Surprisingly, Shang didn't grab the five Mana Crystals immediately.
"I want to exchange them," Shang said evenly.
The Keeper pulled her hand back. "For what?"
"Mind Flow Pellets," Shang said.
The Keeper slowly turned her head and looked at the bandages around Shang's head.
That was just the natural instinct of wanting to have eye contact with someone while talking about something more serious.
The Keeper looked at Shang silently for three seconds.
"Fine," she said, turning around again. "It's not my duty to question what you do with your reward. What kind of Mind Flow Pellet do you want?"
"Grade Six," Shang said.
When House Wife and Trapper heard that, they took a deep breath in shock.
White Ghost sure knew what it meant to buy the good stuff!
"I need five more Grade Six Mana Crystals," the Keeper said, extending her hand to Shang.
SHING!
Shang summoned five additional Grade Six Mana Crystals and handed them over.
These ten Grade Six Mana Crystals were everything Shang currently earned in terms of money.
He had gotten three Grade Six Mana Crystals by getting rid of the Lenner Family, five by getting rid of the Martis Family, and two for a couple of smaller missions.
Usually, Shang would have needed to work several years for that much money, but the two missions regarding the Lenner and Martis Families had come at just the right time.
The Keeper pocketed all ten Mana Crystals and closed her eyes while looking towards the lake.
No one said anything for several minutes.
WHOOOM!
Suddenly, a small grey portal appeared in front of the Keeper.
She summoned nine of the ten Mana Crystals and threw them into the portal.
A second later, a small flask came out of the portal before it closed again.
The Keepers got to keep around 10% of what their people were paying in exchange for wares the Temple of Blood sold to their Agents.
The central organizational department of the Temple of Blood, including the Territory Lord, took around 20% of a mission reward's cut when the mission was put up. This was how they earned their money.
The remaining 80% went directly to the Agent. This was how they earned their money.
And when the Agents used their money, the Keepers got to keep 10% of it. That was how they earned their money.
Every Agent basically bought directly from the Temple of Blood since the Temple of Blood sold its wares far cheaper than big trading firms, and they were also more trustworthy.
So, in a way, a Keeper's commission basically equated to 8% of what their branch was bringing in.
For such a small branch, that wasn't a lot, but for branches with thousands of employees, things were different.
Of course, as the Territory Lord, the Keeper of this branch didn't rely on the money she earned as Keeper.
The Keeper took hold of the bottle and extended it to Shang.
While Shang put the bottle with the singular pill away, the others were looking at the place where the portal had just been.
No matter how many times they saw it, they were still surprised.
This was a Spell that only an Ancestral Mage could cast who had understood the Grade Three Concept of Space, Distortion!
Since there were basically no Mages with Space Affinities, the people that comprehended the Grade Three Concept of Space were nearly all Peak Ancestral Mages or higher.
Of course, there were some Mages with a Space Affinity, but they were incredibly rare, and they were directly scouted by the big powers.
This meant that only the most powerful Mages could cast this specific Spell called Space Tunnel.
Space Tunnel allowed someone to connect one part of space with a different part of space, essentially creating a portal from one place to another.
Sadly, the portal was only very small and could only transport dead things, but it was still impressive.
The thought of extending one's hand and manipulating something thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers away was awe-inspiring.
"Is Room One available?" Shang asked.
"It is," the Keeper answered. "Since you made quite some money for this branch, I'll let you use it for free this time."
Shang nodded and turned around.
Shang passed by House Wife and Trapper and entered a wooden hut to his left.
He closed the door and willed for the Magic Circle to activate.
WHOOOM!
For a second, the hut shone in a bright light before returning to normal. At the same time, the liquid Water Mana below the hut was slowly being absorbed by it.
The Isolation Barrier of Training Room One was now in effect.
These were specific training rooms for the Named Agents. Since the Named Agents wanted to keep their powers private, these training rooms isolated them from the outside. Additionally, the Named Agents could also try out their Spells here since the Isolation Barrier was very durable.
Of course, attacking the barrier resulted in the barrier needing more Mana to operate.
After every session, the Agent would need to pay for however much Mana the barrier had used during their isolation.
But compared to the money everyone spent on materials, the cost of the training room wasn't much.
The only person that could look past the Isolation Barriers was the Keeper, and if the Keeper wasn't responsible for the Isolation Barriers in a branch, the person responsible could also look past them.
Of course, these people were under special restrictions and weren't allowed to talk about any of the Agents' powers unless the Territory Lord gave explicit permission.
Naturally, as the Territory Lord and Keeper, the blue-haired woman knew of Shang's powers.
However, she hadn't been surprised.
Mainly because she had already heard of Shang before he had come to her branch.
When Shang had just been a Mid True Path Stage warrior, he had been scouted by one of the Temple of Blood's recruiters.
Due to Shang's peculiar and unidentifiable powers, he had been very attractive to the Temple of Blood.
First, Shang joined as a Trial Agent.
A Trial Agent was someone that could complete missions but had to be supervised during the mission.
However, after Shang's third supervised mission, the Territory Lord had already been informed about him.
The reason?
The missions had been completed, but every person that had supervised Shang had died during the mission.
The Keeper of that branch back then and the Territory Lord both knew what had happened.
Shang had killed his supervisor.
However, there was no proof.
Everyone basically knew that it had been Shang, but he was so good at hiding his tracks that not even the Keeper could prove it was him.
The Keeper was quite frustrated and angry, but they could also see that this was an amazing quality for an Agent to have.
Killing people and not being found out… wasn't that exactly what the Temple of Blood was all about?
So, the Keeper contacted the Territory Lord, who made a judgment on the matter.
Shang would be promoted from Trial Agent to just Agent.
Like that, they wouldn't lose more people.
After several decades, Shang's success in handling very difficult missions came to the Territory Lord's attention again.
She remembered that Shang had been the one killing the supervisors.
That day, she decided to promote Shang to Named Agent and transfer him to her branch.
She wanted to know what Shang wanted to hide so desperately and stop him from killing more people.
Before that, Shang had always trained outside, far away from the branch.
But here, he couldn't train outside anymore since it was far too dangerous.
So, Shang was forced to train inside unless he wanted to leave the Temple of Blood or die.
Eventually, Shang was forced to come clean about why he was hiding.
He had a Twilight Affinity.
This concerned the Territory Lord.
If he had a Twilight Affinity, why wasn't he a member of the Twilight Dusk Family?
Everyone with a Twilight Affinity could directly enter the Twilight Dusk Family.
There was literally no reason not to enter.
And then, the Territory Lord got her answer.
Shang was not a Mage.
As a Mage Lord, the Territory Lord had heard about the purge many, many years ago, and she understood why a warrior would want to avoid the organization of one of the people responsible for killing all the warriors.
After talking for a while, the Territory Lord confirmed that she would only tell her higher-ups with his permission and nobody else.
With Shang being the only one with such powers, he had proven to be very valuable to the Temple of Blood.
That was how Shang ended up in this place.
