Dorian’s sorting process went something like this.

Flip open a book—usually stained with grease, oil, food, or other such grime—and skim. And then about a quarter of the way through—sometimes less—he tossed it aside, picked out another, and started over. He did not expect to find the sort of manual that might adorn the shelves of a top-ranked Godking’s private collection. The sort that had been edited, and re-edited, and revised every century to squeeze in new martial innovations.

What he was looking for, hoping for, were mad ravings. Some lowly unknown God-level writer endowed with but one shining light-bulb idea in their miserable life, who had the wherewithal to scribble it down before they expired. Whose work was condemned to the dustbins—or indeed the pawn shops—of history.

Rare, but it happened more often than you might think. And Dorian only needed a spark to jog his memories…

In practice, his thoughts went something like—

Shit.

Flipflipflip—

Shit.

Flipflipflip—

Shit—eh? Then, upon close inspection—nevermind. Shit.

Over and over.

Shit. Shit Shit. Ooh! Wait. Decent, but not for my Dao. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

After about ten minutes of this the Ifrit boy stomped over, hands on hips.

“You gonna buy something?” he snapped. “Or are you just gonna waste my time, you… you fat-tailed… fuck?”

…Fat-tailed? Really? The boy gave him a glare he suspected was meant to be menacing. That the boy had to stand on tip-toes to reach Dorian’s eye level rather ruined the effect.

“I’ll buy,” said Dorian gently. “But I have a process! Let me get through it, alright?”

“Hmph!” The boy waddled off.

Shit.

Flipflipflip—

Shit.

Flipflipflip—

Shit.

…

…

A good half-hour passed before the boy waddled up again. “That’s it!” he cried. He crossed his arms, frowned mightily, and jabbed his finger at the manual in Dorian’s hands. Which must’ve been nearing the hundredth he’d tossed aside.

“No more looking! My patience is at its end. You’re buying that one. That’s that!” The Ifrit boy stuck out his chin.

“I am?”

The Ifrit boy got up real close. Dorian got the impression he thought he could compel Dorian to do his bidding by sheer conviction. “You are!”

“…No.”

“…”

“…”

“Um.” The boy looked genuinely shocked that Dorian had, against all odds, managed to resist his glare mind-control. He dashed for the staircase. “Gramps! Gramps!”

“What?”

“He’s not buying!”

“Then make him, idiot!”

“He said no! What do I do now?”

“Try harder!”

The boy waddled back up. He cleared his throat. For a few seconds they stared at each other as the boy grasped for things to say. “….Please?”

“No.”

The Ifrit boy looked near tears.

Dorian went back to his browsing, this time with the slightest of smiles on his face. Truly, bullying children was one of life’s greatest simple pleasures.

...

…

Somewhere in the mid-hundreds Dorian struck gold.

Well—hard to say for sure, until he really got tinkering. But it certainly had the shine of it. The Technique was missing half its pages. Its name was very simple. “One Punch Kill.” It was a ground-Dao Technique but the principles seemed transferrable enough. The way it routed qi was remarkable—rough, but quite a neat idea. It was as simple as its name—one all-out effort. It would do nicely to augment his Fist of the Falling Star. With some upscaling it could even be an Empyrean’s life-saving Technique.

As it turned out it was the only Technique worth keeping in the shop.

Another half an hour, and he was done. The boy sat there, facedown on his receptionist’s desk, a picture of defeat.

“Hello?” said Dorian. He rapped his knuckles on the desk. The boy sprang up.

“What? Oh—you! You’re still here?”

“I’d like to buy this book.”

“You do?” The boy blinked, and Dorian saw the thought go from one end of his head to the other in real-time. “I mean—of course you do! Why wouldn’t you?!”

He leapt to his feet. The fire was back in him. “Ten thousand high-grade Spirit Stones!”

“…” Dorian sighed. “Listen kid, I just wanted a memento from my trip to Ur. Guess not.”

He dropped the book and went right out the flimsy metal door.

He hadn’t taken two steps before the kid stumbled out behind him. “Wait! Wait!”

“What?”

“Five thousand!”

Dorian kept walking.

“Stop! Stop, I said! You—one thousand!”

“It’s over, kid. I don’t want it,” sighed Dorian. And it was true. Nifty Technique, but it not a thousand high-grade Spirit Stones nifty. He didn’t even have that much!

“Fifty!” The kid was nipping at his heels now.

That gave Dorian a little pause. Fifty he’d go for. It was still a ludicrous amount, but it was Gerard’s money…

Still he kept walking. He had a feeling he could squeeze this just a little more…

“Free! ’ll give it out for free! There!”

Dorian halted in his tracks. Even he hadn’t expected that much.

“Really?”

“As—as long as you come back with me to the shop,” sniffled the boy, looking very much aggrieved. “And pretend I got fifty high grade stones off you. Just—talk loud enough for gramps to hear, alright?”

He looked down at his goat’s feet. “I… he’s getting up there in years…I’m supp—supposed to take over shop after he’s g-gone and—and—I just want him to be proud of me…”

He couldn’t meet Dorian’s eyes.

“…Fine,” sighed Dorian. “I’ll do you this favor. Just this once!”

“Really?” The kid looked unusually ecstatic, for someone who’d just given out a Technique for free. “Oh, thank you—thank you, sir!”

If only all Dorian’s victims could be this happy when he scammed them…

***

“You wanna buy that Technique, ya punk?” said Rauowl. The Ifrit boy’s name, which he had learned on their lively conversation as they strolled back to the shop.

“Yeah? And what of it?”

“That’s a real good… book… you’re holding there!” sneered Rauowl. “That’s one of our best!”

“Oh… but I really want it…” moaned Dorian.

“Then I’ll give you a deal! Fifty-one high grade spirit stones!”

“Fifty-one high stones?!” gasped Dorian. “Sir, you mean to rob me! I don’t even have that many stones—I’d starve on the street! Forty-nine, and not a stone higher!”

“Fifty.”

“Grrrrrr,” said Dorian out loud. “Yo drive a hard bargain, kid. Fifty it is. Guess I’ll have to accept.”

“Attaboy!” croaked a gruff voice from upstairs.

Rauowl had tears in his eyes. Dorian was quite pleased as he left the store one Fist Technique heavier. Sometimes he guessed it did feel good to do good. Provided he got adequate compensation, of course.

***

The second shop he went to was built from the corpse of what seemed to be a butcher’s shop. There was a faint smell of rotten meat all over the place, and goods were stacked in boxes all over the place—some in bins, some over a dormant stove.

This proprietor was a much nicer, if slimier fellow. An elderly jiangshi with black hair slicked back and a grin that Dorian suspected was meant to be welcoming, but the unfortunate positioning of the man’s molars, hook nose, and weak jaw instead gave it a vaguely pedophilic air.

“What is it you seek, sir?” he groused. “Whatever your heart desires, we at Mastro’s have it! A wishing-ball? A potion of unlimited growth? A heavenly elixir?”

“Show me your Technique manuals.”

“Right this way…”

The proprietor led him to a bin filled with a hundred or so books. A third seemed so badly burnt they weren’t even legible. The proprietor looked at him nervously, like a dog who’d peed in the house and was hoping its owner wouldn’t notice.

Even for a pawn shop, this…

“…Do you have any other Techniques?”

“Sir!” squawked the Jiangshi. “You will no find a more robust collection of manuals than—”

“Right, right…” Dorian started to browse.

Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shit…

….

A few more dozen shits later, Dorian was starting to give up hope.

Then—Shit-shit-shit-shit—ooh!

He held a diagram up to the light. Interesting. A movement Technique. He was in the market for one, and this wasn’t like his shadow-walking—excellent at teleporting, but hardly a substitute for true footwork.

The idea was that a user of sufficiently vigorous qi—say, a Fire-Law God—could channel high-intensity bursts of energy to their feet. Set off tiny explosions, propelling them any which way they liked at blistering speed!

In practice it didn’t work at all. Try it as it was now and he’d lose two limbs. But it had its heart in the right place. He could work with this.

“Has something caught your eye?” said the jiangshi.

“Perhaps,” said Dorian.

“Ooh. ‘Honorable Eruption Steps,’ eh? That is among our most powerful Techniques! My personal favorite, to tell you the truth—”

“Isn’t it ‘Heavenly Eruption Steps’?”

“Ah.” The jiangshi squinted at the title. “… So it is, so it is.”

“So. How much?”

The jiangshi took the measure of him. “For such a fine piece…Fifteen mid-grade spirit stones.”

“…” Dorian sighed, shelving the book.

“Listen friend, I just wanted a memento from my trip to Ur. Guess not….”

And he turned on his heel—

***

He couldn’t get the jiangshi down to zero. But he did get damn close to it. This shopping trip was proving surprisingly fruitful! He was whistling as he walked the long center strip of the city of Ur. Now all he needed was to seek out a third dark alley, squeeze a third half-finished hidden gem out of a third poor lower-class business owner just trying to make a living. The very thought warmed the cockles of his heart. Preferably he’d come across a Technique that stunned and distracted the enemy. Something explosive. Flashy. Loud. Something to cause a diversion—

Bang! BANG! Like whips cracking the world. He groaned. It was Gym street, at it again with its useless, purposefully explosive, flashy, loud, Techniques—

Wait a minute.

Hs second visit to Technique street his strategy was totally changed. This time—seek out the loudest, gaudiest, sleaziest, most best-selling, clearly garbage Technique there was!

He found it in a shop smack in the middle of the Street. The shop was an obese temple in dire need of a new paint job, built squat and slightly tilted.

And its bestseller Technique, right there in the window:

“GODKING HOUYI’S SOUL DESTROYING LIVER OBLITERATING NINETY-NINE HEAVENLY FISTS!”

On its cover: a handsome, sauve, bearded man with a winning smile, two absurdly well-endowed ladies giggling up at him on each arm.

Dorian was speechless.

This… this is the one!