The empress Aeriel was feeling angry. She contemplated calling him again, but decided otherwise. She was also a bit jealous of Eve. At that moment she widened her eyes...
'I'm feeling envious? What is happening to me? Impossible! I only met that man yesterday for the first time. There is no way that I've developed feelings that fast!'
Even though she said that, she still felt angry at him.
"Stinky man! I will be sure to scold him when he comes. Hmph!"
......
In the other part of the city, within the estate of the Devure family...
Scarlett was sitting cross-legged on her bed, looking at her phone. She had just sat down and wanted to message Red to ask him to attend the auction with her. But...
'I didn't even ask him for his contact info! I even have his number!'
She felt stupid. She hurriedly stood up and exited her room, heading towards the living room to find the old man. That old man probably had Red's number, right?
Every maid and servant she encountered along the way stepped back in fear, not daring to look directly at her. She never mistreated any of them but they were still afraid due to her cold attitude and heroic look.
Arriving at the living room she saw her grandfather sitting on the sofa and drinking tea.
"Old man! Can you give me a phone number of Patriarch Vaelanor?"
Pufft! Cough... cough... cough...
The old man spat the sip of the tea he took a moment ago and started coughing violently. He couldn't believe what he just heard. He was used to his granddaughter calling him 'old man' and he didn't mind it. What shocked him was...
His granddaughter, who was always so cold and uninterested in everyone, and who always refused to have any connection to Patriarch Vaelanor before, was now asking for his contact info?
Was she finally interested? Could there actually be chance to finalize that engagement that they had? Patriarch Devure was elated!
"Old man, are you alright?"
"Cough... Everything is fine! Better than fine! Wait a moment, grandfather will give you his contact info right away!"
Saying that, the old man took out his phone and gave the contact number to Scarlett.
"Thank you, old man."
Even though she wasn't interested in anyone in this world, she was still a bit close to this grandfather of hers. As a reincarnated dragon princess, she was extremely proud and didn't see anyone in the Mortal Realm as her equal, but she felt grateful to this old man who helped her a lot.
"This... can you tell me... did you change your mind about that young man? Are you interested in him now?"
"W-what are you talking about, old man!? Who's interested?"
Scarlett stammered while a slight blush crept up her face.
"Hohoho... Don't mind this old man, I won't say anything!"
The old man was quite happy about this.
Scarlett stomped her feet on the ground in frustration. She quickly turned around and ran back to her room. She didn't want to continue talking to this old man!
Back in her room, she took her phone and dialed the number she just got.
*Beep* ...... *Beep* ...... *Beep* ...... *Beep*
'Why is he not answering? He might be busy. I should maybe call another time...'
Just when she was about to cut the call...
"Hello?"
She heard his voice answering the call.
"Eh? H-hello?"
'He answered!'
"Hmm? You called me, no? Who is this?"
"Ah, sorry. This is Scarlett Devure. I wanted to ask you something, Patriarch Vaelanor."
"Just call me Red, I don't like that form of address coming from a beautiful lady. Is there something I can help you with?"
"This... okay, Red. I wanted to ask you if you would be willing to attend tomorrow's auction together?"
Scarlett blushed from saying his name.
'Wait! Why am I feeling shy just saying his name? Calm down, Scarlett!'
"Okay, sure. I'd be happy to. Though my wife will attend with me, is that okay?"
"That's okay!"
"Then, contact me tomorrow before the auction?"
"Yes, sure. I'll call you to meet before the auction starts."
"Sounds good. Then, take care, Scarlett."
*Beep**Beep**Beep*
The call disconnected.
......
Back on Red's side...
Red had just hung up the phone with Scarlett and continued strolling through the city with Eve.
"Darling, I feel a small amount of pure chaos energy from that shop there!"
Eve pointed to a shop. It seemed to be a weapon shop.
"I feel it too. That's interesting, let's go take a look."
Entering the store, Red and Eve followed the strand of chaos energy until they arrived in front of a shelf that showcased spatial rings.
Looking more closely, there was one cheap and quite ugly black ring at the end of the shelf. It was exactly the ring that was emanating chaos energy. Ordinary people wouldn't be able to sense this energy.
Red sent his divine sense to observe the ring. At first glance, it seemed to be a small spatial ring that only had one cubic meter of storage space inside, but Red sensed something else.
Red activated his Eyes of Chaos briefly to examine the ring closely, and he saw a strong energy barrier inside of the ring.
"Eve, do you feel the energy barrier inside of this ring too?"
"Yes, darling. But I can't see anything more with my suppressed cultivation."
'System, is there anything interesting inside?'
[I don't know, Host.]
'Eh? How can you not know?'
[This system can deduce information based on karma. There is no karma on this ring that connects it with the original owner. I can deduce that the ring was in possession of a couple of different people, but they thought that it was just a normal spatial ring. There is no information about the original owner or the creator.]
'How can that be? Could it be that it was someone very strong?'
[Maybe, but karma will always exist even if it was someone strong who created it. You are the only one without karma, Host. The only explanation would be that the original owner and creator got his soul obliterated, which severed all karma.]
'Interesting...'
"Hmm... There is definitely something in this ring. Someone must have placed a barrier to hide it so it looks like just a normal spatial ring. Let's buy it and I will examine it more when we get back home."
"Okay, darling.~"
Red went to the counter and bought the ring. It was pretty cheap even compared to other rings with the same spatial size. It was probably because the ring was too ugly.
"Eve, dear, are you interested in any weapons here?"
"Not really. I can create weapons using my chaos energy, but I never had a need to do that. I never owned weapons and I never learned any martial skills because I was always too strong. There was never a need for that."
"... Well... That makes sense. Anyway, let's go. Even if we wanted some good weapons, it would be better to see what they offer at the auction tomorrow."
They exited the store and continued to have fun in the city.
'Now that I think about it, I don't even own any spatial rings, and my Eve doesn't have one either. I could use the system storage, but there's no fun in that... System, get me two storage rings with large space for me and Eve.'
[Host, would you like a shared spatial ring? It's 2 rings sharing the same space.]
'There is such a thing?'
[There are similar rings in the upper realms, but the phenomenon is quite rare and it can only occur naturally. But with this system, it's possible to replicate the concept.]
'Do it then. It would be easier this way. Also, deposit some spirit stones into the space.'
[Ding! The requested spatial ring has been deposited to your system storage.]
Red waved his hand and summoned two rings. The rings were quite pretty. They were black. One had a red gemstone, and the other had a purple gemstone. The system seemed to be quite considerate.
He bit his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the ring. This was the normal way of claiming ownership over the ring in this world. Only the owner would be able to see the contents of the ring this way. The only way for other people to see inside of the ring would be if they were stronger than the owner or if the owner died.
Once the ownership was established, he sent his divine sense into the ring and was instantly amazed. The space inside was almost endless. It looked more like a separate dimension than the space inside the normal spatial ring. It was also filled with billions of spirit stones of all qualities.
'Nice one, system!'
He gave the other ring, the one with the purple gemstone, to Eve.
"Here, dear. This spatial ring shares the same storage space with my own ring. This way you can have a ring to store your items and you can freely use the spirit stones inside."
"Thank you, darling! Chuu.~"
Eve thanked him with a kiss. She was very happy to receive a gift from her darling. She didn't really care about a spatial ring, but since it was a gift from him, she would happily use it.
"Okay, dear, night is slowly falling. Let's go back home to rest. Tomorrow we will attend the auction with Scarlett."
"Okay, darling.~"
Red took her hand and teleported back home.
......
At the Vaelanor family estate...
'Damn... This teleportation is useful, but quite boring. Tomorrow I must buy that wyvern egg and hatch it. Can't wait to have that mount!'
Red sat on the big sofa with Eve and took out the spatial ring that he had bought in the store.
He tried to breach the barrier with the full strength of a Martial Emperor, but... nothing happened. The barrier didn't even tremble.
'Wow... so the one who made this barrier was from the upper realms. It seems I won't be able to break this barrier in this world.'
'System, teleport me to the place where I met Eve.'
[Host, there is something I need to tell you before I teleport you. This is very serious.]
'Oh, tell me quickly!'
[As the Progenitor of Chaos, you shouldn't have any karma or destiny... But... As soon as you bought that ring from the store, it got attached to you with karma. Now your karma and destiny exist again, which shouldn't be possible, yet it happened!]
'Eh? I have karma and destiny now? What's so bad about that?'
[Host, you know how those protagonists with great destiny values attract problems and opportunities wherever they go? That would now happen to you too, Host.]
'Oh? Isn't that a good thing!? There would be more fun in the future around me!'
[It's just that your destiny value is too great, Host. The problems that would occur around you would basically be calamities! You need to be careful from now on. Nothing can happen to you, but for the people around you... that's a different story.]
'Ehhh? Is there any way to suppress this? Aren't you the strongest system with infinite power?'
[This system can suppress it to some extent, but you still need to be careful. This system will try to deduce what is happening to possibly solve the problem, but until then, you need to be careful about some things. The most important thing is that Destiny will try to create great opportunities around you.]
'Okay, explain briefly what will happen...'
[Since your destiny value is too high, the opportunities will be something like - great wars appearing around you, hidden powers awakening, secret realms opening... and similar. These things happening in the Mortal Realm are not that big of a problem, but if you go to higher realms... then... the things that would happen would be serious.]
'So I should avoid going to higher realms?'
[You should avoid going to higher realms if you don't plan on staying there. If you go to the higher realms for some time and just return to the Mortal Realm, it would start a chain reaction and the upper realm that you visited would gradually dive into chaos without your presence.]
'......'
* * * * * *
[A/N: I hope you liked this chapter! If you have any suggestions, please comment.]