The Ultimate Evolution

Sheyan elegantly smiled as he listened to the old man introduce the objects in this store. However he treated this old crook’s words as garbage, letting them into his ears from the left and out from the right. Following that, he hurriedly shouted out to the streets.

“David! Over here, lend 2 guineas to me!”

“Wait!” Mole Waller suddenly cried out with a sunken face, and hastened. “Alright, I’ll buy this golden coin, just state your price.”

Sheyan instantly replied.

“12 guineas, because I want to purchase your holy tree branch, you can pass me 10 guineas instead.”

By now, Sheyan knew that he had been made a fool of by Chris. That brat had only told him the mission sequence and omitted the need to purchase something from Mole Waller, in order to reach a friendly and amicable stage. Of course, a person with high charm would be able to instantly trigger the mission. Hence, the goal of that stinking worm, Chris, was very simple – he wanted Sheyan to hit a chokepoint and subsequently return to find him. At the same time, to suck out more benefits.

After all, the nightmare realm was always about personal gains first. Under most circumstances, a person’s actions would be driven by the benefits involved.

Sheyan knew he had to negotiate with Mole Waller and not blatantly gift him the gold coin as his charm wasn’t high. This old man was obviously a greedy and dishonest shark. The shark’s nature was to not engage in unprofitable business, therefore if merely gifted that gold coin, he would most likely still be unable to reach the mission’s criteria. Then, he would ultimately still reach a chokepoint and return to beg Chris for help.

Hearing the words ‘10 guineas’, this old man pounced up like a mad dog, shouting out with saliva flying. “No way! The maximum is 6 guineas!”

Probably understanding that his outburst had no effect, Mole Waller exhibited a hooligan-like behavior and refused to return the gold coin.

Sheyan had tried using both carrot and stick but still failed to yield results. This was because this side mission’s starting point resided in this crook’s head. Therefore, he unwillingly completed the deal.

At this moment, he once again tried mentioning the lady Tatasha. To that, the old man finally opened his mouth.

“Tatasha…. This girl actually remembers me.”

Sheyan’s ear became fully erect, however… following on, there was nothing! Instead, the old crook started to spew a whole load of rubbish.

“Hais, I’ve not talked so much to someone in a long while. I’m so thirsty, not sure if the opposite Iron Hoop tavern has restocked on its golden rum.”

Sheyan resisted his rage, thinking that simply inquiring from the opposite tavern would seal the deal. To his horror, a tiny bucket went for one guinea, which was roughly the size of a draught beer. Without a choice, Sheyan spent his money to please this old man.

After sampling the fragrant rum, Mole Waller was satisfied and eventually divulged everything.

The old man was actually a fallen nobility from India. When he was young, he interacted with someone he shouldn’t have, and thus became a sailor. He then followed the then East India Trading company’s ship to Europe. In his frustrated and destitute state, he met a group of gypsy forces. Forced by poverty, he turned to robbery and was discovered by a male gypsy, he then miscalculated and killed the guy.

The gypsies were nomadic ethnicity, nomads of the grasslands who had no fixed residence. The grassland nomads travelled in search of water and pasturelands, sailing on schooners from one city to another. Therefore, their status was low and the law held them in disregard; providing them the bare minimum of protection.

Under such circumstances, the murderous Mole Waller fled. Ever since then, he would get nightmares every day; nightmares of him killing that gypsy.

This persisted for a month and Mole Waller, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, once again returned to the group of gypsies. He then discovered someone had placed a curse on him, and that someone was his victim’s fiance – Lady Tatasha. Because Tatasha’s wedding was an arranged one, she did not harbor much hatred towards Waller; placing a curse of only 3 years and then letting him free.

After a mouth of golden rum, Waller sighed and spoke:

“Go on, what is her message?”

Sheyan stared into Mole Waller’s eyes while muttering the key phrase of this hidden mission.

“The living nurtures the dead, and loneliness kills the warmth, nine wild ducks fly over a fierce tiger.”

After listening to those strange words, Waller’s wrinkles became more profound. Pausing he then shook his head, and walked into the room. Then, he retrieved a sparkling and transparent fragment, before passing it to Sheyan. Sheyan instantly received a notification.

[ You have acquired a mission object: Gypsy Prophecy Crystalball Fragment – Using it will give light on your future path, allowing you to step onto life’s correct crossroads ]

Once the mission had advanced to this stage, it had no relation to the old man Waller anymore. Sheyan heaved a sigh of relief; walking to the shore, he placed the crystal ball fragment into the sea. The crystal ball fragment melted into a fragmented brilliance, and started fusing together. As the rays gradually combined, the phosphorescence formed into a sentence, then it vanished.

「 When the midnight bell sounds, whimpers of the departed spirits would be restored into truth, history’s dust would be wiped away, the truth will finally be revealed 」

Sheyan stood up, breathing with satisfaction. Once the mission had advanced to here, it was left with the last step – once midnight reaches. Although Chris was a devious brat, he merely played a few tiny schemes, because he knew that if he went overboard and the two fell out, he being the weaker one would greatly lose out.

Sheyan was prepared to make another trip to the port to gather information. Furthermore, he was currently carrying quite a load of cash, and thus wanted to drink a few mugs of rum to increase his completion of the drunkard milestone.

Yet to his pleasant surprise, his drunkard milestone had unexpectedly reached a completion rate of 72/100! The milestone had mysteriously increased by 50 points! Thoroughly thinking, he immediately recalled that he had accompanied Mole Waller and drank a few mouths of golden rum. Unless one mouth of golden rum was worth 10 mugs of normal rum?

With this notion, Sheyan made haste to that Iron Hoop tavern, requesting for another two buckets of golden rum! Instead, he was cruelly informed that there was no more stock, any amount of cash would be useless. Without a choice, he returned to find Mole Waller. Yet from afar, he could see that old man was already drunk, and snoring loudly on sales counter. The two small wooden buckets were sprawled to a side, with the only word that could describe its contents being ‘Droplets’. Thus, Sheyan could only leave in disappointment.

Looking at this milestone lacking in 28 mugs, Sheyan calculated, that was about 6 – 7 beer bottles in volume. To him, this wasn’t a difficult mission, he then sat down and started drinking. People who went to the tavern mostly came to pastime, even those with good alcohol tolerance would leisurely drink. The crowd in the tavern were dumbstruck by Sheyan’s behavior of repeatedly downing mugs of rum. He completely treated rum like water!

Sheyan was currently alone, in one breath he drank the entire 28 mugs. Feeling a little fuzzy, he received a series of notifications:

[ You have achieved your first milestone as a contestant ]

[ Your achievement point is 1. (Accomplish 10 milestones and you will receive achievement points) ]

[ You have received a title: Drunkard ]

[ Drunkard: once you drink an alcoholic beverage, your HP will decrease by 3%, damage rate will increase by 4%, duration of 60 minutes. ]

[ At one time there can only be one title in effect, do you want to equip this title (drunkard)? ]

[ Initializing advanced milestone: Intoxicated man ]

[ Intoxicated man completion requirements: Drink every variant of rum, variants as follows: ]

[ Mulata: Manufactured by Santa Fe, Villa Clara Province, Rum company ]

[ Ronrico : Puerto Rico manufactured rum ]

[ Lambs potato rum: British Navy rum ]

[ Cockspum: Federation of the West Indies Distilleries manufacturing company ]

[ Lemon Hart rum: Granulated sugar and rum commercial trading Harto company ]

Sheyan was relatively satisfied with this ‘Drunkard’ milestone. Because to a person who engages in close combat, he did not require precision skills, where a tiny aiming mistake would result in great long range misses. The decrease of HP by 3% wasn’t serious, however that additional 4% bonus damage was extremely enticing. Even if he had to use 3% of his HP in exchange for 2% damage bonus he would gladly do so.

More importantly, one mustn’t forget Sheyan’s current status in the present world. He had to face both threats from the government as well as the underground society! Even if he received unimaginably strong equipments, he would not be able to bring them into the present world, which offered no help to his condition. However, a title was like a personal attribute, it was considered an abstract item and thus would not be restricted. Since that was the case, it would be able to provide some sort of support to his real world self.

Currently in Sheyan’s mind, he was forming up an extremely digressed train of thought… “those historic drunken fist masters, could they have been contestants who were similar to him in achieving this drunken milestone?! That is why without wine they would unable to activate the title, thus their powers would naturally greatly decrease.”