Chapter 291: Sorting The Tax List

Words : 1266 Updated : Oct 9th, 2025

Chapter 291: Sorting The Tax List Simply put, Items were mostly unnecessary. At least, there wasn’t anything I could remember I particularly wanted; I already possessed good armour and more than perfect weapons, and my ranged options were satisfactory enough. There were also too many subcategories for me to bother checking through all of them individually, so I’ll skip it for now. Naturally, that left Skills and Traits. I could probably get one or two, then spend the rest on levelling up some Skills; it feels the most efficient that way. Before that, though, since I have enough to consider it, I’ll check Service Charge again. The list was much shorter, so it shouldn’t take nearly as long to rule things out. Service Charge | 5,800 U 1 | A.Skill - [Tyranny of the Demon Lord] - Demon Lord of Terror 2 | Trait - [He Who Shall Not Be Named] - The Nameless Dark Wizard 3 | P.Skill - [Mastery of the Duel] - Emperor of the Arena 4 | Trait - [Noble Soul] - Archduchess Lucretia de Christina-Rasa 5 | Trait - [Heart of a Witch] - Aradine, White Witch Queen 6 | A.Skill - [Event Horizon] - Horizon of the Apocalypse 7 | Trait - [Descendant of Winter] - Princess Lucretia de Christina-Drakon-Rasa 8 | A.Skill - [Fog of Lies] - Anders Heimann I spent a short time reading through each of the options available again from the beginning, and to my surprise, there were a lot more that I was beginning to consider than planned. "...Now that I think about it, some of these could be quite useful..." Initially, my impression was that most of the taxed abilities were useless garbage, but maybe that wasn’t true after all. Skill - [Tyranny of the Demon Lord] (Active) (Manifests the Demon Lord’s Aura of Tyranny) Trait - [He Who Shall Not Be Named] (Your name cannot be uttered without consequence) Skill - [Mastery of the Duel] (Passive) (You become a genius duellist) The stated effects of the first three were as such. Now, they were originally written off as conditional or just not that useful, but after looking at them again, my opinion differed. For starters, that "Demon Lord’s Aura of Tyranny" felt like it could actually be something useful in combat if it possessed some sort of debuffing effect, and as for the Nameless Dark Wizard’s Trait, wasn’t I literally just complaining a moment ago about my name being lobbed around by those pesky beastgirls? ’No, I wasn’t really complaining... But still. Wouldn’t it solve that problem?’ I considered it for only a moment, quickly realising that it would mean nobody could ever say my name ’Enki’ again without experiencing the unknown "consequence". Frankly, it just sounded really inconvenient, and seemed like a prime example of putting the cart before the horse. Also, if people started noticing that they couldn’t mention me without something bad happening to them, wouldn’t that make them start suspecting me regardless? ’Nevermind then.’ So, moving on. Becoming a supposed "genius duellist" might be useful if I were to only ever fight one-on-one, but somehow, I couldn’t help but think that wouldn’t be as common as I’d like. Even just now, John Pierce belonged to a party of three. ’Skip that too.’ Trait - [Noble Soul] (Your soul becomes that of a true noble) Next was Lucretia’s Trait. Unfortunately, I still didn’t know what exactly it meant... In fact, I didn’t have a single clue. "Maybe it would work as some kind of defence against attacks or magic that would affect the soul? Who knows." Because of that unreliability, I couldn’t justify spending five grand on it. Sending her an apology in my heart, I moved to the next one on the list. "Ah. This is where it gets interesting." Trait - [Heart of a Witch] (Your heart becomes that of a true witch) Skill - [Event Horizon] (Active) (Summons the Event Horizon) Trait - [Descendant of Winter] (You are bestowed the lineage of Elieth Jubar, the Sunlit Moon) Focusing on the two Traits out of the three, I compared them as having similar effects. Firstly, the description of Heart of a Witch makes me think it will increase my General Magical Ability. Since my magic energy flows through my blood, I can also make a comfortable assumption that possessing a witch’s heart would streamline the process to make it more efficient somehow, or otherwise simply improve it. On the other end of things, Descendant of Winter is something I’m pretty sure would just improve my divine energy. Both were good for me since I could now use both magic and divine energy, but there was one factor that edged one out over the other. That is, the fact that my divine energy also now flowed through my blood. In that case, wouldn’t Heart of a Witch be effective for processing both magic and divine energy? And wouldn’t it mean I was essentially getting a two-for-one deal by purchasing it? This was all assuming this witch’s heart was indeed a physical one, but there was no reason to suspect otherwise, and the description only reinforced that belief. In fact, the more I explained it to myself, the more I was convinced it was the right choice. Thus, Heart of a Witch was kept to the side while I looked at Event Horizon. "―This has gotta be overpowered." That was my only thought about it. I mean, could you blame me? The name, the description... All of it screamed ’Ultimate Move’. I wanted it. Badly. But was it better than an upgrade to both my magic and divine energy? ...Honestly, maybe. Who knows without seeing it in action. Again, it came down to reliability. I didn’t know what exactly ’summoning the Event Horizon’ would do, and so, albeit with reluctance, I would have to pass it up just for now. Finally, one potential Skill remained. Skill - [Fog of Lies] (Active) (Summons an impenetrable fog of illusions) Somehow, the buddy of John Pierce who turned out to be a secret backstabber had a Skill I would consider to be very useful, both in one versus one duels as well as in unbalanced skirmishes. Illusions could be a powerful tool if used correctly, and I knew that without even encountering someone who could use them until recently. Although, I wasn’t sure if he messed up during the end, but it felt like he tried to show me some illusions and it didn’t work, making him panic and just dismissing the whole thing. Either way, its versatility couldn’t be denied. "Well. I don’t think it wins out against the heart, though." As I thought, that would be what I should go for. Just as I was about to confirm my purchase, I heard the Librarian’s small footsteps pitter-patter rapidly, turning my gaze to see her running out from behind a bookshelf and climb onto her chair. "I’m back! I found some!" "Perfect timing. Can you show me?" Glancing again at the Trait I planned to acquire, I decided to wait until I knew what the next Contract would be first. ’No harm in making sure I’m not too hasty.’ "Certainly! Look!" Following her cute action of throwing her arms into the air, a few white scrolls fell out of her oversized sleeves, unfurling and floating in the air around her. At the same time, four Contract windows appeared before me. "Nice, let’s see... Wait. This one..." Very quickly, my mouth twisted into a peculiar frown. ’This one’s a bit strange, no?’

Chapter 291: Sorting The Tax List

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