The Captain counted the gold bricks again and made sure his original count was right. When he finished, he once again ended on 53 gold bricks. "How much does little Jas owe us again?" the Captain asked.
"51,832 gold coins, captain," the woman answered swiftly.
The Captain turned around toward Ning. "Did you make a mistake, lad?" he asked. "You gave us 53 thousand gold coins."
"Nope, no mistake," Ning answered. The Captain thought for a bit. "Are you paying her interest of 1% at the same time?" he asked. "Even so, you are still paying us nearly 700 more coins."
"Oh, no," Ning said. "I have no obligation to pay for what she owes you as interest. That was not part of my oaths."
"That's… true," the captain said. Still, things didn't make sense to the man at all. "Why then? Why pay me so much over? Do you have a favor to ask of me?" "Absolutely not," Ning said. "What I do want to do is confirm something that I've only heard from Jasmine, which I don't know is true or not."
"Hmm, what thing?" the Captain asked.
"Jasmine said that people can pay you back in Zurin treasure, is that true?" Ning asked.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"It is true," the captain said.
"And treasures without any owner costs 10 thousand gold coins?" Ning asked.
The captain's eyes lit up. "Yes," he said happily. "It's only for paying back debt though, not to sell it for such. I won't give you gold coins if you bring such a treasure, but you can certainly take back your gold instead."
Ning shook his head. "No need, I do not need gold from you," he said. "Then continuing with my question, it must be true that you say Zurin treasures with owners cost just 1000 gold coins. Is that true as well?"
"That is true," the Captain said. "Since Zurin treasures with owners can't be used, it is…"
The captain's words slowed down as a massive smirk appeared on Ning's face, making him wonder what he had done wrong. Had he fallen into some sort of trap?
Ning's grin was the largest it had ever been. "I paid you 1200 extra gold coins. Since you say a treasure with an owner costs 1000 gold coins only, keep the rest of it as a tip from me. Cheers."
He raised the chalice in his hands, and the captain finally realized what was going on.
"That chalice is not for sale, you br—"
Before the captain could finish his words, a loud crack caused everyone's attention to immediately go to Ning's hands. When they did, they saw a large crack in the Chalice that Ning held.
"What… what are you doing?" the Captain asked.
"Just destroying what is mine," Ning said and with another flex, completely destroyed the Zurin treasure, letting the golden shards of the metal fall to the ground.
The captain watched in absolute horror as the treasure that made his life was completely destroyed in front of him.
"NOO!" he screamed, reaching out for the broken shards, only to realize that he was too late. A lot of the people in the room suddenly shuddered as though something cold passed through their spine and something heavy in their chest moved away all of a sudden.
Jasmine grabbed her chest in a look of horror and surprise as she realized that upon the destruction of the chalice, all oaths she had made since she was a child had suddenly disappeared.
Tim simply looked in horror. For the first time in his life, perhaps in anyone's life, they had seen a Zurin treasure being destroyed.
"You bastard!" the Captain shouted all of a sudden and shot his pistol at once.
Ning grabbed the bullet in mid-air between his fingers and held it between him and the captain. The black and silver metallic bead that was the bullet gave off slight smoke while Ning showed it to the captain.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Quite crude craftsmanship, won't you say?" he asked. "I'm sure I can make it stronger and more smooth."
Ning took the bead in his palm and started crushing it. When he opened his palm, the bullet was fully flat, glowing slightly red. "Now, let's fold it upon itself."
He folded the metal as though it were a piece of paper, and by the time he folded it 3 times, the bullet was red hot. The energy that had been required to make something like this happen was enough to head up the piece of metal.
Ning then placed the folded bullet between his two flat palms and started rolling it around. As the Captain watched in horror, Ning lifted his palm and showed a perfectly smooth and circular bullet that was half the size of the original bullet and completely silvery instead of having black and silver patches.
Ning flicked the bullet and the captain felt something hit the side of his arm before a loud bang sounded in the distance.
When the captain realized what had happened, his army was already dripping with blood with a massive wound on his arm. He dropped to the ground in pain and started screaming.
Ning looked all around him at the people who were starting to stand up after their first effect. They looked at Ning and then the captain.
"Do you want to fight?" Ning asked them all. "I can fight if you want."
A woman slowly put down her pistol and put up her arms as she slowly backed away. One by one the others did the same. "Good choice," Ning said and couched to the ground before grabbing the captain hard enough. "I've made my payment, have I not?" The captain still grunted in pain, but Ning tugged on his scalp harder, forcing him to look up. "Answer me!"
"Yes!" the captain shouted. "You paid. You paid it all."
Ning let the man go. "Good," he said. "Since I paid it all, this money is no longer mine. So… I suppose it is time I do what you did when you were a pirate, Captain Darkwater."
"What is yours, is now mine."
Ning took all the gold bricks and walked away.