I Rely on Drawing Cards to Set Up a Persona

Chapter 10: Be Prepared

The situation right now was a bit bad.

In Qiao Xingnan’s original script, the tyrant should not have arrived so soon, at least not before he drew out the script he had prepared.

Since he already knew that the tyrant would come to the manor the day after tomorrow, Qiao Xingnan naturally would not ignore it.
So, he racked his brain to think about his script.

According to his script, the proud emperor traveled with his younger siblings but suddenly had an accident.
The knights were separated, and the two were nowhere to be found.

It was clear that this was a political battle script.

Someone deliberately set up a plot to ambush the emperor, who ordered some of the knights to track down the betrayers while he and the remaining knights searched for his two siblings.

After that, another accident occurred, and the emperor and his knights became completely separated.
He had to bear the disgrace of disguising himself as a wandering refugee in search of his siblings.
However, there was still no clue about them until he heard that the tyrant would come to the manor.

The emperor was not afraid of the tyrant.
He did not even put this weak and remote country in his eyes, but now that he was on the other side’s territory, he decided to cooperate with him after thinking twice.

As long as the emperor of this weak country helps him to find his siblings, their country will be eternally good friends with Arilance.

However, after waiting for a few days, his separated subordinate found himself, but the emperor of Arilance never arrived.
Finally, the proud emperor could not bear such humiliation and was ready to leave.

That was the script at the beginning.

Of course, Qiao Xingnan’s so-called departure wasn’t really about leaving.

He knew that the steward would not allow him to leave, so the purpose of proposing to leave in the beginning was to force the other party to relax the conditions and allow him to go out.

If it goes well, he will find a way to make money after going out, upgrade Zero or draw cards with gold to enrich his persona, but who would have thought that the emperor would be coming the day after tomorrow! He expected six or seven more days, so this was too sudden, right?!

He will soon meet the tyrant.

Qiao Xingnan would be lying to say that he was not afraid.
He was practically scared to the point that his legs were weak.

He could do too little in the manor before.
He only used the mysterious Zero and some vague words to make others wary of himself.
Although the purpose has been achieved, this alone was not enough.

Qiao Xingnan unconsciously drew circles on the table with his finger.
The previous disguise had quite a few holes.
He didn’t know to what extent the tyrant knew about the original body, or perhaps the tyrant had checked the original body’s information long ago.

Qiao Xingnan felt that the tyrant might think he was not an ordinary liar but did not necessarily believe he was an emperor.

He will soon be out of the manor, and he must come up with a way to immediately earn money, enrich his persona, and help him live smoothly.

At one side, Zero sat upright at the table, knowing that his master seemed to be thinking about something very important, so he kept quiet.

Thinking about the script that the master explained himself, Zero lowered his head and continued to digest it with difficulty.
Suddenly, the master stood up, and Zero paused for a moment, his eyes slowly following the other party’s movement.

He saw Qiao Xingnan walk to the bedside and wave his hand widely.

“”

One after another, clothes instantly piled up on the bed, white, red, blue, black, and various colors for people to see.
Still, there was no doubt that each piece of clothing was a valuable treasure.

Zero was a little puzzled as he watched his master’s actions.

“Zero, come here.
Let’s both pick the gemstones off the clothes together first!”

Zero was even more baffled.

Why do you need to pick stones?

This kind of stone was everywhere inside the Chaos card pool, and the cards will only use these stones to smash and play with.
Does the master want to play with it?

With this thought in mind, Zero’s dark eyes seemed to flash a bright light.
Although there were no cards willing to play with him, Zero had always enjoyed this game that would not hurt him.

Qiao Xingnan, who had no idea what was happening in Zero’s mind, excitedly led Zero to pick out the gemstones.

Thanks to the system for giving him three cabinets of treasures, this afternoon’s money will depend on these things!

After picking until the afternoon, Qiao Xingnan’s hands were numb.
If it wasn’t time to go out as agreed with Ilir, he might have finished picking all the stones.

Qiao Xingnan put away the three large closets of clothes that were not finished being picked off and turned to look at his bed.

Half of the bed was covered with brilliant gemstones.
Qiao Xingnan’s eyes glowed.
He left about five or six intact ones and put all the rest into the system space.

“Zero, you take these.”

He told Zero to put it away, but given Zero’s state of not being able to move on his own, it was Qiao Xingnan who controlled his actions with spiritual threads.

“Master, do you want to smash it to play?”

Zero spoke, and his eyes seemed to glow.

Smashing for fun? What a kid.

How could it be smashed and played? He could not easily remember that the system gave him clothes inlaid with various jewels.
Even if the gemstones could not be picked off, the accessories that came with them could be exchanged for money.

Of course, to convert these jewels into money without crashing his persona, he still needs to use some means to justify the money he got.

Qiao Xingnan seriously instructed Zero: “You can’t smash it for fun.
We need to use it to make money.
Zero must keep an eye on our precious jewels.”

“Okay.” Zero nodded his head in a seemingly understanding manner.

Qiao Xingnan chuckled lightly and checked the clothes on both of them to make sure there was nothing out of place before stepping out of the room.

The two men on guard outside the door, Joel and Herrick, looked at each other as they came out and followed them in silence.

He had expected that he and Zero would be watched at all times, and Qiao Xingnan was not surprised to see the knights following him.
What surprised him more than this was the Ilir waiting for them at the gate and the huge figure next to him.

Giant, giant dog?

Next to Ilir was a giant white dog sitting.
It had black patterns spreading all over its body, its sharp eyes were bright and clear, and its limbs were strong and healthy.
A very spacious carriage was tied behind it, but it moved easily as if it was not tired at all.
It looked like a powerful magical beast.

In this world, in addition to ordinary beasts, there also exist magical beasts.
They were somewhere between the foreign races and animals, a hundred times more powerful than ordinary animals.
Some even have special innate skills.

“The town is a bit of a distance from the manor.
We may not be able to make it back on foot this night, but with Rhett’s help, it will be faster.”

After hearing his name, Rhett gave a low howl and raised his head high, looking very proud of himself.

It’s super cool to have such a handsome magical beast as a mount!

Qiao Xingnan hid his inner excitement.
He glanced at Rhett, seemed to be accustomed to it, and got on the carriage with a normal expression.
Behind him was Zero, who still had a white hood covering his face and a sense of mystery, following after Qiao Xingnan.

Rhett ran steadily all the way, and through the carriage windows, they could see the forest and the flowing streams they passed.

“I wonder what kind of mount your Excellency prefers for transportation? Next time, I can help you arrange it in advance.” Ilir asked casually, seemingly unintentional.

If you are an ordinary civilian, even if you know the types of magical beasts, you will know only a few, and most of them are unsuitable for transportation.
Compared to transportation, they are more suitable for food or refining materials.

If you want to know whether the magical beast is suitable for transportation, you have to take a professional class on magical beasts or have been on the battlefield with magical beasts to know.

“Transportation?” The black-haired man’s eyebrows loosened, seemingly attracted by his offer, “In the past days, I would take a dragon as a substitute for walking, traveling 10,000 miles in a day, going anywhere.”

The smile on Ilir’s lips froze, “Your Excellency, dragons do not belong to magical beasts.
They are a foreign race and have been out of the world for a long time.”

It should be said that most people acquiesce to the fact that dragons are extinct.

The black-haired man had a ‘so what’ look on his face, “In my territory, foreign races are also my people, and they serve the royal family with honor.
Is there a problem with that?”

Seeing that Ilir could not provide a “dragon” mount, the dark-haired man was instantly disinterested.

Coincidentally, Ilir wasn’t very keen on talking to the liar now, and he turned his head to look at the strong man he had been wary of.

Although Qiao Xingnan also wrapped Zero with spiritual threads to control him, he wouldn’t restrict Zero’s curiosity to the outside and was considerate enough not to control his head, allowing him to look anywhere he wanted.

Zero had nothing to look at and just wanted to look at his master quietly, but at this time, his “friend-to-be” was looking at him.
In order to show his courtesy, he needed to slowly move his head to look at the other side.

Unfortunately, this move was a little difficult for Zero, so it was not very obvious and was equivalent to not moving.

So, in Ilir’s eyes, this strong man has been staring at the “emperor” he spoke of.

Regardless of whether it was true or not, the white-robed man carried out the duties of a knight to the fullest, and Ilir couldn’t help but admire this man somehow.

Soon, Rhett, the dog, brought the group to the town nearest to the manor.
“It’s not exactly a prosperous place, but many of the things there are unique to Arilance.” Ilir introduced and led the few people to walk in.

The small town with white bricks and red tiles looked clean, and the street fronts were selling all sorts of things.
Workers came and went through the crowd, and the merchants in the town occasionally shouted to get customers, making it look lively.

Most stores in the town were selling herbs and magical beast meat or sharp weapons made of magical beast horns, sharp claws, etc.

Qiao Xingnan calmly walked without any hurry.
Nothing on the side of the street would make him stop.
He just swept a glance and continued to walk forward as if, in his opinion, there was little value in these precious existences in the eyes of civilians.

But in fact, he murmured in his heart.
This one sells the meat of magical beasts, pass, pottery? I don’t know how to heat ah, pass.
Iron refining also requires skill.
Why are they all so difficult?

While thinking about this, Qiao Xingnan followed the original plan to pay attention to pedestrian traffic.
He needed to find some people to quickly “launder” their gemstones into gold coins.

Especially after looking at so many stores, Qiao Xingnan deeply felt that he could only do hard labor here.
Therefore, to successfully “launder” money, he looked for people more seriously.

Qiao Xingnan walked slowly, searching for the right person.
Suddenly, he saw two figures, one large and one small, in the alley.
He stopped at his feet and, under Ilir’s puzzled eyes, looked at the store on the side as if unintentionally and walked in.

“Is your Excellency interested in these things?”

Ilir looked at the things laid out on top of this store with an inexplicable expression.
How could this person like these things?

His eyes fell on the store filled with the eyes, claws, and hearts of magical beasts.

Not all magical beasts are good, and some are hostile to humans.
This store mainly sells various parts of magical beasts that can be used.

But these have not been processed, so this person should not be able to use them.

Qiao Xingnan seemed to be looking at it with great interest and incidentally sighed in surprise to Zero beside him: “So magical beasts will also have gray eyes.”

From the man’s surprised gaze, anyone could tell that this was the first time he had seen a magical beast with gray eyes.

Gray was the color of the pupil that only the lowest level of magical beasts would have.

The magical beasts around a noble emperor are also the most noble, and magical beasts of lower bloodlines do not deserve to appear in the other’s eyes.

Ilir seemed to understand that he came to see because he had never seen such a low-level magical beast.
However, he wondered whether it was real or fake that he hadn’t seen one.

And in fact, Qiao Xingnan indeed has not seen a low-level magical beast’s gray eyes.
To be precise, he has never seen what the eyes of all magical beasts look like.
He deliberately said this to brush up his persona and wait for a suitable time.

The white-robed man seemed to know that his emperor did not need his answer and quietly followed behind the other side like a shadow.

The shopkeeper on the side rubbed his hands, looked shyly at the few people, and carefully asked: “Noble lords, does this small store have anything that suits your liking?”

These people looked like rich nobles.
If they fancy anything, he could afford to open and eat for half a year!

Ilir silently cast his eyes towards Qiao Xingnan, the level of magical beasts here was too low to be of much use to him.

Then, he realized that this one’s attention had long been off these things.

Ilir frowned and followed the other man’s line of sight over to the street where people were coming and going, and there was nothing to attract him.

“Zero.” A clear, cold voice came from the dark-haired man.

“”

A white shadow flashed and appeared in front of Ilir the next second.
He saw the white-robed man pull out a large red gemstone and hand it to him.

“The emperor said, exchange.”

Exchange, what exchange?

Ilir didn’t quite understand what was meant.