Weibai tinkered with the two things in front of him for a long time, but he still couldn’t make any sense of them.
Other than the Pendant being able to detect the Hyla Fruit, the ingredients of the Magic Potion were completely undetectable.
‘Isn’t this thing an Epic piece of equipment? How can it not even analyze a bottle of potion?’
Weibai looked down at the Pendant on his chest, feeling a bit frustrated by its lack of performance.
He felt like he had been scammed.
Setting down the useless Pendant, Weibai let out a soft sigh.
He really couldn’t understand why such a bottle of Magic Potion couldn’t be detected.
Was it really at a top-tier level, just as that old man had claimed?
Looking at the transparent Magic Potion in his hand, Weibai still found it hard to believe it was something powerful.
It didn’t look like it at all!
After thinking it over, Weibai decided to put both items away for now and decide what to do with them later.
What if he really did have a use for them in the future?
While Weibai was lost in thought, the chef had already brought out the salad.
“Hello, your salad is ready.”
A young girl wearing a chef’s hat placed a plate of prepared salad in front of Weibai, gave a polite bow, and then left.
Glancing at the chef’s retreating figure and then at the salad before him, Weibai stopped worrying.
He put the two items away and started eating.
Sweet berries burst in his mouth, their flavor a mix of sweet and sour that paired perfectly with the crisp, refreshing leafy greens.
To Weibai, it was quite delicious.
Snake Fruit Salad was Weibai’s favorite dish to order whenever he went out on missions.
Or rather, it was Mo Baiwei’s favorite.
As the Elf Princess, Mo Baiwei loved this kind of sweet and sour salad; to her, it was no different from a luxury feast.
Elves did not like meat; in fact, they found it quite repulsive.
Some extreme Elves couldn’t even stand the smell of meat.
On the contrary, various kinds of grass, leaves, and fruits were an Elf’s favorites.
They were extremely fond of food made from these natural plants.
When measured by an Elf’s lifespan, the 18-year-old Mo Baiwei wasn’t even considered an adult yet.
Therefore, as an Elven girl, Mo Baiwei was no exception; she had absolutely no resistance to this kind of sweet and sour salad.
Weibai finished the salad quickly.
After glancing at the other diners, he stood up and walked back to the front counter.
Unsurprisingly, the girl with pale green hair was still dozing off.
She was slumped over the counter, her drool soaking a bill next to her cheek.
“Proprietress, the check,” Weibai said after staring at the girl’s messy sleeping posture for a moment.
If he didn’t call out to her, he felt like this girl would sleep until tomorrow.
“Mmm…”
The sleeping girl was startled awake.
After a few unintelligible mumbles, she reluctantly opened her eyes.
“Who is it? Can’t you see I’m sleeping?”
Woken from her dream, the girl frowned angrily, puffing out her cheeks and glaring fiercely at Weibai.
To anyone else, however, those expressions made her look like nothing more than a little kitten.
Zero threat.
Faced with the girl’s irritation, Weibai didn’t get angry.
Instead, he found her quite interesting.
“Hello, I’d like to pay.”
To ensure the girl knew what he had ordered, Weibai pointed toward the table where he had been sitting.
“Over there. I just had a Snake Fruit Salad.”
“Tsk.”
Seeing that Weibai was there to pay, the girl’s rising temper was instantly suppressed.
Although she was still fuming, she had no choice but to hold it back.
The effort of forcing down her anger caused the girl’s face to turn bright red.
“Fine. That’ll be 10 copper coins.”
The girl pulled over the bill that had been soaked with drool.
As she wrote, she took Weibai’s money and stuffed it into a small golden piggy bank nearby.
“You use that to keep your money?”
Seeing the piggy bank, Weibai found it a bit out of place.
Shouldn’t a normal shop have a proper cash box?
This was the first time he had seen a piggy bank used as one.
“Are you finished? How was it?”
The girl didn’t answer his question.
Instead, she asked him one of her own.
“Uh… it was fine.”
Although he didn’t understand why she was suddenly asking, Weibai answered honestly.
“Good!”
The girl walked out from behind the counter, came up to Weibai with a sweet smile, and then gave him a forceful push with both hands.
Caught off guard, Weibai stumbled forward a few steps, landing right outside the restaurant’s entrance.
Immediately after, he heard a loud *bang!* as the door was slammed shut behind him.
“Please take care! We hope to see you again!”
The girl’s voice drifted from behind the door, followed by the sound of footsteps walking away.
Weibai looked at the door, somewhat speechless.
He felt like he hadn’t done anything wrong, so why such a big reaction?
Could it be that the girl had a bad case of morning grumpiness?
But wasn’t she at work?
If she slept on the job, shouldn’t her wages be docked?
If she was the owner of this shop and slept like that every day, how could she make any money if people left without paying?
This shop was truly strange.
Weibai turned to look once more at the salad shop named “Green Salad Shop,” his heart full of curiosity.
However, he had no intention of investigating further.
After all, how someone else ran their business was their own affair.
If he started poking around just because of curiosity, he would be the one looking for trouble.
After thinking for a moment, Weibai began walking back toward his inn.
By this time, night had fallen over Labia City.
The pedestrians in the dark night were slightly sparser than during the day, walking the streets in groups of twos and threes.
The streetlights in Labia City used high-grade white crystal as a magical light source.
Thus, as Weibai walked along the roadside, he could see everything on the street clearly.
This was much better than the dim, yellow lighting of Karven City.
Back then, Karven City’s lights always made Weibai feel like he was going blind — they were so faint and dark that he couldn’t see anything.
Just from the streetlights alone, one could tell that Labia City was more prosperous and wealthy than Karven City.
Yet, such a wealthy city-state was currently suffering from a Bandit Plague.
As prosperous as it was inside the city, it was equally chaotic outside.
Thanks to the duty-bound City-State Guards, the bandits outside had only dared to raid a few villages so far; they didn’t dare launch an attack on Labia City itself.
To the common people, Labia’s city walls were the sturdiest of all.
Their peaceful lives were entirely thanks to the City-State Guards’ day-and-night patrols and the city’s indestructible defenses.
Even though the Bandit Plague outside was gradually spiraling out of control, the people still lived and worked in peace, their faces often lit up with happy smiles.
The more Weibai recalled the passersby he had seen during the day, the more he felt a sense of discordance.
Incredibly exhausted soldiers and blissfully happy citizens.
‘Something feels… wrong…’
No matter how slow these citizens were, they should have realized something was amiss by now, shouldn’t they?
Why were they still acting so oblivious and joyful?
Recalling the people he had seen, Weibai felt a chill creep down his spine as a sudden thought surfaced.
‘It feels as if these citizens’ emotions are being controlled.’
Because the soldiers needed to fight the bandits, their emotions couldn’t be controlled.
That was why their faces were lifeless and haggard.
The moment he considered that possibility, the hair on Weibai’s neck stood on end, and a cold sensation spread throughout his body.
The entire city of Labia seemed to be very strange!