Lightning Is the Only Way

"Do you have a Space Ring?" Gravis asked.

Whoop!

A Space Ring appeared in front of him. "Please put the things you want to trade inside and give me an offer," the clerk said.

Gravis took ahold of the Space Ring and dumped all the ore he was supposed to trade inside. Then, he pushed it to the clerk. "50,000 Immortal Stones," he said.

The clerk looked with quite some surprise at Gravis. That was a lot of money, but some people always thought that the things they had were worth far more than they actually were.

The clerk looked into the Space Ring and was surprised by the amount of ore. After that, he frowned.

"The best I can do is 25,000," he said.

Gravis raised an eyebrow when he heard that. The goal his mother had set for him was 60,000, which would be about 80% of the retail value of his ore. Usually, shops bought resources at 70% of their retail value. After all, they had to store them, which cost money and sell them. 30% profit without the added cost was the usual.

Gravis had already made an offer of 66% of the retail value, which was very generous for the shop. Yet, this guy was lowballing him with 33% of the retail value.

"50," Gravis said. "That is 66% of the retail value."

The clerk frowned. "That is incorrect. The prices recently changed, and I'm offering you 65% of the retail value."

Gravis looked at the clerk, and surprisingly, Gravis felt no sense of falsehood from him. The clerk was something like two levels stronger than Gravis, but Gravis' Will-Aura was far more powerful. He should be able to see through any falsehoods. Yet, the clerk appeared completely truthful.

Gravis frowned. The clerk wasn't lying, but his mother had quoted a different price. Something was up.

"50," Gravis repeated.

The clerk sighed. "Okay, I can go up to 27, but that is my limit. We have to store all of this ore, and it will take us a long time to sell all of it. There are only so many heirs to a powerful person in this city that require equipment."

"50," Gravis repeated.

The clerk looked at the ring, sighed, and pushed it back to Gravis. "Sorry, I can't accept this trade. Please retrieve your items."

Gravis looked into the Space Ring, and his eyes shone.

Gravis had put mountains of ore into the Space Ring, and the ore was incredibly heavy.

Yet, several tons of ore were missing.

This would be hard to notice since that wasn't even 1% of the total amount of ore, but Gravis had checked very thoroughly. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have noticed that.

'He stole some ore, huh,' Gravis thought.

And then, Gravis smirked. 'Today is my lucky day!' Gravis thought with exhilaration.

His money problems had just been solved!

The clerk saw Gravis' smirk and panicked. "Wait!" he shouted.

RIIIIINNNGGGG!

Gravis took his Obsidian Ring off his finger and flicked it, making it vibrate in a particular manner.

The clerk felt like his life was ending. He had seen the Obsidian Ring previously, and that was precisely why he was confident of the fact that he would be able to get away with stealing a bit of ore.

Gravis was in the Immortal Realm, and the Obsidian Ring meant that he was the son of the Opposer. Yet, exactly that gave the clerk the confidence of not getting caught.

The Immortal Emperor Realm children of the Opposer were weak in power, but they were exceptionally versed in the way of business. Scamming them was difficult.

Yet, Gravis was only at the Immortal Realm. This meant that he had probably gone through a lower and middle world. This was usually the way the Opposer's cultivating children cultivated. This meant that Gravis had nearly no experience in the highest world. If he had just retrieved his stuff back into his Spirit Space, everything would have been fine.

If he retrieved his stuff, it would mean that he accepted the contents of the Space Ring. Yet, they were still inside!

Normally, the cultivating children of the Opposer only cared about power and never bothered with economy or business. They were even easier to scam than the usual heirs to powerful Cultivators!

Gravis' mother taught Gravis a lot about common scams that some scummy shops practiced. One of these things was the underhanded pocketing of some stuff from a Space Ring. She also told him how to proceed if that happened.

"Hey, mom," Gravis transmitted to his mother, who was walking around with Yersi and Orthar. "Someone just pocketed something from a Space Ring," he transmitted with mirth.

"Really?" she asked back with shock. "Who would be so stupid? Did you already call for an enforcer?"

"Sure did," Gravis transmitted.

"You're really lucky, Gravis," she transmitted with a chuckle.

'Lucky, eh?' Gravis thought. As soon as he came into contact with humans again, his lack of Karmic Luck became relevant again. Could it be considered luck that a thief stole something from him? One would consider that bad luck more than good luck.

Yet, if one acted accordingly, bad luck could transform into good luck.

The clerk looked with devastation at the table and put his head in his hands. He had really screwed up this time. Why had he done that!? He had pulled that stunt only very rarely. He had always been careful!

Some seconds of silence passed.

Whooom!

Then, someone in white robes appeared in the room.

The person turned to Gravis. "What happened?" he asked in a serious tone.

"He pocketed some stuff while we were negotiating," Gravis said as he gestured to the devastated clerk.

"What is happening!?" a new voice appeared as someone with an indistinguishable Realm appeared inside the room. He looked around with panic and then glared at his employee. "Why is the Trade Investigation Department here!?" he shouted at his employee.

This was the owner of this branch of the Average Trading Firm, a peak Immortal Emperor.

The man in white robes took the ring from Gravis and looked at it. Then, he used his Major Law of Time to create an image of what had happened inside the Space Ring in the last couple of minutes. He quickly noticed that a little bit of ore had vanished.

The man in white robes turned to the clerk. "Do you have a contract?" he asked.

The clerk only looked at the table with devastation as the owner stepped forward. "We do such small trades without a contract due to the contracting fee. The customer has-"

"No contract, no official trade," the man in white robes interrupted the owner.

"But-"

"No contract, no official trade," the man repeated. "If what you say is true, then you shouldn't have done business without a contract. As per the rules, everything inside the Space Ring at the time of the offer will be purchased at retail value."

"This person did that himself to set us up!" the owner shouted as he pointed at Gravis.

"You know exactly that we can check the person that accesses the Space Ring at any given time by their aura," the person said. "As long as the caller isn't an outstanding Immortal Emperor, it is impossible to fake his aura, and if he were an Immortal Emperor, he wouldn't do something like this for this small amount of money."

The owner became angry. "But my employee only stole a little bit! Why do we have to pay so much money!?"

"Your employee just had to not pocket something," the man said. "You can also decline, and we will get a full investigation going. Do you want that to happen?"

The owner gritted his teeth, but the potential repercussions of a full investigation were just too devastating. They often scammed ignorant people to make some money. When this investigator looked through their entire business, they wouldn't just have to pay money. The owner would probably even be banned from doing any kind of business in Opposer City!

After some seconds, the owner sighed. "How much?"

"74,426 Immortal Stones," the man in white said.

The owner took a deep breath in shock. That much!? This was a big trade, even for them!

This was the main reason why the employee was so devastated. If this potential trade had only been 1,000 Immortal Stones, the owner wouldn't care so much. He would probably only give the employee a slap on the wrist for getting caught. Yet, nearly 75,000 Immortal Stones was far too much.

That was over 20 years of the employee's salary!

Gravis only looked at all of this with a neutral expression. He didn't need to do anything. The investigator would take care of everything.

The owner nodded, and the man in white gave him the Space Ring. The owner pocketed everything and put the Immortal Stones into the Space Ring. After that, he gave it back to the investigator.

Then, the investigator turned to Gravis. "As per policy, the Trading Investigation Department will take 10%," he said.

"Sure, and thank you," Gravis said with a smile.

"No problem," the person in white said as he gave Gravis the Space Ring.

Gravis pocketed the remaining 66,983 Immortal Stones with a happy smile. Then, he put the Space Ring back on the counter.

This was not the Sky Community, where everyone could do nearly everything.

This was Opposer City, and Opposer City had trade rules.

"Good day," the man in white said to the owner as he teleported himself and Gravis back to the street. This was protocol for investigators to protect the caller from receiving backlash inside the building of the perpetrator.

After that, the man in white vanished again as Gravis stood in the middle of the street with a smile.

Every inhabitant of Opposer City could call an investigator. The investigator would look into the case and judge accordingly. Yet, if the caller incorrectly called an investigator, they would need to either pay a tremendous amount of money in relation to their Realm or work off their debt.

The punishment of buying everything at retail value was to give the caller a reward for helping the Trade Investigation Department.

The department would earn a lot more money in the background by trading information about such incidents with other companies. Companies paid a lot of money for information that told them who was trustworthy and who was not.

So, even though the Average Trading Firm hadn't directly lost any money, bigger business partners might be more apprehensive about doing business with them. Additionally, if these incidents happened more frequently, the Average Trading Firm might receive heavy and costly guidelines they had to implement.

Additionally, the beggars saw the white man appear with someone in front of the Average Trading Firm, and they knew exactly what that meant.

Word would travel around quickly.

Meanwhile, inside the trading room, the owner turned to his employee with gritted teeth.

"You're fired!"