Eternal Thief

Inside the underground chamber in Iron Demon City,

Currently, Ace was practicing his rune crafting while trying to achieve tier-4, and he was very close to drawing the lightning symbol when suddenly the symbol suddenly turned into dark light particles as Ace's focus suddenly snapped.

Ace was startled first before his heart palpitated when his soul sense buzzed in alarm. However, he didn't use his heavenly sense because this danger wasn't from inside the chamber, but it was from outside.

He looked toward Noa and saw she was completely oblivious to this deadly feeling from outside and felt relief when he thought this was probably because of this room's special material that they remain out of mischief.

Ace finally lose his nerve when he thought they were still safe inside here and might not suffer any danger as long as they wait until this danger passed.

'Did those demons make a move? But just what did they do outside to even make my soul sense tremble to this degree? Right now, I can only feel emptiness and deadly momentum from whatever they released.' Ace's expression turned solemn.

'But this room is really wonderful, even with this deadly, mysterious formation. It still can't affect us? Just what kind of material this room is made of? I even try cutting it with my sword finger, but it didn't leave any mark on it.

'Which means even half sword intent of shadow element isn't enough to cut these stones. I wonder if my complete sword intent will be able to achieve such a thing. I definitely had to come back in the future to retrieve every stone from this chamber. Furthermore, I might get unexpected rewards.' A sharp glint flashed past Ace's eyes when he looked at this mysterious chamber.

This was very good for practice and training, and he didn't have to worry about damaging it, and it could even hide from martial senses, and even high-level formation didn't seem to detect it.

However, Ace's focus was momentarily diverted before he again sensed an even more powerful undulation from outside, as if something was trying to penetrate deep underground, but this chamber was easily resisting this invisible force.

Ace's expression was grave. 'It seemed they're come with a powerful formation this time to see if I was still hidden inside the city and if not for this mysterious chamber, they might've found me…

'Leaving after thieving is still better, it simply too risky to stay behind to observe and reap even more benefits, I'm dealing with the second hegemony of this world and I still didn't know the entirety of their method, so I better escape far away after the theft.'

Suddenly, Noa's pitch black eyes snapped open and shimmer with a dark hue as she looked at Ace.

Ace suddenly felt gazed at by a predator and instantly looked in Noa's direction with a hint of astonishment.

That dark hue suddenly vanished when Ace looked toward her and Noa's melodious voice filled with joy sounded, "Leader, I achieve Low-level mastery in Thief Assassin's Soul View just now!"

Ace couldn't help but feel happy for her and nodded with a faint smile, "Congratulations, this skill seemed quite powerful. It even made me feel cold."

Noa nodded and said, "Yes, Thief Assassin's Soul View can help me view hidden rune symbols, traps, and enemies as well as I can also see killing intent with this skin toward me like a rising smoke even if someone is deeply hidden in it.

"But it can only help me see through Grade-1 runes, while I can only overpower a River Core Cultivator and slightly see through a newly become soul realm cultivator."

She truthfully told Ace about the Thief Assassin's Soul View's pros and cons.

"It also appeared, leader's senses are far stronger than my Thief Assassin's Soul View, or it was impossible to defect even for a soul realm cultivation when I used this skill with No-Kill." She couldn't help but praise Ace for his sharp senses.

Ace merely chucked and humbly said, "Heh, I just have an innate ability which is too sensitive against danger, or I don't think I can detect Miss Noa's Thief Assassin's Soul View so easily."

Noa's eyes flashed, but she didn't ask further. She knew Ace was just too mysterious, and he had many abilities that he didn't reveal to her. But she was satisfied as long as he was on her side and she could walk on the thief's path with him.

Ace suddenly remembered and flip his hand and a storage ring appeared in his hand and threw it toward Noa, who caught it intuitively before looking at Ace with bewilderment.

Ace smiled and said, "These are books related to alchemy that I have 'collected' over the years from my homeland, I don't know if they're useful to you demons or not, but they're useless to me since I already remembered them. They're also books that I 'got' after my trip outside. All in all, they should all be enough for providing you with enough knowledge until 1st Grade Alchemist."

Ace was telling the truth because after he gained heaven's stealer gloves, he found out that his heavenly sense can now be used to instantly memorize these books with just a mere scan.

This made him thrilled because now he didn't have to skimp through all those books in his storage ring, and he can just remember them after scanning them with his heavenly sense almost instantly.

That's why he was planning to give these books he got from the treasure mountain and other places to Noa since she needed to be an alchemist to practice her demon body technique she got from the system.

"Thank you." Noa didn't reject Ace's help, since she knew she needed it.

When she probed inside the storage ring Ace gave her, her eyes suddenly went wide with shock because this ring was a low-grade-1 ring with 200 cubic meters of space inside. Even she didn't have this quality storage ring.

But was truly shocked her was this ring was filled with thousands of books, and they weren't just any random books, they were fire controlling techniques, pill formulas, and herb raising… all in all, those books were enough to make any new alchemist like her eyes green with envy and now Ace has given all of them to her.

She knew she didn't need all of them, but she was still moved by Ace's consideration and decided to work harder to not let him down.

Ace merely chucked seeing Noa's reaction and said, "Also, I remembered, you have stolen storage rings with you, which means they'll be still locked with Qi marks. I can also help you remove those Qi marks."

Ace didn't pay attention to this point before and suddenly remembered that Noa didn't have the ability or system to remove Qi marks from those stolen rings, so he quickly offered his help since it was his duty, to begin with.

Noa's eyes shimmered with uncertainty as she questioned, "Leader have Brand Destroyer Talisman?"

Ace become confused and asked, "What Brand Destroyer Talisman?"

"I heard this Brand Destroyer Talisman is something very expensive and can only be bought from the King Domain, but its supplies were always tiny, and only those powerful demon clans can get their hands on it.

"The reason for this talisman's high demand is that this Brand Destroyer Talisman can completely destroy the Qi mark on the storage ring and also removed the Qi mark from treasures, which will make it extremely easy to refine." Noa quickly told whatever she knew about this talisman to Ace.

Ace's eyes suddenly lit up when he heard there was really something that can save his 100 Thief Points he would use to unlock those storage rings, and he knew many of them weren't even worth this much, but he had no choice but to do so since he didn't know another way before.

But now that Noa had revealed this Brand Destroyer Talisman's existence, he instantly wanted to get his hands-on thousands of them. But he knew he wasn't the only one with such thoughts because something that can remove Qi marks will always be in high demand in the market, and those big clans will never let commoners get their hands on them.

But this doesn't mean he can't get this talisman hands on these talismans because all he had to do was to found the supplier of this talisman which was also quite easy to guess, Life Demon Association, which was the only organization powerful enough to even create and then monopolized something like this under everyone greedy eyes.

'I should really raid 'Life Demon Association' next time.'

Ace really wanted to head toward this organization at this instant, but he knew after his appearance and the commotion he caused, it would be not wise to create any more commotion so soon, or he really might draw some scary existence's attention which will make his thievish life even more difficult.

Well, he still didn't know he was already under the radar of this continent's biggest power, and if he paid some attention to his newly stolen storage rings, he would be shocked to find out that their Qi marks were completely gone!