Undead Evolution: From Trash To Divine-Chapter 49: Not satisfied with ten thousand?? Fine take two thousand

Chapter 49: Not satisfied with ten thousand?? Fine take two thousand

Ambrose didn’t react to his words.

She simply stood there, her gaze drifting into the empty air ahead of her, unfocused and distant, as if she had stepped somewhere far away inside her own mind. The silence stretched on. It was only when Lukas repeated himself that she finally blinked, the dazed, trance-like haze dissolving from her eyes.

"To think a sword could be so graceful... so brilliant." Her voice came out quieter than usual, stripped of its earlier sharpness. "All my life, I have only ever looked at it as a weapon capable of nothing but brute killing."

She turned to look at him then, and for once, the cold composure she wore so naturally had softened around the edges. Her eyes, visible above the cat mask, were open and still — deep like a pond on a windless day — carrying something that looked almost like wonder.

"Thank you."

Lukas held her gaze for exactly one moment.

Then, without ceremony or comment, he reached down and pocketed the pouch of star crystals in one clean motion, turned on his heel, and started walking toward the door.

There was nothing more to be said. It was time to head back out and make use of the current wave — to push forward and reach Body Refining Rank Three at the very least. With the relentless fighting going on outside, star monsters and star-energy-infused organic matter were practically endless. Opportunity didn’t wait around for anyone, and he had already spent more time in this room than he had intended.

With those thoughts firmly in place, Lukas crossed the room and moved toward the exit.

He was almost through the doorway when a voice rose from behind him.

"Wait— please, wait a moment..."

His figure came to an immediate halt.

He stood still for a brief second, not quite sure what it was — the change in her tone, or something else entirely — but compared to before, the young woman’s voice had shifted. The haughtiness had retreated. What remained was something softer, and even, unexpectedly, something that bordered on respectful.

He turned back slowly, a faint frown settled on his face. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"What is it?"

His voice carried a thin thread of impatience. Given everything unfolding outside, he had no desire to trade another minute of his time for conversation.

Ambrose could read the urgency in his posture clearly enough. She didn’t drag it out.

"Your understanding of the sword is at a higher level than mine." She paused, just for a breath, as if briefly wrestling with something she hadn’t fully made peace with yet. "As such... can you please teach me how to use a sword?"

The sincerity in her voice was unmistakable — plain and unadorned, without the performative polish she had worn earlier. Her face carried a complicated mixture of feelings that she made no attempt to conceal. Not even a few minutes had passed since she had looked down on this same person standing before her, and now, with the taste of that memory still fresh, she was asking him to guide her on the path of swordsmanship.

The irony of it sat clearly in her expression.

But she held his gaze and didn’t look away.

"Teach...?"

Lukas stared at her.

The word hung in the air between them, and for a moment he genuinely wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. He turned it over in his mind once, then again, waiting for it to stop sounding strange.

It didn’t.

Someone actually wanted to learn swordsmanship from him.

He blinked once, slowly.

He had no understanding of teaching anyone — no framework for it, no interest in building one. The reason was simple enough: he had never been interested in the first place, and even if he had been, he didn’t have the time. Every hour outside these walls was an opportunity he couldn’t afford to throw away.

His mind was already made up before she finished asking.

He opened his mouth to shake his head and walk out.

"One thousand star crystals. Every month."

Lukas froze.

The words landed with the quiet, unreasonable weight of something that had no business being said so casually. For a long second, the only sound in the room was the faint ambient noise filtering in from outside.

One thousand star crystals...

The breath he pulled in was slow and sharp, drawn through his teeth like a cold draft. That wasn’t just a large amount — it was an amount so far beyond his current reality that his mind struggled to hold it properly. He had been scraping and fighting tooth and nail for every crystal he had managed to accumulate, and this girl was naming that figure the way someone might mention the weather.

And yet there she stood, apparently entirely willing to part with it.

Just who is this girl? What kind of background does she come from?

His gaze settled on her with a slightly different quality than before — not hostile, not warm, but careful. Quietly calculating. Anyone who could throw around numbers like that without so much as a tremor in their voice was not an ordinary person. That much was certain.

A thin thread of alertness wound itself through the back of his mind without his permission.

Perhaps Ambrose read his silence as hesitation. Perhaps she saw something else in his expression entirely. Either way, her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, and she pressed forward.

"Fine." She said it like a decision being nailed into place. "Two thousand star crystals. One month. And here — one thousand in advance."

Before Lukas could so much as open his mouth, a second pouch had already found its way into his hand.

He looked down at it.

Then he looked up at her.

Then back down at the pouch.

The expression that had settled onto his face could only be described as gobsmacked — the look of a man whose brain had temporarily outpaced his ability to form a coherent response. He stood there holding two pouches of star crystals, the combined weight of them sitting in his hands like a quiet, absurd dream.

He couldn’t stop the words from leaving his mouth.

"Just what is the identity of this tycoon?"