"If you keep pretending to meditate, do you believe I'll cut off your arm?"
Even though Ace didn't want to, he reluctantly opened his eyes and saw Shadow was eyeing him with a vexed stare.
Ace smiled wryly and answer, "I was just about to finalize my plan."
Shadow sneered in a crisp voice, "Hmph… lets me hear this plan as it is then!"
She didn't believe him at all, and she just wanted to show him his place, so he won't cause any trouble again. She never pinned her hopes on him in the first place.
Ace's eyes suddenly lit up as he looked at Shadow!
An abrupt thought surfaced in Ace's mind, 'If I could make Shadow join the thief house, I don't need to be wary of her anymore and she also can't hurt me or disobey my command as the matter of fact.
'Besides, her stealth skill is even more powerful than my breathless stealth and her unique demon species also seemed to be a sneaky type perfect for a thief.
'She will be perfect for the first member, and it's not like she'll be losing anything while joining my house. With the system's help, she can probably become the strongest demon in this world!'
Ace quickly decided to recruit Shadow. But the question was, will she join him if he sincerely invited her and tell the truth? The answer was a big no!
Foremost, she'll probably think Ace was messing with her and secondly, Ace didn't have the power to make her submit to him, and even if he had the power, he could tell this woman was too stubborn.
She'll probably attack him the moment he told her to become his subordinate and submit to him. Besides, Ace already knew demons would never submit to any other race, they would choose death over submission to any other race.
So, Ace has to use an underhanded method to make her enter his house and once she was in, there was no escaping according to the rules!
"Umm… sister demon, I can tell you the plan, but you have to sign an oath contract with me. It's not much. I just want your promise that you'll let me go alive once I help you accrue the technique you desire." Ace said with a straight face.
'Did he really have a path, or is he just bluffing?'
Shadow's eyes narrowed when she heard this and rebuked coldly, "Do you think you have the strength to negotiate with me? And didn't you say yourself that you'll be my slave once I help you?"
Ace's expression didn't change at all and said with a stoic face, "Very well, let's change the oath contract to 'Once I serve my means you won't kill me or make anyone nor will you hand me over to anyone until your life is in extreme danger!' what do you think about it? It only benefited you and if you don't agree to it, I prefer death sooner since I'll die later, anyway."
Shadow's eyes widen a little, hearing Ace's new condition. Truth be told, it was just as Ace said, she was planning to get rid of Ace once he served his purpose or even handed him to the authorities for the reward.
But now Ace has clearly seen thought her and made things difficult.
'This human is too strange and cunning. He can steal that Soul Trapping Banyan Tree's timber without getting affected and even guessed my intentions. Did he really have a way out of here?
'It might be the cause since won't dare to negotiate with me with no leverage, nor he would be so calm. I was planning to wait here until the Demon Duke was forced to deactivate the array since he can't keep all those people here for too long in a ghost search.
'But if this human can really get us out of here, then I prefer leaving now since there is still a chance of Demon Duke stumbling upon this secret passage. However, I can't risk tying him with me forever, either.' Shadow was perplexed.
"You shall die then!"
Shadow's figure suddenly moved, leaving a blur behind.
However, Ace didn't move from his position and remained expressionless. He didn't feel any murderous intent from Shadow at all, and he knew she was trying to intimidate him into submission.
But strangely, Ace didn't feel any fear anymore, and he deemed it was probably because of his new cultivation base. 'It seemed I can go toe to toe with a silver river core cultivator.'
Shadow figure suddenly appeared behind with massive killing intent, she thrust a red dagger toward Ace's head.
However, just as Ace presumed, the sharp dagger abruptly stopped after it touched his hair and the killing intent also vanished.
'He's not afraid of dying? Then did he really have a way to leave this place?' Shadow was vexed when she saw Ace was still sitting like a statue and didn't even look back at her.
This fearless action of Ace aroused many thoughts in Shadow's head.
'It's just a damn oath contract. This human probably didn't know there are ways to bypass these contracts, as long as they aren't Legendary Grade, and they're extremely rare.
'He probably shouldn't have one either, since he's from that weak race. I'll just deal with the contract later when I bought a legendary slave contract for him!'
Shadow quickly decided to play along with Ace since he was too important for her and she can't risk killing him. Not before he served his purpose.
"Fine, we'll sign an oath contact on the same terms as you said. But I don't have an oath contract on me." Shadow finally returned to her previous position and coldly stated while scrutinizing Ace, as if she wanted to see through him.
But to her dismay, Ace was just too good at controlling his facial expression.
"I naturally have one with me. That is why I purposed this deal. I hope you can understand, I just don't want to die, even if it's means living like a slave." Ace sighed helplessly while lamenting.
Shadow's eyes suddenly filled with disdain when she heard this and all the worries in her heart vanished, 'What a coward! I thought too highly of him and nearly forget he was just from a lowly race; how could he dare to scheme against my demon race?'
"Fine, take out the oath contract and get it over with." Shadow disdainfully spat, as she was no longer wary of Ace because of his cowardly nature.
"Open the new Treasure Section!" Ace didn't delay and quickly commanded. He knew the fish has taken the bait, and now he had to react quickly.
====
[System Shop: Treasure Section]
[Heaven's Stealer Disassembler Gloves]
{Unknown Grade}
{Price: 100,000 TP}
---
[Thief House Recruitment Tokens: 3]
{Price: 1,000,000 TP}
---
[Random Teleportation Life Coin]
{2 Available: 1 Time Use item}
{Price: 30,000 TP Per Coin}
=====
Ace nearly cursed out loud when he saw the price of one million thief points, but he knew he had little time right now.
"I want one thief house recruitment token and everything else available in the treasure shop!" Ace reluctantly spend one million thief points, but he also didn't forget about two other things available, especially the life coin that can save his life!
=====
[Total amount of host current purchase: 1,130,000 TP]
[TP has been deducted: Purchase has been successful.]
---
[Thief Point(s): 1,688,400]
---
[Heaven's Stealer Disassembler Gloves and One Thief House Recruitment Token has been delivered in the host's thief's space.]
---
[Random Teleportation Life Coin is now activated.]
[Life Coin: 2]
[Description: It will be used automatically when the system detects any life-ending danger in the host's life.]
=====
Ace didn't have time to check Heaven's Stealer Disassembler Gloves since he had already taken ten seconds and now Shadow was getting impatient.
With a thought, a crystalline pitch-black palm-size round token appeared in Ace's hand. It was very smooth and warm to the touch.
Ace saw the engraving of his thief symbol the Dark Owl in the front of this round token and when he flipped it there were two words written on it in ancient god language, 'Thief House'.
Shadow also eyed the exquisite black token in Ace's hand with curiosity.
"System, how did I use it?" Ace asked, he didn't know the thief house recruitment token would have his thief symbol on it as well as the text of ancient god language.
But he still felt relieved when he thought no one know about this language or his plan of swindling Shadow into joining his Thief House would turn into smoke and might even backfire!
"[The person who wants to join the Thief House needed to willingly drop its blood on the recruitment token and willingly touched it with its Qi!]"
'Easy enough. Now came the tricky part.'
Ace impassively looked at Shadow, who was throwing a questionable gaze at him and the recruitment token in his hand!