The First Store System

Chapter 515: The Countdown(11)

“Do you want it?” The smile spread across the stall owner’s face widened, seeing the struggle on Carlos’s face as he asked again.

“Yes,” Carlos responded, giving in to his temptation.

‘Here it comes,’ Carlos then thought as he could guess what would come next from the stall owner’s mouth next.

“Since you want it so much, I will give it to you, but before that, you’ll have to fulfill my condition,” The stall owner smilingly responded.

‘I knew it. This bastard is going to torture me again,’ Carlos thought in his heart. He didn’t dare to utter these words out loud as he was now cautious of the stall owner.

“What is the condition?” Carlos then asked with a tense look on his face.

“No need to be so tense. My condition is pretty simple, just like the last time,” The stall owner couldn’t help but laugh, seeing Carlos’s reaction.

Carlos’s lips twitched, seeing the response of the stall owner. He could feel that the stall owner was only there to make him insane.

“If you want to get the 2nd Gradient Peach, then you only need to bring me the core of this city,” The smile on the stall owner’s face disappeared as he told Carlos his condition.

“Eh!” Carlos exclaimed in surprise, hearing the condition put by the stall owner. He asked the stall owner to put his requirement again since he couldn’t believe that he would put such a condition.

“Bring me the core of this city, and you can get the 2nd Gradient Peach,” The stall owner looked at Carlos for a few seconds as if he was an idiot, but he still went ahead and repeated his condition again.

The next moment, the stall owner and his stall disappeared without giving Carlos any chance to ask further questions.

After the stall owner left, Carlos heaved a sigh of relief as the quest was simple this time. He didn’t have to kill people with the appearance of his children.

‘Aren’t you being overly optimistic?’ A thought emerged in Carlos’s head, pouring cold water on Carlos’s excitement for getting a straightforward quest.

Time flew by.

“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD,” A scream that shook the entire city rang in the area.

“NO, I WOULD FIRST SKIN YOU, THEN BURN YOU, THEN HEAL YOU, AND ONLY AFTER I HAVE DONE THIS COUNTLESS TIMES, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD,” A few seconds later, even an angrier scream filled with cruel intentions rang in the area. Everyone, no matter where they were in the city, heard it, and only hearing it sent chills down their spine. They then prayed for whoever was going to be on the other side of the scream owner.

The reason for Carlos’s anger was the core in front of him. The core was spherical in shape when Carlos had first seen it, but now it had taken the appearance of his father. If he handed it over to the stall owner, wouldn’t that make him an unfilial son and a piece of shame for the race?

****

It has been one hundred and seventy-four years since Lily had fallen asleep.

“You lose again,” Katrina announced as a claw projection stood a few inches away from already severely injured Aakesh.

With just a single Katrina order, the claw would snape Aakesh into seven pieces. Since Aakesh had no way to leave out of this situation, Aakesh had no choice but to give up.

“You are a monster,” Katrina complimented Aakesh after he gave up.

Aakesh ignored Katrina’s compliment and returned to his chair.

Katrina only smiled since she had gotten used to such behavior from Aakesh.

The smile then vanished from her face, and a groan escaped her mouth, as suddenly she felt a thunder rumbling inside her head.

“He succeeded in making me feel pain,” Katrina muttered in shock as she understood that the thunder rumbling in her head was Aakesh’s doing. She knew that it was one of Aakesh’s later plans, which would occur in the middle of the fight creating a situation for Aakesh. But since Aakesh had lost, his move did nothing superficial except make Katrina feel pain for the first time since she had raised her strength by four levels.

“Why are you looking so grave?” Autumn asked when Katrina appeared on her chair.

“He made me feel pain,” Katrina told Autumn about the rumble.

“Really?” Autumn asked. “It had only been eight years,” She further added.

“What a Monster!”

“What a Monster!”

Both of them muttered at the same time, feeling awe of the talent of Aakesh.

“Hey, system, I need the testing slab,” Aakesh requested the system since he decided to check his strength today after a wait of eight years.

In the past eight years, Aakesh had been training with Katrina, who had raised her strength by four levels, and Autumn, who had increased her strength by five levels.

He had been unable to defeat Katrina, but now he could fight her for several minutes. Whereas with Autumn, the case was completely different.

After Autumn raised her strength by five levels, there was a sudden change around Autumn, and it was something unclimbable for even someone like him, who was considered a monster by Autumn and Katrina.

The strength gap hadn’t closed for years, despite continuously battling Autumn every day.

The best he had been able to do in these eight years of continuous training with Autumn was to dodge her first attack when Autumn didn’t even use half her power in the first strike. Even then, the duo had looked at Aakesh with shock.

Aakesh learned the reason for the shock from the system.

The power level of Autumn after she raised her strength by four levels wasn’t something that could be measured in Primal units. Instead, it would now only get calculated in the Sacred units.

It made Autumn’s power level at this point equivalent to a settled creature with divinity in the Sacred dimension.

Sometimes, Aakesh would feel fortunate that he didn’t battle Katrina to death since he hadn’t even seen Autumn’s full power, while Katrina was even more powerful than her.

There was the system that would help him survive, but even Aakesh could only imagine the cost he would need to pay to the system for saving him from a creature that had the strength of a God.