Chapter 76: Planning for the future
David turned his head, puzzled, as he looked at the woman. He couldn't understand how he had made fun of her.
"Yes, you! How insensitive can you be to laugh at someone else's misfortune like this?" The woman's voice grew louder, attracting the attention of nearby onlookers.
In the next moment, the crowd began to murmur, pointing fingers at David.
"Young people these days are so heartless," an old man sighed.
"If it had been his father, he would have understood how she's suffering," another chimed in.
Hearing their comments, anger began to rise in David's heart. He despised when people made assumptions about him.
David glared coldly at the crowd and spoke in a low, menacing tone, "Yeah, I was making fun of her. What are you going to do about it?"
As he said those words, he released a fraction of his cultivation pressure. The woman was suddenly overwhelmed, as if struck by an invisible force, and she collapsed to the ground. She wanted to speak, but no words came out, her eyes filled with fear.
If she had known beforehand that the young man with black hair was a cultivator, she would have kept her mouth shut. Realizing David's identity, the nearby crowd quickly dispersed, not wanting to get on the bad side of a cultivator.
"You're fierce, bullying the weak with your strength," Ashford remarked with a smile.
David ignored his comment and tossed a spiritual agreement in Ashford's direction. "Sign this agreement, and I'll give you the money," David said while intently looking Ashford.
Ashford caught the agreement and looked at David deeply. There was a sense of threat in David's words, as if something bad would happen if he didn't sign. But how could that be? He was a cultivator at the Golden Core Realm, already at the peak of the human domain.
He didn't need to fear anyone except a few people.
Despite the conflicting thoughts in his mind, Ashford signed the agreement without hesitation.
"Here's your money," David said after confirming the signature, tossing a ring filled with spirit stones toward him.
Ashford caught the ring and pocketed it without even checking its contents. He turned to leave, but after a few steps, he paused and looked back at David, speaking in a plain voice.
"If you don't want to end up like them, it's better to leave the Rising Sun Empire as soon as possible." Without waiting for a response, Ashford turned into a ray of light and disappeared.
David stared at the sky, lost in thought. Ashford's words weighed on him. The situation was bound to worsen. Staying here for much longer was not a good idea. But he didn't want to leave immediately. First, he needed to understand what was truly going on.
As David pondered, a familiar notification from the bank interrupted his thoughts.
[Regretfully, your client has died once again.
Even in death, the client must repay their debts; therefore, his soul was captured. You now have the following options. Please note that you can only choose one:
1 - Extract the client's Crystallization of Life (unavailable).
2 - Extract Ryan's memories from his birth until his death.
3 - Choose any item the client owned in his lifetime.
4 - Do nothing, let the compound interest accrue, and decide again when the client dies in his next life.
Please note that capturing the soul and imprisoning it requires a large amount of mana, so you only have nine minutes left to make a choice.]
"It's this guy again," David muttered to himself.
Sebastian, still thinking about Ashford's words, noted David's strange reaction. Ashford seemed to know something about the strange phenomenon that they didn't.
Meanwhile, David's thoughts were racing. "Why is it always this guy?" he questioned internally. He had given loans to many people, but in just four days, this client had reincarnated and died multiple times. This was becoming a true anomaly.
After a moment of consideration, David chose the second option again, and unknown memories began to flood his mind.
As he reviewed the memories, David sighed. Unlike last time, Ryan had only managed to live for ten years before dying of hunger. He hadn't even awakened his Crystallization of Life.
David wondered how the universe would judge Ryan now, with no achievements to his name—not even an awakening.
Time passed as David moved through the town, searching for anything useful. Soon it was nighttime, and he decided to head back.
Walking under the silvery radiance of the moon, David suddenly spoke. "Sebastian, do you know of a way to quickly escape this place?"
"Hmm? Manager, what do you mean by 'this place'?" Sebastian didn't answer directly but asked a question of his own.
"I mean this world," David clarified, gazing at the moonlit sky.
He was beginning to feel that trouble followed him wherever he went.
"There are ways, but I'm afraid I can't do anything right now. If we want to leave this place, we need at least the strength of the Nascent Soul Realm and the help of a Formation Master," Sebastian replied, stroking his beard. He agreed with David's idea—staying here any longer would only hinder their progress.
"A Formation Master, huh?" David repeated Sebastian words in his head and thought.
He didn't know anything about formation in the first place so he had no ideas how a formation master could help him.
"You don't anything about Formation?" David suddenly asked while raising one of his eyebrows.
This guy was fifty- thousand years old, he should atleast know something about it right?
After hearing David words Sebastian coughed and lightly said.
"I only know one or two things about formations." Sebastian looked slightly embarrassed as he said those words.
"But I know how to refine pills."
Sebastian also hurriedly added these words in the end.
"So you are a alchemist." David said in understanding.
"Yeah you can say that." Sebastian nodded at his words.
While talking about these things they were back at the Inn.
And to David surprise, Mary was standing at the gate and smiling while looking at them or to me more specific, at him.