded he was just another street swindler trying to pose as a noble to scam the government out of special relief funds.
After all, at that time, he was wearing ill-fitting, coarse cloth clothes he had casually bought from a roadside stall.
Moreover, the damn bloodline curse on him kept the supernatural spirituality inside his body in a faint, barely-there state all day long.
The official investigators at the branch had surrounded him and mocked him relentlessly.
They said that a piece of trash like him, whose talent was garbage, actually had the nerve to shamelessly impersonate someone from the Sorenstein family.
One of the scribes even sneered and told him that as early as last month, Landon had confirmed through official channels the report of the deaths of everyone inside the Sorenstein family's main manor.
To the authorities, he was currently a dead man.
This had infuriated Jack so much that he cursed up a storm at the gates of the Seventh Agency, pouring out every profanity he had ever learned in his life, which resulted in him nearly being beaten so badly he couldn't get out of bed for half a month.
It was only because he was a Life Scholar that he managed to survive.
Only at that moment did this young man from Landon truly witness the sheer disparity and cruelty of this world.
In the past, no matter how disliked he was or how inferior he was to his heavily favored brother Aaron, the low-level personnel of the Seventh Agency would at least show him some respect in public for the sake of his family.
Who could have thought that this escape would force him to experience the full bitterness of human nature.
Precisely because of this, when he was hiding behind the wooden door earlier and heard Elias talking with that female investigator, listening to them casually mention the "Landon Council" and headquarters secrets, he had been utterly shocked.
Who would have expected that on this godforsaken, desolate island lighthouse, there actually sat a keeper who could speak directly with the high-ranking officials of Landon.
Yet that high-and-mighty female investigator had recognized him but hadn't even batted an eye, not caring about his identity in the slightest.
It was as if the Sorenstein name he was trying so hard to claim simply did not exist in her eyes.
But then again, it made sense.
To those noble-born investigators in Landon, an illegitimate son of a noble family like him was only shown any respect because of his family's name in the first place.
Not to mention, if they came from a Magic family, they would be even less likely to spare a glance for a piece of trash like him.
In their eyes, probably only his brother, Aaron Sorenstein—that young master—was qualified to sit with them on equal terms in a parlor, chatting and laughing.
And now.
The man before him had swindled his moon silver powder with a few casual lies, and now had the nerve to tell him with a straight face that the Seventh Agency was not peaceful?!
Was this some kind of joke?!
Jack was extraordinarily furious.
From his great escape in the fires of Landon, to the humiliation at the port docks, to the full ten days he had endured on this wretched lighthouse.
All his grievances, fears, frustration, and mental pressure transformed into a fuse that completely ignited at this moment.
“You're brushing me off!”
Jack snapped his head up, his clear eyes bloodshot as he glared at Elias and roared frantically:
“Did you never intend to help me from the very beginning?! You just want the supernatural items in my hands, don't you?!”
“Then why don't you just kill me and drain me dry right now if you have the guts!”
“Why torment me with these official-sounding tactics?!
The young man's rationality completely collapsed, and the spirituality within him began to radiate uncontrollably, like a miniature storm suddenly brewing inside the cramped wooden cabin.
Seeing this, Elias raised an eyebrow slightly and quickly withdrew his hand from the young man's shoulder.
“Of course I'm not brushing you off!”
His gaze grew cold as well, and his right hand silently drifted toward the gun at his waist.
“Hey! Jack, though I might be a bit lazy and practical in my ways, you must understand one thing.”
“I didn't trust you to begin with!”
“Of course, I know you don't fully trust me either, so first, we must build trust.”
“Do you understand?”
However, Jack had clearly fallen into some kind of paranoid madness.
The spirituality inside him reached a peak at this moment due to his heightened emotions.
“Go to hell, liar!”
Jack screamed, raising his hands high. A surge of dark erosion energy, thick enough to look physical, began to rapidly gather in his palms.
Seeing this, Elias immediately conjured a Moonlight Barrier around himself.
Through the barrier, he couldn't help but complain loudly:
“Aren't you a fucking Life Scholar?!”
“You've studied some pretty sketchy things for a Life Scholar!”
“Calm down, kid!”
“Impulsiveness is the devil!”
Elias continued to jabber relentlessly as his own spirituality poured frantically into the barrier.
However.
Just when Elias thought Jack's gathering spell was about to erupt completely.
To his surprise, Jack suddenly fizzled out.
The spirituality he had barely managed to summon in his fury was sucked dry by his body's curse like a water pump.
The highly efficient operation of the curse drained Jack of all his spirituality in an instant.
“Uh...”
Jack froze in place, still holding his ridiculous pose with both hands pointing to the sky, the madness in his eyes vanishing completely within a tenth of a second.
Replacing it was a state of extreme exhaustion.
His limbs went limp, and he collapsed onto the floor like a puddle of mud that had completely lost all dreams.
“Just kill me already...”
The young man lay sprawled on the rough floor, completely giving up on life.
“I can't resist anyway. At least dying here is better than dying at the hands of the Mist Veil Society...”
Elias maintained his defensive stance, standing completely dumbfounded behind his shimmering silver shield for a full five seconds.
He stared at the young master from Landon sprawled on the floor, who had drained himself dry before even launching a single spell, his eyelids twitching violently.
Charging up for so long, only to cut his own power?
If battles in the supernatural world were all this hilarious, world peace would have been achieved long ago.
He had never felt so speechless. Elias rubbed his aching temples and muttered weakly as he deactivated his spell.
The silver barrier dispersed.
“Dammit!”
“Detestable teenagers!”
Rate on N.U.
