Ch 26 – Success and Repeated Failures
"I accept!" No Del shouted with resolve and glee.
Hearing those two words akin to the melodious hymns of angels, Kaleido secretly lets out a sigh of relief and dropped his hands to his sides.
His rapidly beating heart calmed down, and the cold sweat that accumulated on his back seemed to diffuse as the situation was finally over.
"Thank you, No Del! I assure you that with my help, you wouldn't regret this decision!" Kaleido smiled and sat down back on his chair.
"Now, we just need to finalize the details so I can finally prepare the contract," Kaleido said, paused, then leaned forward, "I should probably be back in a few days with the contract."
"Since we're already here, you wouldn't mind splitting the shares into 50-50, right?" Kaleido asked with a smile.
'Please accept, I'm funding you with a pouch full of primeval essence stones already! This is hundreds of primeval essence stones! This is the crystallization of hours ' Kaleido prayed inside his mind while remaining calm on the outside.
Not noticing Kaleido's well-hidden thoughts and peculiarity, No Del nodded his head without hesitation, "Of course!"
'Who wouldn't agree to such a deal? With his funding, I would be able to quickly expand my business and spread the glory of my family's legacy!'
Hearing his affirmative answer, Kaleido laughed madly inside as he couldn't help but sneer at this huge success, 'HAH!'
'No Del, even if you are my partner, you really are a fool! A lack of education really does stunt the intelligence of man.' Kaleido envisioned himself with a devious grin, laughing as he continued in his mind, 'Just for a few hundred primeval essence stones, I would be able to earn many more! Perhaps in a year, I would be raking in over a thousand primeval essence stones a month without even lifting my finger!'
'Maybe I was born to be a capitalist!' Kaleido smiled warmly on the outside. 'Sigh, geniuses really are meant to win, even if it's in another world. No, don't be too complacent, Kaleido.'
…
In the bustling streets of Lo Clan City, a certain person wearing a black cloak swiftly moved through the shadows of the streets, passing by person after person unnoticed.
As the cloaked figure moved through the crowded streets, he paused and stopped in a certain dark alley as he watched many people wearing robes with a mysterious and powerful aura walking in a certain direction.
"So, it is true," Kaleido muttered with a soft-spoken voice, bent down his back and head slightly, and continued walking through the streets silently.
In Lo Clan City, there are many stores and shops littered everywhere in a chaotic manner. If one wants to, one can most likely find what one wants if one explores enough throughout the city, but that would take too much time.
Due to this problem, people started to create an area where stalls and stores gathered. In time, the people started to call it Lo Clan City's trading sector. In it, one can find an assortment of stalls and stores, selling all kinds of items, from normal items such as combs and shirts to mystical items like food for Gu or weapons.
Of course, most of the stores there are for Gu Masters, with the ones specifically catered towards normal mortals being rare and few.
Due to its value and potential risks, many Lo Clan Gu Masters can be seen patrolling near the periphery of the area, closely guarding and watching the abundance of Gu Masters to make sure that no problems were to occur inside their own clan's city.
As he was about to enter the sector, Kaleido saw the Lo Clan Gu Master wearing a white martial robe stop him with a word, "Stop."
Halting his step, Kaleido gave a glance towards the guard who stretched out his arm and pat him on the shoulder.
"What is it?" Kaleido said, his voice full of amicableness and elegance, unlike his sketchy cloaked appearance.
Finding himself surprised by the friendliness of what he thought to be a suspicious person, the guard paused for a second before turning around and said, "Nothing. I mistook you for someone else. Go on."
Nodding his head, Kaleido continued on his way and successfully entered the trading grounds of Lo Clan City, all the while smiling as if he has grasped something important.
'Like I suspected, "It" can't affect the thoughts of humans directly. Just like how No Del didn't reject my proposal because it was just too alluring, if the guard who probably thought of me as a sketchy figure suddenly turned out to be a nice person, he would most likely dismiss that thought of me being a bad person.' Kaleido felt as if he had grasped an important aspect of "It" and had gained a deeper insight into his enemy.
'This means that "It" isn't that powerful when it comes to influencing the minds of others. In a way, I can assume that what "It" affects isn't the conscious mind, but perhaps the subconscious mind. Or perhaps it can guide the conscious mind but not directly influence it forcefully like inputting the idea of killing oneself.' Kaleido rubbed his chin, pausing as he leaned on a wall in the brightly-lit streets of Lo Clan City.
'This is in line with how beasts were easily manipulated into attacking me back then. A lone human is definitely a great snack for a beast emperor. Perhaps "It" has amplified the thoughts of eating me to the maximum, causing the beast emperors to go on a rampage and lust after me.' Kaleido shuddered at the thought.
But as he delved deeper into the problem, a new thought arose within him, 'If "It" is so powerful and mysterious, then why hasn't "It" affected my own thoughts and fool me into falling for a trap? Maybe there's a deeper secret to this situation than I originally thought.'
'Perhaps…' Klein's eyes shone with brilliance as a grin appeared on his face, 'Perhaps this is the perk of being an otherworldly transmigrator?'
…
As Kaleido walked all around the area with curious eyes, he also saw Gu Masters like himself wandering the streets.
Some wore robes, some wore cloaks to hide their identities, and some were from Lo Clan; a wide variety of Gu Masters presented themselves to Kaleido as he observed from the shadows.
'If I don't gather their attention, then with "It" having limited influence on the thoughts of humans, it surely won't cause them to attack me, right?' Kaleido moved his gaze away and looked around the random stores and stalls in hopes of finding what he wants.
Entering what appears to be a respectable store, he found himself surrounded by glass cases where Gu can be found sitting inside, displaying themselves to the customers of the shop.
With a quick glance and using his newfound experience, Kaleido determined that some were time path, some were space path, but most of them were fire path, qi path, and the other prevalent paths in the current era.
Looking at the other Gu Masters holding a scroll, he quickly deduced what needs to be done and walked towards the male attendant wearing a green robe near the entrance of the store.
"Do you perhaps need a scroll of all our Gu Worms, sir?" The attendant greeted them with a smile while perfunctorily taking out a green scroll from the shelf near him.
Nodding his head, the attendant handed him the scroll and added, "I hope you can find your desired Gu Worm here, sir."
'If this was a normal store, with a mortal attendant, then the attendant would have greeted me as "Lord Gu Master" or something like that, but in here, the attendant seems to be a Gu Master himself. Heh, as expected of a high-quality store designed for Gu Masters, even its attendant is a Gu Master.'
Unfurling the scroll in front of him, Kaleido randomly sat down on a chair and examined the contents of the scroll.
Looking at the assortment of Rank 1 and Rank 2 Gu, he confirmed one of the general info he gathered from this world and sighed, 'A Rank 1 Gu would cost anywhere from a few primeval essence stones to tens of primeval essence stones, while Rank 2 Gu would mostly be around the tens to hundreds of primeval essence stones range. In a way, I'm really affluent as I can perhaps earn as much as a Rank 3 Elder of a clan, though maybe an elder of Lo Clan already earns more than a thousand primeval essence stones every month.'
Dismissing his thoughts, Kaleido sifted through the Gu Worms listed on the scroll and targeted those of space path, which reduced his picking options by a lot.
"Rank 2 Space Pellet Gu, Rank 1 Space Platform Gu, Rank 2…" Reading out the names and general effects of each Gu, Kaleido couldn't help but find the Gu in the shop underwhelming compared to the ones he has on him.
Space Blade Gu, even without the amplification of his black markings, is a high-tier Rank 2 Gu. It not only has high attacking power that can cut through steel with ease, but it can also even shoot out sword-space beams for long-range attacks.
Displace Domain Gu can not only teleport him but others as well within its domain, and it also has the ability to act as an amplifier of his spatial awareness.
Finally, Formless Bubble Gu can not only act as his storage, but it can take on multiple forms such as a full-body barrier that can absorb and block attacks.
In a way, his current set of Gu Worms is specially catered toward him, and he doesn't need any more Gu in offense, defense, storage, and investigation.
The only other Gu he needs is a healing-type space path Gu, but hope seems dim as he hasn't seen a healing-type Gu yet.
'Tch, space path already isn't that proficient in healing, and there is relatively few healing type space path Gu worms in the first place.' Kaleido cursed, thinking about the general description of paths.
'For a path to really become a path, it must incorporate all aspects of Gu Cultivation. From offense, defense, storage, refinement, and such. Due to this, all paths have their own methods of healing, but space path is unfortunately on the lower end of this spectrum when it comes to healing.'
As Kaleido expected, there wasn't a healing-type space path Gu in this store, but he wasn't that affected by it.
Bringing the scroll back to the attendant, he left the store and headed for another one.
Just like before, he grabbed a scroll, browsed through the space path Gu, saw that there wasn't anything that he found interesting, and left.
Again and again, he repeated this monotonous cycle and was met with failure after each attempt.
'Sigh, I knew that space path wasn't that great with healing, but is healing-type space path Gu really that scarce? Do I really have to go in seclusion and try to create my own healing killer move from scratch?' Kaleido chuckled in a self-deprecating manner and arrived at another store.
Staring at the entrance of the store listlessly, Kaleido lets out a long sigh and muttered with a hopeless smile, "They say that third time's the charm, then shouldn't it also be sixth time's the charm?"
Calming himself, he walks into the store and stops in front of the attendant wearing a blue robe.
Casually extending out his hand, the attendant seems to know what he meant by his action and handed out a white scroll to Kaleido.
Walking towards another random seat, he gripped the scroll without any expectations and slowly unfurled it bit by bit.
'Maybe I'll have to become more pessimistic to not be disappointed by this. Though I guess this might be karma from all of the heinous sins I have committed all throughout my entire life.' Kaleido grimaced and glanced at the scroll without any expectations.
But in the next moment, it was as if he saw a ghost as his eyes widened with surprise, and his mouth turned agape.
AN: This chapter has 2043 words.
You know what also failed?
YOUR AUTHOR GOT REJECTED ONCE AGAIN! LET'S GOOOO!!!
Okay, that sounds insane but hear me out. I was planning on asking someone out for the stupid ball our school has, but they then messaged me showing that they already know so I just grabbed at the chance to get rejected and now I'm just happy as hell.
Well, I lied, because I'm not rejected yet, but I'm already living in the rejection timeline using my pessimistic prowess to warp my perception of reality.
Whew! Now I don't have to worry about messaging them: "W-Will you please be my p-partner for the b-b-ball (blushing emoji with index fingers pointing at one another)"
Yes, that's not a joke, that's what I planned to actually send. I already got rejected by them once so I really don't care about their image of me all that much anymore.
Ey, now I don't have to ask someone out because I already did, so that's not my problem anymore.
If you don't wanna get rejected like me, then you might as well send me some power stones, save the book to your library, and comment your tragic life in the comments below.
(January 28, 2023 – 429th day of writing)