"How much does one cost?" Ali asked, his voice calm.
Jacob leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and tapping a finger thoughtfully against his coffee cup. He tried to recall the rough market price.
"It's a crafted item, made by the mages," he said finally, opening his eyes. "And it's pretty niche, too. Players usually only buy them for very specific situations, so they're not high in demand. I'd say… around 400 PC each."
Ali nodded slightly and opened his interface without another word. His black eyes flicked across the holographic screen floating before him.
At a glance, he confirmed Jacob's rough estimate — he had just enough to buy two at that price.
'Fastest way is to borrow…' Ali thought, weighing his options swiftly.
Without hesitation, he selected a contact he gained recently— and sent a short, direct message.
Jacob watched silently, sensing that Ali was working something out. He knew better than to interrupt when that calculating look settled on Ali's face.
Two minutes passed.
Then Ali smirked, closed his interface with a flick of his finger, and turned back towards Jacob.
"You will go around the market today and buy every one of those necklaces you can find," Ali ordered plainly, as if the decision had already been made and no discussion would be entertained.
Jacob blinked, taken aback for a second, then leaned forward with a frown.
"Okay… one, I don't have the money to do that," Jacob said realistically. "And two, why the hell are we stocking up on all those necklaces?"
Ali's smirk widened slightly.
"I have thirty thousand PC for you to buy them," he said casually, as if that amount were nothing more than pocket change. "That should get us about seventy-five necklaces. Of course," Ali added with a slight tilt of his head, "you can also use your own money to buy more if you want."
He lifted his cup of hot chocolate and finished it in a single long gulp.
Jacob whistled under his breath. Thirty thousand PC for necklaces? Whatever Ali was planning, it was big.
"As for why…" Ali continued, his eyes narrowing into slits of cold amusement, "let's just say someone who's very capable with Telekinesis is about to start climbing the ranks. Very soon."
Jacob's eyes sharpened instantly, his mind clicking into gear.
"That's a big score indeed," he said, a wide smile spreading across his face. His instincts told him this wasn't just about some pocket change. This was going to make waves.
Ali nodded once, slowly, approvingly.
"I already sent the challenges," Ali said, lowering his voice slightly. "Set for the day after tomorrow. You have to hurry and buy them now. Of course," he added with a glint in his eye, "we're going to make our money after the fights. Not before."
Jacob chuckled darkly, understanding Ali's plan perfectly now.
"Of course," Jacob said, a wicked grin growing on his face. "We buy them at 400 PC each, then after you destroy your opponents with overpowering Telekinesis, a rumour will spread like wildfire. Everyone will hear that Ali is tearing through the rankings and that fighting him without a necklace is suicide."
He chuckled again, leaning back lazily as he rubbed his fingers together in a money gesture.
"And that's when we, the only ones holding the necklaces, come in and set the price sky-high."
Jacob was already seeing visions of mountains of Paradise Coins in his future.
But he sobered quickly, narrowing his eyes as he asked carefully, "But I have one question. What's my cut?"
Ali didn't answer immediately. He just fixed Jacob with an unblinking, cold stare, his black eyes seeming to bore straight into Jacob's soul.
"What do you think?" Ali asked coolly, one brow raising slightly.
Jacob shifted in his seat, feeling a bead of sweat roll down his neck.
"Twenty percent of the profit?" he offered meekly, hoping for the best.
Ali's expression didn't change. His eyebrow lifted a little higher.
Jacob swallowed. "Fifteen percent?"
Still nothing.
Finally, Ali spoke, his voice utterly devoid of emotion.
"Ten. And that's me being generous."
Jacob grimaced dramatically and leaned back in his chair.
"Ali, come on… I'm doing all the work here," he pleaded.
Ali tilted his head, almost mockingly.
"Oh really? So you're the one fighting to the death in the arena?"
Jacob threw up his hands in defeat, knowing he couldn't win this argument.
"Okay, okay," he said finally with a groan.
Satisfied, Ali leaned back as the old French lady arrived at their table carrying a large tray stacked with golden, flaky pastries. She placed it gently between them with a polite nod.
Jacob smiled at her and grabbed a steaming hot pastry, dipping it into his coffee without hesitation.
Ali followed suit, savouring the buttery richness and soft crumble of the pastry in his mouth.
Between bites, Jacob spoke up again.
"So you gonna tell me what you've been up to lately? From what I hear, you've been a very busy man."
Ali shook his head, a small smirk playing on his lips.
"You know how annoying it is that all I hear wherever I walk is, 'Oh, can you believe he went out with her'?"
Jacob laughed, almost spitting out his coffee.
"Why care so much about who I fuck?" Ali said casually.
COUGH COUGH
Jacob nearly choked, pounding his chest to clear his throat.
"Goddamn, Ali," he gasped, laughing. "You switch up too fast sometimes, man."
Ali shrugged, his expression amused.
The two continued their casual conversation, eating and drinking without a care in the world, the little French cafe their own private sanctuary from the chaotic buzz of Paradise outside.
Half an hour later, Jacob finally stood up, brushing crumbs from his lap.
"Alright, time to get rich," he said, smirking.
Ali watched him leave…
'I staked my lightsaber for the thirty thousand,' Ali thought, pulling up his interface briefly. 'The merchant wanted five thousand in interest within a week, but that's nothing.'
He closed his interface with a flick, his PC now showing just a little more than a thousand left.
He had already wired the thirty thousand to Jacob — a gamble he had no doubts about winning.
'I have to fight ten people in one day…' Ali thought calmly, his mind already preparing for the brutal road ahead. He had methodically challenged the player ranked 9500, then 9000, and kept stepping up by increments of 500 until he reached the 5000th place.
'Around 5000 is where players start to have a similar number of attribute points to me. They'll put up a real fight,' Ali analysed with his usual cold logic.
'Of course, if I really wanted to, I could challenge much higher… but it's not worth it right now.'
Pushing his chair back, Ali rose to his feet and left the cozy French café behind, ignoring the curious gazes that trailed after him. He didn't feel like wasting time wading through the busy streets.
Instead, he simply took flight — shooting into the sky like a black bullet, leaving behind only a faint shockwave of displaced air — and headed straight for the training hall.
Once there, he approached the front desk and rented a small section of the massive field for his private use. An indestructible wooden dummy awaited him at one end, the familiar sight standing unbothered amidst the flat sandy ground. Around his rented space, a shimmering blue barrier materialised — strong enough to block vision and to contain any accidents… supposedly.
[PC: 1122 > 1102]
Ali paid 20 PC for two hours without a second thought.
'Time to test the passive skill… and see how long it takes for me to refill my entire Spirit pool now,' he thought, his sharp gaze falling on the simple wooden dummy.
He cracked his knuckles and tilted his head slightly.
'Now what better way to empty my entire Spirit fast than…'
Closing his eyes, Ali entered his Spirit realm, the familiar endless mist swirling around him. Before him stood the massive gate engraved with ancient dragons — a sacred monument to his unique contract.
'Power,' Ali commanded without hesitation.
The heavy gate shuddered before a thick tidal wave of black Spirit poured through its cracks and devoured his five Spirit points instantly.
Back in the real world, Ali's eyes snapped open — and the burning sensation hit him like a hammer.
His black hair floated upward, swaying as if underwater, while ghostly wisps of cosmic grey flame began dancing around his body. A faint glow rose from beneath his skin, outlining his powerful frame like the first light of a dying star.
Ali gritted his teeth as he focused inward, channeling Force Sense to better feel and control the volatile power rampaging through him.
'I can feel it better with the Force now… it's like an internal bleeding, but the blood is pure fire,' Ali thought grimly, feeling the searing heat rip through his body like a river of liquid steel.
He tried to clamp down on the energy, to isolate it inside his left arm — but immediately his forearm swelled grotesquely, the flesh beginning to bubble before his body's insane regeneration corrected it.
Ali frowned.
'I can't hold it in one place yet. At least… not now.'
He exhaled slowly, allowing the power to flood through his system evenly. The fiery energy responded by flowing faster, hotter, and the glow from his skin intensified until his veins themselves looked like molten cracks beneath stone.
'Experimenting time is over,' Ali decided, raising his uncovered right arm. He carefully directed the rampaging energy into it, concentrating it carefully…
His right arm shone — a pure cosmic white laced with streaks of swirling grey flame. Then, without mercy, the fire exploded out through his palm, eating away the skin and exposing a shining white core.
The flame gathered in front of his palm — not as wild, chaotic tendrils this time, but as a single, perfectly smooth orb. Compact. Condensed. Refined.
It was a sphere of destruction so dense it seemed to bend the very light around it. Reality trembled near its surface.
Ali's eyes gleamed as he aimed the growing sphere directly at the wooden dummy.
He could feel the last of his unstable power pooling inside it, coiling tighter, growing hotter with every heartbeat.
Now.
"NOW!" Ali roared with pure dominance, letting go of the pressure all at once.
CRACK—!!
The sphere shattered in his hand with a sound like the cracking of heaven's own bones.
A devastating pulse of force expanded out first — an invisible shockwave that made the very air itself snap — before everything in front of Ali was consumed by a roaring pillar of cosmic grey fire.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
The beam didn't merely shoot forward — it tore through the training field like an angry god's finger carving through a canvas of sand and stone.
The heatwave that accompanied it was so violent that the blue barrier shielding the area shuddered violently, its surface warping like liquid glass under a forge. Dust and blackened grains of sand were atomised instantly where the beam touched.
The indestructible dummy at the heart of the blast was swallowed completely, the cosmic fire passing through it without slowing — a testament not to the dummy's strength, but to the beam's reality-defying power.
The sandy ground was burned black and scooped out into a trench that extended all the way to the far wall. The once-clear air became heavy and distorted, rippling with residual energy.
Ali's right arm, which had unleashed the beam, melted off at the shoulder — dissolving like candle wax under the sheer backlash.
Meanwhile, far away on the second level, inside a massive control hall filled with thousands of floating screens, one tiny white rabbit chewing on a carrot suddenly froze mid-bite.
Toto, the administrator of Paradise, squinted his red eyes and leaned closer to the screen replaying the footage.
There, displayed in high definition, was Ali — standing at the heart of a crater of smoking sand, his arm gone, but his body unwavering.
"Incredible," Toto whispered, tossing his carrot aside in excitement. "Truly incredible… You keep surprising me, little monster…"
He clicked back on the footage and replayed it again and again, studying every second of Ali's destructive display.
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