10 The Exchange

The audience, slaves, and guards all were in shock. Who would have expected such a frail looking child to let a lone survive, but finish the fight quickly and with minimal physical damage? Apparently, no one.

Only a claw-like gash afflicted Alfred on the surface. Behind the scenes though? He was exhausted.

Every muscle on his body was screaming at him. He had, while in HSM, forced them to exert far over the "safe" capacity, and had contorted many of them in unnatural ways to do what he needed to.

'If I'm to survive, I need better techniques so I don't blow out my muscles during a fight. But still, I performed a bit over my expectations.'

Alfred tried to move from his position, but his body wasn't ready for that now that his adrenaline had worn off. So, he decided to sit down and take a moment.

As his ass hit the floor, the colosseum erupted in volcanic applause and cheers. Despite the fact that at least 90% of audience members were average at best in terms of physical strength and martial knowledge, they still could appreciate what they saw. It was a feat not of some masterful technique, but an immense display of natural instinct and godlike reaction speed.

In particular, the slave's encirclment was hectic. After the first wolf went down, many of the "masters" had joined to watch, and had taken notice of the potential of the slave. One middle-aged man with a scruffy beard and unkempt black hair, whom everyone avoided at the farthest corner away from the door gazed through the narrow opening with great interest.

That same man thought to himself, 'I wonder if that's the talent my master was talking about… I'll test it tonight, I can't stay in this damned place much longer. Waiting for a disciple is taking time away from me awakening a Manifesto.'

Alfred, due to fatigue from HSM and the adrenaline crash was oblivious to that man, though. After a minute of rest, he hobbled over to the exit that opened for him, handed in the sword, shield, and chestplate, but was allowed to keep the sandals.

'They're decent quality too' Alfred remarked to himself. 'I guess it's an ok reward… for risking my life.'

Alfred was then promptly led… well… more like dragged to what appeared like a medical wing.

The guard opened the door and gave him a small pouch with a coin.

"Umm…" Alfred politely received them with a short bow, but was found clueless as to the purpose of the thin coin he was handed. "I'm new here," he said.

"Ah! Explains why I was told to give it personally… Well," the guard began to explain in a matter-of-fact tone, "that thing is a 'Boon'. It's just a currency used here. You'll need it for purchasing techniques and extra materials/gear the empire deems unnecessary or excessive. Just head to a place simply labeled 'The Exchange' just down the hall from here to cash it in. You won't be given it personally every time. Again, at The Exchange, you can collect however many you earned. Not now though, we have to treat that cut.

"...Oh yeah!" he continued. "Don't lose them. We won't replace them if they're lost, but rest assured that nobody can steal them.

He again started to drag Alfred farther into the ward. Still, Alfred had another question: "How much do I earn every time?"

The guard thought for a second, but answered earnestly: "Well… it depends. Mostly, man vs. man and man vs. monster give the most, but it still depends. You might have more waiting for you, seeing as you were the first kid in two weeks who survived their first time in the colosseum."

Alfred took that information in while allowing himself to be dragged towards a new figure. A tall and lanky figure with long, rough gray hair and caved in cheeks was seen passed out on a simple wooden chair. The guard seemed to intentionally make his footsteps louder as the two got closer, which slowly woke the man.

"Good morning, sir!" The guard saluted the man by clasping his hands together, and pointing both hands' index and middle finger up along the ridge of his nose to the top of his forehead.

"Hmmn~" the man grunted and waved off the salute.

The guard waited a second before ending the salute and began speaking, "Sir! This slave is a first-timer. His injuries come from the dog's claws, sir! Three adjacent cuts down the anterior head, sir!"

The man nodded and turned to get some medical supplies. The guard then spun around to walk away, not before leaning down to whisper in Alfred's ear, "Be respectful towards this man, no matter how rude he seems. He's one of the only people the empress will let off for killing slaves like you in here."

With that ominous warning, he exited the hall and seemingly walked back towards the colosseum.

Alfred patiently waited before the man turned back around with a bottle of alcohol, from what Alfred could tell, some cloth, a sewing needle, very thin wire, and scissors.

Without much delay, he poured the "alcohol", which stung only slightly, and then stitched up the wound in a skilled and neat fashion. He then proceeded to wrap up the wound and tie off the bandages. Alfred showed no reactions on his face despite being able to feel some pain now.

"Try not to swing that around for the next three days, you'll re-open the wound" he said.

'As if I couldn't figure that out…'

"Off with you~ I'm gonna sleep. The rest probably won't survive the day anyways" the man said as he sat back in his chair. Alfred, despite feeling slightly off by the man's overly casual and sort of rude behavior, imitated the military salute the man gave earlier and left the wing.

'Now, I have to go to that "Exchange" place and see really what these boons are used for.'

.

.

.

The hallway was sort of long, taking him seven minutes just to arrive at the end. When he got there, he saw large E and X letters on a replica of the coin that Alfred received earlier over a set of open double-doors.

Walking though, the place was split in two. Half a library, half a herbatorium. Both sides seemed to go up to the top of the building with spiral staircases leading up all the way.

Alfred looked away to see a clerk at a desk staring back. He walked over and stepped up on a stool to see over the top. The clerk looked down at another non-mechanical tablet with numerous faces on it, eventually landing on his. Beside it was the number: 2820.

"2820, you have 3 boons to claim. Place your pouch on the scale to be processed" she said in an almost mechanical voice.

Alfred nodded and placed the bag at the middle of the scale. The clerk waited a moment before nodding and pressing another thing on the tablet. 3 coins with the number 2820 on them slid out of a small opening, which the clerk told him to take alongside the pouch.

"You can browse however long you want," the clerk said, who then proceeded to look back down and do something on the tablet.

Alfred nodded and turned to the book section. He had no knowledge of the herbs on the other side, as the body he was in never learned about them. However, the books were something that the body knew of. 'Techniques…

'If I can get my hands on a good amount of techniques… yeah…' he nodded in satisfaction. With his memory, Alfred predicted that he would be able to memorize many techniques. And even if he couldn't replicate them, he could at least memorize the instructions to carry on to his next lives in order to practice.

'I wonder…' Alfred walked up to the nearest shelf and approached it. He saw that all of the books were held in place, but each had a small tablet that described the purpose of the technique, and a price point. 'It was too good to be true. Of course they wouldn't let me stay here as long as I wanted if the books were open for anyone to read.

'Still, this floor is all completely affordable, but that must mean they're not worth my time. 1 boon is too little.'

Alfred quickly gave up on the first floor after reading the descriptions of a few techniques, which all seemed to be teaching things he already knew. He had decided that today, he would only browse, and wait for later to spend his boons.

The second floor was similar, with a few slightly interesting things for specialized weapons. Next though, he saw the pattern for pricing.

'So, each floor doubles the price point, and seems to lessen the amount of techniques available…'

As Alfred got further and further up the library side, the prices rose by, as expected, double each time. Inversely, the number of techniques fell exponentially. Past the 11th floor and on to the twelfth and thirteenth, the security roze dramatically, and the prices became non-uniform. Alfred with his current knowledge could not appreciate the value of these new techniques, as the descriptions seemed to involve things learned from other techniques found on lower floors, so he limited himself to seeing that there were 16 floors in total.

'17,020… 25,805… 49,000! Damn! This'll take a while to get these… but… I have to have them! Being sent here was a blessing in disguise! If I can survive long enough, the number of techniques I'll be able to ring out of this place will be comical.' Alfred was almost giddy with excitement, but his face showed nothing. He swiftly headed down and back to the entrance to the slave's encirclement.

After opening the doors, he saw a lot less people watching the fights, and a lot more around the numerous tables neatly arranged around the area. 'Are they… betting? On the fights? I thought they said others can't use your coins.'

Getting closer, he found that they weren't even using their coins, just some rocks that seemed to represent something. Alfred still walked by and took a place near the far edge away from the door to observe the fights.

Some slaves took notice of his arrival, and began to chat amongst themselves, but quickly returned their focus back to whatever they were paying attention to earlier. Alfred ignored this behavior and focused on the fights.

Many of the children he got to witness were obviously outmatched. However, as the day went on, the frequency of survival went up. From what he could see, every child slave other than him that survived had already been there for a while, some seemingly for a few months in the least. At the end, he even saw one who had a spear and medium sized shield instead of the standard issue short sword and small shield.

'I'll have to look into getting custom weapons, eventually. You probably have to spend boons to get them. I wonder how expensive they are…'

Alfred wasn't too keen to spend much on equipment, but he felt that his reluctance was useless if he died before he could acquire the more valuable and permanent techniques.

Once the final fight was done, the slaves were forced out of the slave's encirclment and into the canteen. Although the slaves were given a great deal of freedom inside the walls, the weekends (includes Friday) were specifically restricted to prevent cheating and skipping out on events.

After wolfing down his lunch, Alfred got back to refining. The period was an hour and a half, not too insignificant in the long run. Alfred still stuck to his plan of refining his general speed, dexterity, and endurance so he could abuse HSM to its fullest. Even without it active, Alfred knows that his basic reaction speed is top tier. He imagines that to get even better than what he would have been able to experience as Roma once he gets to the fourth, and even the fifth level.

While refining, he started to take in the information he witnessed today. He now had a plan to find all of the facilities in the colosseum (including all of the residencies). On top of this, he knows now that Friday's children are useless to watch, and he can focus on refining in the meantime. Questions still stand about the adults, but he assumes it shouldn't be too different.

"Oi! All of you, get your asses back into the SE! Stat! The crowd's getting restless!"