Chapter 17: The Sanctuary of Silver
The outer ring of Suotou City was a different world entirely. The paved cobblestones of the wealthy district gave way to rutted dirt roads, the air grew thick with the smell of stagnant water, and the grand architecture dissolved into a sprawling, chaotic maze of leaning shanties.
Walking through this despair was a boy who looked like a fallen star.
Mame's silver-white silk robes were completely ruined, stained with the street mud and grime from when he had cradled Xiao Ya earlier that morning. He didn't care. He walked with a steady, purposeful stride, holding the small, newly cleaned girl securely on his hip as she pointed the way through the winding alleys.
"It's just past the alley of broken carts, Brother Bai," Xiao Ya whispered, burying her face into his shoulder as the desperate residents of the slums stared at them in shock.
They arrived at what could barely be called a building. It was a sagging, two-story wooden structure with a partially collapsed roof. The windows were boarded up with rotting planks, and the small courtyard was nothing but hard-packed dirt.
Before even stepping through the broken gate, Mame closed his eyes.
Void Instinct. His perception expanded, sweeping through the wooden walls like a radar pulse. The thermal signatures inside made his stomach twist. He counted twenty-two distinct heartbeats. Several were dangerously faint, flickering like candles in a windstorm. He felt the radiating heat of high fevers and the hollow, echoing signatures of severe, prolonged starvation.
Mame's jaw clenched. The Rule of the King Beast. He pushed the gate open.
Inside the dim, drafty main hall, huddled around a cold hearth, were the children. They were frail, shivering, and terrifyingly silent.
Standing protectively in front of them, gripping a splintered broom handle like a spear, was a young woman. She couldn't have been older than twenty. Her clothes were threadbare, her face was gaunt from giving her own meager rations to the children, and her eyes were wild with the exhausted, desperate terror of a cornered animal.
"Get out," the young woman rasped, her hands shaking as she pointed the broom at Mame. "We have nothing left to steal. The master already took the donation box. Leave us alone, or I swear I'll—"
"Sister Lin!" Xiao Ya cried out happily, wriggling down from Mame's arms.
The young woman froze, her broom dropping a fraction of an inch. "Xiao Ya? Heavens... Xiao Ya, you're alive! You're... clean?"
Sister Lin stared in absolute bewilderment. The little girl who had left yesterday on the brink of death was now flushed, energetic, and wearing high-end cotton robes. Her eyes darted from Xiao Ya to the intimidating, pitch-black eyes of the teenage boy standing in the doorway.
Lin's gaze tracked over Mame. She saw the sheer, undeniable wealth of his silver silk, but more importantly, she saw the dark, heavy mud smeared across his chest and knees. A noble who let himself get covered in slum filth to carry a dying street child.
"He's an angel, Sister Lin!" Xiao Ya beamed, running over and hugging the older girl's waist. "This is Brother Bai. He saved me, and I asked him to help us!"
Mame stepped fully into the room, the oppressive, aristocratic arrogance of his "Young Master" persona completely vanishing. He offered Lin a deep, respectful bow.
"You have held the line for these children when the rest of the world abandoned them," Mame said gently, his voice devoid of any pretense. "You don't have to fight alone anymore. I am here to help."
Lin stared at him, the broom clattering to the floor. The sheer relief was too much for her exhausted mind; her knees buckled, and she began to sob into her hands.
Mame didn't waste a single second.
He moved to the center of the room, tapping his spatial ring. Stacks of high-grade culinary herbs, massive cast-iron cauldrons, and bundles of pure spring water materialized out of thin air. He ignited a small, perfectly controlled flame of his Sun-Ape Ki beneath the cauldrons, rapidly bringing the water to a boil.
Using his multiversal alchemy knowledge, Mame began to brew. He didn't use harsh, violent spirit medicines that would shatter the children's fragile meridians. He mixed gentle restorative roots, calorie-dense beast bone marrow, and a fraction of the Verdant Sun-Leaf's essence to create a rich, incredibly fragrant medicinal broth.
Within minutes, the heavenly smell filled the drafty hall. The starving children slowly lifted their heads, their hollow eyes wide with desperate hunger.
"Slowly," Mame instructed, as he and Lin began handing out wooden bowls of the warm broth. "Drink it slowly. Let the warmth settle."
As the children ate, their color began to return. But food wasn't enough for the ones burning with fever. Mame moved to the back courtyard, summoning several large wooden tubs. He filled them with warm water and crushed cooling herbs, creating a potent medical bath. One by one, Lin bathed the sickest children in the glowing, medicinal water. The herbs drew the fever out of their blood, cleansed their skin of infections, and soothed their aching bones.
By mid-afternoon, the orphanage was transformed. The children were asleep on soft, conjured blankets, their breathing deep and healthy.
But Mame wasn't done. Healing the symptoms was only half the battle; he was going to eradicate the disease of their poverty entirely.
The Fortress of the Innocent
Leaving Lin to watch the sleeping children, Mame stepped out into the street. The "Brother Bai" persona slammed back into place, his eyes flashing with the cold, calculating efficiency of an empire builder.
He didn't just hire a carpenter. He walked to the local builder's guild, dropped a terrifying amount of solid gold onto the foreman's desk, and hired their entire roster of master craftsmen.
"I want the roof replaced with weather-sealed slate by sunset," Mame commanded, his tone leaving absolutely zero room for negotiation. "I want the walls reinforced with treated ironwood. I want a massive, industrial-grade stove installed in the kitchen, and I want a localized spirit-tool heating array built into the floorboards. Money is not an object. Time is."
The guild scrambled. Within the hour, dozens of master builders descended upon the orphanage, working with frenzied, terrified efficiency.
While they hammered and sawed, Mame visited the city's deed office. He bypassed the line, slapped another gold ingot onto the magistrate's desk, and legally purchased the abandoned lots, the vacant warehouses, and the empty fields surrounding the orphanage.
"Have the fences torn down," Mame told the magistrate. "The orphanage now owns this entire block. The empty fields will be tilled for a private, self-sustaining farm."
Next came the food. He purchased wagons full of grain, cured meats, fresh vegetables, and seeds, completely filling the newly reinforced pantries of the orphanage.
By the time evening fell, the sagging, rotting wooden shack had been transformed into a sprawling, fortified, beautifully renovated sanctuary.
There was only one problem left. A wealthy, beautifully renovated sanctuary in the middle of the outer ring was a massive target for local gangs and thugs. Mame couldn't stay here forever; he needed a wall that wouldn't crumble.
He needed guards.
Following a tip from his earlier Shadow Ledger briefing, Mame visited a quiet, unassuming tavern on the edge of the city. Sitting in the back corner was a group of grizzled, scarred men and women drinking cheap ale. They were the "Iron Shield" mercenary company—a group of Level 40 and 50 Spirit Ancestors and Kings who were officially aging out of the brutal mercenary life. They were old, tired of shedding blood for corrupt nobles, and looking for a quiet place to retire.
Mame approached their table. He didn't offer them gold. He offered them a purpose.
"I have built a sanctuary for twenty-two children," Mame told the scarred, one-eyed captain of the company. "It is fully funded, fully stocked, and completely independent. I need a permanent garrison to keep the wolves from the door. You will have a warm bed, three square meals a day, excellent pay, and absolute authority over the perimeter. But your primary job will be teaching the kids how to read, how to plant crops, and how to defend themselves."
The mercenaries exchanged skeptical glances. The captain stood up, towering over the boy. "Show us."
Mame led them back to the newly renovated orphanage. As the gruff, heavily armed veterans walked through the reinforced gates, they saw the children. They were clean, laughing, and chasing each other around the courtyard while Lin served them warm, fresh bread. Xiao Ya ran up and boldly grabbed the captain's massive, scarred hand, offering him half of her sweet bun.
The hardened mercenaries melted instantly.
The captain looked down at the little girl, then up at Mame, a profound, watery softness replacing the grit in his single eye. These weren't clients. These were the grandchildren they had never gotten the chance to have.
"We'll take the job, young master," the captain swore, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword in a solemn, unbreakable vow. "The only way a thug gets into this courtyard is over our dead bodies."
Mame smiled, a genuine, relieved expression. He handed Lin a spatial pouch containing enough gold to run the estate for the next twenty years.
"Your master abandoned you," Mame said softly to the young woman, who was weeping tears of pure joy. "But this sanctuary belongs to you now, Sister Lin. Keep them safe."
Mame turned and walked out of the heavy ironwood gates, disappearing into the twilight shadows of Suotou City.
The King Beast had secured his territory. Now, it was time to return to the Rose Hotel and watch the "righteous" heroes tear each other apart over a luxury suite.
Chapter 17: The Sanctuary of Silver (Continued)
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in deep hues of violet and orange by the time Mame returned to the wealthy district.
He walked through the glass doors of the Rose Hotel, his silver-white silk robes still stained with the mud of the outer ring. The lobby was quiet. Tang San and Xiao Wu still hadn't arrived, meaning the famous clash over the final suite was still lingering just over the horizon.
Behind the reception desk, the hotel manager was sporting a massive, purple bruise across his jaw, a fresh bandage taped over his cheek where the hand had struck him. When he saw Mame walk in, the man visibly flinched, instinctively taking a step back until his shoulders hit the key rack.
Mame stopped in the center of the lobby. He didn't raise his voice, but the sudden, suffocating drop in the room's temperature made the manager's teeth chatter.
"If I ever," Mame spoke, his pitch-black eyes locking onto the trembling man, "see you raise a hand, a foot, or even your voice to a child again... I will not use the flat of my hand to correct you. I will sever the offending limb and feed it to the stray dogs. Do you understand me?"
"Y-yes, Young Master Bai!" the manager squeaked, bowing so fast he nearly slammed his head into the desk. "I swear it on my ancestors! Absolute hospitality to all!"
Mame held the man's terrified gaze for three agonizing seconds before turning on his heel. He walked down the plush corridor and unlocked the heavy door to Room 1.
Once inside, the aristocratic posture melted away.
Mame walked over to the mahogany desk, looking down at his Multiversal Ledger. He tapped his finger against the page detailing his third persona.
The Phantom of Suotou. Lord Shenyuan.
It had been exactly eleven days since he had terrorized the local night managers of the Blacksmith Association, the Apothecary Guild, the Ocean Trade Coalition, and the Antiquities Exchange. Tonight was the deadline he had given them to secure the continent-wide monopolies from their respective headquarters.
"Time to see if the courier pigeons flew fast enough," Mame murmured, a dark grin spreading across his face as he reached into his spatial ring for the pitch-black canvas and the featureless wooden mask.
Flashback: Six Days Ago
The Douluo Continent was massive, and communication between cities without high-tier flying Spirit Masters was notoriously slow. When Mame had demanded continent-wide contracts in eleven days, he had essentially forced the local branches into a logistical nightmare.
The branch managers had thrown obscene amounts of hazard pay at their best couriers, ordering them to ride their spirit-beast mounts to the point of collapse, sleeping barely four hours a night to cross the continent in record time.
Gengxin City (The Metal City) - The Blacksmith Association Headquarters
On the fifth day of the deadline, an exhausted, mud-spattered courier practically fell off his horse in the central plaza of Gengxin City. He dragged himself up the massive stone steps of the Blacksmith Association's towering headquarters, clutching a sealed scroll.
Deep inside the grand forge, Lou Gao—the Divine Blacksmith and President of the Association—wiped sweat from his brow. He was a massive, rotund man obsessed with pushing the limits of metallurgy. When his panicked adjutant brought him the letter from the Suotou branch, Lou Gao read it over his anvil and burst into a booming, echoing fit of laughter.
"Heavy Silver slag?!" Lou Gao roared, his massive belly shaking. "A mysterious buyer wants an exclusive, fifteen-year contract for all the oxidized, impure garbage we dump in the quarries?! Is this a prank? Did the Spirit Hall forge-masters put them up to this?!"
"President, it is no prank," the adjutant wheezed, pointing out the window at the half-dead courier being tended to by healers in the courtyard. "The Suotou branch sent their fastest rider. He nearly died getting here. And... they sent the down payment."
The adjutant opened a heavy wooden chest. Inside sat a pristine stack of solid gold ingots.
Lou Gao's laughter died instantly. He picked up one of the ingots, his expert eyes analyzing the purity. He looked back at the letter, his mind racing. Heavy Silver slag was a monumental nuisance. It took up space, it ruined the soil, and it cost the Association money just to haul it away.
"Why in the world would someone want to buy our trash?" Lou Gao muttered, scratching his thick beard. "No one can forge that dense garbage. The impurities make it brittle."
"Perhaps he is a wealthy eccentric, President," the adjutant suggested nervously. "Rich nobles have different tastes. Some use dense rocks to line the foundations of their remote castles to prevent subterranean spirit beasts from burrowing in."
Lou Gao stared at the gold. He was currently strapped for cash to fund his obsessive research into legendary alloys. This was literal free money.
"If the rich fool wants our garbage, we will happily sell him our garbage!" Lou Gao slammed his massive fist onto the anvil. "Draft the continent-wide decree! The Blacksmith Association accepts the terms of this 'Lord Shenyuan.' Tell every branch to start bagging the slag!"
Heaven Dou City - The Apothecary Guild Headquarters
A similar scene unfolded in the pristine, sterile halls of the Apothecary Guild in the capital.
The Grand Alchemist, an elderly woman who usually dealt in life-saving elixirs and billion-coin auctions, stared at the sweat-stained letter in utter disbelief.
"Ice Essence Pith?" she whispered, adjusting her spectacles. "He wants to buy a continent's worth of volatile cryogenic runoff? This material freezes the meridians of any cultivator who touches it. It ruins our transport carriages. We pay hazard guilds to bury it in lead boxes!"
"The Suotou branch manager swears the buyer is a terrifying powerhouse, Grandmaster," the breathless courier rasped from a chair, clutching a cup of water. "He dropped gold on the counter and threatened to take his business to the Star Luo Empire if we didn't sign."
The Grand Alchemist shook her head, thoroughly bewildered. "Who uses that much localized coolant? Is he trying to freeze a volcano?" She sighed, looking at the enclosed bank draft of pure gold. "Fools and their money. Draft the contract. If he freezes himself to death, that is his problem. The Apothecary Guild accepts."
Outer Hubs of Sea God Island - The Ocean Trade Coalition
Far to the west, near the coastal trading hubs, the fat-cat merchants of the Ocean Trade Coalition were equally baffled.
"Whale blubber!" the Chief Director guffawed, tossing the letter onto his mahogany desk. "Not the bones? Not the armor-plating skin? The fat! The foul-smelling, heavy, useless fat that repels soul power!"
"The courier rode for five days straight, Director," his secretary pointed out, eyeing the exhausted rider asleep on the waiting room floor. "The buyer demands a fifteen-year monopoly. He claims he needs it for industrial waterproofing."
"Industrial waterproofing," the Director chuckled, pouring himself a glass of expensive wine. "He must be building an underwater palace. Let him have it! We usually dump the blubber back into the sea to attract sharks. If he wants to pay us gold for the privilege of hauling away our butchery waste, we will sign it in blood!"
End of Flashback (Present Time)
Back in Room 1 of the Rose Hotel, Mame finished wrapping the thick, pitch-black bandages around his forearms.
The entire continent thought they had just pulled off the greatest scam in history. Lou Gao, the Apothecaries, and the Ocean Traders were all laughing behind their desks, convinced they were fleecing a wealthy eccentric with too much gold and too little sense.
They didn't realize they had just handed the keys to multiversal ascension directly to a Singularity. The Heavy Silver for the gravity chamber. The Ice Essence Pith for the biological coolant. The Whale Blubber for the kinetic shock-absorption. The Star-Luo stones for the Ki-batteries. Mame had legally cornered the market on everything he needed to build a Saiyan training facility right under the noses of the Douluo Continent's greatest minds.
Mame picked up the featureless black wooden mask and strapped it over his face.
He tapped his Cosmic Origin Core, drawing on the eerie, space-folding power of his first ring—the Void Specter Sloth. The shadows in the luxurious hotel room seemed to stretch and warp toward him.
"Time to collect," Lord Shenyuan rasped, his voice vibrating with metallic, artificial gravity.
Dimensional Blink.
The room was instantly empty.