Chapter Seven: The Black Market

[ Insufficient energy ]

[ Energy level: 2/100 ]

'Insufficient what now?'

Thinking back at what happened before he teleported and turned invisible just a few seconds ago, he got an idea of what was going on.

He was trying to use his invisibility skill again when he got that message.

'So, invisibility takes twenty energy from my energy level and teleportation takes forty, that explains what the energy level is for, what about the normal energy?'

[ Normal Energy: 50/100 ]

'Can't it serve the same purpose?'

[ Converting +20 Normal Energy to energy points ]

[ Warning: This process will increase fatigue level, will you like to proceed? ]

'Fatigue level? Oh, so normal energy represents the energy I use for work, and energy level is the one used to power my abilities, taking out twenty will have it drop to thirty, that can't be that bad, right?'

He was still trying to make up his mind when he started hearing footsteps coming toward him and it was getting really close fast.

He looked straight down the hallway and spotted the closest room to him.

Without hesitation, he quickly made his way to the room and luckily for him, it was open so he didn't have to knock and wait for the person inside to respond.

That was Alvis' room that he just ran into and he wasn't happy about it.

"Hey, you can't just barge into my room like that."

"Sorry, Alvis, your room was the closest refuge I could find," Devon said as he quickly zoomed past him and went under his bed.

It didn't take long before Aurora pushed the door open to enter the room.

"You have to be kidding me," Alvis muttered under his breath.

"Did Devon come in here?" She asked while scanning the room with her eyes.

"Firstly, it's bad manners to barge into a boy's room like that especially if you're a girl and secondly, ask me a question after explaining the situation." Alvis expressed as calmly as he could.

"I'm sorry for barging in like that, I was just looking for Devon." She apologized.

"And why are you looking for him?"

"I just wanted to ask him why he always has to be an idiot and if he doesn't give me a good answer…"

"I thought Emilia already said that it wasn't his fault," Alvis said.

"Emilia would say anything to defend him, I know that."

"Oh, is that what you think?"

After saying that, he slowly sat back in his seat and picked up one of the weirdly shaped balls on top of his table.

"Is he here?"

"Oh, Devon? He's not here." Alvis said before shaking his head.

"Okay, please tell me if you see him."

"Sure."

She nodded slightly before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.

"She's gone, you can come out now."

"Oh, thank you so much, Alvis," Devon said as he slowly crawled out from under the bed.

"I didn't really do that for you."

"Huh?" Devon said with a confused expression on his face.

"I just didn't want my room to get messy."

"Oh," Devon said as he walked closer to his table to see what he was working on.

Alvis Cato was someone you could call the brain of the team.

His ability to read situations very easily, critical thinking, and ability to make certain gadgets no one's ever heard of before with limited resources made him a really nice person to have if you needed to get something tricky done.

He was John's teammate and the reason why they always took care of their missions quickly.

He had a round face with thin pink lips and a straight nose.

His eyes were brown and he had short brown hair which seemed to be a bit curly.

Alvis was the calmest of them all in the group, he had a habit of evaluating everything carefully before making a move no matter how simple it may look.

Devon watched carefully as Alvis slowly poured some white dry substance into one of the weirdly shaped balls he had on the table.

After pouring in all of the white substance he had left, he added in a bunch of other stuff that was on the table before covering up the ball with the cover which was hanging over it the whole time.

"Was that sugar?" Devon asked after watching him cover the ball.

"Yeah," Alvis replied.

"Why are you pouring sugar in there? What are you making?"

He was quite amused.

"Something to make our lives easier."

"I still don't know what it is, do you mind explaining?"

"It's something I'll like to call a smoke bomb or a smoke screen," Alvis said before slowly getting up from his seat.

"Smoke bomb or smoke screen?" Devon said with a confused expression on his face. "So, what does this um…smoke bomb or smoke screen do?"

"Well, when you hit one of them on the ground or any surface hard enough to open the case, it will release a thick smoke that will disorient the people in the area and create the opening for an easy escape," Alvis explained as he made his way to the cupboard beside his bed to pick up something.

"And you need sugar to make this stuff? Can sugar create a smoke talk more of a thick one?"

"Sugar isn't the only thing I added there, Devon, but I guess it's the only thing you were able to recognize." He said before opening the cupboard. "I don't blame you though."

"Oh, so they create smoke distractions to make escaping easier."

"Yeah, I just said that, the ones on the table are just prototypes I was about…"

He had already taken what he wanted to take and turned around to see that Devon was already gone.

He was quite surprised given the fact that he didn't even hear the door.

He made his way to his table and quickly used his eyes to count the number of smoke bombs there to discover that one was missing.

"Oh, come on, Devon." He muttered before letting out a deep sigh.

After exiting Alvis' room as quietly as he could, he made his way to the treatment room.

The room where Erina took care of all medical-related matters.

She spent most of her time there except for a few occasions when she would go outside for a short walk.

That was mostly during the evening but Devon was glad to walk into the area and find her there.

It looked like she was about to head out so he was pretty lucky.

'I'm glad she's alone.'

"Hey, Devon, Aurora came here a few minutes ago, she said she was still looking for you," Erina said as soon as she spotted him.

"I'm aware of that and that's why I'm avoiding her."

"Oh."

"How's Emilia doing?" He asked.

"She's fine, Aurora helped her get to her room after she came in with Krayan."

"Oh, that's great," Devon said with his gaze on her neck.

It didn't take long before he suddenly leaned closer to her to take a closer look at both of the marks on her neck.

"Um….what are you doing?" Erina asked with an awkward expression on her face.

Devon didn't reply immediately as he was still busy examining the marks on her neck.

Erina had those marks since they were little kids and he could see them every day but he had never been interested enough in them to look at them closely until today.

"Your ability marks, one is a flower bloom and the other one is what?"

"Oh, that's how the human brain looks," Erina replied.

"Oh, human brain to represent telepathy, right?"

"Yeah."

It was pretty obvious that she wasn't using her telepathy ability enough to improve it because, unlike the flower bloom which had its edges surrounded by a thin red glow, the telepathy mark was just there with no glow, it was still in the basic stage.

"Erina," Devon called after slowly stepping back from her.

"Yeah."

"I know you have a good level of knowledge about abilities so I'm going to ask, is it possible for someone without a mark to use an ability?"

'This really can't be a coincidence, did they see something?'

"Well, according to what I know mages are the only ones who can perform feats close to and sometimes even better than what someone with an ability can do," Erina explained. "But still, no ordinary person can become a mage."

"Okay, next question, was there a time when you constantly saw this flash of messages that kept showing you stuff that you couldn't understand?" He asked.

"Huh? I don't think I understand what you're trying to say, could you try explaining it in another way?"

'So, there's nothing like that for her, strange but it was expected given the fact that I don't have a mark either and I am clearly not a mage.' He said subconsciously.

"Oh, don't worry about it, it's just some weird stuff that I've been thinking of, there's no need to get your head twisted because of it." He said before putting on a fake smile.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He replied with a nod before turning toward the exit. "Thanks for answering my questions, I'll get going now."

"Devon, wait…"

There was no waiting for Devon who was long gone now.

A few seconds after he left, Alvis walked into the area with both of his hands in his pockets.

"Did Devon come through here?" He asked with his gaze on Erina.

"Yeah, you just missed him."

"I should have walked faster." He said before biting his lower lip.

"Anything the matter?"

"Yeah, he took one of my smoke bombs."

"A smoke bomb?" Erina said with a confused expression on her face.

______ _____

Devon was walking down the street of the kingdom now and because the sky was almost completely dark, everybody was putting on their lamps to brighten up their night.

Lamps were the cheapest method of light source at night the other method which was mostly for wealthy people was using beast crystals as a source of light energy.

They were considerably brighter, yeah, even basic tier crystals were brighter.

There was a way of using the crystals as a source of light energy and it was pretty common among the people.

There were also street food vendors who used the guise of using crystals as the source of light for their customers to spike up the prices of the food they were selling.

For a city that was at the risk of getting attacked at any moment due to their defensive crystals no longer being present, the streets were quite bright and lively at night and it looked like the people were truly happy.

Walking away from the brightness and liveliness of the main street, Devon entered the black market area.

An area where crystal cores were mostly sold and not only that, all sorts of shady business were done here, especially at night.

The feel of those bright lights was now gone and the voices of the people in the main street area could no longer be heard.

He could see a couple of people hanging around by the side but he completely ignored them and kept his gaze straight to avoid calling unnecessary attention to himself.

The gloominess of this area coupled with the hoots of owls was enough to send chills down most people's spine but Devon was already used to it, this wasn't his first time here after all.

Minding his own business, it didn't take him long to get to his destination, a large gate with a ripped-off guy holding a large club standing in front of it.

'I haven't seen him before.'