Martial Era: Starting With The Strongest Talent-Chapter 57: All For Profit

However, the Water Lily had a crucial limitation.

It only worked on those below the Expert rank.

That alone explained everything.

That was why it was the young heirs who had come in person. Elders, patriarchs, and true powerhouses had no use for it. For them, the resource was nothing more than a curiosity.

But for heirs still standing at the threshold of their future?

It was priceless.

No one knew where the rumor had originated. Whether it was a leak, a coincidence, or deliberate bait didn’t matter anymore.

What mattered was that the information carried one terrifying implication.

A high chance to awaken a special talent.

For a martial heir, even a chance like that was worth crossing regions, swallowing pride, and coming to a backwater place like this.

So they searched.

Across the Sirens’ Swamp, multiple clan heirs and their entourages spread out, scouring pools, marshlands, and deeper wetlands.

They ignored the Sirens outright, killing only those that attacked them directly. Monsters were nothing but obstacles.

The Water Lily was the goal.

And with that many ambitious heirs packed into the same incursion, conflict was inevitable.

Clashes erupted.

Auras collided.

Martial spirits manifested.

Old grudges resurfaced, and new ones formed.

Small-scale battles broke out across the swamp, chaos spreading like wildfire as heirs tested each other’s strength, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

But Adam?

Adam was blissfully unaware.

Or rather, uninterested.

He noticed the aftermath of a few skirmishes. Broken trees. Disturbed water. The lingering traces of martial power. But he didn’t slow down. He didn’t pry. He didn’t care.

He simply continued hunting Sirens.

Continued diving into pools.

Continued collecting soul pearls.

Adam was chill like that.

He didn’t stick his nose into other people’s business unless his hand was forced.

Meanwhile...

Outside the incursion.

Inside the command area.

Manager Vanessa listened to the report from one of her acolytes, disbelief flashing through her veiled gaze.

​"What?!"

Vanessa’s gaze snapped to the acolyte.

"Repeat what you just said."

The acolyte, who had rushed into the command area the moment the intel reached him, didn’t hesitate. He straightened and repeated himself clearly.

"It’s a Water Lily. The clan heirs are here because of a Water Lily."

"Bollocks."

The curse slipped out of Vanessa’s mouth without restraint.

The acolyte didn’t react. He simply stood at attention in front of her, eyes forward, posture rigid.

After a few seconds, Vanessa waved a hand.

"You’re dismissed."

"Yes, ma’am."

The acolyte turned and left, the door sliding shut behind him.

Vanessa remained where she was, her fingers tapping lightly against the shaft of her halberd as she pieced everything together.

"So that’s what this is all about," she muttered.

"A Water Lily..."

She understood why the clan heirs were after it. Even to her, a Water Lily was an extremely valuable resource..

But that wasn’t what made her curse.

What unsettled her was the implication.

The fact that a Water Lily had appeared in her sector felt too good to be true.

Vanessa was no fool. The moment she saw multiple mid-tier region clan heirs reserving an incursion in her Sector, she’d known something was wrong.

That kind of interest didn’t happen without a reason.

The higher-ups hadn’t told her anything.

Either they truly didn’t know, which she doubted. Or they did know and had chosen to keep it under wraps, quietly playing games with the martial clans.

Neither option sat well with her.

That was why she’d acted on her own.

She’d sent several acolytes into the incursion, instructing them to keep a close watch on the clan heirs, especially the hot-blooded ones.

Tempers flared easily, and when heirs argued, they tended to let things slip.

That was how the information had surfaced.

Vanessa exhaled slowly.

"So this is the real prize..."

Her grip tightened slightly on the halberd.

"But what should I do with it?"

****

Adam was currently on his phone.

"I see."

He said calmly as he tilted his head, and a clawed strike sliced through empty air where his neck had been a heartbeat earlier.

He pivoted smoothly, stepped in, and drove his common knife through the Siren’s back. The blade punched cleanly through its chest, the tip bursting out the front.

He pulled it free, as the Siren collapsed in a pool of its own blood.

All around him lay countless corpses, some sprawled across the swamp floor, others floating lifelessly in stagnant water.

Adam had let his intrusive thoughts win as he battled the sirens in the water like he said he would, but during the battle Adam had briefly felt his storage ring vibrate.

Bzzzt!

When he surfaced, a few sirens still pursuing him, he discovered that the storage ring had a built-in feature: it synced with communication devices to alert the wearer of incoming calls

So that’s why it was so expensive.

But that wasn’t the point now.

He continued the call as he stepped aside from another attack and ended a Siren with a quick slash to the throat.

"Thank you for informing me," Adam said evenly.

"There’s no issue," Vanessa’s voice replied, as the call ended soon after.

Adam glanced at his phone, mild disappointment flickered across his face.

"So that’s it," he muttered. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Kind of a letdown."

The reason Vanessa had called him was simple, to inform him about the Water Lily.

And learning about it had been disappointing for several reasons.

First, Adam already had special talents. The Water Lily’s effects on him would be heavily diminished.

Second, his special talent guaranteed that his future catalog of special talents would already be above average.

The Water Lily, to him, was little more than a decorative plant.

Adam exhaled softly.

Another man’s food really is another man’s poison.

The clan heirs were going mad over the Water Lily because they had no other choice. This was their only real chance, to awaken a special talent and catapult their already fantastic future to a brighter one.

But Adam?

He didn’t need it.

He was already fine the way he was.

At that moment, an idea surfaced, and a slow smile spread across Adam’s face.

It might not be valuable to me... power-wise.

But profit-wise?

That was a completely different conversation.

The smile he wore wasn’t wide.

It wasn’t manic.

But it was the kind of smile that made souls shiver.