The thought had barely crossed his mind before Vincent's "body" rapidly solidified — snapping back from shadow-form to solid flesh — and his head cracked straight into a chair. The shadow he had just blinked into had come from the chair.
The first thing he felt, as always, was a lessening of his soul's exhaustion — and this time it was far more pronounced than the last. It felt, in some measure, like being reborn. So... can I once again consume souls to strengthen myself?
Though Vincent was perfectly clear on the dangers of soul consumption, he had to admit that the temptation of simply eliminating a few dark Beyonders in exchange for a rapid power boost was genuinely very hard to resist.
He quickly steadied his mind and carefully felt out the information carried by the advancement.
The good news was that he had not crossed over from the Broker's Pathway onto the Shepherd's Pathway. The Sequence 8 on the Broker's Pathway was called the Shadow Trader — which, at least by name, still seemed to belong broadly to the same domain as Broker.
The Shadow Trader could detect the mysterious creatures and dangerous presences lurking within darkness and shadow — and was immune to their attacks — thereby striking deals with them and employing their aid.
However, the Shadow Trader could not make the first strike, nor could it act against another party's interests in secret. Nor could it enter negotiations while harbouring malice that the other party had detected. Furthermore, being drawn directly into combat would leave the Shadow Trader exposed to indiscriminate harm, and it could not compel a creature currently in a state of combat to stand down.
In addition to this core ability, the Shadow Trader granted Vincent two distinct extraordinary powers:
The first was a suite of abilities collectively referred to as Shadow Manipulation: the power to slip into shadow and conceal himself, to transform into a shadow itself, to manifest illusory shadow-duplicates, and to teleport through shadows — blinking from one pool of shadow to another. Transforming into a shadow provided effective protection against many forms of harm, while the illusory duplicate functioned as a shadow-copy: convincing in a fleeting glance, but obviously false on close inspection.
The second ability allowed the Shadow Trader to forge a contract between two parties, with both parties' shadows serving as witnesses — a pact bound directly to each soul. Any violation would cause the offender's own shadow to inflict harm upon their spirit, functioning like a powerful curse, similar in concept to what a Notary could do.
The key difference was this: whereas the Notary's power concerned impartiality and fairness, the Shadow Trader's power was precisely the opposite. In the instant a contract was being signed, a Shadow Trader could exploit the symbolic power of shadow to subtly alter key clauses — leaving the other party giving more or receiving less, without ever knowing.
At higher Sequences, a Shadow Trader could even take a contract that had begun as fair and equal and rewrite it into terms entirely advantageous to themselves — terms the other party would still be bound to honour, no matter what. Truly shameless in every sense of the word.
No wonder the name is Shadow Trader. This thing practically needs to share a table with Swindler.
But then again — if one could find a Swindler to work in tandem with this, wouldn't it be even easier to stay in character? The Swindler handles the deception, the Shadow Trader seals the deal.
Two knaves working in concert. Morally bankrupt to a breathtaking degree.
Hmm. On that note — getting Bernadette to rapidly digest the Shadow Trader potion on his behalf was probably going to be tricky. Her method of rapid digestion depended on having dealings with high-Sequence, high-Sequence-tier Beyonders. But the Shadow Trader's entire identity was built around cheating people — asking her to roleplay that would mean making enemies out of a whole circle of high-Sequence Beyonders.
Of course, there was always the legitimate approach: play an ordinary merchant. But the digestion rate would be miserable at best, and without engaging the true core of the Shadow Trader, there was a real possibility it would never be fully digested at all.
Vincent sighed quietly: "I'll deal with it as I go. If all else fails, I'll just have to become a proper villain."
Setting aside the complications of roleplay, the Shadow Trader at Sequence 8 was still no weakling. Shadow Manipulation provided both offence and defence alike, and leveraging the mysterious creatures dwelling within darkness and shadow could expand the ceiling of one's power —
In a certain sense, wasn't that just another form of summoning?
As everyone knew, Sequence 3 on the Apothecary's Pathway was called the Summoning Master, and the Shadow Trader was sometimes called the Little Summoning Master by those who knew the Pathway. It wasn't hard to see why.
Beyond the Shadow Trader's abilities, the doubling of his spirituality also meant Vincent could now access more extraordinary powers from the Seer's Pathway — for instance, he could now attempt to create Sealed Artifacts on his own.
After making a brief study of the Shadow Trader's various powers, Vincent walked to the doorway of the sitting room and looked at the cleanly empty desk, where his thoughts once again drifted to the question of establishing his three-segment Honorific Name.
When he had first considered the idea, it had only been a guess. Now that the place had been confirmed as the Land of Chaos, the idea was ready to be put into action.
Vincent returned swiftly to reality and took out paper and pen, ready to think through the specifics.
"First — a three-segment description works like coordinates on an axis: it's meant to pinpoint me precisely. So what qualities do I possess that no one else does?"
"Cross-world traveller. Outsider. Mysterious room... Land of Chaos. The Scale. Broker. Shadow Trader."
He wrote quickly: "So — traveller from another world? Soul from another world? That's certainly accurate and specific, but it's also moronic — might as well hand over everything I am on a silver platter."
"So the focus has to be the Land of Chaos."
He thought for a long moment, then wrote down the first line — the most direct one: Ruler of the Land of Chaos.
That would set the tone: establishing the bond between himself and the Land of Chaos.
But he immediately crossed it out. Same problem as cross-world traveller — announcing outright that the Land of Chaos was in his hands was simply foolish.
Better to say: Ruler of the... Realm of Entropy and Disorder.
Vincent gave a small nod. That would do as a provisional first line.
The phrase was still too broad, so the second line needed to narrow the focus. He looked up and thought for a moment, and the image of the ancient, weathered Scale flashed through his mind.
Mysterious Scale of... — no, Mysterious in that context was meaningless, still too vague. He jotted down a few alternatives, then paused. Every time the Scale returns to balance, it passes through my hands — tipping from imbalance to equilibrium. So the second line could be... Restorer of the Unbalanced Scale?
He adjusted it slightly: Arbiter of the Unbalanced Scale.
That left only the final line.
The first two lines both described the connection between him and the Land of Chaos. The third line should step outside that domain and touch on something related to his domain of authority.
Looking at what the Midnight Emperor and the Justiciar represented — Order and Rules, respectively — though he wasn't a Beyonder of either Pathway.
Wait.
Vincent suddenly remembered a piece of information he'd received when becoming the Broker: the Broker represented the grey between black and white — the grey area between law and morality.
And if he combined that with the Midnight Emperor's Order and the Justiciar's Rules — could it mean that the Broker Pathway's grey also represented the grey area between Order and Rules?
Grey zone... Shadow Trader...
So, could the final line be: Shadow Between Order and Rules?
Vincent couldn't help laughing. "I'm being way too hasty with this."
No matter — it was just a first attempt. If it didn't work, he could always revise it. And at least it cost nothing.
He laid out a fresh sheet of paper, wrote down all three lines in sequence, and recited them aloud in Hermes:
"Ruler of the Realm of Entropy, Arbiter of the Unbalanced Scale, Shadow Between Order and Rules."
The moment the words left his mouth, his spirituality gave a faint, responsive tremor. A flash of azure light — from the Thirty-Third Heaven — seemed to sweep past before his eyes, and then a sound too faint to be certain of reached his ears.
It... worked? Just like that?
To be continued…
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