Who Says I’m Not a Legitimate Adventurer?

Lance casually pulled out a wafer-thin crystal slice from the exquisite album, placed it into the groove on the cover card, and lightly touched the rune node at its edge with his fingertip.

With a faint fluctuation of mana, the entire card instantly lit up.

【Amalga · Luminous Tidal Glow (FT-0888)】

In an instant, a soft beam of light projected into the air.

The originally dim room seemed to be transported into a seaside bay under the night sky.

The deep blue waves tirelessly crashed against the black reefs, stirring up dreamlike, glowing foam. With the rise and fall of the tide, that light flowed as if it were alive.

Even more astonishingly, Lance could actually hear the waves crashing against the shore, and he could smell a faint hint of sea salt.

This was a rare card.

According to market prices, this thin slice alone was worth around 50 silver coins.

Lance carefully examined the markings on the back of the card.These panoramic cards were generally divided into three rarity tiers: standard, rare, and limited edition.

Aside from this rare card, the rest in the album were all standard landscapes, but they made up for it in quantity.

What truly multiplied the value of this collection was the album itself.

【Starry Journey Commemorative Album】 was a precision alchemical tool.

It could not only nourish the cards using ambient Aether Energy to prevent the images from fading, but its core function was to project the panoramic cards into real space in three-dimensional form.

That was the fundamental reason for its high price.

Wayne’s Codex secrets had mentioned the origin of this item.

It had been loot dropped from a down-and-out noble Adventurer—presumably, that unlucky fellow had intended to gift it to someone he admired.

But it ended up benefiting Wayne instead.

And Wayne, a rat living in the gutter, had an unknown little habit.

He liked, in the dead of night, to project these false landscapes into his living room, then sit alone on the sofa drinking, pretending he was in those distant places he would never be able to reach.

“Looks like I underestimated this world’s pursuit of spiritual entertainment.”

Lance sighed, continuing to flip through the album.

To his delight, he discovered over a dozen unused blank crystal cards in the inner compartment.

As long as mana was injected to activate them, they could instantly capture and preserve the scene before him.

This was basically a one-time instant camera of another world.

A flash of inspiration crossed Lance’s mind.

Previously, he had been worrying about how to cheer up Nia in a few days.

No young girl in her prime could resist such a romantic and novel collection, right?

And in the future, he could also record the magnificent scenery encountered during adventures and send them to friends across different regions.

This completely opened up his train of thought.

Cecilia’s Internship Handbook would be far too dull if it relied solely on written records.

Since he had already acknowledged that they were friends, then as a senior, he ought to put in more effort.

Helping her record more beautiful moments in life was only right.

The unit price of these blank cards was as high as 10 silver coins each. For Lance in the past, that was an astronomical cost, completely out of consideration, which was why he had always overlooked their existence.

But this reminded him of a habit from his previous life.

Back then, wherever he traveled, he liked to take photos of local scenery.

After coming to this world, struggling to survive had made him lose that passion for recording life.

Now, it was time to pick it up again.

After looting all the valuable items in the room, Lance finally returned to Wayne’s corpse.

He took out a rust-stained copper coin from his pocket.

Then, expressionless, he picked up a dagger from the ground and cut open Wayne’s already cold palm.

Blood flowed out.

Lance soaked the copper coin thoroughly in the pool of blood, then stuffed it into Wayne’s stiff hand, forcefully closing his fingers so that he tightly gripped the blood-soaked coin.

This was the mark of revenge from 【Blood Copper Coin】.

That was a black-market organization entrenched in the dark corners of Graystone Town, specializing in high-interest loans.

Their leader was a Level 2 【Corrupt Mage】, skilled in drawing blood oath contracts with binding force.

These people loved to lure inexperienced rookie Adventurers into signing contracts, then create breach traps to force them into becoming slaves of the organization.

Not long ago, during one of their operations, members of Ghoulhound had accidentally killed a “fat sheep” that Blood Copper Coin had already set their sights on, causing them heavy losses and creating a significant grudge between the two organizations.

This matter was highly confidential—only Wayne, who handled the laundering, and the boss Buck knew about it.

Therefore, when Buck saw this scene, his thinking would instantly be guided toward that specific enemy, and he would never suspect anyone else.

After finishing everything, Lance carefully cleaned up all traces he had left behind, straightened his cloak, and disappeared into the night just as quietly as he had come.

Early the next morning.

Because Wayne had not delivered the processed illicit funds as usual, Buck arrived with a dark expression.

He was a sinister-looking young man.

Dressed in light leather armor, with two poison-coated short blades at his waist, a ferocious scar ran from the corner of his left eye down to his jaw, ruining what would otherwise have been decent features and giving him a vicious appearance.

The moment he pushed open the door and saw the corpse on the ground, Buck’s pupils shrank sharply.

He immediately noticed the blood-soaked copper coin clenched in Wayne’s hand.

Just as Lance had predicted—

Buck did not feel the slightest suspicion.

He was certain that this was the work of those madmen from Blood Copper Coin.

Because regarding the conflict between the two organizations, aside from the now-dead Wayne, only he himself knew.

“Damn Syndic…”

Buck cursed through gritted teeth.

But what he cared about more was the money.

He quickly searched the entire room, even checking the hidden compartment in the wall, only to feel as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.

Half a month’s worth of transaction funds, along with Wayne’s personal savings, had all vanished.

That was the lifeblood meant to be distributed among his subordinates!

Without that money, the profit-driven hyenas of Ghoulhound would immediately disband, and might even turn on him.

Left with no choice, he could only swallow the loss and pay out of his own pocket to cover the deficit.

And he would have to painstakingly find a new Gold Washer and rebuild the laundering channels.

This caused his hatred toward Blood Copper Coin to skyrocket instantly.

Unfortunately—

He didn’t dare to act.

The leader of Blood Copper Coin, Syndic, was a Level 2 【Corrupt Mage】.

Although before reaching the Extraordinary Rank, the combat gap between professionals wasn’t overwhelmingly large—

As a Thief, Buck was even confident that, with careful planning, he could slit that mage’s throat in a sneak attack.

But the risk still existed.

In this brutal underground world, once injured or if he failed, he would be torn apart by other wolves waiting nearby.

Unless driven to absolute desperation, he absolutely could not act rashly.

Buck stared at Wayne’s corpse, then finally spat harshly.

As long as the other side didn’t push things further, he could only swallow this loss for now.