ch.12

Extra long chapter this week.

Also I would appreciate it if you leave a review behind if you like the novel.

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The next morning I was woken up by the rustle of people coming and going around the base, as it usually is with a group of kids and teenagers the warehouse was reverberating with the loud sounds of laughter and bickering.

A kid that could be no older than 8 cautiously stuck her head in my room from the hallway, seeing that I was already awake she retreated with a squawk. Shrugging I started getting ready for the day and used some soul-energy to clean my body and clothes.

Feeling my shoulder length hair brush against my neck, I decided to do something about that too, I never liked having long hair. I imagined my hair becoming shorter until it was nothing more than a fade, short - almost bald at the sides with it being a little longer at the top.

"Woah!"

Glancing over I saw the same girl as before peeping at me with her mouth dropped open in awe. She must have come back when I was distracted and saw me use Magic to change my hairstyle, not that it really mattered. I would be amazed if Kai or Mili hadn't already blurted out everything they knew about me to anyone willing to listen.

"Uh-I was supposed to show you the way to breakfast if you were awake." the kid managed to stutter out loud after finally noticing that she had been discovered.

"What's your name?" I asked trying to make her come out of her shell, if I'm going to take over this gang I wanted the members to at least like me enough to not stab me in the back when I'm vulnerable.

"Ai," She whispered shyly, almost too soft for me to hear.

"Nice to meet you Ai, I'm Alexander."

Ai led me to a kitchen/cafeteria in the far back of the warehouse, unlike all the other partitioned rooms the cafeteria was a real room with a real door.

A long table full of different dishes was set out in the middle of the room like a buffet. Having shown me the way Ai skipped up to her friends and her own breakfast, her long black hair bouncing around erratically. I loaded my plate with steamed buns, dumplings, and scrambled eggs before joining the rest of the Hellions.

There were two different tables, one for the kids - anyone under 15 - and another for the older teens. In total the Hellions had 11 members, 8 of which I already met or seen in passing and 3 I was seeing for the first time.

I walked over and joined Nina and the others at the grown up table. I introduced myself to the only member at the table I didn't know, a 16 year old boy who introduced himself back as Bojing.

"Your hair is different," Rui stated in between bites of his own breakfast. Hearing this the rest of the group who had seen me the night before looked up from their food and scrutinized my appearance more in depth.

"It is indeed," I answered distractedly, swallowing a bite of my dumplings.

'This is good, I wonder who made it,' I thought, finishing the rest of the dumpling in record time.

Seeing that I wasn't going to explain any further Rui grunted and went back to his own meal.

"Did you use your power?" Kai on the other hand wanted some answers and wouldn't stop pestering me without me letting something slip or again muting him. Not even giving me time to answer his first question, he continued firing them off non-stop before ending with, "what is your power anyway, Rui and Mili said you did a lot of different things even healing me!"

At this Nina perked up and started listening more attentively without making it obvious that she was doing so.

"Yes, I used my power to change my hair," noticing that Kai was finally done shooting off his questions, I swallowed the food in my mouth and I answered the only two I heard, "and what my power is -" I paused and waited till everyone had leaned in to listen, "- you will find out another time."

I got a room full of boo's in response, I stuck my tongue out and went back to enjoying my breakfast.

"So is this Faizul a big deal?" I asked Nina after a while, changing the subject away from my powers and to something I needed to know if I wanted to run a gang, know your enemy and all that.

The room went silent at the mention of Faizul, Nina shoved her plate away and looked me in the eyes, "What do you know about the Six Dragons gang?"

"Not much, just that they are a big gang and took out the Black Tigers gang."

"Bojing go fetch the map of the city for me," Bojing started to stand up to do just that when I stopped him.

"No need," I waved my hand and made a perfect map of Macau appear on the middle of the table between me and Nina. If showing off some of my skills is going to help Nina make the right decision about working for me, without me having to make her, it's worth the miniscule amount of soul-energy I just exerted.

"Dude what is your power!" Kai screamed in between all the whoa's and aah's from everyone in the room.

Trying not to look impressed, Nina started explaining how the city really looked like from the perspective of someone in the known, "There are 4 great gangs in Macau, the Six Dragons, the White Tigers, The Black Tortoise, and the Heavenly Phoenix," Nina paused to make sure I was paying attention, which I was before resuming her explanation.

"The four big gangs have divided Macau in four different districts, one for each of them. Each gang has connections to both the government and the wealthy and influential citizens of the city, they each have a small army with tens of men that are armed to the teeth," she outlined each district with a different food item on the table, "they can do anything they want in Macau as long as they keep the charade of a lawful and peaceful city going in the foreground and the city keeps attracting tourists to the casino's."

She pointed to two districts she had outlined, "Right now the White tigers are at war with the Six Dragons because as you already know the Six Dragons destroyed the Black Tigers gang - the White Tigers boss's son's gang - who didn't have permission to operate in Faizul's district," I opened my mouth to ask but she answered it before I could, "if a smaller gang wants to operate in the district of one of the big gangs they need the permission of the district owner and are required to pay a percentage of their earnings."

"Let me guess you don't have permission from Faizul to operate in his district and now he is trying to take you out."

Nina stayed silent but Rui answered for her,"not quite, the Hellions aren't important enough for Faizul to go after us himself, normally he would have left us alone or let one of the smaller gangs under him take care of us, Nina however is a special case," he paused to take a bite of his breakfast no doubt to draw out the dramatic reveal,"because she is Faizul's daughter."

"Or as dear old dad likes to call me, his biggest mistake."

Not sure what to say to that, I did what I do best, make the situation more awkward, "So there is no problem if I kill him when the time comes, right?"

Nina looked at the map of Macau that I had conjured from nothing and really thought about it, she wanted to believe that I could kill her dad - I guess they really don't get along - but in the end it appears like I hadn't shown her enough of my capabilities for her to put her trust in me, "Sure" Nina replied doubtfully.

Having nothing more to discuss we finished our breakfast in companionable silence with the only sound coming from the kids table talking about what they were going to do today.

"Pandora's Box won't be open till 6 tonight, until then I have a few things to sort out. I will meet you out front when it's time," standing up Nina gave me one last glance, "what are you going to sell anyway?"

"I'm not sure yet," leaving her with that cryptic answer, I stood up to leave too and said my goodbyes to everybody for now. I needed to find a quiet place where I could be alone and do my mojo.

>>>><<<<

A moment of concentration and smidge of soul-energy guided my feet to a quiet and abandoned building that had been under 'construction' for the past few years. Another moment later the building was unremarkable and unapproachable for the rest of the day and ready for me to use.

After a bit of searching I found an empty room on the ground floor without any floors that was connected to the earth and sat down cross legged.

It was time to rip off The Gamer again, normally I would just conjure the thing I needed out of nothing and leave it at that but this time I wanted to try something else and see if it would save me some soul-energy in the process.

I had 9 souls in total in my mindscape right now, two of which are tied up to my super strength and tough skin making them unavailable until I release those abilities, leaving me with 7 usable souls.

The first thing I did was give myself the permanent ability to see all sorts of energies, at the last moment I remembered to add a way to deal with all the new information that would be streaming in my brain.

Being able to see the energies of the world and understand what they were was unbelievable.

It was like I had been living my whole life blind and deaf and suddenly a switch had been toggled on and I could suddenly see and hear everything. I could see the thermal energy of the room, the kinetic energy of the wind moving, the mental energy I made as I thought, and tens more energies flowing in this room alone.

And just as I suspected it began too much for me to handle real fast, my eyes started hurting and the biggest migraine I had experienced till now started forming at the back of my mind. Before it could form in its entirety my contingency kicked in and all the extra information was punted to my subconsciousness, leaving my vision clear again except for a faint inkling that energy was moving around me.

If I concentrated on which energy I wanted to see or even if there was energy somewhere, I could do so and still see everything. I did just that and concentrated in seeing the energy of The Melt, the elemental force of everything connected to earth and stones.

As you probably already guessed The Melt was everywhere around me from the building walls and minerals around me to the earth I was sitting on.

I focused all my attention on that energy and used some soul-energy to make it all rush to my outstretched hand in the form of a brown ball. Holding that energy felt weird, like I was holding everything that was even remotely connected to The Melt, stones, minerals and all.

Lifting my other hand I made a fire appear on it, and made all the fire energy it generated form together in a ball with the thermal energy in the room. It looked like I was holding a mini sun in my hand.

And now the hard part.

I used all my will and an entire soul worth of energy on the intent of the two balls of energy merging together and becoming an Elemental that would be connected to me and follow my every order, I kept its form small and concentrated the bulk of the energy in making its abilities stronger.

The combined ball of energy started convulsing and changing in between my hands. First becoming a featureless puppet made out of lava, then it started developing features, stones formed around its body giving the elemental a curvaceous figure leaving no doubt that she was female, and lastly a fiery mane of hair made of literally fire materialized on her head.

I looked at the 1 feet tall elemental floating in front of my face in surprise, this was not the form I expected it to take. As soon as the elemental was done taking shape, I felt a mind link form between the two of us.

The elemental blinked her molten orange eyes at me and cocked her head sideways. She was sending feelings of curiosity to me about everything, from across the link.

"Do you understand me?"

The elemental nodded her head, her fiery hair bouncing along like real hair instead of fire, all the while she was still blasting the mind link between us with her curiosity.

"I can't keep calling you the elemental, how about Seraphina? Sera for short," I asked, coming up with the name on the spot. Her curiosity turned into happiness, and she nodded her head again but a lot more vigorously this time.

"Seraphina it is then, I want you to look for gold and other minerals deep in the ground far away from any humans and bring them to me," I sent Sera a mental image of the minerals I wanted her to find, "Do you understand?"

Sera nodded and sent me the image of minerals I wanted back before diving into the ground like it was made of water. The ground even splashed like water before returning to normal.

Over the course of an hour Sera returned with everything I wanted and more, I made her return most of it just under the ground somewhere she could easily find it but humans weren't about to start digging.

I wasn't ready to move that much minerals just yet.

I spent the rest of the time talking with Seraphina, getting to know her and all her abilities she got from being both a fire and earth elemental while she melted what could be melted in ingots, only taking a break to go get something to eat. If I was going to use her for more than just collecting minerals I needed to know what she was capable of.

>>>><<<<

It was 5 minutes before 6 when I finally arrived at the Hellions's base. I ended up getting lost twice before I gave up and used some soul-energy to point me the way.

What?!

I have only been to the warehouse once. It was night when I followed Rui, Kai, and Mili there and when I left to go do my own thing my feet were on auto pilot.

I adjusted the straps of my brand new backpack in irritation. The weight of the backpack itself wasn't a problem for me but the straps kept biting in my shoulders because of the weight.

Even with my tough skin it felt uncomfortable.

Nina was already waiting in front of the base as she said she would, "The twins aren't patrolling today?" I asked when I was close enough, not having encountered them when I walked past the chain-link fence.

"They only patrolled like that yesterday because Rui and the other two hadn't arrived when they should have, normally we just use the lookout,"

"Good to know, so it's just going to be the two of us then?"

"Yes, it is better that as few people as possible leave the warehouse with the Six Dragons looking to take us out." Nina started walking in the opposite direction from where I just came, taking us away from the industrial district and to the city proper, "let's go, Pandora's Box is quite a ways from here."

Ten minutes into our little journey, I got tired of lugging around a backpack that kept digging in my shoulders and hailed the first taxi I could see.

I opened the taxi door and gestured for Nina to get in, she gave me an amused look but got in anyway, I got in after her.

"Where to?" The cabbie asked Nina.

"Pandora's Box," Nina answered casually like the taxi chauffeur should know where it was located.

"Yes Ma'am," the cabbie replied, a lot more respectful than a minute before.

I stand corrected.

"Pandora's Box is a high end store where the rich shop," Nina answered my question before I could ask again - does she have the power to know when people are going to ask questions? - , "this is of course just a front for their illegal business with the gangs," she whispered the last part to me.

She waited till the chauffeur started driving and wasn't paying attention to them to continue,"Pandora's box is where most of the gangs sell off the more expensive things we 'acquired' that we can't pawn off at normal pawn stores. The boss, Bao Lan has connections with a lot of influential people in Macau and even overseas who he sells to,"

She stopped before bitterly adding,"at least that is what I heard, I haven't dealt with him myself, the Hellions aren't important enough to make him deal with us personally."

"You won't be having that problem anymore when you start working under me, that Bao Lan will be tripping over himself to serve you."

A smile formed on Nina's face at the thought of the person that has been snubbing her all this time tripping over himself. Her mood was so good that she didn't even bring up that I used when instead of if when mentioning her working for me.

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Nina bounced up the small stairs leading to the three story building with a big golden sign identifying it as Pandora's Box. I trailed after her enjoying how her ass bounced along with her.

Two security guards in suits that cost more than some cars stood in front of the doors scanning everyone going inside, once in a while they would stop someone that didn't look the part of someone that visited such expensive establishments.

"He is with me," Nina said nodding in my direction before walking inside. The guards gave me some sideways glances but other than that they did nothing and let me walk in undisturbed.

The inside of Pandora's Box was normal. I was expecting the inside to be gaudy but it was a lot more down to earth wealthy, It was still giving the vibe that everything was expensive but without being over the top. Black vitrines were displayed at both sides of the first floor showcasing jewelry, watches ,and a lot more I couldn't tell you the name of.

At the end of the room was a staircase leading up.

"The first floor is for if you want to buy jewelry and other already finished products," Nina explained walking straight to the staircase, "the second floor is for buying or selling raw materials such as precious metals and minerals, we are going to the third floor where there are private rooms to carry out not-so-legal dealings."

I nodded at Nina's explanation and followed her all the way to the third floor, where another two guards were keeping vigil. They were huge specimens of humankind standing both closer to 7 foot tall than 6.

"Contact person," One of the huge men growled out, I felt my chest vibrate from the deepness of his voice. I reckon it was supposed to be a question but I doubt he could make anything sound like a question even if he wanted to.

"Xue Yu, tell her it's Hellion business," Nina said, rolling her eyes. Not that I blame her, I wouldn't want to go through this whole routine every time I came here either.

The other guard took out a radio connected to his earpiece and talked into it for a moment before listening to something someone at the other side was saying.

"Xue Yu, will be with you momentarily to take you to a private room," He said after he was done, his voice was a lot smoother than the other guard's.

We stood waiting at the end of the staircase for Xue Yu to arrive without being offered to go through or even a place to sit. I wonder if they let everyone wait like this or if it was another slight to smaller gangs like the Hellions, like Nina mentioned on the way here.

We ended up waiting for almost 10 minutes before a girl - Xue Yu I assume - in her late teens to early twenties came from further up the hallway.

"Follow me please," she nodded to the guards to let us through, which they did. She turned back around and started walking to a room, her posture was so rigid I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out she had a whole pole stuck up her ass.

Nina went after her quietly so I followed her example and did the same. She took us to a door that didn't look half as fancy as the other ones I could see further in the hallway.

The room itself was decent with two black sofas connected to the walls with a glass table in between them. As soon as the door closed after us, Xue Yu's posture relaxed and she surprised me by jumping at Nina and hugging her.

"Sorry for letting you wait but you know the rules."

"Don't worry about it," Nina answered, hugging her back, "Alexander, this is Xue Yu we have been friends since we were little."

"Best friends!" Xue Yu pipes in making Nina bop her on the head for interrupting her.

"Xue Yu this is Alexander."

"A new member?" Xue Yu asks looking me over, she knew everyone in the Hellions already and she didn't recognize Alexander, so he had to be a new member. But what was weird is Nina taking him here, she didn't even like taking the older members over to Pandora's Box.

"Something like that," Nina answers unsurely not truly knowing what I was at the moment.

Xue Yu knits her eyebrows at the weird answer but lets it go, if Nina wants her to know she will tell her, "Okay, let's get down to business before my boss has more reason to dock my pay."

"Is he still trying to sleep with you?" Nina asks both angry and resigned. Resigned because she knew she couldn't do anything to help Xue Yu other than having her quit her job, which Xue Yu would never do because she needed the money more than the harassment bothered her.

"Me and every half decent looking girl working here," Xue Yu said grimacing, "let's not talk about that, what do you have for me today?"

"Not me, him," Nina said pointing my way.

I had already taken a seat and removed my backpack while they were talking. Xue Yu took a seat on the other side of the table, leaving Nina to sit next to me.

"Okay, let's see what you have."

Reaching inside my backpack I started taking out things, with every new item the faces of Xue Yu and Nina became more and more shocked, the silence in the room was almost deafening.

I cleared my throat, making them close their gaping mouths with two distinct clicks.

"Are those real?" Xue Yu asked in a voice full of disbelief, pointing to the 1kg bar of gold, 1kg bar of platinum, a few emeralds, ruby's, fire opals, and last but not least a big rock of jade, on the table.

"Yep."

"I-I'm not allowed to make deals this big," Xue Yu Stuttered out unsure, "Wait here I need to report this to my boss."

She left fast after that almost like the hounds of hell were on her tail.

"Do I keep my promises or what," I asked Nina playfully, "we aren't even here for 20 minutes and already you get to meet Bao Lan."

Nina ignored my boasting and kept her eyes on the merchandise on the table, "Where did you get all this?"

"I got my ways, if you agree to work for me I will tell you."

I saw in her face that she was seriously considering it for the first time since I made her the offer last night, but before she could give me an answer Xue Yu came bursting in the room all ruffled. She blushed when she saw us looking at her and started fixing her outfit.

"She gets a commision for every deal she makes," Nina mock whispered to me. Xue Yu glared at her in response.

"Please come with me, my boss would like to meet you, in a better room," the last part was said with a scoff. I repacked everything back in my backpack and Nina and I followed Xue Yu further in the back where the better rooms were.

The room she took us to was a lot bigger and fancier than our previous one. there was a bar, tv, and everything. We weren't even in the room for 2 minutes when the door opened again and two men walked in.

The first man, an overweight man in his late 40s that was starting to bald at the crown, walked in like he owned the place - which he did - the second man, an even older man in his 60s with gray hair and all, followed him in a lot more subdued.

"I would like to introduce you to the owner of the Pandora's Box, Bao Lan," Xue Yu introduced the first man before moving on to the second man, "and this is our head mineral expert, Bing Jing."

"Is this the kid?" Bao Lan asked before Xue Yu could introduce us, ignoring Nina entirely.

"Yes, these are Alexander and Nina from the Hellions."

"Okay kid let's see what you have, and you better don't be wasting my time with fake stuff," the or else in that sentence went unsaid but everyone with a working brain heard it loud and clear.

Ignoring Bao Lan's useless threats I went up to the table and started to again unpack my merchandise. The first gem wasn't even halfway out my backpack when the old man cried out for me to stop.

"Wait, you had them thrown in your backpack just like that the whole time?, are you crazy!" Bing Jing screamed almost teleporting next to me with that little pillow you see people use for expensive things you don't want to scratch in his hand, "put them on here."

Surprised but not really caring I did what he said and put the gems and Jade on the pillow. The moment Bing Jing saw the jade he almost fell down from the shock and I could hear him whisper 'jadeite' before he recovered his composure.

"Are they real?" Bao Lan asked impatiently.

"I need to check everything and evaluate their value but from my initial lookover everything looks real," Bing Jing answered.

"How long is that going to take?" I asked, I had no desire to sit here doing nothing for hours.

"Just a few minutes, don't worry." Bing Jing replied already taking items to work with out of his side bag.

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His few minutes of evaluating turned into a half hour of boredom for the rest of us, or at least some of us, Bao Lan left after the first 10 minutes leaving orders to retrieve him when Bing Jing was done - the dick -. Most of the time was spent with Bing Jing looking at the jade, whispering to himself - and the jade - almost obsessively.

Noticing that Bing Jing was wrapping up Xue Yu left to go get Bao Lan, while I turned off the horrible drama Nina and I were watching on the tv.

"Hey!" Nina whined, "I wanted to see if they get together or not."

"Of course they get together," I scoffed, "it's a drama, they always end up together no matter what kind of shit they have done to each other."

Nina looked at me weirdly, and I had to remember that I was in the year 2003 and cliche scenes that people have seen thousands of times and have gotten tired off in the future were still new right now.

Xue Yu arrived with Bao Lan, saving me from having to explain a whole genre of tv and how abundant and repeating it will become in the near future.

"And?" Bao Lan asked Bing Jing as soon as he walked in the room.

"Let's start with the metals," Bing Jing said walking up to the 2 metal bars, "the gold, and platinum are the purest I have ever seen, they both weigh exactly 1kg, the gold is 24k gold and the platinum is 1000 parts pure."

He next went to the gems, "the gems are between 1 and 3 carats but what is surprising is that they have not been cut and there are no nicks from the extraction or anything," coming to the jade rock he hesitantly almost lovingly lifted it up, "the best however with no doubt in my mind is the Jadeite it is a magnificent green color with one of the best hues I have ever seen, it has excellent translucency and extremely fine texture, it is one of a kind."

With every new item and every word from Bing Jing the greed in Bao Lan kept growing.

Bao Lan shut up the still babbling Bing Jing before turning to me, "I will give you 100.000 Yuan for everything," he said, starting to walk out like the deal was already done.

I had no idea what this all was worth but I knew someone who did and it took me less than a second to get the true worth of my merchandise out of the mind of Bing Jing.

"No deal, my stuff is worth at least 2.5 million Yuan."

"Are you crazy, you should be glad I'm even offering street rats like you this much," Bao Lan said trying to hide his surprise of how I knew the worth of what I had.

"Nina let's go somewhere else, it's clear that we aren't going to be taken seriously here," I started packing up everything back in my backpack.

In the corner of my eyes I saw Bao Lan gesture in my direction, the next thing I knew I was flying through the air and hit the wall hard enough to break the wall and become embedded into it.

'What the fuck was that!'

Still dazed and surprised by the sudden attack that came from literally nowhere I stayed in the wall. That attack would have really hurt if I didn't have my mana shield on, that one hit took more soul-energy from me than all the shots I took last night combined.

Stupid!

I forgot to give myself super speed again even though I took note of it when I wasn't fast enough to dodge an attack from a normal human yesterday.

I took a moment to appease the murderous rage Seraphina was sending me over our link from the ruby ring on my right hand that was invisible to everybody but me. For someone that was clueless about almost everything she was imagining some disturbing ways to kill someone.

In the background I could hear the sound of Nina and Xue Yu screaming in surprise and fear, Bao Lan was talking shit and threatening Nina about doing the same to her if she doesn't tell him where we found the minerals.

"Bao Lan, are you crazy?! No one will do business with you again after they hear that you steal from your customers," Nina screamed angry.

"And who is gonna tell them, who cares if an insignificant gang like you disappears off the face of the earth," leaning towards Nina, he invaded her personal space while smirking, "the word on the streets is that you pissed Faizul off something fierce, maybe he will even reward me for taking care of you for him."

"I would care," I said, extracting myself from the wall, finally done calming down Seraphina and giving myself super speed.

"How are you still alive?" Bao Lan asked startled, "it doesn't matter this time there won't be enough left of you to get out of that wall!"

He gestures at me again. Concentrating on his movements I see the shadow of his right arm become longer and physical in slow motion. The shadow takes the form of a whip, I dodge to the side just in the nick of time, the air cracks after my dodge signifying the whip breaking the sound barrier.

"What? How!"

"You got me by surprise the first time it won't happen again,"I said looking at Bao Lan's shadow. I had a hunch about what was going on, hopefully it will pan out and not make me look like a fool, "I know you're in there, you can come out now."

Nothing happened for a second and I was about to play it off as me seeing things when I saw it move again.

The shadow starts to tremble wildly before it becomes smaller and a person starts emerging from inside it going from 2d to 3d until I am left looking at a kid made entirely out of shadows, the only thing that could be seen was the kid's blank eyes looking at me.

I knew it!

When that shadow whip attacked me I saw Bao Lan's shadow briefly transform into that of a child's.

"Kill him!" Bao Lan yells knowing that the gig was up.

Every shadow in the room starts moving and sprouting whips that shoot at me, I dodge what I can but there are too many of them coming from every imaginable direction, those I can't dodge or hit to the side I let my mana shield absorb the hit off while advancing forward.

I am almost on the kid when my own shadow starts strangling and restraining me. Smart kid, he had noticed that he couldn't get through my shield so he is trying to strangle me, unfortunately for him I'm too strong.

Putting some strength behind my movements I see my shadow bonds start to strain and break. Just as I'm getting ready to snap the bonds, I pause as I notice black liquid streaming from the kid's orifices.

'Is that blood?'

He coughts out a mouthful of that same liquid before stretching his hand in my direction making the shadows around me repair themselves and tighten even tighter than before.

Taking pity on the kid and guessing that he will continue until he dies I slowly break the shadows around my right arm. Raising my right hand I make a ball of light appear on it. I close my eyes and let the ball of light go off like a flashbang, lighting every nook and cranny of the room and removing all the shadows.

Knowing I don't have long, I am on the move as soon as the shadows evaporate from around me. The shadow kid who now looks like a regular 12 year old kid without his shadows around him drops unconscious before he knows what hit him - me -.

When the light leaves and everyone's sight is restored, they see me standing next to the unconscious kid. Taking stock of the situation myself, I saw that Nina had taken Xue Yu and hidden under the table, Bing Jing had thrown himself over the jadeite the moment the fight had started and was still there, and Bao Lan was running to the door no doubt to call for backup.

A bind hits him in the back before he can get any further. Ignoring him for now I look at the kid. The way he was willing to die to fulfill his orders and did everything Bao Lan said wasn't normal.

A moment of concentration has me looking through the kid's memories on fast forward. The most important parts are that his parents were killed and he had been kidnapped out of his bed, experimented on which left him with the power to control shadows before finally being sold at an auction to the highest bidder.

He had been programmed to see himself as nothing more than a weapon to be wielded by whoever bought him and for extra security there was a bomb in his chest that his owner could remote detonate whenever they wanted to.

Leaving the bomb for now - I don't work for free - I remove the programming from his mind and wake him up while I'm at it.

Tuning back into the room I ignored Bao Lan's screams of help, if no one had arrived to help him by now it probably meant that the room was soundproof.

"New plan, we are taking over this place," I told Nina who had finally extracted herself and Xue Yu from under the table now that the danger was over.

"We can't just take over Pandora's Box, do you even know how connected Bao Lan is?" Nina argued, "If the police don't get us, the gangs certainly will."

"Don't worry taking over Pandora's Box is going to be totally legal and I already told you to leave the gangs to me."

No gang will be complaining about me taking over Pandora's Box because they will be too busy trying to stop me from taking over their gangs. Now that I knew that someone was out there making their own Supers and selling them to the highest bidders I needed to take over Macau even faster than I was planning to, before every gang had its own Super.

Nina looked doubtful but remembering what I did not even 5 minutes ago, she nodded anyway.

Walking up to where Bao Lan was lying in front of the door I touched his head and extracted all his memories and knowledge connected to his business to the last dirty detail and put them in a marble I conjured.

"You bastard, You are going to pay for this!"

"Yea Yea, I heard it all before," So goddamn cliche.

"Shadow boy, you can stop faking unconsciousness. I was the one who woke you up in the first place," I told the shadow kid, "here is the deal I saved you from this piece of shit, I will even take out the bomb out of your chest. All you have to do is agree to work for me from now on."

The kid sat up and touched his chest in both hate and fear.

"What is your name?" I asked him.

"Hei Jiang."

"So what is it going to be Hei, do we have a deal?" Looking at the still glaring Bao Lan, I grinned, "I will even let you kill your former 'master'."

Hei grinned back, "deal!"

A shadow spike emerges from Bao Lan shadow before what I said could sink in his mind and impales him in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

Hei sat there looking at Bao Lan's corpse grinning all the while, it was kind of creepy seeing a kid enjoy killing people. Is that how I look after killing one of my enemies?

Now that that is over with let's finish this hostile takeover, pointing to Bing Jing who was still cowering over the Jadeite I make him float to me and touch him on the chest while making my hand shine with gold light before putting him down.

"I just put a bomb in your chest," I lied, "if you don't want to explode into little pieces you are going to close the store under the orders of Bao Lan and round up everyone who works here and take them to a room that can hold them all. You tell anyone Bao Lan is dead, you explode. You tell anyone what happened in here, you explode. You so much as try to hint something I don't like, you guessed it you explode!"

Bing Jing stood there trembling from fear.

"Now!" I screamed, making him sprint away faster than a man his age should be able to.

"You wanted to know what my power was right," I asked Nina who nodded, "I can make deals with people for anything they want and in exchange I get the energy their souls generate and I can use that energy to do anything I want." I explained to her only leaving a few things out.

I turned to Xue Yu next to Nina,"Now that you know all that, you have two choices Xue Yu I either remove your memories of everything that happened today or you make a deal with me and work for me and exchange I will let you run Pandora's Box for me as the new boss."

Xue Yu hesitated, "can you heal people?"

I nodded slowly not knowing where she was going with this.

"Instead of Pandora's Box I want you to heal my little sister, she has heart problems and needs an operation, that is why I work here in the first place."

"You can have both, I need someone I trust to run Pandora's Box anyways."

I made two contracts appear in my hand before giving both Xue Yu and Hei Jiang one, "read it out loud please and tell me if you don't understand something."

"Alexander gets half the energy my soul generates everyday and I'm not allowed to do anything that is considered a betrayal in any way," they read out loud.

I waited for a moment to see if one of them wanted to ask something. When neither said anything, I handed the both of them a pen to sign with. The moment they were done signing I felt something change in my mindscape and went inside to check. Instead of receiving two new souls, two artificial souls were being made from scratch and filled with soul-energy.

When it was done I had two new souls half the size of my other souls filled to the brim with soul-energy. The souls themselves didn't generate soul-energy but they could receive and hold it. On a hunch I tried to make one of the artificial souls bigger using soul-energy and it worked.

Something to hold soul-energy without it being wasted when I don't use all of it in a day could come in handy for when I have more soul-energy than I could use.

With a totally unneeded snap of my fingers I teleported the bomb from inside Hei to the table in front of us. It took a little more to heal Xue Yu sister of her heart condition, everything else that may have gotten fucked up by her condition, and to put a normal aura on her so that no one would suspect anything, but I didn't let it show.

It was the most energy intensive piece of magic I had ever done in one go, I had to use 3 whole souls worth of soul-energy for all of it.

I should have let Xue Yu bring me to her sister but no I wanted to be cool and waste energy finding her sister and then healing her from afar which all cost energy.

Fuck it, what's done is done, there is no use crying over spilt milk.

"Is that it?" Xue Yu asked doubtfully, unlike with Hei's bomb there was nothing physical to tell her that I had healed her sister.

"Yep, your sister is fully healed."

"Thank-thank you!" Xue Yu cried, running up to and hugging me.

"Don't worry about it, a deal is a deal," I mumbled from in between her breasts.

I love being short!

"One last thing," I said, touching the marble full of Bao Lan's knowledge to her forehead before going back to enjoying where my head currently was. Xue Yu gasped in a daze as Bao Lan's knowledge got painlessly transferred to her.

Unfortunately my time in heaven got interrupted by an out of breath Bing Jing barging in the room.

"I have done what you said, please take this bomb out of me!" he begged me as soon as he was done panting like a dog. I just hoped that him running like his life depended on it had helped to sell the story of Bao Lan calling for an emergency meeting.

Rolling my eyes from in between heaven I snap my fingers and make my hand glow gold again, "done."

Ignoring Bing Jing's questions, I look up to Xue Yu who was still recovering from her ordeal, "Are you ready to introduce yourself to your new employees?"

Xue Yu looks unsure for a moment before giving me a determined nod, "let's do it!"