Ch 134: My Multiverse Supermarket

Thousands of years of ingrained belief could hardly be overturned by a few of Zhou Li’s remarks.

Wendisha had initially wanted to engage her in a discussion about theology, but quickly realized Zhou Li had zero interest—her expression practically said, “If it’s not business, don’t talk to me.”

Determined to “know her opponent to find her weaknesses,” Wendisha began to browse around the supermarket.

As she looked through the aisles, she discovered something unsettling—despite her vast erudition, she couldn’t read most of the writing on the products!

Some labels were in the Atmos tongue, but the majority were written in an unfamiliar script.

Could this be the language of the divine realm?

She hurried out of the store and summoned Ariel, demanding to know why this hadn’t been reported.

Ariel was just as baffled. Her entire attention before had been on the elemental gems; she hadn’t even thought about other merchandise, much less the text printed on them.

The nobles of the Senate soon gathered again, whispering amongst themselves about the mysterious writing.

But in the end, all eyes turned to Wendisha.

After all, as the head of the Knowledge Church, if she didn’t recognize the script, how could any of them hope to?

“Could it be an ancient language long lost to history—preserved only in the divine realm?”

“Impossible. Even if that’s a deity’s realm, this is a newly risen wild god. There’s no way it would contain the remnants of an ancient script.”

“Even a ‘new’ god is ancient by our reckoning—born ages ago, perhaps only gaining divinity and forming a realm in the last few centuries.”

“I’ve heard the Temple of Oaths still preserves some ancient characters…”

At that moment, someone came running in and whispered urgently into Ariel’s ear.

Her face darkened. She glanced around at everyone before quietly reporting to Wendisha.

Wendisha stood abruptly, exclaiming, “Fools!”

Without another word, she strode out.

The rest exchanged confused looks, curiosity prickling.

Ariel finally explained, “The supermarket has just been attacked—by an unknown source using magic.”

The crowd fell silent, wide-eyed.

Since there was no sign of who was responsible, Ariel didn’t linger either and followed after Wendisha.

Seeing this, the nobles trailed after them, eager for a spectacle.

Their camp wasn’t far from the supermarket—just a few hundred meters—so they were puzzled. “If there was an attack, why didn’t we hear anything?”

When they arrived, they expected destruction—burned ground, shattered walls—but the scene was perfectly calm. Not a scratch on the building.

A small group stood before the supermarket, gazing at it in stunned reverence.

Ariel wondered if the report had been false—until her knight insisted, “There truly was an attack. Wind-element magic, without question. But for some reason, once it reached the shop, it simply… stopped working.”

They hadn’t seen who cast the spell, nor from where, so all they could conclude was that the assailant wasn’t nearby.

Wendisha activated a detection spell. After a pause, she pointed north. “There. Take a few men and drag whoever you find back.”

The knights hesitated—drag? Not arrest or detain?

Still, they obeyed, hurrying off in that direction.

Wendisha said nothing more, her gaze fixed on the quiet, unshaken supermarket.

Then Ramanda arrived, as calm as ever, and said, “People always pay the price for their arrogance and ignorance.”

Wendisha asked, “What brings you here, Lady Ramanda?”

She already knew Ramanda lived a few kilometers away. When she had visited earlier to ask about the supermarket and the supposed divine realm, Ramanda—ever the devoted alchemist—had revealed nothing useful.

But the fact that Ramanda chose to live here, at risk of shadow creature attacks, told Wendisha all she needed to know about how seriously to regard the place.

Unfortunately, the world was never short of greedy fools—those too arrogant to respect the unknown.

Wendisha was certain the attack had been ordered by some noble within the Senate.

Perhaps they wanted to test the supermarket’s defenses—or perhaps they were enraged by the “unknown god’s” remarks that seemed to favor Atmos, and were acting out of fanatic vengeance for what they saw as blasphemy.

Wendisha herself hesitated to enter; she wasn’t sure whether she might be implicated.

Ramanda, however, swung her strange alchemist’s pack onto her shoulder and said casually, “Came to trade for a few things.” Then, tilting her head, she asked, “Why aren’t you going in?”

Wendisha: …

Sooner or later, she’d have to. So she composed herself and stepped through the doors.

Inside, Zhou Li was calmly watching instructional videos.

Of course she already knew about the attack—but after confirming that the supermarket’s defensive system could even neutralize magic assaults, she hadn’t bothered to worry about it any further.

When Wendisha saw how calm Zhou Li remained, she sighed inwardly. “Truly a god—her strength is unfathomable.”

“Welcome,” Zhou Li said lightly. “Looking to buy something?”

She remembered Wendisha well. Not because of her noble title, but because the last time she’d come, she had barely looked around the supermarket before leaving—if the system hadn’t confirmed no theft, Zhou Li might have thought the woman had run off with stolen goods.

Now Wendisha was back again, right after the supermarket had been attacked—highly suspicious behavior.

Still, even if Wendisha had been behind the attack, as long as she hadn’t personally attacked anyone, the store’s blacklist system wouldn’t trigger. Zhou Li had to treat her as any other customer.

Wendisha hesitated, then let her gaze fall on the iPad resting casually on the checkout counter.

“May I ask,” she said, “what language is this?”

As a devout follower of the Goddess of Wisdom, her curiosity about knowledge outweighed even her interest in the high-tech device itself.

Zhou Li replied, “That’s Chinese—Mandarin, written in Chinese characters.”

“Han…?” Wendisha repeated.

A century ago, a discipline called linguistics had emerged in their world. Linguists divided all known tongues into four great language families, each named after one of the continents.

Each family was further divided into over twenty language groups—based on the oldest known races—and beneath those were branches, divided by early kingdoms, empires, or divine cults. The modern languages were offshoots formed within the last few centuries.

But according to everything Wendisha knew, there was no record of a language called Han.

Still, perhaps it was one of those lost ancient tongues—like the ones swallowed by the long river of history.

Zhou Li didn’t elaborate. Instead, she greeted Ramanda, who had just entered.

Ramanda thanked her first—for selling the elemental gems that had allowed her to repair her cauldron and alchemy stone—then took out freshly brewed potions to exchange for store points, and purchased more gems.

This time, Zhou Li had brought back a greater quantity of sea fluorites.

When she had visited the zombie world, she’d delivered the research equipment Senator Su and Su Bochun had requested, then returned with two shiploads of fluorites.

But unlike before, these weren’t gifts. She had paid market price for them.

Ever since Senator Su’s earlier “gift” of fluorites had been misinterpreted as a sign of its immense value, every newcomer to Newborn Island had brought a pouch of the stuff as tribute.

Zhou Li had accumulated a massive stockpile—but she didn’t plan to release it all at once.

This time, she only put out a third for sale, keeping the rest reserved. She didn’t want the noble class hoarding everything again.

Especially now that she saw how many aristocrats had shown up, she decided on a purchase limit.

“Three elemental gems per person per day,” Zhou Li told Ramanda.

Ramanda blinked in surprise but accepted the rule easily.

In her mind, elemental gems were naturally rare—just getting one was already lucky. It was only after seeing piles of them here that she’d nearly forgotten how precious they truly were.

But the nobles—those who had been spoiled by the previous twenty-thousand-gem windfall—were not as gracious.

They had come all this way precisely for the gems. If the supermarket hadn’t displayed any this time, they might have forgotten their purpose entirely. Now that they finally remembered, they were told they could only buy three.

“Three? That’s stingy!”

“Don’t tell me they’re running out!”

They whispered among themselves.

Wendisha also asked, “Why impose restrictions now, when there weren’t any before?”

Zhou Li replied, “Because there weren’t this many people before. And last time, the Senate bought up everything. This time, I figured I’d let others have at least a taste of the soup.”

“That attitude,” Wendisha said, “doesn’t sound much like the Atmos side.”

Atmos entrepreneurs were masters of monopolies—if there was money to be made, fairness was never a concern.

Zhou Li smiled. “Let me ask you something: the Senate bought more than twenty thousand elemental gems. If a soldier, a ranger, or a mage apprentice desperately needed just one, would your Senate sell it to them?”

Wendisha fell silent.

“That’s why I’m limiting purchases,” Zhou Li said.

Monopolies weren’t exclusive to capitalists.

Throughout history, magical knowledge and resources had always been controlled by the nobility. Only a few commoners—those blessed with divine favor or rare magical talent—were ever allowed to study magic.

Take the Elemental Storm Canyon, for instance—the largest known gem deposit, once and still sealed off from the public. Only select groups were allowed to mine there.

Before anyone could respond, the knights who had gone north to retrieve the attackers returned—carrying several corpses.

Among the nobles, one count’s face turned ashen.

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