Ascension: Online

"Follow me. We can discuss the specifics somewhere… more private," the senior disciple said, looking around.

It seemed that he was afraid of someone else finding about him accepting a bribe, which was understandable. Determining that there was no demerits to following him, I complied.

We entered what seemed to be a public bathroom, split between male and female. We went in the male side, obviously.

There was no one else there at the moment, making it the perfect place to execute this deal.

"So? How much are you going to pay me?" he asked, folding his arms. "My help doesn't come cheap, you know. You're lucky I'm even offering you it."

"Naturally, I understand," I replied, going along with his words to make this deal flow smoother. "I appreciate what you're doing for me, senior brother. Because of this… I will pay you 100 gold for your trouble."

I internally cringed at every word that was coming out of my mouth, but it was a necessary sacrifice to help this deal go through the way I wanted it to. Sometimes, bowing down was the best strategy. Showering people like this with praise also worked, since they lacked self-confidence and needed someone else to confirm their superiority complex.

But then, the senior disciple scoffed. "Only 100? I'm about to spend several hours showing you around this place, wasting time I could've otherwise spent diligently cultivating. Do you know how much time is worth? It's priceless."

Unfortunately, I did not quite get the effect I wanted, it seems. Still, that was fine. I was expecting the first time to fail — that's why I purposely only offered 100.

"Sorry… what about 250?" I asked anxiously. "That's half of all I have…"

Of course, this was a blatant lie. I had nearly 400,000 gold in my inventory, but he didn't need to know that — this was all part of my plan. Start low, then steadily increase the price as he asks for it, while putting on an act of increasing nervousness. That was the way to go in order to pay him the minimum possible while still ensuring the deal still sealed successfully.

"Seriously? You're that poor?" the senior disciple snorted irritatedly. "Tch, if you're this poor, why are you trying to bribe someone?"

"P-Please," I stuttered, practically begging him. "500. That's the highest I can go, I have no more. I'm from a poor family, and my parents have both passed away already, rendering me an orphan… I got these 500 coins by working tirelessly at a farm, day after day. After months of suffering, I finally managed to wait until this sect began recruiting again. Help me out, senior brother… I want to be first at something, for once in my life — even if I have to cheat to do it."

"T-Tch…" he gritted his teeth, looking at me like I was some sort of insect. "A-Alright, fine, fine. I don't want to hear your sad past. 500 coins? Bet. Hand them over."

Deep down, I grinned. What an expertly-woven, beautiful piece of utter bullshit I just came up with on the spot. Truly, a magnificent work of art, able to deceive even the cleverest of people.

I meekly took out a pouch filled with 500 gold out of my pocket and handed it to the senior disciple obediently. Naturally, I had prepared this before reaching out to him. Thankfully, the final price and what I had in mind were identical — in other words, I had controlled this conversation and exchange perfectly.

He weighed the pouch a little and peeked inside, muttering, "Well… this should be enough to buy five tickets for the Tower of Hearth…"

"Tower of Hearth? What's that?" I asked, curious.

"Nothing you need to be worrying about, newbie," he chuckled, stuffing the pouch of coins into his… ring, somehow.

I was confused at how the pouch suddenly shrinked and flew into the gem of the ring, but seeing as how this guy wasn't planning on any of my questions, I decided to refrain from asking.

"Alright," he said once he was finished. "I don't think anyone overheard our conversation, which is good… but you know what to do, yeah?"

"Don't tell anyone this ever happened? Don't worry, I got it. On the surface, it will just be you kindly helping out a new disciple."

He smirked. "Exactly. Glad to see you understand without me having to say anything."

He then took out a silver token of some sort from the inside of his green cloak and showed it to me. On the token was a word written in Chinese:

'Outer.'

"You can call me Long Yaqing. I am an outer disciple of the sect, second year. Now, follow me."

Stuffing the token back into his pocket

How easily people give in to bribery… it's truly sickening. Still, I wasn't complaining. This worked in my favor, though I was slightly disappointed in the ethics of the disciples here. Still, it was just one person. I didn't have a big enough sample to determine whether or not the remainder of the population was like him as well — hopefully not.

Bribery was a double-edged sword — I could use it on someone to have them kill a person, but another can just as easily bribe the same person to kill me instead.

Long Yaqing probably saw me as some sort of weakling, someone easy to pick on, especially because of the Deceiver set I obtained from the Vault of Deception. That's why he hinted at bribery when I spoke to him. Of course, my intentions just happened to match his, resulting in a smooth deal being formed.

Unfortunately for him, however… without even realizing it himself, he had just become another one of my pawns.

"You can go out first, Senior Brother Long," I said with a smile on my face. "I need to actually use the restroom real quick."

He sighed. "Yeah, yeah… just don't make me wait too long, you hear me?"

I nodded in return as he left.

Of course, I didn't actually need to piss. There were two reasons why I asked him to go out first:

One, to avoid rousing suspicion from passerby, seeing two guys exiting out of the bathroom at the exact same time;

And two… to check whether or not the recording I discretely made during our conversation really worked.

Heading into a stall, I opened up my System and went to my Inventory. There, I spotted the item I was looking for:

[Name: Recording #001]

[Type: Audio File]

[Duration: 4:53]

[Description: A recording made with the 'Blackmailer' skill.]

Indeed — the Blackmailer skill. This had been one of the skills I purchased with some of the 12 AP I received from reaching Level 35 just yesterday. It was of the Knight skill tree, which surprised me a bit. I remember, at the time, I was surprised to find this out, since I didn't know Knights, chivalrous and honorable, would stoop so low as to use blackmail, but hey — you learned something new everyday.

Smirking, I tapped on the item. A new pop-up appeared, giving me further details and options to customize.

[Date recorded: 10/31/2051]

[Time recorded: 1:14 PM]

-

[ - Options - ]

[Rename]

[Delete]

[Effects]

I tapped on effects. A new menu opened.

[Voice Changer]

[Cut/Trim]

[Censorship]

I clicked on the voice changer option, and was met with a prompt.

[Scanning file…]

After a few seconds, the text changed:

[Two voices detected. Select one you wish to apply the voice changer effect on.]

[1. Igarashi Kaze (You)]

[2. Long Yaqing]

Without any hesitation, I clicked on my own name.

[Applying effects…]

[Effect complete.]

I then exited back to the options menu and clicked on rename.

[Please type in the new name of the file here:]

[ _________ ]

A holographic keyboard appeared below the main window of my System, and I quickly typed on it:

[Blackmail Evidence: Long Yaqing.]

I then pressed save to apply the changes, then listened to the recording. After confirming it had recorded the whole conversation and my voice was successfully altered, I exited out of my System and left the stall.

*****

After I came out of the bathroom, Long Yaqing was a short distance away. Although he didn't see me, I noticed him, but I purposely went the other direction and looped around for a while before coming back and greeting him at last.

"You sure took a long ass time," he snorted after seeing me, with quite the dissatisfied expression on his face.

I laughed awkwardly. "Ahaha… yeah, I think I ate too much just now, at the welcome ceremony…"

"Heh. Happens to the best of us," he chuckled lightly, completely clueless that in a few days, his journey at this sect would be coming to an end — at least, that's what I assumed the punishment for accepting bribes were.

"Alright, you ready now?" he asked after sweeping over my body with his eyes, up and down.

I nodded. "Take the lead, Senior Brother Long."

The reason I decided to record that conversation in the bathroom to use as blackmail against him was simply as an experiment — nothing more. I could threaten him with it if I ever need him again in the future, but for now, I didn't see a point in actually using it. It's not like these recordings expired, so I could keep it for as long as I wanted to.

That said… if an opportunity arises — for example, if there was a reward for reporting other disciples of breaking the rules — I would sell him out without a second thought.

Sorry, Long Yaqing. Just blame it on your bad luck… for running into me.