102 The Marketplace

Quinn started to think about the question Leo had given him. It was clear that he knew something about him through his ability, and it was why he had asked the question in the first place. But rather than out him to his higher-ups, or try to deal with him himself. He was asking a simple question.

'If I answer this wrong, will he attack me? Or maybe even turn me in?' Quinn thought.

But judging by what he had said earlier. If Quinn was to lie, he would be able to tell.

Everything about the current human society made Quinn feel sick to his very core. It wasn't just the government or the military but the originals as well.

When his parents were fighting in the war, why did they choose to reveal themselves towards the end and only then share their powers then? Why did the military design this caste system that put everyone into categories? In a way, he wanted to see the current society fail.

But did he want everyone to die? No. Did he want the Dalki to win the war, no, he didn't want that either.

Now that he thought about it more, he was in an interesting position. He couldn't exactly call himself human anymore. If they found out what he was, would they accept him over to their side? Probably not, humans were scared of the unknown.

But two people already had done. Layla and Vorden did know what he was, and didn't stop speaking to him or treated him any differently.

Quinn knew whats his answer was.

"I'm on my own side but there are people I want to protect on this side too."

For a second Leo just stood there silently. He continually looked at the purple flame burning around Quinn, and then he turned around and walked off without saying a word.

'I guess my answer was okay then.' Quinn said as he let out a huge puff of air. He felt like any second now he was about to have a nervous breakdown.

"Get yourself a new weapon kid!" Leo shouted, "You're going to need it for the portal expedition, and my offer still stands. Feel free to have a duel with me whenever you wish."

The combat classes had ended, and Quinn didn't end up doing much in today's session. With no equipment of his own, he had to pick something else from the wall. But when he tried using a sword, he realised how much practise you needed before he could even become half-decent at the thing.

Using his fist just felt natural to him, especially since nearly all of his skills required him to use his hands. This meant more than anything that he needed a new set of Gauntlets.

Before leaving the martial hall, he asked to borrow the umbrella Layla had and decided to head to the library for the rest of the afternoon. There he would be able to use the public computers.

On the way there he opened up his system to check on a few things. Firstly, it was his crystal inventory. Right now, he had 16 basic tier crystals, 1 intermediate tier crystal, and 1 advanced tier crystal.

The system shop had a set of Intermediate gauntlets for him, and all he needed for them was three intermediate crystals. There was no requirement of what type. Then there was the advanced tier crystal that could only be used as a ring.

He finally sat down on the computer and went on to the market place. He started his search to see what was the standard price for selling crystals. Right now, the basic tier crystals were useless to him.

Before logging in to access the weapons section of the marketplace, he was to input his military ID number. This wasn't recorded by the system but just proved that he was allowed to buy and sell weapons.

The marketplace promised to scramble all information once confirmed and entered. If people were able to tell who was selling these items, then it would cause a big problem for the seller.

[Enter username ID]

"I'll just use the same one as my game."

[Blood evolver]

A standard basic tier crystal could be sold for 100 credits, an intermediate crystal 1000, and an advanced crystal 10,000 credits. Right now, he was sitting on a gold mine. Some crystals sold for more depending on the rarity of them or what they could be turned into.

Next, he started to search for gauntlets, there weren't as many online compared to other weapons, but there was still plenty to choose from. He noticed that once you moved up from basic tier weapons, the description of each item would be quite significant.

It would tell you what crystal was used to create the weapon suggesting that it might have some other type of attribute other than strength. For example, some might have fire resistance if made from a beast from a hot planet or ice-resistant for one from a cold one.

"Let me give you a tip." The system said, "Place you're hand on the computer and use your inspect skill while looking at the item."

Quinn did as the system asked and was surprised by the result. Suddenly, he could see the stats of all the weapons that were in front of him.

"But how?" Quinn asked.

"The system you are using, itself is like a computer system. It scans the information the computer tells it and puts it into numbers for you to easily understand. Although it will only be able to tell you if the beast crystal is in the database. I tried my best to put as many different beasts as I could in there, but there may be some I have never seen."

Quinn continued to search through the items, but something surprised him, none of them gave the same number of stats like the one in the shop. At most, the strength they provided was +5. While the intermediate weapon in his system was +6.

Sure it was only one strength of difference, but right now that was a lot. The second thing was the price of the gauntlets. They ranged from anywhere between 6 to 8 thousand credits. This was because it included the cost of finding all the crystals, and also paying for someone to forge the weapon together.

Even the basic tier weapons cost were around 2000 or so credits. Quinn didn't even bother looking at any advanced tier weapons.

He sat there and started to think for a while about what to do and what was the best option. Without a doubt, he needed a weapon before next week.

In the end, he finally decided, the best thing to do was to sell the advanced tier crystal. Even though he was able to use it to create a ring that protected him from the sun. He needed ten of the things and not only that, it required a specific beast from a red portal planet.

A place where students just weren't allowed to go whenever they wanted. It was basically useless to him right now, and the credits would be more helpful.

Quinn then started to search for a Deathbat crystal on the market place hoping to figure out what price to he could sell it at, but to his surprise, there wasn't a single Deathbat crystal up for sale.

With no clue how much to sell it for Quinn decided to look at other specific crystals and priced it around there.

He did the base price of the crystal plus around 2000 extra credits selling it for 12,000 in total.

"And done, now all I need to do is wait for it to be sold, then I can buy two intermediate crystals and get the weapon form the system."

*Ding

It had only been a few seconds, but someone had already put up the money for the crystal. With it came a portal confirmation number. All Quinn needed to do was go to the storage unit and place the crystal in the teleporter. Once entering the confirmation number, it would teleport the item to the user on the other end.

****

Somewhere in a dark room, a kid with his hair gelled backwards that looked to be a similar age to Quinn was on his computer browsing the market place.

"Come on, what happened to that guy, I paid him good money to get that crystal for me. I only need one more." The kid said.

He never expected to find anything on the market place, but every day he would check just to make sure. However, the exact crystal he was looking for turned up.

"No way! And only for 12,000 credits. I have to buy this straight away!"

With no hesitation, the boy swiped his card on the computer next to him, confirming the purchase of the item.

A man then appeared from the shadows and was stood next to the boy.

"Young master, if your father finds out you didn't get the crystals through your own effort, he will be furious. Every one of us had to go hunt those beasts as a trial for ourselves." The man said.

"Ha, ha, my father thought he could stop me, now with the ring I can finally leave this place!"

He then looked at the computer screen once again.

"Thank you, Blood evolver, you have made my day. If I ever meet you in real life, I promise I will repay this debt."

****

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