Chapter 18

In the Fairy Tail World, the rewards for missions are also divided into ranks.

The minimum reward for an S-rank mission is five million J, or even some special items.

And Ace directly offered a reward of over a million J—undoubtedly, not a small amount.

Among A-rank mission commissions, it was also a very generous one.

Add to that the fact that it was merely searching for a certain person, a relatively safe target, and it was absolutely one of the top commissions.

"Mm, this is all the money I have."

"Then I'll commission you in the form of an A-rank mission."

A brilliant smile appeared on Ace's face as he said, "Right, I haven't introduced myself yet."

"I'm a member of the Bai Huzi Pirates, captain of the Second Division, Portgas D. Ace. Just call me Ace."

The script had finally reached a key point.

Lin Cheng, who had been remotely controlling Ace from a great distance, looked through Ace's eyes at Mirajane within his line of sight, as well as the other Fairy Tail members around her, and the corner of his mouth curved into a smile.

From the very moment Lin Cheng had Ace pour all the money onto the table, the emotions of the surrounding Fairy Tail members had been stirred by Lin Cheng's actions.

【Ding! Congratulations to the host for obtaining emotion value XXX】

System prompts like this one had almost flooded the entire notification panel.

If Lin Cheng hadn't already muted the notification sound long ago, he probably would have had a splitting headache by now from the continuous 'ding ding ding' sounds.

Almost all the members of Fairy Tail were in the hall.

In just this short while, Lin Cheng's emotion value had gone from the original five digits to six digits.

Moreover, Lin Cheng's speculation was further confirmed—compared to ordinary people, strong individuals like Mages could provide more emotion value, especially Mages with very strong power.

For example, Natsu, who was an A-rank Mage, had just provided Lin Cheng with nearly four thousand emotion points in one go.

But all of this was just an appetizer.

During the previous month, Lin Cheng hadn't merely been waiting for his emotion value to grow; every day he had been planning how to harvest emotion value.

Now, having Ace introduce himself through his own mouth was a relatively key point.

Of course, Lin Cheng was also well aware that a simple self-introduction alone could never yield much emotion value—there needed to be a comparison target as well.

And before long, the Phantom Lord, which had a Holy Ten Wizard Saint backing it, would be the perfect comparison target.

'Suddenly feeling a bit inexplicably excited.'

'Next is the first grand performance of hoodwinking the entire Fairy Tail World.'

'The Monu Sect before was merely a small trial; this time, it's the real deal.'

Sitting at the tavern's bar counter, the corner of Lin Cheng's mouth curved into an eerie smile, causing Mengmeng, who had happened to glance at Lin Cheng from not far away, to instinctively shudder.

But when Mengmeng rubbed her eyes and looked again, everything had returned to normal.

"It must have been my eyes playing tricks."

Mengmeng carried the freshly filled beer mug and swiftly flew toward the waiting customer, muttering to herself, "How could Lin Cheng possibly show such a terrifying smile?"

"Bai Huzi Pirates, captain of the Second Division, Mr. Portgas D. Ace?"

"Mr. Ace, so you're a pirate?"

Upon hearing Ace's words, Mirajane's expression froze for a moment.

In Fairy Tail, pirates did exist, and they were a symbol of lawlessness and evil.

Although their situation wasn't as bad as that of the Dark Mages' Guild—being treated like rats in the street and shunned by everyone—it wasn't much better either.

Let alone openly coming to a Light Mages' Guild to post a mission like this; Mirajane felt that this Mr. Ace, who looked a bit off, must be joking.

Thinking of this, Mirajane said with a somewhat helpless smile, "I'm afraid Mr. Ace doesn't know our current situation. Our Fairy Tail has already gone into full-scale war with the Phantom Lord."

"You can see the situation for yourself, sir."

"So it's actually not safe here. If Mr. Ace wants to eat…"

Mirajane was preparing to persuade Ace to leave, and even wasn't planning to accept Ace's commission for the time being.

After all, with Fairy Tail now in full-scale war with the Phantom Lord, they were still at an absolute disadvantage.

They truly had no extra energy to deal with commissions.

They could only wait until the dust settled and see whether Ace was still willing to entrust the commission to Fairy Tail.

However, before Mirajane could finish speaking, everyone present could clearly feel the ground beneath their feet give a sudden, violent jolt.

Before anyone could even recover, the ground jolted once more—and this time, the tremor was even more violent than before; one could even see the small pebbles on the ground being shaken up into midair.

Mirajane's face changed, instantly turning extremely grim.

"Everyone…"

Before Mirajane could say anything, a girl not far away, with long crimson hair, looking exceptionally heroic, like a female war god, suddenly waved her hand vigorously and shouted, "Everyone move to an open area!"