After a bit of exploration all while collecting (stealing) some excess money from random rich young master’s, Rhys finally found an inn.
His perfect mastery of Basic Stealth was a great advantage.
[Why did you ’take’ money from them? Don’t you have low-grade spirit stones?]
A low-grade spirit stone was worth a hundred gold coins, meaning ten thousand silver. A clean-looking inn cost almost a single silver for a day.
"Dummy, what if they don’t have change? I’m merely helping them."
[True...]
Rhys smirked. At this rate, he would corrupt the System in no time and make it an extension of his own brain.
Paying the attendant, he rented the master bedroom of the inn for a month. Tipping the wide-eyed man generously—ten coppers—he climbed the stairs to his room.
The inn wasn’t as extravagant as other inns in the town, so the room, despite being the master bedroom, was simple: a bed, a table, and a chair with an attached bathroom.
But it was enough for him. He might have rented a luxurious inn with the money he had, but that would also make him the target of much scrutiny.
A private space with a secure door was all he needed. After all, he wasn’t here to live lavishly but to commit a crime.
That evening, he ventured out again. His destination was a grand, three-story building in the center of town. It was built from white marble and dark timber, with large, enchanted lanterns casting a golden glow over its entrance.
A large, stylised sigil of a roaring flame—the Ashton family crest—was proudly displayed above the main doors.
This was the Golden Phoenix Auction House, the crown jewel of his father’s commercial empire, now a source of immense profit and pride for the Ashtons.
He didn’t go inside. Instead, he found a street urchin and, for a single copper coin, purchased a paper catalog for the auction scheduled in two days.
Back in the privacy of his room, he unrolled the list.
His eyes scanned the pages, passing over rare herbs, powerful armour, and Earth-Grade techniques that would fetch astronomical prices.
He wasn’t interested in those. Stealing a headline item would provoke a relentless, kingdom-spanning manhunt from the Ashton family.
But stealing a few minor, less-valuable items?
That would be seen as a provocation, a slap in the face from a rival family like the Crestfalls or even the Thornes, trying to sabotage the Ashtons’ business.
It would sow chaos and suspicion among his enemies, while he, the real culprit, remained invisible.
He found what he was looking for, circling three items on the list.
Lot 27: The Shadow-Sting Dagger. A Low Common Tier weapon. Sharp, durable, and enchanted to be silent as it cuts through the air. Perfect for a stealthy hunter.
Lot 42: Spatial Pouch. A small storage artifact with ten cubic feet of space. A Low Common Tier item.
Lot 58: Skill Manual: Viper’s Kiss. A Mortal Grade (Mid) dagger technique. It focused on swift, precise strikes with the presence of poison.
They were valuable to him, but in the grand scheme of the auction, they were trifles. Perfect.
Night fell, blanketing Greenleaf Town in darkness. A sliver of moon offered little light. Rhys, dressed in dark clothes, slipped out of his inn.
He was a shadow melting into other shadows.
Greenleaf was a strategic town, so no major families in the province had bases here—a tactical understanding between powers.
However, they all had a military presence. That, too, was heavily controlled.
Stealth wasn’t an easy skill to master. Unless one dedicated precious time, they couldn’t master it to initial mastery, let alone perfection like him.
Few, if any, assassins in the province had mastered it to perfection, so the journey to the auction house was rather easy.
He met many assassins in the shadows, remaining unnoticed by all of them. Sometimes he appeared behind an assassin stealthily and stole their money pouches.
He was that silent.
The auction house was quiet, but he knew it was heavily guarded.
There was a chance of Tier 2 (Energy Gathering) elders on guard duty. Rhys knew he was strong, but against a Energy gathering cultivator who could coat themselves with Qi and infuse their skills with it, he wasn’t sure.
Maybe he could escape, but not without injuries. Injuries would not be a problem for him, but them finding out his identity would leave a trail of annoying hunters on his back.
’System,’ he commanded. ’Analyse the defences of this building.’
[Analysing [Golden Phoenix Auction House]... Cost: 1 year of lifespan.]
’One year? Not bad.’
It meant he would take one year to analyse the defences of the auction house if he tried on his own.
Would he be offended by this notion?
[Don’t worry, Host. As your strength increases and you begin to learn more professions, the dependence on me will also decrease. There will come a time when you don’t need me at all. I hope you will not forget about me then.]
’Oh... mate. I hope you will turn into a jade beauty.’
[Command error! System voluntarily deleting that uncivil command.]
Rhys smirked, staring at the three-dimensional map that bloomed in his mind. Blue lines showed the patrol routes of the guards, both inside and out.
Red dots marked the locations of simple pressure plates and Qi-based alarm formations in the corridors and around the main vault.
Green lines highlighted structural weak points—a loose window grate on the second floor, a section of the roof with older tiles.
Rhys stretched, licking his lips in anticipation.
This was going to be his first exciting adventure. He couldn’t help but smile. Savoring a few moments to control his excitement, he finally moved.
His perfected stealth was supernatural. He flowed across the street, his feet making no sound on the cobblestones.
He reached the wall of the auction house, and with a single, effortless leap, he landed silently on the roof.
He moved to the spot the System had marked green and, with careful precision, pried a window open.
Slipping inside, he breathed in the still, cool air. The mental map from the System guided him, showing the exact path to take to avoid both the guards and the glowing red traps.
He moved through the darkened halls like a phantom, his Void-Tempered body so perfectly controlled that he didn’t disturb a single speck of dust.
He found the storage room where the smaller auction items were kept. The door was locked with a heavy iron bolt and a simple Qi lock.
For anyone else, it would be a major obstacle. For Rhys, it was trivial. He focused his strength into his fingertips and, with a quiet snap, broke the internal mechanism of the iron lock.
He then placed his palm over the Qi lock and fed a tiny, disruptive pulse of his own energy into it, scrambling its formation.
The lock clicked open.
Inside, shelves were lined with boxes and display stands. Using the lot numbers from the catalog, he quickly located his three targets.
The dagger was in a velvet-lined box, its blade a dark, non-reflective metal. The pouch was simple leather, with a faint shimmer of spatial energy around it. The manual was a thin, bound booklet.
He took only those three items, tucking them securely inside his clothes. He left behind boxes containing far more valuable jewelry and pills, ensuring the scene would look like a targeted act of sabotage, not a simple robbery.
He also left a few copper coins as payment for the items. A sinister smile touched his lips as he imagined the face his uncles would have seeing this ’payment’.
’I should have bought them a potion to resist coughing up blood.’
[From an economic point of view, I would suggest against that. They will never show gratitude; rather, I suspect they might hate you more.]
’Yeah. True. They are pretty ungrateful fellas.’
Otherwise, they would never have expelled the son of the man who sacrificed his life for the family.