In the middle of the night, the pill markets of the outer region remained open and bustling as usual, since the alchemy pill trade never stopped, regardless of circumstances or time — especially for cultivators.
A pair of dark blue eyes coldly watched the brightly lit shop from a dark alley near Fatty Billy's.
Ace had been watching the shop for an hour now, having assumed every shop closed by midnight, just like elsewhere in the city.
He'd expected it would be easy to slip in once the shop closed, but he hadn't imagined the pill market stayed just as busy at midnight as during the day. Had he known, he would've planned differently.
'What now?' The situation felt bleak.
'I only have one day left. I have to do this, no matter what — I have to!' Ace steeled himself, calming his nerves. He scanned around for new ideas, but nothing came to mind.
---
Inside Fatty Billy's shop,
Billy was in a sour mood. Yesterday, a "rich kid" from the inner region — or so he'd assumed — had promised to return with his family to buy out his pills.
It had seemed like a golden opportunity to befriend a family from the inner region. But to his fury, the brat never showed. He'd even beaten a few of his servants for no good reason.
It was already the middle of the night, and business had slowed, leaving Billy bored and drowsy. So he decided to take his usual nap.
Billy kept no shopkeeper, trusting no one but himself with his money. That's why he ran the shop alone, closing it only during the slow midday hours.
Ace waited silently in the alley for any opening, watching Billy's every move like a hawk. After a while, he noticed Billy growing sluggish, his head beginning to nod.
'Just a little more,' Ace thought hopefully.
Then he saw Billy's eyes close — the moment he'd been waiting for. After five restless minutes, he finally made his move.
'Now or never.'
Taking a deep breath, Ace activated Stealth.
A strange power — Qi — surged through his body, and his figure grew transparent, fading into the darkness.
Once in stealth, he activated his second skill, Silent Steps. Again, he felt the Qi flow, making his feet feather-light.
He darted toward the shop like an arrow, senses alert to every movement around him. Holding his breath, he reached the entrance and slipped inside without alerting Billy.
Now that he was under the shop's light, anyone who looked closely enough might spot him — his stealth wasn't perfect.
As he entered, Fatty Billy's eyes were shut, his snores audible.
'This bastard is sleeping—good.'
Ace moved to the rear of the shop on silent feet. He saw nothing but a plain wall — no one would guess a secret door lay hidden there.
He dropped both skills once he reached it. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead — running both skills at once was exhausting for someone who wasn't even a cultivator. With no time to rest, he activated his third skill: True and False Eyes.
His pupils turned gold, and gleaming gray vertical lines appeared on the wall before him. Following them, he could faintly trace the outline of a door.
Oddly, a small dark gap sat among the gray lines, near the middle-right of the hidden door.
The gap didn't surprise him — he recognized it as a flaw in the array. He pressed his index finger to the dark spot and activated Treasure-Opening Hands, its first form: "Finger Key."
The skill had five forms; Finger Key was the first.
He'd only barely managed to master the second form, with great difficulty — though in his desperation to save Alina, he hadn't noticed how unusually fast he'd been learning.
His index finger turned metallic as the skill activated, strange patterns spreading across it. The moment they appeared, he inserted the finger into the gap like a key.
Information about the array's structure flooded his mind. Unfazed — he'd expected this — he moved his finger in subtle, precise motions, guided by the knowledge.
Click.
The door materialized before him with a soft sound.
'So this is what the skill feels like when it works. It's incredible.' Sweat beaded across his forehead, but his pale face was lit with elation.
With the illusion array already disabled, it didn't take long to open the lock array with Finger Key as well.
He grabbed the handle and eased the door open a crack, making no sound, then peered inside.
Through the gap, he saw the two guards asleep in the corner, like logs.
'They're asleep too. Luck's on my side.'
Sleeping at this hour was normal for them — no one dared rob Fatty Billy. The biggest reason was that no one knew where his treasury was, and even those who did would still have to get past the illusion and lock array first.
The instant anyone touched it without authorization, the alarm would trigger, and the whole shop would wake. That's why the guards slept so carelessly.
But Ace was different — he had thief skills granted by the System.
No one could have imagined he could see the flaws in an array with his True and False Eyes, or that he possessed a skill like Treasure-Opening Hands. He was, for all intents and purposes, the perfect thief.
He crept into the room, past the two sleeping guards, and activated True and False Eyes once more.
Scanning the room, he finally spotted what he was after.
'Ah, so that's where the treasury is.' A jagged section of wall sat in the far corner; he moved toward it.
Reaching it cautiously, he crouched down.
After confirming the guards were still snoring, he placed two fingers on the uneven corner of the wall.
Just as before, gray lines traced out a small door — but this time, two dark gaps appeared among them. He pressed a finger to each. "Treasure-Opening Hands, second form: Two-Finger Key."
As the skill activated, his index and middle fingers turned metallic, sliding into the gaps just like before — though this time, a new pattern formed across them. Information about the lock array poured into his mind once again.
His fingers moved in intricate, distinct motions — an almost mesmerizing display of the second form's technique.
Ting.
A sharp sound rang out in the dead-silent room.
Ace, deep in concentration, flinched at the noise. It wasn't loud, but in this silence, it might as well have been a gong. His face went ashen, his heart nearly stopping. He glanced toward the guards — still asleep.
'Seems they heard nothing. Phew,' he sighed in relief.
He shifted his focus to the small open door of the treasury, easing it open without a sound. Inside, it gleamed with piles of red Ruby Coins.
He'd never seen this much money in his life — over 2,000 Ruby Coins. Billy, anticipating a visit from his supposed "rich inner-region family," had moved his assets here to show off his wealth — and to have bribes ready to secure passage to the inner region.
That decision now worked entirely in Ace's favor. Over 4,000 Ruby Coins sat inside the treasury.
He grabbed the drawstring bag from his back, loosened the cords, and began scooping up coins with mounting excitement. Two minutes later, he'd collected every last one — he wasn't leaving Billy so much as a copper.
With the coins gone, only two red bottles remained. Ace barely gave them a glance, assuming they were ordinary pill bottles like the rest in the room — never suspecting they were worth more than Fatty Billy's entire remaining fortune.
Once the treasury was empty, Ace felt like he was dreaming. He'd never imagined he'd one day steal — let alone steal this much.
It felt like an impossible fantasy.
He didn't dwell on it long, though — the mission wasn't complete yet. He moved to the shelves and steadily filled his bag with pill bottles until it grew heavy.
Packed with coins and pills, the bag felt almost surreal in his hands. 'I'm rich!' he thought, half-dazed.
With the theft finished, it was time to escape. He slipped out of the hidden room while the two guards slept on, none the wiser.
'I wonder what that swindler will do when he finds out about this,' Ace couldn't help but wonder.
He sealed the treasury door behind him with the same soft ting, resetting the illusion and lock array.
Only the main door stood between him and freedom now.
His face had gone pale as a ghost's, his breath ragged, sweat soaking through his clothes.
The theft had put tremendous strain on his small body — without sheer willpower, he might have collapsed right there.
Gritting his teeth, he reactivated Stealth. In his current state, it was all he could manage, and even that felt like a flickering candle about to go out. He crept toward the main entrance as carefully as he could.
With his bag now full, he'd slowed considerably, his energy nearly spent. Any misstep now would be disastrous.
Fatty Billy was still dozing, dreaming of the inner region, when he heard his shop door creak open. Assuming it was a customer, he opened his eyes lazily.
Through bleary vision, he saw no customer at all — instead, a figure clad entirely in black, face included, dashing past.
Still half-asleep, Billy rubbed his eyes to look again. The black-clad figure was still there, now running for the exit.
Billy's face drained of color, and he shrieked at the top of his lungs,
"GHOSTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!"
His scream was so loud that nearby shop owners rushed out to see what had happened — just in time to see the black-clad figure sprinting toward the inner region.
Their faces mirrored Billy's terror, and someone shouted in horror, "S-someone find a shaman, quick! There's a loose ghost around here! Hurry!"
The entire outer-region pill market fell into chaos.
Billy, the most terrified of them all, had seen the "ghost" flee straight out of his own shop. He rushed to his hidden room to fetch his guards for protection, swiping his key card frantically and bursting inside.
Seeing the two of them still fast asleep, his face darkened with fury.
"You two lazy bastards, get up now! There's a gho—"
He froze mid-word, noticing the empty room. It was completely bare.
The world spun around him, his vision going dark. He collapsed to the floor with a thud.
At that, the two guards finally stirred, blinking groggily, and found Billy on the floor, his fat face drained of all color.
They rushed over. "Boss, what happened?"
"Look around and tell me what you see," Billy rasped.
He was praying for a miracle, hoping his terror had simply played tricks on his eyes — that's why he needed them to confirm it.
Confused, the two guards turned lazily to look. The room was empty. Completely empty.
Their faces went pale too, knees turning to jelly. They dropped to the floor beside Billy.
"B-boss, did — did you move the pills somewhere?" the taller one asked shakily.
"I'll move your damn mother! I'll move your sister right along with her! I'll move your whole goddamn family!" Billy roared, cursing like a rabid dog.
Then something occurred to him, and his heart lurched. He stopped kicking the two guards and bolted to the corner of the room, yanking out a red key card etched with a pattern.
He waved it at the uneven wall, and the treasury door opened, revealing — just as he'd feared — an empty vault.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA — GONE, ALL GONE, EVERYTHING'S GONE?!" Billy cackled like a madman, the fat on his body shaking with every wheeze. His entire fortune had vanished into thin air.
"H-how the hell did this happen?! Were you two too busy screwing around to notice someone clean out the whole room?! Who the hell did this, damn it!" he howled at the guards — before suddenly remembering the black-clad "ghost."
"Q-quick, go find that person in black — he's the one who stole my treasure! Go, now! If you two come back empty-handed, I'll chop you both into a million pieces! GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
Billy shrieked, eyes bloodshot with fury, nearly choking on his own rage!