To blend into the endless river of this world, an otherworldly name was a flaw that could not be tolerated. In the guard's stolen memories, names carried weight, ancestry, or intent. Ethan chose a title that was unassuming to the ignorant, yet quietly mirrored his true nature.
Lin Yuan—The Forest of the Abyss.
The next morning, Lin Yuan opened the heavy wooden doors of his storefront. He did not immediately put up a grand sign, nor did he yell for customers. Instead, he went straight to the secondary market and bought batches of common local herbs—Blood-Rinsing Grass and Bone-Iron Roots. These were cheap, fibrous plants used by low-tier mercenaries to brew bitter tonics that slightly accelerated muscle recovery.
Back in his apothecary lab, Lin Yuan did not use the crude stone mortar and pestle. He simply threw the raw plants onto the clean stone counter and let his left hand turn entirely pitch-black.
[Apothecary Protocol: Initiated.] [Analyzing cellular compounds... Extracting impurities... Cellular structure alignment at 100%.]
If he wanted to, his advanced nano-tech could refine these herbs into a divine elixir that would shock the entire region. But a smart predator never draws the eyes of stronger beasts. Lin Yuan purposely ordered the nanobots to degrade the process slightly.
He formulated a series of Blood-Vitality Salves. They were clean, smelled faintly of pine, and were exactly 15% more effective than the muddy, grit-filled pastes sold by the town's established doctors. It was just enough to make his product highly desirable for its price, but not enough to spark a major investigation by the local medical guilds.
He applied the same meticulous calculation to his smithing forge.
Using the common iron bars he had purchased, he used the basic smithing templates scanned from the bookstore. His black nano-infused hand acted as a high-precision hammer and temperature regulator, ensuring the carbon distribution in the crude steel blades was perfectly uniform.
The iron sabers he placed on his right-wing racks didn't glow with magical arrays, but they were perfectly balanced, held their edge twice as long as standard mercenary junk, and didn't shatter under heavy impact.
A week flew by in a rhythmic blur of smoke, iron, and herbal scent.
Slowly, the mercenaries of Wu-Tan Outpost began to notice the small, quiet shop. A scarred warrior would walk in, purchase a cheap salve for a minor coin, and return the next day to buy a baseline iron dagger because the salve worked remarkably fast.
Lin Yuan didn't stay locked behind his counter either. In the evenings, he would step outside to smoke a simple pipe or chat with the neighboring shopkeepers—old man Zhang who sold dried beast meat, and Madame Li who ran the fabric stall across the street. He used his perfectly mimicked local dialect, laughed at their rough jokes, and complained about the high taxes just like an ordinary, struggling young business owner.
Within seven days, "Proprietor Lin" had established himself as a polite, skilled, and completely harmless addition to the market quarter. He was building a pristine, unremarkable identity. But beneath the stone floors of his shop, inside the quiet chambers of his brain, his library was filling up, his funds were growing, and the dormant quantum core was drinking in the data of a new civilization, ticking down to the moment it would truly awaken.
Lin Yuan is officially a part of the town's ecosystem! His reputation for slightly better-quality goods is bringing in steady coin and gossip.