Chapter 6: The drive to sell jars

The effect was immediate.

The moment the necklace was placed around her neck, Tsunade could clearly feel something different.

Most notably, the images of the past that were overwhelmingly painful whenever they were recalled were now, while still painful, without that unacceptable and unbearable despair.

It was like hanging off a cliff, grasping the last straw, with a million feet below her, and yet refusing to give up.

"This is courage ..."

She murmured softly, her eyes flushing uncontrollably.

She felt it now, vaguely.

Why did Nawaki rush forward, and why did Katou rise to the occasion…

To guard what must be guarded, even in the face of pain, crisis, and despair, to go forward with strength…that was courage.

"Tsunade-sama?"

Shizune looked at Tsunade with heartache and worry clearly visible in her eyes.

She had never seen Tsunade shed a tear, not even when she was drinking alone in silence.

Tsunade seemed to have some reaction to her voice.

She looked at her pale arm and suddenly, at her fingers painted with bright red nail polish, and made a vicious swipe at it.

The skin cracked under her strength and dark blood flowed out.

"Tsunade-sama!"

Shizune exclaimed, rushing up and trying to help Tsunade stop the bleeding.

"Shizune!"

Tsunade shouted heavily.

Shizune's movements froze as she looked at the serious-faced Tsunade.

She knew it.

Tsunade-sama's blood-phobia made her shake with fear at the mere sight of blood.

But now…Shizune snapped to attention.

There was no trembling to be seen.

Tsunade, who was staring dead at her arm at the moment, staring at the bright red blood, still had fear in her gaze though, fear of the pain of losing someone important that day. But no trembling was visible.

Cale took a small sip of his wine, a faintly imperceptible smile visible on the corner of his mouth.

Sure enough.

Tsunade's hemophobia, which was originally psychological in nature, had increased resistance to fear with the addition of the necklace.

Even if it was not completely cured, it was only a matter of time before she have had some time to practice, to adapt, to adjust her mind, and to heal completely.

'How will Orochimaru feel when he comes to the door, bites his finger and finds out Tsunade isn't scared and has a bunch of more powerful potions?'

Cale shook his head with a smile, none of that had anything to do with him.

While Tsunade was still trying to get over her hemophobia, Cale also began to take stock of the day's haul.

In total, he received 10.4 million, or 600,000 trade points worth of goods from Tsunade.

The cost, counting the clay pots, all together, was about 150,000 trade points.

He earned four hundred and fifty thousand pure trading points.

Triple the profit!

'Surely, selling jars is the right way to trade, it's a business where you can squeeze all the money out of people's hands!'

It was just a shame that Tsunade turned out to be poorer than he thought, although that shouldn't have been a surprise.

Cale checked out a few of the items he was looking at.

-Dark Dark Fruit — worth twenty-one million trade points.

-Wolverine's undead body — worth eleven million.

-Dr. X's numinous power— worth seventeen million.

'Fucking hell.'

Cale couldn't stop himself from cursing.

Strong and awesome abilities were going to cost tens of millions of trade points, but if you don't find a corresponding fantasy world and instead had to customize the item to fit your world with trade points, it's worth became twice as much, which amounted to quite a lot.

He was still poor to choose any of the game changing abilities.

Although, it was possible to choose some less impressive items, but, he knew what he wanted.

Cale knew very well that he had no sense of combat and was not interested in fighting. His definition of ability was self-preservation, after all, not everyone had the luck to meet the decent characters like Tsunade, and if it was Orochimaru that he met today, then he would only have the fate of using up the trading points to escape.

'How about buying a bodyguard?'

It was nice to buy an awesome and loyal minion if you didn't want to fight yourself.

A figure suddenly flashed through Cale's mind, a character that he liked a lot.

The all-powerful angel Icarus!

The Queen of the Air from the Skyfall was powerful and most of all, pleasing to the eye.

Well-behaved and obedient once she recognizes her master, coachable, and the type Cale liked.

He decided to check it out quickly and sure enough, there she was…

…At the whopping value of Eighty-two million!

Cale wasted a lot of effort to restrain his expression from changing.

'Why is it so much more expensive? Dr. X's Nimrod is just over 10 million.'

It took some time to look it over, and he got it.

Whether it be a fruit, or an ability, it was just a qualification in the end, a growable qualification. You had to rely on your own development and growth to reach that height, which was the reason Wolverine's immortality also went up to ten million points, it was because it did not need to grow.

Looking at the one item in his head, Cale, all of a sudden, had a thought.

'Make more money and buy Icarus!'

"Tsunade-sama."

He looked at Tsunade, who had moved away before him to let Shizune heal her arm, and then handed over an object, "This, and please keep it."

"What's this?"

Tsunami reached out and picked it up.

Though her face was still a little white, she now, truly understood how amazing the merchandise of the man before her was.

It was just a necklace and yet, surprisingly, it was able to give her courage.

The item in Cale's hand was an exquisite badge with the same pattern as the one that appeared on his forehead before.

Omniscient All-Seeing Eye ...

"This is a badge that only Tier 2 customers are qualified to have, for communication."

Cale explained, "It only requires a small amount of chakra input to be able to notify me, so if Miss Tsunade still want to purchase a jar in the future, she can contact me through this."

This thing was worth a good three thousand trade points, mostly because of the customization.

But it was worth it.

Tsunade, in front of him, was now out of money, but with her status and abilities, getting money was easy.

She was a quality customer in which investing wouldn't lead to loss on the long term.

"Oh? You're leaving?"

Tsunade played with the badge in her hand that she couldn't tell what material it was made of.

"I am a businessman after all."

Cale smiled, the meaning was obvious.

'You're all out of money so why would I stay?'

Of course, it wasn't said out loud, lest he wanted to risk losing his first customer that had potential to be a gold mine.

"This mark."

Tsunade propped her hands on her lap and leaned forward slightly, the pupils of her dark golden eyes reflecting Cale's figure, "You call it the all-seeing eye, so does that mean you sell jars that are capable of anything?"

Tsunade, at this point, asked with an invisible oppressiveness.

Cale couldn't see the slightest hint of drunkenness from her. Did she come out of that state of decadence somehow because of the 'cross of courage', or because she was the legendary sannin?

Cale quietly exchanged a Vajra talisman worth three thousand trade points and put it in his arms and then took another look at the shopping cart of teleportation props.

What followed was a short moment of silence, which felt like very long.

He smiled and said, "Whether it is omnipotent or not, I am not sure, but I do have many people who have opened impossible miracles in the jars I have sold."

"Like what?" Tsunade trailed off.

"…"

Cale looked into her eyes and after a brief silence, slowly spat out one word, "Resurrection."