Chapter 46: Served on a Silver Platter
Sunday morning arrived.
Once again, Donape sat on the edge of his bed with a blank face and an equally blank stare.
Last night, he had chosen to slip away into the dark quite anonymously. He totally abandoned his original plan of appearing on TV as a hero who helped the police crack down on the Black Viper syndicate—even though it would have been free promotion for the shop.
He realized it was simply too much of a hassle.
A single, glaring thought had crossed his mind right after knocking out the gang leader:
’If this wasn’t an official System quest, would I really bother sprinting across town to fight a small army of armed thugs just for a five-minute TV news interview?’
Nope.
Yeah, the answer was a resounding no.
Way too much inconvenience.
Besides, the shop wasn’t even technically his. Why did he need to try so hard to begin with?
And money? What did he need more money for when his personal dividend was already sitting at a comfortable 3%, and the shop was pulling in around 1,500 BC daily?
He could easily laze around the counter, play games, and get stronger while money poured in on autopilot—all without having to slave away like a corporate worker.
Well... even though the shop’s operating hours were practically built like a corporate slave schedule.
[Mortal, you are now a superhuman.]
[C-o-n-g-r-a-t-u-l-a-t-i-o-n-s.]
Donape just stared at the System’s floating text with a completely deadpan expression.
"Yes. Thank you, O Great System," he replied flatly, utterly devoid of emotion.
He no longer got pissed off at the System’s condescending mockery. Over time, he had developed a complete immunity to its eccentric, drama-queen behavior.
[You seem to lack fighting spirit. Should the Great Me provide some motivation?!]
Donape stared at the text, his eyes narrowing. A moment later, a bright, completely forced smile stretched across his face.
"Hehe. How could I?" he exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. "I’m happy! Very, very happy!"
In reality, he simply added today’s exchange to the tally of grudges he was keeping against the System. Payback was still a long, long way off, but he was patient.
[You should promote the shop proactively. It needs more customers. That way, you won’t be the only superhuman in this world and the new era will usher just as the great universe intends.]
"Yes, of course. I’ll do my absolute best and put maximum effort into it!" Donape promised cheerfully.
In truth, he had no idea what the System actually hinted at by that cryptic remark—and frankly, he didn’t care. Not one bit.
He pulled himself out of bed, walked downstairs to the front door, flipped the sign to OPEN, and headed into the bathroom for a quick morning wash-up.
Surprisingly, even after he opened up, no customers came trickling in right away.
It was unusual for a Sunday morning, but Donape didn’t mind in the slightest.
By now, he had gotten a pretty good read on this Tyrannical System. If his observations were correct, bantering with or defying the System only carried a real threat of Divine Lightning if he blatantly overstepped his bounds.
While he could act tough about the threat of Divine Lightning, it didn’t mean getting struck by it didn’t hurt like hell. Taking a single bolt was one thing, but if the System decided to chain a few consecutive strikes at once... that was true torture.
As long as he didn’t push things too far, he was safe—so he treated the shop’s general interests with a comfortable, casual indifference.
System Quests, on the other hand, were a completely different story.
Those came with unpredictable penalties that he genuinely feared. Sometimes they were terrifying, sometimes endlessly troublesome, and other times just plain annoying to his very core.
Naturally, his attitude toward the two was like night and day.
Since he had nothing else to do, Donape retrieved his free daily bottle of Origin Fountain Water. After gulping it down in one shot, he tilted his head, savoring the feeling.
’Ah. It feels like normal water now—the warm flushing sensation in my throat is gone. Instead, I can feel something new... like a network of tiny, empty pathways connecting throughout my body.’
He opened and closed his hands, feeling his grip, before deciding to meditate right there behind the counter.
This time, slipping into deep meditation happened far faster and easier than ever before. He didn’t even have to break a sweat.
As his breathing slowed to a barely noticeable rhythm, the space around him subtly warped, causing the air to ripple like a dimensional glitch. Yet, despite the spatial distortion, the shop remained perfectly intact, utterly unaffected by the leak of power.
Soon, a vibrant, blue-white luminescence enveloped his body.
Donape snapped his eyes open—and they glowed with pale light.
He gasped softly.
’I can see the flow of energy without relying on my physical senses!’ he exclaimed inwardly.
It was bizarre, yet undeniably real.
For someone who had believed superpowers and the supernatural were strictly fiction prior to his fatal encounter with the Tyrannical System, this was a mind-bending milestone. He could even track the invisible currents of the air moving through the room without feeling them touch his skin.
Curious, Donape stood up and executed a single movement from The Path of the Heavenly Martial Arts.
Injecting a trace of the newfound internal energy he had just gathered, he wove both arms through the air in a gentle, fluid motion. That single, effortless movement summoned a sudden, gentle breeze out of nowhere.
Donape smiled broadly. Guided by pure instinct, he thrust a palm strike straight forward, imbuing it with a burst of Qi.
WHAM!
A compressed blast of air surged across the room, splitting the atmosphere with a sharp crack—only to instantly vanish into thin air a foot before reaching the front door, completely absorbed by the shop’s invisible defense field.
[Mortal, you cannot do as you wish here, even if your meager power couldn’t hope to scratch this shop.]
[Initiating: Divine Lightning!]
ZAP!
This time, however, something was different. Donape’s heightened perception allowed him to actually react and track the exact trajectory of the lightning as it manifested overhead!
Granted, tracking it didn’t stop it from blasting him square in the chest—it was still futile to defy the System, and the strike hurt like hell. But as the static crackled over his skin, Donape quietly celebrated in his heart.
He was making real progress. One day, he’d be fast enough to dodge or nullify that damn Divine Lightning for good.
Donape was still shaking off the remaining static tingling in his clothes when the front door’s chime echoed through the quiet shop.
"Good morning, Boss Don!" Ji-Hong greeted cheerfully, striding inside alongside his usual entourage, with Butler Lee trailing a step behind.
Donape gave a nod and retrieved another daily consumption from the shop—a bottle of Spirit-Clearing Dew. He popped the cap and took a slow sip, letting the crisp liquid clear away his mental fatigue, lingering static, and morning drowsiness.
"Ah, right! Boss Don, you’re coming to my grandpa’s birthday party next week, right? I’m personally inviting you!" Ji-Hong said, leaning over the counter with flashing eyes. "What do you think? There’s usually a massive fistfight near the end!"
"It is a casual sparring match to compare martial insights, Young Master—a friendly exchange," Butler Lee immediately interjected, his voice twitching with restraint.
"Ah, whatever! Same difference. Point is, there’s a martial arts beatdown show!" Ji-Hong brushed aside Butler Lee’s correction without a second thought, staring intently at Donape. "So, what do you say, Boss Don?!"
Butler Lee felt a throbbing migraine brewing behind his eyes.
Last night, while the entire city was glued to the television and social media watching breaking news about the police cracking down on the Black Viper gang, Ji-Hong had been obsessively planning his grand entrance for his grandfather’s 71st birthday gala.
Butler Lee had already thought it was absurd enough that Ji-Hong insisted on keeping his healed body constitution a secret to pull off a dramatic "surprise reveal" at the Baek Family banquet.
But now, the young master suddenly wanted to drag the mysterious, unbothered shopkeeper along to act as an audience member for his martial performance?
Butler Lee pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling utterly helpless. Trying to stop Ji-Hong once he set his mind on a ridiculous idea was like trying to halt a runaway train with a paper fan.
On the other hand, Donape smiled wryly.
’A silver platter handed right to me. How nice. I wish life were always this easy,’ he thought.
He had actually been trying to figure out how to get Ji-Hong to bring him along—even considering offering to guide Ji-Hong in cultivating internal energy as leverage. But as it turned out, the young master was doing all the heavy lifting for him.
"Sure, why not? When is it?"
"Next week! Saturday at seven in the evening. Hehe!" Ji-Hong beamed.
"Got it."
Butler Lee chimed in, adjusting his cuffs. "You cannot arrive in casual clothes, kid. As our guest, you are required to wear a proper suit. I will have A-Ji and Ji-Ga pick you up next week."
"Alright. Thanks," Donape replied, feeling genuinely grateful.
With that settled, the Sunday morning at the shop kicked off on a relaxed, fun note as loyal customers began trickling in one by one.
Meanwhile...
On the top floor of an unmarked, high-rise luxury hotel overlooking S City’s glittering skyline, the atmosphere was pitch-black save for the cold glow of multiple tactical monitors.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with a jagged scar running from his ear down to his collarbone adjusted the scope of a high-caliber sniper rifle resting on a tripod near the floor-to-ceiling glass. He didn’t look up as a low chime sounded from a secure, encrypted terminal on the glass coffee table.
"Escape route secure. Plan B has been prepared, and the main plan is ready to be implemented," a sharp, hoarse voice reported from behind the main terminal.