Book 1 Chapter 12 The Revelation and the Sour Manager
…
The air in the Green Herb Shop was perpetually thick with the smells of drying roots, crushed leaves, and a faint, comforting musk of earth and age. Sunlight, diffused by paper windows, illuminated motes of dust dancing over Han Rowan's workbench.
"A brilliant student, truly brilliant," Elder Jing declared, a lean man in his late fifties whose threadbare robes and sharp, inquisitive eyes made him look more like a successful crow than a shop owner. He pointed a gnarled finger at a clump of dark, sinewy root. "The Silent Willow Root," he pronounced. "Used in draughts to calm the spirits, or, when mixed with Nightshade and Lion's Mane… a delightful, non-lethal sleeping agent."
Rowan, meticulously grinding a pestle in a mortar, nodded. He was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and currently disguised as the sect's scapegoat, Gong Fa. He was also a Level 2 mortal with a bizarre, invisible 9x9 grid of automated destruction tucked away in a Strange Bag.
"And the cost of the Nightshade, Elder?" Rowan asked, his phlegmatic temperament masking the sheer cognitive dissonance of discussing lethal herbs one moment and college applications (in his head) the next.
Elder Jing chuckled, a dry, reedy sound. "Always the mind for coin! Four silver taels per jin, when the moon is full, six when it is not. You're learning fast, lad. Too fast, perhaps."
Rowan paused, his eyes drifting. On a small, cluttered side table, tucked beneath a stack of old ledgers, lay a folded parchment. It bore a distinct, swirling logo—a slender, weeping tree, instantly recognizable from his memories of Gong Fa's past. The Green Willow Sect.
'Well, that explains the suspiciously good medical knowledge,' Rowan thought, a dry amusement stirring in his mind. He couldn't check Elder Jing's status since the man wasn't actively trying to stab him, a crucial distinction for his system. The thought of this frail, herb-smelling man being a hidden cultivator from the very sect that had, indirectly, killed the original Gong Fa, was a twist worthy of a bad drama.
"Master Cui!" Elder Jing called out, turning his attention to the back room.
Master Cui, the shop's manager, appeared. He was a portly-looking man, perpetually flushed, whose robes looked like they were fighting a losing battle with his stomach. His movements were slow, his face often set in an expression of long-suffering resentment. He had the air of a man who believed the world owed him a great, and highly caloric, favor.
"Yes, Elder?" Cui wheezed, wiping his brow with a silk handkerchief. He regarded Rowan with the warmth one reserves for a particularly stubborn stain.
Cui had spent years managing the shop, dreaming of the day the Elder would finally retire and bequeath it to him. His resentment toward the newcomer, Rowan (Gong Fa), who was soaking up decades of knowledge and the Elder's favor like a thirsty sponge, had curdled into a palpable, sour jealousy.
"Master Cui, the ledgers for the week are incomplete. I need the full accounting before I depart," Elder Jing instructed.
Cui's eyes widened slightly. "Depart, Elder? Where are you going?"
"On a little journey. A long-delayed family matter," Elder Jing replied, his eyes twinkling a knowing, cultivator's twinkle that was entirely lost on the mortal Cui.
…
A month bled into the next. Rowan spent his mornings in the fragrant chaos of the shop, his afternoons practicing his pestle-and-mortar skills, and his evenings studying ancient herb texts that his logical, college-prep brain somehow processed with terrifying efficiency. He was a sponge for knowledge, but Elder Jing's lament remained a constant background hum: Rowan was unable to feel any Qi.
In that month, a peculiar ritual formed. To consolidate his newfound knowledge and, more practically, to make some much-needed coin, Rowan would venture out of Slow Turtle Town, into the fringes of the hill forest.
His adventures were hardly the stuff of epics. They were quiet, pragmatic hunts.
The Strange Bag grid was a perfect 9x9 square, currently holding the sackcloth, which is 2x3 in size, and inside it were his current items:
Malignant Marbles (Rock 1): 1x1, 2 Damage, 6s Cooldown.
Malignant Marbles (Rock 2): 1x1, 2 Damage, 6s Cooldown.
Stone Knife: 1x2, 2-4 Damage, 2.1s Cooldown.
Thorns (Accessory): 1x1, +1 damage to attackers when attacked.
When a plump Wild Boar charged—a furious, snorting mound of bacon and aggression—Rowan didn't even flinch. He just stood there, his mind coolly running calculations.
'Boar HP: 2/2/2/2/2' The system provided.
The automated battle was an exercise in anticlimax. As the boar got close, the Stone Knife flashed out of the air—a shimmering, ethereal blade that stabbed the beast with the violence of a hungry ghost—before winking back into the grid. The two Malignant Marbles (Rowan truly loved the ridiculous name he'd given them) zipped out, hitting the boar with the impact of well-aimed pebbles, then zipped back to their respective 1x1 slots. The boar, bewildered and bleeding, only managed to clip Rowan's leg with a tusk.
'Damage taken: 1. Thorns activated: +1 damage dealt to attacker,' the system informed him.
'HP restored to 3/3/3/3/3'
He had taken down two wild boars and three snakes in this manner. The resulting 5 EXP and 0.5 shop coins were less thrilling than the 50-plus silver coins he earned by selling the meat and hides to the town's butchers. The system coins were scarce, and the real-world currency, ironically, was more immediately useful for a 'mere mortal.'
He now has 0.7 coins in the shop, which made him feel a bit helpless.
…
Meanwhile, Kang Hana, the Mayor's beautiful, capable swordswoman daughter, frowned over a freshly delivered report. She had initially directed a few of her private town guards to monitor the man known as 'Rowan'—the suspected man-of-mystery who had supposedly single-handedly decimated two strong demonic beasts several weeks prior.
"So, what does he do?" she asked the guard, who was struggling not to stare at her focused, flawless face.
"Mistress, he… he grinds herbs," the guard mumbled. "He cleans the shop. He listens to the Elder's lectures. Then, he goes into the woods, kills a boar or a few snakes—very clumsily, mind you—sells the meat, and then returns to grind more herbs."
Hana sighed, running a hand through her long, dark hair. "No flashy techniques? No hidden swords? No, nothing?"
"None, Mistress. He seems to be the most phlegmatic, boring herbal apprentice in the entire kingdom. He's just... a good student."
Hana waved the guard away, a hint of disappointment in her eyes. The man who killed the demonic beasts must have been a powerful warrior, perhaps a hidden master. This 'Rowan' was just another worthless stranger trying his luck. Her attention was quickly pulled away when a messenger burst in with news that a small band of bandits was forming on the border, requiring her intervention, not a herbalist's scrutiny.
…
The day the lessons ended was a sunny one, though the news dropped on Rowan with the weight of a thunderhead.
"Rowan, my boy," Elder Jing began, placing a gentle hand on Rowan's shoulder, a look of profound, almost familial pride in his eyes. "Your lessons in medicinal herbs are done. You have mastered the basics of identification, preparation, and application in a month, which would have taken others years to memorize and master. You are a brilliant student, and I have come to regard you as my last, true disciple."
Elder Jing's face then turned melancholic. "But, alas, fate is cruel. You are fated for something greater."
Elder Jing's face turned solemn. "He still cannot feel the Qi, the breath of life. I guess this is his weakness behind his brilliance. He is just a mortal among those who soar."
He leaned in conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a low, secretive murmur. "I must tell you something important. I am from the Green Willow Sect. It is a sect of cultivators that is mostly unknown to common people. But I am telling you now so that you can know that powerful people exist in this world."
He then heaved a deep sigh. "My time in this humble little town was... a self-imposed penance. Now, my master calls me back. I will be returning soon."
Rowan merely nodded, the news confirming his month-old suspicion. But he could not help but become curious about what the penance his old teacher was talking about. 'Penance for what? Bad herb-naming conventions?'
"And so," Elder Jing continued, placing a heavy set of shop keys into Rowan's hand. "I have decided to give you the Green Herb Shop."
Rowan blinked. He was dumbfounded and was stunned for a couple of seconds before he regained himself. "Elder, I… I can't accept this. It's your legacy, your life's work."
"Nonsense!" Elder Jing was firm. "It is only a collection of timber and herbs. It is the knowledge that matters, and that, my boy, you have earned. I genuinely like you, and I wish for a good heart to continue this mantle. You need a place to consolidate your knowledge. Treat this as a laboratory, a base of operations. If you ever wish to leave, you must simply find a replacement owner. That is my only condition."
Rowan, ever pragmatic and seeing a potential secure, invisible base of operations (and a steady supply of silver taels), reluctantly accepted. "Thank you, Elder. I will honor your trust."
In the background, Master Cui, who had been listening with barely contained eagerness for the announcement of his inheritance, let out a tiny, choked sound. His face, already portly, seemed to swell with suppressed emotion. When he realized the shop had been given to the foreign, phlegmatic apprentice, his eyes narrowed, and a slow, simmering acid began to burn in his gut.
…
Three days later, Elder Jing vanished in a puff of smoke—or, more accurately, he walked out the back door carrying a single, worn satchel, leaving a weeping Master Cui at the front counter.
"Elder! Elder! Don't go! Who will correct my bookkeeping? Who will tell me which root is not, in fact, an oversized potato!" Cui sobbed into a cloth napkin, his sorrow seemingly genuine, if dramatically overwrought.
Rowan watched the display with a neutral expression, already mentally categorizing the remaining inventory. The truth was, Cui's sorrow was less about losing the Elder and more about losing the promise of the shop. Years of subservience, of dreaming of the day he would sit at the Elder's desk, were now ashes in the mouth of this quiet newcomer.
Jealousy. It was a corrosive poison, and Master Cui was now thoroughly infected. The shop was his! It should have been his! He had cleaned the floors, tallied the accounts, and suffered the indignity of the Elder's threadbare robes for decades!
'This foreign brat will not steal my life's work,' Cui seethed. 'He cannot have it.'
The seeds of a vile, desperate plan began to germinate in Cui's mind. Han Rowan, the new owner, frequently went to the hill forest alone to gather herbs. He was a mere mortal, as even the Elder had lamented. A clumsy hunter.
…
Cui quietly slipped out of the shop that evening. He knew a few disreputable types in Slow Turtle Town, mercenaries and failed bandits who were always short on coin and long on malice. He found five of them in a dimly lit tavern, their faces hard, their eyes avaricious.
"I have a simple job," Cui whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. "There is a new owner of the Green Herb Shop. He goes to the hill forest tomorrow, early morning, to gather herbs. He is alone, and he is a mere civilian. I want him gone. Make it look like an accident. A wild beast. A tragic fall."
He pushed a heavy, leather pouch across the table. It contained a significant sum of silver.
"Five men for one herbal apprentice?" one of the assassins, a brutish man named Jiao, scoffed, counting the coins. "You must want him dead very badly, Master Cui."
Cui's face was a mask of furious determination. "He stole what was mine. I want him vaporized! Leave no trace, but do it quietly. The town is peaceful, and the Mayor's daughter, that Kang Hana, is a pestilent busybody."
The assassins smirked. The job was easy money.
…