Chapter 182: Restocking
Chapter 182: Chapter 182: Restocking
Chapter 182: Restocking
After leaving the Combat Chamber, Rhain walked directly toward the residential sector assigned to the Silver Badge disciples, making his way to Residence Number 59.
When he arrived at Neve’s courtyard, the gates were slightly ajar.
Rhain simply knocked slightly in the door.
The doors soon swung open, revealing Neve.
Her auburn hair was still a messy bird’s nest, and the interior of her room was somehow even more catastrophic than the last time he had visited.
"Ah! I knew the god of wealth would return!" Neve grinned shamelessly, pulling the door wide open. "Did you run out of materials already? What do you need today?"
Rhain didn’t waste time on pleasantries.
He raised his hand, and a spatial ring materialized in his palm.
He tossed it lightly into her hands.
"I need another bulk order," Rhain stated. "Fifty million Aetherium Crystals worth of Epic-Grade herbs. The exact list is inside."
Neve, who had just caught the ring with a bright smile, froze entirely.
Her sharp eyes went completely round, and for a full three seconds, she simply stopped breathing.
"F-F-Fifty..." Neve croaked, her voice pitching up high. "Fifty MILLION?!"
She frantically projected her Spiritual Sense into the ring.
When she saw the literal mountains of glowing Aetherium Crystals stacked inside, her legs instantly gave out, and she had to lean heavily against the doorframe just to keep from collapsing.
She stared at Rhain as if he were a certified lunatic.
"Are you insane?!" Neve shrieked, all pretense of business etiquette thrown out the window. "It hasn’t even been five days! How in the world did you burn through the last massive batch of Epic-Grade herbs so fast? Are you eating them like rice?"
Rhain looked at her dramatic outburst, and asked with a quiet sigh, "Can you buy them or not?"
"NO! I CANNOT!" Neve practically yelled, "Do you have any idea how much attention a fifty million Aetherium Crystal purchase will draw?! If I walk into the vault and buy this many top-tier Epic-Grade herbs under my Master’s name, he will literally peel the skin off my bones!"
She took a panicked breath, her chest heaving.
"Besides, the Academy’s herb vault isn’t an infinite bottomless pit! If I keep demanding such an outrageous volume of rare herbs, the logistics elders will eventually notice the deficit! They will absolutely restrict my purchases, Master Rank breakthrough or not!"
Rhain listened to her frantic rambling without interrupting.
He understood her fears were completely justified.
A sudden, massive drain on the Academy’s restricted resources would inevitably trigger an internal audit.
The Stormveil Academy was vast, but what he was demanding wasn’t ordinary rare, and uncommon grade herbs, but the epic grade ones.
The academy could not have a very huge stockpile of such precious herbs.
If the Academy’s internal supply was pushed to its breaking point, the resulting investigation would inevitably trace back to Neve, and then the chain of inquiry would lead directly to his doorstep.
That was unacceptable.
"You’re right," Rhain conceded, "I underestimated the constraints of the Academy’s supply chain. This will be the last bulk order I place through you."
Neve wanted to say something to refuse again, but Rhain continued to speak.
"Five million Aetherium Crystals," Rhain said, "That is your processing fee if you get this done."
Neve stared at Rhain, her sharp eyes blinking rapidly.
Five million Aetherium Crystals.
That was an exorbitant fortune that could fully fund her alchemy experiments for the next few months without her ever having to beg her Master.
The temptation was physically painful to resist.
"Deal!" Neve blurted out.
She forced a serious, completely unconvincing cough to mask her excitement.
"Ahem! I will... I will have to bribe Uncle Luan very heavily, and maybe forge a few extra requisition slips... but I can get it done!"
Rhain let out an amused scoff.
"Have them delivered to my courtyard in two days," Rhain instructed.
"I will have them at your door within two days!" she promised brightly.
Rhain gave a brief nod and turned around, walking back toward the quiet pathways of the Inner Palace.
"It seems the Academy is no longer a viable long-term supplier,’ Rhain thought, his dark grey eyes narrowing slightly. ’I will have to establish a completely independent supply chain as soon as possible."
_______________
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
As promised, Neve stood at his door by the early morning of the second day, her usually sharp eyes were framed by heavy, dark circles.
She looked like she hadn’t slept for a single second in the past forty-eight hours.
"Here! I got them! I actually got them!" Neve whispered frantically, pressing a jade spatial ring into Rhain’s hands with trembling fingers.
Her eyes darted around paranoidly.
"If the Alchemy Division conducts a full inventory check this month, I am dead. Completely and utterly dead! I am taking my five million processing fee and locking myself in my room until next month!"
Without waiting for a response, she scurried out of the courtyard like a fleeing a plague.
Rhain returned to his courtyard.
There was no time to waste.
Vulcan had sent another transmission talisman just hours ago.
Celestial Elixir Pavilion’s initial inventory was completely empty, and they needed the supply urgently.
Rhain walked briskly into his underground cultivation chamber, and started the process of refinement.
With his Soul Power elevated to a dimension infinitely approaching the Domain Master Realm, handling Epic-Grade herbs was no longer a challenge—it was an assembly line.
With a wave of his hand, massive bundles of raw herbs floated from the spatial ring and plunged directly into the blazing cauldron.
Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame instantly incinerated the impurities and extracted the pure medicinal essences.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The lid of the dark-gold cauldron flew open repeatedly.
Batch after batch of perfectly round, flawless Epic-Grade pills shot into the air, raining down into the hundreds of empty jade bottles Rhain had prepared.
After more than ten hours
Rhain had successfully refined nearly five hundred flawless Epic-Grade pills.
It was a staggering volume that could single-handedly disrupt the entire economic ecosystem of Stormveil City.
Rhain wiped a thin bead of sweat from his forehead and stored the massive haul into his spatial ring.
"This should keep them satisfied for a while."
Raising his hand, Rhain brushed his fingers across his face.
In the blink of an eye, the handsome, eighteen-year-old youth vanished, replaced by an ordinary, middle-aged man with sharp eyes and an unremarkable aura.
Faceless Emperor Mask.
It was extremely important to ensure that no one knows his real identity,
Under the cover of the dark night, Rhain easily bypassed the Academy’s standard gates and soared silently into the clouds, heading straight for the commercial heart of Stormveil City.
_______________
Even though it was the dead of night, the street outside the Celestial Elixir Pavilion was anything but quiet.
Dozens of luxurious carriages were parked haphazardly along the avenue. Servants and elite guards belonging to minor nobles and wealthy merchants had literally set up camps outside the shop’s closed doors, absolutely determined to secure the first spots in line for the morning.
Rhain bypassed the chaotic street entirely, landing silently in the pavilion, phasing through the defensive arrays Vulcan had installed at the rear entrance.
Inside the shop’s heavily warded back room, Vulcan, Luka, and Ives were sitting around a table, looking completely exhausted but buzzing with restless adrenaline.
The moment the spatial arrays rippled, all three Core Formation mercenaries instantly shot to their feet, their weapons drawn.
But seeing it was Rhain, they immediately relaxed.
"Master!" Vulcan quickly lowered his weapon and bowed deeply, followed hastily by Luka and Ives.
"The situation outside is quite lively," Rhain remarked.
"Master, it is beyond lively. It is simply madness," Vulcan reported with euphorically. "Three great Noble Families have already sent investigators to pry into our backgrounds. Some rogue factions even tried to test our defenses last night, but Luka and Dex broke their legs and threw them into the street. The demand is outrageous."
Rhain simply nodded. He flipped his palm, and a glowing spatial ring shot through the air, landing perfectly on the table before Vulcan.
"Inside are roughly five hundred flawless Epic-Grade pills," Rhain stated calmly.
The three mercenaries visibly staggered.
Five hundred?
They stared at the spatial ring as if it were a ticking bomb.
"Maintain the artificial scarcity," Rhain ordered. "Keep the daily cap to thirty pills strictly. Let the Noble Families investigate all they want. As long as they do not know the source, they will not dare to make a definitive move against you. Our secrecy is our biggest shield."
"We understand, Master!" Vulcan and others responded together, their eyes burning with a fanatical loyalty.
With the restock complete, Rhain didn’t linger for very long.
The Boundless Sky Wind surged once more, and he vanished from the room as silently as he had arrived, leaving the mercenaries to handle the impending morning frenzy.