Chapter 5 I am more energy-efficient

  "What what?" The frail young man cooled for a long time, making sure he didn't missee it, can accept? Are you kidding me? In other words, the other party won't have anything to do with it?

  "It seems... I can still continue being a ghost for a while? Maybe in the future, we'll become colleagues?" A faint, eerie smile rose from the corner of his mouth as Jiǔ Mìng said to the pale and weak young man who looked like he had eaten something bad, "You're not thinking of making your move and killing me off later, are you?"

  "...How is that possible." A faint, forced smile was squeezed out, the thin young man's hatred ran deep, but for now, he could only endure it, "Let's take care of each other from now on."

  Abnormal personnel selection occurred...

  "Initiating Judgment Retrieval..."

  A light screen appeared between the two, with images flashing on it that showed their experiences together. Two numerical values also appeared next to each other, and the thin young man's rising speed was significantly faster than Jiuming's.

  Perhaps there's a turning point? The two of them still only have one. Seeing the evaluation value about himself, the thin and weak man felt much more at ease, just waiting for the countdown to stop before saying goodbye to Jiu Ming and going to die!

  "BUG" target soul body state abnormal, can replace normal human degree 84%, resource consumption lower than normal index 60%...

  The originally stable and weak man with a score of over 20 points was stunned, he directly saw the score of Jiuming soar by a big margin, exceeding his by as much as 13 points.

  "What's the big deal about replacing Nima eggs?! What's the big deal about resource consumption?!!"

  "Huh? Is it referring to energy conservation? And I have a sense of touch, smell, and can easily come into contact with things. I haven't tried taste, but it should be preserved, right?"

  Congratulations to you, the verdict is in, your current identity is now the mysterious shop owner, wishing you a longer journey...

  The light membrane that originally protected the frail young man has now become a fatal factor, and watching him struggle inside the light membrane, Jiǔ Mìng's heart still had some hesitation, after all, he was also a pitiful person, it's just that watching like this really felt somewhat unbearable.

  "Can't you let him off?" Subtitle Master completely ignored Jiǔ Mìng.

  A frail young man inside the light membrane seemed to have encountered some kind of great torment, screaming miserably. Nine Lives could only see his distorted expression, and all sounds were isolated by the light membrane. Slowly, the frail young man gradually faded away like a feather, slowly disappearing.

  Seeing this scene, saying that death is just a nightmare is simply kidding!

  Firstly, you don't need to worry too much. Those who are pulled in here are all beings on the verge of death anyway. Even if they weren't pulled in, they would still die unexpectedly due to various reasons in a short period of time.

  "What's the reason for being here?" Adjusting his mood a bit, Jiǔ Mìng asked.

  That is their own destiny.

  In front of him, many small screens lit up again, including the man who was bitten to death by the weak young man. However, the scene on the screen was him fighting with a group of people and being hacked to death...

  "What's this? After the fact, you want me to eliminate the grudge I have against this place?"

  The mysterious shop is a neutral existence, neither good nor evil, the difference lies in the store owner's actions. The mysterious shop also doesn't care about your grudges, unless you die, there is no way to get rid of this place.

  Now you will face today's daily training. The training period will continue until the extra resources left by the previous store manager are exhausted!

  "What?" The nine lives slightly stunned, the white space around him suddenly changed, turning into a vast grassland, and in front of him was a lion with obvious hunger in its eyes. "Hey! This development is too fast, no matter what, can't you give me some time to adjust my mood...?"

  At the moment when Jiǔ Mìng was stunned, that lion had already rushed up. However, physical attacks... aren't useful against oneself, right? Then Jiǔ Mìng was knocked to the ground by the lion in an instant, and afterwards... there was no afterwards.

  The scorching pain of his neck being bitten off and the lingering feeling of death in his memory made the nine-lived soul's body tremble. He didn't die, but he really died once, dying would have been fine, but not dying while retaining all the sensations from when he was dead was too painful.

  The soul body's item has become invalid, it must be the mysterious shop playing tricks!

  After the lingering pain dissipated, Jiǔ Mìng's eyes cleared of blackness and he returned to that grassland, where the lion was still poised to pounce.

  "Ugh, no need to make such a big deal out of getting two kills at the start." One minute later, Jiǔ Mìng was back in that dark space again. This time, it wasn't just his neck that hurt; his whole body had various wounds from being pulled out, and even though they didn't bleed, they still hurt a lot. It was actually possible to have wounds on his soul body, which was truly abnormal...

  Third time, having learned from the second escape being chased, Jiǔ Mìng chose to face upwards this time, ten seconds...

  As a hunter, Lion Brother's one-paw slap opened up Nine Lives' defense, and then he easily took him away.

  Fourth time, fifth time... nine lives have already faintly heard the sound of killing effects that belong to the knife tower.

  "I want to die!" The pain of death isn't even constant, it's the kind that increases with each passing moment!!

  All deaths here are invalid, but retain the feeling of death!

  Alright, sixth time!

  The calm and collected mentality of Jiu Ming has been broken, and his gaze at the lion who got five kills on him is filled with even more anger, "Come on!!!!!"

  The nine lives' loud roar also brought a lion's mighty roar, having died so many times, the nine lives had also figured out the lion's attack routine. After dodging the first attack, the nine lives took advantage of the lion still being in mid-air and punched towards the lion's heart with one fist. The soul body's special property was gone, but that explosive power still existed!

  At the moment when he hit the lion, Jiǔ Mìng was also slapped flying by the lion's other huge paw.

  The lion fell to the ground, panting for a few breaths. The nine lives were quite heavy, and the place where it was hit was the heart, so it also needed to take a break.

  Jiǔ Mìng touched the painful shoulder, this time not being killed instantly, and discovered another point, the arm that should have been fractured was not fractured, which is also right, how could a ghost fracture?

  So he endured the pain, and the buffering time was much shorter than that of the lion. As soon as he landed, he rebounded back, and the lion naturally welcomed Jiǔ Mìng without courtesy. This attack was weaker than the previous fierce strike, there's hope!

  It's okay to admit defeat, I'm no match for this lion...

  Underestimated the lion's fighting spirit.

  "Ugh...!!! For the sixth time!!" Enduring the pain of death, Jiǔ Mìng's whole body trembled slightly. It was clear that the mysterious shop had no intention of letting him off. Just as the pain had barely dissipated, he saw that detestable lion head again!

  Training period

  How did this store appear, why does it exist, and how long has it existed? None of these are known. Moreover, the store doesn't have any AI or intelligent assistants either. Oh, maybe the information-providing panel can be classified as an intelligent assistant too?

  In short, it's a very strange 'store', except for the counter in front of the ninth life, the rest of the place is like a living room, completely set up according to the guest's arrival and sitting at will, but this is indeed a store.

  Every day, apart from the intense training that left him exhausted, the rest of his time was his free time here. During this period, he would also leave the mysterious shop and take a walk outside.

  It's just that this world is not his original world, a world with supernatural powers and superhumans, okay, it has special abilities, in other aspects it feels similar to Jiu Ming's original world. For the mysterious shop, this world is like a dock... for mooring ships, also providing convenience for Jiu Ming. The next shop owner will be in another different world.

  What frustrated him the most was that all the goods accumulated by his predecessor would disappear without a trace as soon as he left, and were all recovered by this mysterious store.

  No matter who you are or where you come from, your fate may change as soon as you step in here. The question is what can you pay for it?

  This is just a public declaration here... and this declaration is true.

  Apart from the nine prohibitions, it is also forbidden to reveal the existence of the mysterious shop to outsiders, and even more so, one cannot bring outsiders here on their own initiative. Those who come here can only do so by chance - commonly known as "looking at one's face"!

  Now, he has been muddled as the shopkeeper of this mysterious store and has never done a single business!

  The information passed down from the mysterious shop, Jiǔ Mìng also knew that this was not without reason. Firstly, as the shopkeeper here, martial power... absolutely cannot be lacking. Secondly, it can be put aside for now, and what needs to be done is for Jiǔ Mìng to adapt himself. The mysterious shop converted all the legacy left behind by its predecessor into the power to sustain its existence, and the excess was provided to Jiǔ Mìng for training.

  Even if defeated, it won't really die, but that kind of real feeling like true death is okay once or twice, but many times even the nine-lived ghost can't bear it! Who let this realistic death experience feeling rise with the endurance of the nine-lived, pressing his bottom line, making him unwilling to experience the feeling of death again, even if he knows he won't really die.

  Nine Lives defeated the virtual opponents conjured up by the mysterious shop, and as a result, he too would grow stronger in battle, consuming an extra portion of the shop's power.

  In short, some virtual opponents are also very powerful. When facing them, the opponent is just like a human being, thinking, using tactics and even interacting with each other.

  At the same time, the mysterious shop does not consume any extra power, so after the previous store manager is gone, the next one can have what degree of 'training' depends on how rich the legacy left by the previous store manager is. If there's no family property, then it's just a matter of slowly accumulating it. Anyway, those selected people who were eliminated can also be converted into the power of the mysterious shop. Well, here you can also buy souls, and at the same time, there is also a part that accepts commissions like a law firm.

  The mysterious shop also has a 'universal currency', which is a kind of transaction thing that can be used with customers, called 'yuan'. In the mysterious shop, yuan refers to a kind of original power that everyone has, whether it belongs to oneself or oneself in the world.

  The current operating income of the nine lives is naturally zero, and there are no goods in the entire store. He is also curious about what kind of posture the goods in the mysterious store will present, mainly because there is no delivery source, and he can only collect them by himself.

  There are no longer-term goals for him, and as the store manager, he just needs to maintain the existence of this store and gain control over its resources.

  "Huh? Why is it over already today?" He looked at the time, and this was the time when the mysterious shop gave him training every day. Each time, he would be taken to another space without his consent, perhaps a plain or a desert, any scene was possible.

  "Extra energy source depleted, training cycle complete!"

  Hmmm... So that's it? Which means my training is finally over! Looking at the subtitles popping out from the panel in front of me, Jiumeng let out a heavy sigh, it's finally over! As for the panel, just treat it as an auto-prompt or a log to record information, personal attributes are not available.

  "So that means I don't have to fight those increasingly formidable experts anymore?" With a sense of relief in my heart, it's not that I'm being overly pessimistic, but the enemies I've been facing recently are getting harder and harder to beat. Let alone aberrants or dinosaurs, there are also Iron Blood Warriors... and on several occasions, Jiǔ Mìng even encountered generals from the Three Kingdoms era... one of them was called Pān Fèng... cough, I have to say that the opponent was indeed quite formidable."

  In the martial arts world, there are also existences like this. None of the nine lives know how this vast and mysterious shop came into being, but when encountering some bold characters, it can still chat with them for a while before starting to fight. However, once defeated by the opponent, the feeling is not good. It's just that chatting is one thing, but when it comes to action, the opponents brought out by the mysterious shop are ruthless.

  Formal business has started, and the store manager must be prepared to respond to various customers at any time!

  Once again, the panel popped out a message and then hid itself. Jiǔ Mìng shrugged his shoulders. His mental strength was now much stronger than before. As the shopkeeper, he had some special privileges. Even if there were customers that Jiǔ Mìng couldn't handle, the mysterious store would give him a status that allowed him to ignore them.

  Of course, the one who should pay is coming, and Jiuming himself can also take action... It's just that he chose to take action, the 'invincible' state imposed on him by the mysterious shop will be eliminated, after all, a bad customer is still a customer!

  Apart from this store, everything here can be sold as merchandise, such as that luxurious sofa, that exquisite tea table, and the cups on it, all of which can be! Even the owner of the Nine Lives shop... well, at most, it's like a commission agency, after all, many lucky people who come here mostly won't buy or sell, without special preparation, it's not easy to buy things here...

  The mysterious shop's dark hand is not limited to the world in front of us. The nine-lived panel master's last words before officially opening for business were: "The guests who come may not necessarily be human, but whether they are or not, they are all customers here."

  "Never mind, let's go out for a walk."

  Leaving the counter, Jiǔ Mìng stretched his body, and the mysterious shop did not restrict his freedom.

  When there are no customers, he can leave at any time. The problem of watching the store is not worth mentioning. This store does not exist in this world, like a half-plane drifting around, except for those with explosive luck who can come here, others can't find it.

  There are many ways to get here, such as when opening the door and going home, walking into the house, going up and down stairs, falling into a pit, sleeping, being swallowed by an inexplicable giant beast... and so on. Everything depends on fate.

  Looking at his still slightly translucent palm, Jiǔ Mìng (Nine Lives) smiled wryly, seemingly resigned to the fact that this form was irreversible. Anyone who wasn't blind could see that there was something off about him. Even though he had become much stronger, he couldn't eliminate this flaw. But being a ghost had its advantages too - things like instant costume changes were easy for him to do...

  Clothes are also part of the soul body and can be changed with just a slight use of intention.