The Discarded Son's Skill Market

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He sent Valia ahead, leaping through the trees to make sure they wouldn’t run into anyone.

The area was covered in extremely dense trees. The thick, heavy leaves not only blocked much of their vision but also made it difficult to hear. If it weren’t for Rango S’s enhanced senses—a powerful combination of Keen Senses and the senses of a cat as special as Valia—they both would have missed it.

The foliage was so dense that even after he got close, no one could detect him.

Valia looked down from the top of one tree, and Zaid from another in the opposite direction.

Several people were gathered around a man clad in black robes and a red sash around his neck.

Although everyone was dressed in green, brown, and black garments to blend in perfectly, Zaid’s keen intuition revealed the identities of some of them.

Robinson Shawn, Jackson Clark, and Luke. The others were strangers, especially the man in the black robes and red sash. He seemed to be the most powerful, but he wasn’t one of the Zacharys.

"Is anyone here from an affiliated family?"

He focused on listening.

After confirming a few things, Robinson Shawn stepped forward. "Mr. Rojo, the entire plan is proceeding smoothly. However, this time you’ve asked for too much to carry out in a single mission without raising suspicion."

Mr. Red—the man in black robes with a red sash—smiled. "There’s too much to do because the time is near."

"T-the time is near?" Robinson felt a strange sensation rise from his abdomen to his head.

Everyone present shuddered slightly. "Do you mean...?"

Mr. Red laughed. "That’s why I’ve come in person. The Crucible... is almost upon us."

Gulp!

"We’ll step up our mission, Mr. Red!" Excited, Robinson could only roar in a deeper voice.

"I’m here to help you, so you don’t need to worry too much. I came with two orders—that’s why I called you. They come from above."

At this point, it wasn’t Robinson who took the lead—it was someone else. A man cloaked in black robes and bearing no insignia.

"What are the orders from above, Red Lord? We’ll make sure to follow them to the letter."

The Red Lord stared at him intently, scrutinizing him. "I see, so you’re the leader here. Very well. The first thing is that we want 20 heads. It can’t be any fewer, but it can be more."

20 heads...

The man nodded. "We have enough."

Although it was going to be difficult.

"Although these 20 heads are just the first step toward the beginning of the end of our plan, they’ll be a great help in preventing us from having to divert our attention to other regions." The Red Lord explained why he was asking them for them.

Everyone was pleased with his request; after all, if they were in the spotlight, everything was better.

The Red Lord continued. "The second issue... is important. More so than the first." He widened his eyes as he looked around at the people gathered there. "Ancient blood. I need plenty of ancient blood."

Gulp! Once again, someone swallowed hard.

Ancient blood... that was going to be hard to find.

"The first request is relatively easy. We have plenty of that on hand. But as for the second..." The man in black was suddenly interrupted.

"I can get ancient blood," exclaimed one of them—Luke Shawn, to be precise.

Everyone turned to look at him.

A child? That was the first thought that crossed the Red Lord’s mind. However, he didn’t dismiss him because of it.

"Do you know where there’s ancient blood?"

"I know of an heir to the ancient bloodline." Luke Shawn spoke firmly. "He’s studying at the academy and is close to us."

"Oh?" This time, the Red Lord was genuinely interested. "Tell me more. Who is it? We can go after that person immediately."

Luke swallowed hard. "Well, sir. That person... I have romantic feelings for her. She’s a beautiful woman... I recently discovered she’s a sorceress, but I hadn’t wanted to mention it."

"Wow, and a sorceress among those three guys." The Red Lord smiled and walked toward him. "Don’t worry, I’ll let you have her for a while. We just need her blood, anyway. So tell me, what’s her name, and which team is she on?"

Luke got excited and nodded vigorously. "Her name is Alice Silvercrown. I don’t know whose daughter she is to have such exciting blood, but I saw her cast spells—especially fireballs. And she’s on my friend’s team." Luke finally pointed to Jackson Clark, who was standing next to him.

Robinson and Jackson stared at him in complete shock.

Was that woman really a sorceress? They had no idea!

The Red Lord didn’t care whether they knew it or not. He smiled ecstatically. He knew this was the biggest problem facing his two missions this time around, but The Crucible needed him, and he couldn’t refuse. Being able to find it so soon filled him with joy.

"All right! If what you say is true, I’ll grant it to you for a few months once we have her." He laughed happily and patted the young man named Luke Shawn on the shoulder. "You have a great future ahead of you—I guarantee it."

Luke Shawn nodded quickly and bowed before him. "Thank you, Lord Red."

Chss!

Lord Red spun around instantly upon hearing a strange sound of something breaking. His arm moved faster than his eyes could follow, and he hurled a strange piece of burning charcoal with crimson fire that flew through the air as if there were no distance at all. The charcoal pierced through the thick, heavy leaves of the trees, tearing a hole through them all until it vanished into the sky.

"Is anyone there?" Robinson Shawn and the others went on immediate alert and deployed their forces around the area.

Mr. Red frowned and slowly looked down, as if he were following something with his eyes.

It was one of the fallen leaves.

He walked over to it and carefully picked it up.

Everyone turned to look at him, confused. They hadn’t sensed anyone—so what was going on? Was it all because of a leaf?

However, there was a tiny strand of hair on the leaf, which was what the Red Lord had been examining. After a moment, he tossed it aside.

"Just a little black feral kitten. Nothing to write home about," he replied before turning toward them. "I have nothing else to do here. I’ll be waiting for you to make your move; I look forward to your good news," he said before leaping over the trees and disappearing into the horizon.

Robinson took a deep breath and looked at everyone else. "That’s twenty heads. Time to get to work."

"Yes, young sir," some of them said.

Others responded with, "Everyone to their posts."

The only one who gave a different response was Luke, who simply didn’t say anything at all.

"Are you worried about your little toy?" Robinson approached him with a mocking chuckle.

Luke, however, shook his head. "No. Actually, I was thinking about a black cat."

"That’s a strange thing to be thinking about right now," Robinson teased.

-

’Master, who were those people?’ Valia leaped through the trees and landed on Zaid’s shoulder.

He moved quickly through the trees and fled the scene. Fortunately, he was far enough away to slip off without leaving a trace, so no one followed him.

After moving as far away as he could while staying close to his group, Zaid leaned against a tree to process everything he’d just heard.

He had a lot to process—or at least try to understand.

Starting with one important question: What is *The Crucible*?

"It sounds like a ritual or some strange cult," he thought.

He’d never heard that name before...

"They said ’The Crucible’ was almost upon us... Is it a specific day? Or maybe a period of bad weather? Well, we’re already in the midst of an apocalypse that has claimed more than 3 billion lives—it’s hard to imagine a period of bad weather worse than that."

That choice of words meant that something was going to befall them. He ruled out the possibility that it was some strange cult and leaned more toward the idea that it was bad weather, a specific day, or perhaps... some kind of strange power.

And that was even stranger!

It seemed he needed to investigate further, because that name alone gave him a strange feeling of unease.

The second point was those 20 heads.

What did they mean?

Cattle heads?

Beast heads? Considering they were in a forest full of beasts, this option made some sense.

However... this was where the most important topic came in. The Ancient Blood.

"Does ’Ancient Blood’ refer to people with a connection to ancient powers?" Zaid asked Valia.

"Yes... speaking of which, that woman who splashed me a little while ago had hot blood. She most likely has good Ancient Blood."

Zaid nodded. "She’s Alice Silvercrown."

Alice is in danger. A tremendous alarm went off in his heart, so much so that he completely ignored Valia’s words.

They had mentioned that they needed "Ancient Blood"—so were they going to take Alice’s blood? That would surely mean killing her!

Why kill her instead of just asking her for a little of her blood?

Now it all made sense.

The Crucible... maybe it’s a ritual. The 20 heads might not be from beasts... maybe they’re human. And they need a lot of ancient blood—otherwise, the Red Lord wouldn’t have mentioned that he needed at least two...

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