"Still, the store is... how do I say this? Pretty deserted?" Milinda raised her head. "Even if this is a new store, I’m still expecting to have two or three customers."

Auric chuckled. "Isn’t that fine? No customers mean more free time."

"It’s truly surprising." Katarina looked at the entrance. They opened the shop on Saturday, so there were a lot of people passing by.

Yet, none of them seemed to be coming in.

"I’m not too worried about that." Auric waved his hand. As for him, he didn’t mind if the store was deserted. He had enough money for the time being. Besides, he simply had too many things to do, and he didn’t have time to handle his store.

"Is that so?" Katarina shrugged. If the owner didn’t mind, she shouldn’t care about it.

"Yep. By the way, I have been meaning to ask this, but are you really going to wear those clothes while working in this store?" Auric asked.

All this time, Katarina had never really changed her clothes. She continued to wear the maid uniform, even though Auric had already cleared the misunderstanding.

"Yeah." Katarina nodded. She didn’t feel embarrassed about it anymore. "I don’t know... It’s growing on me. Maybe I should take up cosplay as a hobby."

"..." Auric was a bit speechless. Katarina was definitely a beautiful woman. Her talent was extremely good as well. "our future husband will be a very lucky person."

Katarina shrugged. "Well, there are many things I want to do before that. By the way, there are a few things that I want to ask regarding passive energy." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Sure." Auric nodded with a serious expression.

Katarina wanted to ask, but she suddenly stopped when Auric’s phone rang.

"Excuse me." Auric raised one finger, asking her to wait for a minute. He checked his phone and saw the notification.

[Transfer success. Your account #xxxxxxxx32 has received 98,858,320 credits.]

Auric almost forgot that Ellia had promised to transfer the money every two weeks for at least the first month. Auric needed a lot of money to upgrade his store. Besides, he had to maintain this store and the one at the academy simultaneously.

He had to include the original store in Thunderer City, but that store hadn’t been upgraded yet, so he could ignore those costs.

Both Katarina and Milinda couldn’t help but widen their eyes. They knew it was inappropriate to look at someone’s message.

However, Auric was sitting at the counter while he was busy with his study. The others were standing next to his desk.

So, they couldn’t help but see the notification.

What did they just see? Did they really just see Auric receive almost a hundred million credits? All this time, Auric had been with them at school. It didn’t seem like he had done anything. So, how did he get this money?

"You..." Katarina looked at Auric, dumbfounded. "What the hell did you do? Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to peek, but given my position..."

Milinda was completely speechless. She remembered Auric had worked hard as an evolution master.

They had definitely earned millions. However, that income had never come close to this transfer.

Katarina pinched the bridge of her nose and raised one hand as if asking him to give her time to think. "Just a second. I now understand why you don’t care about the store. You have more than enough money not to care about the store."

Katarina recalled Auric’s information. After Auric showed his silver badge, she stopped underestimating him.

In fact, she tried to get a background check on Auric, trying to figure out who he was.

To her surprise, Auric’s family was actually quite ordinary.

Auric’s father opened a material shop. The business was quite good, and the family looked well-off. At least Auric wasn’t the type of person who needed to worry about money.

However, there was no indication that he had the background necessary to fear no one. The only guardian who could protect him was Maya.

Still, even Maya wouldn’t exactly be able to give him this much money.

So, how in the world did Auric get this money?

Katarina asked, "You’re not selling your body to your teacher or someone else, are you?"

Auric was bewildered. "You know, your imagination is somehow too extraordinary."

Katarina just couldn’t find any reasons why Auric could get so much money. If he could actually earn this much as a silver-grade evolution master, how much would he earn after he became a gold-grade or even a diamond-grade evolution master?

"Anyway, just think of it as a side job." Auric waved his hand. He wanted to say that he hadn’t done anything illegal to assure her, but he realized he was actually doing something illegal.

He didn’t think that experimenting with this power on others would be illegal. He just thought that using shell companies to deliver this money was illegal.

That was why he changed his words.

"You sure this is your side job? I think that being an evolution master can be considered a side job for you." Katarina chuckled.

"I do intend to pursue this career seriously." Auric waved his hand.

"Okay. I should stop prying further. Sorry about that." Katarina took a deep breath, trying to shake her thoughts off.

Milinda said, "I guess you don’t need someone to keep you."

Auric coughed a few times. "I can earn by myself. Anyway, enough about this topic."

Lindwurm didn’t even care that their secret had been exposed. He simply floated in the air with a gold mattress, showing his happiness with the money. This way, Auric could buy him more food.

Then again, he could only earn this much money because of the Sun Store.

With the addition of rank 2 gathering techniques, he managed to get more money.

This time, the amount shown had already been reduced by taxes, so he earned way more than what was shown.

In fact, his monthly net income was close to two hundred million credits. And that was only because he didn’t have much time to produce more rank 2 gathering techniques.

In his store, there were 62 books. 54 of them were rank 1 gathering techniques, while the remaining 8 were rank 2 gathering techniques. If the number of rank 2 gathering techniques was higher, he probably would earn more.

Lindwurm already imagined the amount of money they would get after producing rank 3, rank 4, or even higher-rank gathering techniques.

Of course, it would also mean that he should pay Lindwurm more, considering Lindwurm had told him about another upgrade if he wanted it. He just didn’t want to hear about it because they had just upgraded the store.

Nevertheless, he was still waiting for the Moon Store to be discovered in another country. It would still take some time because the artificial heart method was much more unbelievable than the gathering techniques.

"Anyway, what do you want to ask about earlier?" Auric asked, trying to shift the topic.

"Well..." Katarina tried to recall all the questions she had in her mind, only to be disturbed again.

"Oh..." Auric smiled wryly.

"I think I will ask my questions later. You should finish your business first." Katarina shook her head helplessly.

"Sorry." Auric checked the notification. This time, it was Ellia who sent him a message.

"Where are you?" Ellia asked.

Auric raised his eyebrows. Ellia had been quiet all this time, so it was quite surprising that she suddenly asked his location.

Then again, she had just transferred the money, so he answered, "My store. The address is..."

Auric gave her the address, but he also added one more thing. "Thank you."

The thanks were definitely for the money transfer. Ellia carried some risk in handling all these operations for him, so the least he could do was to show his gratitude.

But Ellia didn’t respond to his message anymore.

Auric couldn’t help but feel confused. Normally, Ellia would be quick to reply to his message.

’It looks like Ellia is in some sort of trouble as well.’ Auric thought for a moment before asking, "By the way, Katarina. What do you know about Ellia? Maybe her family."

"Ellia?" Katarina looked up, contemplating. "Ellia Stroph Astler. She used to be in the spotlight because of her battle sense. In a way, her battle sense might be equal to an absolute fire element.

"She dominated every competition by a large margin. This made her feared by her peers.

"However, it all changed after her awakening. She used to be someone who was not only good at business but also at swordsmanship.

"Her unique element ruined one of them. Because of the element limitation, she wouldn’t be able to get stronger until she reaches a certain point.

"That’s why she left the capital city and tried her luck in another city."

Auric’s expression turned serious. "Her relationship with her family?"

There was one thing that bothered him. The butler mentioned the young lady. There was a chance that it was the butler of the Astler family, but he couldn’t prove it yet.

"Her relationship? How do I say it? It’s complicated. From what I know, the Astler Group has been stable all this time. But Ellia’s position in the family is not low either due to the businesses she owns. She is that important, but she doesn’t really seem to have a good relationship with her family."

"Why is that?" Auric frowned. If her relationship with her family were bad, might provide [a motive for someone to intimidate him.

"Why, you say?" Katarina raised one finger. "Don’t you know that there are people who want to marry her? She is the only child of the Astler family, so whoever marries her will become the head of the Astler Group in the future.

"In addition, she also has a talent in business, so growing the business empire in the future is possible.

"I, too, have a big family, but I’m not exactly forced to marry someone. In my family, strength is number one. Even among my siblings, I could simply suppress them with my talent. Let them think about what I will do to them if they make me angry in the future. The family will think the same way. I might ruin the family if I dislike it.

"However, Ellia couldn’t do the same thing. The only thing she can rely on is the money. If you take away the money, she won’t be able to do anything. Starting a new business is possible, but the Astler family won’t allow her.

"Unlike her, if you ruin my talent, the family simply can’t grow. That’s why her parents are trying to marry her into a big family so that they can get the most benefit out of her."

"That sounds... like an awful way to live." Auric shook his head helplessly.

"Right? You’d need to be crazy to survive." Katarina chuckled.

Auric couldn’t help but suspect her family to be the ones who did all this. It was to intimidate him so that Auric wouldn’t get close to their daughter.

It was reasonable, but just as he thought about it, the door was suddenly slammed open.

The one who rushed in was Ellia.

"Auric!" Ellia’s face was pale. She panted a few times as she had a hard time delivering the news. "Eric... He..."

The color on Auric’s face started to fade.