Black Market

"Hello," Alex said. "I'm here to pick up a package."

He showed the girl his wristband and she gave him a nod. Then she grabbed a key off a wall behind her, put it in Alex's hand and pointed at the elevator.

"Floor B1."

Alex thanked the girl and went to the elevator. As the doors slid open with a quiet ping, he entered. He looked at the button panel and noticed a keyhole beneath B1 button. He inserted the key into it and pressed the button. The elevator descended.

When it stopped and the door slid open once again, Alex was greeted by the sight of a big empty room with only a metal door at the far end of the room. He approached the metal door and opened it.

The next room was small. There were two guards on either side of a single glass door.

"Welcome. I must warn you that no one is allowed to use any kind of ability within the premises. If you want to find out what happens to those who break the rules... I dare you to try." One of the guards spoke without as much as glancing at Alex.

Alex nodded.

"Keep walking." The guard gave a signal to his colleague to open the door.

The door led to a large empty hallway. Alex walked to the end and entered an enormous hall full of booths, just like a normal market. All booths were staffed by people selling their goods. Their faces were hidden behind the masks, obscuring their identities. Suddenly, Alex felt inadequate for not getting a mask for himself.

All types of things were sold there: food, drinks, drugs, weapons, armor, accessories, artifacts, mana stones, crystals, and everything else one can think of.

Alex felt like a kid in a candy store, but he quickly composed himself and focused on his original goal. He wasn't here for anything else other than a skill shard. Since he got himself a talent that made skills practically free, the best would be something he could spam. Either a high damage one target skill, or an area of effect one that could be cast quickly.

There were many vendors that offered those, but most of them sold variant shards, instead of normal ones. Variant shards were the same skills but with some kind of extra property. Sometimes it was a beneficial one, but most of the time they were detrimental. Like how an explosion effect could enhance a simple 1-Star [Firebolt] and turn it into some kind of great value [Fireball], but a [Toxic Spray] that affected you instead of the enemy was simply suicidal to use. Of course, they were cheaper and in abundance, so maybe he could find something usable.

Moreover, most of the skill shards were of inferior grade. He glimpsed a couple of intermediate ones, but they usually cost at least twice the price of an inferior one. Most of them were currently out of his reach. He kept walking until he arrived at a booth that caught his eye.

The reason it caught his eye was an announcement board, hung by the stall. A large piece of wood plastered on the front read: "2-Star skill shard for sale."

2-Stars were much rarer than 1-Stars. At least here, in a small town that was on the outskirts of the Administrative District 17. All the 2-Stars would usually flow towards the district capital, City 17. This meant that the seller was either someone with a backing, or the skill itself had a nasty detrimental effect. Still, it made Alex curious.

"May I look at the shard?" Alex asked the merchant, a tall dark-skinned masked man.

The man only nodded, reached under the counter, and pulled out a fist-sized chunk of crystal. He put it in front of Alex. Alex examined the skill shard with his gaze. It was completely clear, except for an orange stripe on the inner surface of the crystal, which was characteristic of 2-Star shards. The number of stripes would denote the grade.

"So, what does the skill do?"

"This is an inferior 2-Star skill called: [Ice Razor]. It creates a sharp piece of ice that shoots towards the target. It has a limited homing capability."

"What's the downside?" Alex asked cautiously.

"It costs five times as much energy to cast. In addition to already being a somewhat energy-expensive skill."

Such a detriment would indeed make someone pass up on this skill. After all, for this amount of energy, you could probably cast three dozen superior 1-Star skills instead at least. The high damage was nice, but the extra energy cost made the skill mostly useless. That's why Alex found himself very lucky. Whether it was 0.01% of the mana cost or 0.05% didn't make much difference to him.

"How much is it?"

The vendor simply shrugged. "Whatever you can give. I've been trying to sell it for weeks but nobody's buying. You know what? If you buy anything else, I'll just give it to you."

Alex was surprised, but happy nonetheless. He checked the goods the man was offering, and there weren't any worthwhile to him. So he took another skill shard. It was an inferior 1-Star skill called [Resistance] and increased one's defense by a small amount. This one had no drawbacks, so it cost more than half of Alex's savings. He spent almost all of the remaining money to get one 1-Star vitality crystal and one 1-Star magic crystal.

Just as Alex was about to leave, the vendor handed him a small business card. It was completely black with one red stripe across."You can use this to enter the market next time. Don't lose it and come back to buy more."

"Thank you."

After making sure that nothing had changed about the skill shard, Alex hid it in his pocket. For now, the plan was to learn his skill, as well as check how would the growth crystals work for him. Usually, when a person absorbs one, it would give them three stat points in crystal's respective category. This would continue for ten first crystals, then they would start giving diminishing returns. Approaching the peak of 1-Star awakened, one might absorb a dozen of them and still not get a point. After ranking up, the story repeats.

In Alex's case, he wasn't sure how many points his first crystal would give him. Maybe it would be only one, since his attributes were transformed, but if it gave three, he would be ecstatic.

Without further ado, he quickly left the Black Market.

What he didn't notice, is that someone was watching him the entire time.

***

"What do you think? He's definitely a newbie so it would be an easy and fast one." A masked man wearing a leather jacket pointed his chin at Alex who was about to leave the market.

"Nah..." another one spoke in a dismissive tone. He was tall, wore a denim suit, and had a neatly trimmed beard. "The shard he bought is trash, and two growth crystals are not worth the hassle."

"Are you kidding me?! We'll be done in a minute."

"We have better options now. Let's not waste time on some nobody. If he returns with some more money, then I'll consider it."

The first one shrugged. He didn't like when his suggestions were brushed off, but he could still feel the presence of the mark on Alex's body. This was how they always tracked down their targets.

***

Alex felt incredibly relieved when he was finally out of that place. He walked out of the hotel and took a deep breath of fresh air. The place itself wasn't particularly scary, but he still felt a bit nervous about going to a criminal-underworld-run market.

The sun was high in the sky. It was approaching noon. He realized he hadn't eaten anything substantial today so he went to grab a bite in a street food stall on his way back. He devoured four sandwiches as if he was a starved animal. The trip to the Black Market had exhausted him, even though he hadn't actually done anything.

He hurried back into his dormitory room, ignoring the greetings from his colleagues.

As soon as he closed the door to his room, he opened the status panel again.

"First, let's learn the skill."

If someone told him just a day ago that he could easily learn a 2-Star skill, he would call that person crazy. But now, the reality was different. Alex pulled out the skill shard and concentrated on it. He imagined his magic force seeping into the crystal and the skill being absorbed into his mind.

Suddenly, a stream of information flowed into his mind like a deluge, forcing him to sit down on his bed before losing his balance. It felt like someone just downloaded a whole library into his head.

Alex was afraid of that it would take some time for him to get accustomed to the new knowledge. However, a few moments later, the inflow of information slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether. He felt as if he'd been a blind man who just acquired perfect vision. He instantly knew how to cast this skill.

Alex felt excited. He closed his eyes and recalled the visualization of casting the skill. Then he waved his hand slightly to the side, forming a simple gesture.

A gust of mana rushed towards his hand and coalesced into a floating translucent shard of ice. If he wished so, he could launch this shard towards any target. The feeling was like flexing a muscle you've never known you had. The shard floated gently for a second, before melting into nothingness.

Alex had a huge grin plastered on his face. He opened up his system panel to see the changes.