With the success of the first deal, the others became certain that Cain was actually accepting curiosities and not pushing for powerful magical items. He didn't argue with the Elder at all and directly accepted the strange coin in exchange for a Skill Book.
The next to ask was a wizened Elder that Cain could feel was pushing the very upper limits of Immortality, close to breaking through to a divine state. Even just sitting near her gave the sense of restrained power and an ethereal grace that clearly wasn't from her physical presence.
"My Sect is in need of a certain skill. One that can animate a body to transfer a soul from a soul gem into it. Our First Elder preserved his soul in a gem, but the skill to create a body to reincarnate him into was lost, and we don't practice the demonic arts to have him possess a living vessel." She explained.
"I can do that for you directly if you only need it done once, and it won't cost you anything precious. Soul Transfer from a Gem is among my core skills. Do you have the gem with you in this city?" Cain asked.
The old woman nodded. "That's a given. We are from the valley. Our sect is only a few hours away from here. If you would like, I can have it brought to us right now."
"Excellent. Now, the greatest question is. Do you really want to bring an old guy back to life when he could be a lovely and gentle young lady?" Cain joked.
The Elder's face went pale, then bright red as her mind ran through possibilities.
"How about a lovely and strapping young man, and then I will make another deal to take a few years off my age?"
Elder Ling gave the old woman a concerned look. "Are you sure that your health is good enough to be having such lecherous thoughts? I don't want to have to rush for healing pills if you get too worked up."
"Bah, it's fine. You should have seen him in his youth. What a fine piece of man meat. It's just a shame that he got himself killed looking for treasures. We both made Immortality a bit late in life, but now that there is a chance to put him back in a body, it would be a shame not to put him in a good one."
The old woman tilted her head for a second, clearly receiving a message, and then opened a small portal with her energy, taking a dark green gem from the other side and placing it on the table.
That was the Soul Gem, and Cain could sense that the mind inside was still active, not in stasis, as most who were trapped inside Soul Gems spent their days.
[Hey, old man. This Elder wants to bring you back to life as her boy toy.] Cain sent the mental message to the man in the gem with a hint of amusement.
[I died in the early stages of Immortality, and she is almost to Divinity now. I will never live it down, I swear. Let me guess. She wants to put me in some young stud's body so she can ogle and harass me for eternity.] The trapped soul grumbled.
[I see you know her very well. Do you object?] Cain asked.
[Balanced against being half dead in a stone? It doesn't sound that bad.] He replied, clearly not too happy about his anticipated future.
Cain formed a generic male body with the pale skin tone and golden hair of the locals, then made the body tall and muscular before pausing to let the old woman look it over.
"How is that?" he asked the Elder.
"Not bad, but does he have to be so skinny and hairless? He was a big, strapping man, with chest fur I could tangle my fists in." She explained, bringing a shudder from many of the other Elders in the area.
Cain made some adjustments, and the woman gave a reluctant nod, so he made the body even burlier, with a bit of a gut and a level of body hair that a silverback gorilla would be proud of.
"Now we're talking. Just how I like them." The old woman cheered.
The body was carrying a few extra pounds and was built like someone's stereotypical bodybuilder dad, but it was still in its mid-twenties, so health issues and old age slowing him down wouldn't be an issue. The next thing he did was give the body a set of black robes, so the unfortunate Immortal wouldn't end up arriving naked, then picked up the Soul Stone.
Cain activated the skill and let the soul be drawn into the puppet body, reviving the First Elder in an instant.
"What have you done to my body, woman? I knew I should have told the Necromancer what I looked like instead of letting you influence him." The Immortal roared as he looked at his new form.
"I am a fair and impartial arbiter of life and death. How about I alter her a little to match your preference? It's only fair since she picked your new body." Cain suggested.
"You can do that?" The First Elder asked.
"Not a problem. I think it's why half of these Elders are here. Most of them have just reached Immortality, and they didn't manage it as soon as they would have preferred, so they want that ageless look back." Cain explained.
"Anything?" He asked with an evil glint in his eyes.
"If you want to make her a stout Dwarven beauty to match your new stature, I can do that and give her a beard that every dwarven woman in the five continents would be envious of." Cain laughed.
Only about half of the gathered Elders seemed to know what he was talking about, all of them the more powerful ones who had explored other worlds, and they all looked a bit disturbed by the thought.
The beard was a sign of mature beauty among the hill dwarves, and they didn't start to grow it until after their first century, whereas the women of the Dark Dwarves never grew one at all.
"NO. Thank you, but no, thank you. Can you just return her to the way she was when we met?" The First Elder asked.
Cain read the man's mind and found that he was thinking of a chubby-cheeked girl at the Sect entry exams. She was clearly older than the others that were taking the test, as they were all yet to reach puberty, so she towered over her fellow applicants. The focused look on her face made her cheeks puff out like a chipmunk, a thought that the First Elder cherished even a thousand years later.
With a rustle of shifting cloth, Cain activated [Modify] and the Elder's wrinkles began to smooth while her thin white hair turned back to a thick ginger orange. Cain stopped when he got to just how the First Elder remembered her and released the skill.
"How is that?" He asked as the two Immortals stared into each other's eyes.
"Alright, you're done. Time to get a room, none of that in my pure and innocent Sect." Elder Ling reprimanded them an instant before they were going to launch themselves at each other.
"I will repay you later. I have to, uh, cultivate to regain my strength." The First Elder told Cain with a nod of his head, then grabbed his Sect mate and leaped into the air, disappearing into the distance in a few seconds.
"You're more strict than I thought, Ling. Perhaps that's why you can't get a man?" One of the other Elders chided the Lotus Blossom Sect Elder.
"It's a Sect Rule now. You should have seen the chaos after someone imported an entire storage ring full of erotic romance books. A camp full of hormonal youth is enough trouble without encouraging them to be distracted." Elder Ling replied grimly.
"Well, since Ling is no fun. How about I propose a trade? I have this tablet in an unknown language, taken from the ruins of a battle that occurred in the distant past. Nobody on this planet can read it, and it's not magical, but I think that you might appreciate it. Even if it's just for the aesthetics." The Elder who had been teasing Ling suggested, placing the tablet in question on the table.
It was actually a piece of stone facing from a wall, and the beautiful curving script was Ancient graffiti. Without being able to read it, the piece looked like a mystic relic that might contain great mysteries, but to Cain, it was a hand-scrawled allegation about how the author gained carnal knowledge about the reader's mother.
Cain burst into laughter as soon as he read it, which brought Luna running over to see what was so funny. As soon as she read the piece of stone, she too was laughing so hard that there were tears in her eyes.
"What is so funny?" The Elder asked, wondering if she had given them something so worthless that they were mocking her.
Luna answered before Cain could come up with a good lie. "It says: If I had known your mother could do that with her tongue, I would have offered her more than three silver coins."
The Elder looked embarrassed and was going to take the piece of stone back, but Cain put his hand on it to stop her.
"Oh no, I am totally keeping this one. That is priceless. Someone excavated bathroom graffiti from an ancient ruin without knowing what it was." he laughed.
"Now, what do you want for it?"
