"If it’s convenient, could you tell me what you need that item for?" 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Asking someone the purpose of their purchase is a taboo matter. After all, in normal business transactions, asking for the intended use of a purchased item might lead to theft of trade secrets. Besides, as long as the buyer pays properly, the seller should simply ship the goods according to the agreed price.

However, the items Yara was buying were far from usual, especially since Dong Tianyu had encountered that strange yard while with Zyaire. So, Dong Tianyu was more concerned about these matters than before.

Upon hearing Dong Tianyu’s question and seeing Madeline’s curious face beside him, Yara hesitated for a moment, thought for a long time, and finally clenched her teeth, resolving to tell the two, "I can tell you two the use, but you must not tell anyone else!"

When Dong Tianyu and Madeline heard Yara was willing to speak, they immediately raised their hands to swear an oath.

Seeing the two raising their right hands ready to swear, Yara quickly said, "Forget it, no need to swear. This matter isn’t that secretive anyway. Those who should know about it already do, and even some who shouldn’t are aware.

All you have to do is remember not to spread the word after I tell you. No need for oaths. And let me remind you, don’t just make oaths or promises carelessly in the future."

Realizing the implications of Yara’s words, Madeline and Dong Tianyu sensed there was an issue, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. They decided to wait until after Yara finished explaining the reason for purchasing those items, then they would ask what she meant by her prior remarks.

"By now you should both understand a bit about strange artifacts, and know that to use one for the first time, it must be ’activated’ through specific means before it can be used normally.

There’s an artifact in Kyoto that can reveal the activation methods of other artifacts simply by consuming certain sacrifices."

"So, you’re buying those placental jellies as a stockpile for sacrifices?"

"Not exactly, the sacrifices required by that artifact are different each time. I won’t go into details about that now. When you have time you can go to Kyoto, and I’ll take you to see for yourselves, then you will understand what it’s all about.

One of my friends, who is also quite well-known in our circle, was cursed by some bastard through some method, and it’s an extremely peculiar curse.

Once struck by the curse, the victim continually has their life force drained. Meanwhile, the power of the curse grows stronger as it saps the life force.

We made many inquiries and finally found an expert who could break the curse."

At this point, Madeline couldn’t help but interject, "Does the expert need the placental jelly as a form of preservation?"

Seeing Madeline interrupt, Dong Tianyu gave her a knock on the head to quiet her down before addressing Yara, "Ignore him. Please, continue."

With Dong Tianyu’s gesture, Yara nodded in agreement, disliking being interrupted while speaking just as much, "It’s not that the expert requires the placental jelly as a reward.

The expert provided two methods to lift the curse. The first is to destroy or purify the curse with powerful force.

This was the method we most wanted to use. However, after multiple attempts, we found that the Awakeners with purifying abilities had not developed their powers enough to purify or remove the curse.

While they could weaken the curse, for some reason, any decline in the curse’s power caused the rate at which it drained the victim’s life force to increase.

So after a few tries, we had to give up on this method reluctantly. We were afraid that a few more attempts might cost my friend’s life.

The second method to remove the curse was to find a way to transfer it from my friend to someone else.

Theoretically, though it’s a complicated process, the chance of success should be quite high.

After we found a ’volunteer’ and a way to transfer the curse, we tried once. The result was both shocking and somewhat disheartening.

When we transferred the curse from my friend to the ’volunteer,’ my friend instantly got better. Seeing such a good outcome, my friend, delighted, offered the volunteer substantial compensation.

Not long after, we heard that the volunteer died in a brothel, and we assumed the matter would end there. According to our reasoning, with that person’s death, the strange curse should disappear.

But what we didn’t anticipate was that after the ’volunteer’s’ demise, the curse not only reappeared on my friend but had become even more potent, maybe because it had successfully killed someone.

Although we could use the original method to transfer the curse to another person again, if the same situation occurred and the curse strengthened further after killing someone, my friend certainly wouldn’t survive the enhanced effects of the curse. So, we directly abandoned this method.

The last way to lift the curse, although we haven’t tried it yet, seems very likely to succeed after reviewing the method."