Chương 10: Black Market Trading and the True "Tier 1"

Night rain on Terra always carried the pungent scent of sulfur. Rowan pulled his oversized grey hoodie tighter, hiding most of his face in the shadows as he moved like a ghost through the labyrinthine sewer networks of the Seventh Abyssal Hive. Julian's search warrant felt like a venomous snake sinking its fangs in and refusing to let go, forcing Rowan to liquidate his resources immediately.

At the edge of Scrap Iron Street, a glitching neon sign sparked with electrical fire, emitting a faint bzzz sound through the curtain of rain. He had no intention of returning to the "Second-hand Magitech Component Recycling" shop he visited last time. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Rowan slipped down a dark alley reeking of machine oil and rust, and knocked on a heavy iron door with no handle. Behind the door lay "Rustwater"—the largest underground material trading post on Scrap Iron Street.

Here, they didn't ask for origins, and they didn't care about credit ratings. They only recognized hard currency. Thud. Rowan walked up to a high, bulletproof glass counter and heavily dropped his mud-stained tactical backpack onto the surface. Sitting behind the counter was a cyborg wearing a multi-lens tactical visor. His fingers—entirely metal cybernetics—tapped impatiently against the desk.

"You know the rules, right? If you brought me a pile of rotting mutant rat meat from the underhive to waste my time, I'll chop your hand off and weigh it as scrap iron." Rowan wasted no words. He unzipped the backpack and pushed forward the chunk of dark red rhino meat, the half-piece of withered magical root, and the leaf-wrapped clump of mud sprinkled with array crystal powder. The electronic eyes behind the visors swept over the items casually.

But a second later, miniature scanning probes actually popped out from the cyborg's mechanical eyeballs, emitting a sharp, high-pitched whine.

"This meat..." The cyborg's voice shifted, carrying a trace of shock.

"No radiation mutation! Pure elemental mana reaction... Even the muscle fibers are still active! Where the hell did you get pure, natural Tier 1 beast meat?" Next, his probes swept over the half-root and the mud. The cyborg's mechanical fingers twitched unnaturally.

"What a waste of heaven's gifts! Why is this cut in half? Most of the mana has leaked out!"

"... And this high-purity mana dust mixed into the mud. Kid, did you dig up some Consortium executive's private ecological park?"

"Cut the crap and name a price," Rowan growled, keeping his voice low. His right hand remained buried in his pocket, tightly gripping the high-frequency vibro-dagger with the broken tip. The cyborg took a breath, seemingly calculating at lightspeed how much profit he could squeeze out of this batch if he flipped it to the "Ancient Body Refinement" fanatics in the Upper City.

"Six thousand Terra Credits," the cyborg offered a probing number. But Rowan knew the routines of these leeches all too well. He sneered coldly and reached directly for his backpack.

"If 'Rustwater' can't stomach it, I'll go next door to 'Blacktooth.' I'm sure they'll offer a much more respectable price for Tier 1 mana-beast meat that will drive martial artists crazy."

"Wait!" The cyborg slammed his hand against the glass, grinding his teeth.

"Six thousand five hundred! That's my absolute limit! Even though this meat is pure, it's just a small chunk. And I can't even match that half-root to any index; I'll have to sell it as a blind-box alchemical ingredient. Six thousand five hundred credits, transferred to your bearer account immediately. Let's make a friend." Rowan halted his movement, calculating rapidly in his head. Six thousand five hundred was actually above his expectations.

In his current precarious situation, he couldn't afford a prolonged tug-of-war.

"Deal." Watching his account balance jump to [Balance: 7, 128 Terra Credits], Rowan didn't leave immediately. he walked over to a fully enclosed, soundproofed access terminal in the corner of the trading post, inserted a coin, and pulled down the soundproof hood. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Rowan reconnected to the black-market supply section of the Dark Web and typed a few words into the search bar.

[Water Source Rune Etching Fluid] He then added filter keywords like "high impurity" and "defective." The list refreshed. Finally, he saw the primary objective of his trip. [Low-Grade Water Source Rune Etching Fluid — Current Average Price: 3, 000 Terra Credits / Dose] The price had shrunk by a factor of ten compared to the standard version. It was exactly enough to buy the dose he needed while leaving him money to upgrade his gear.

However, beneath the product details on the Dark Web was a glaring, crimson warning label: [WARNING: This product has an impurity rate of up to 45%. Forced application for Source Crystal Core etching carries extremely high risk. For experimental or disposal use only. DO NOT apply directly to human subjects! All sales are final; use at your own risk.] This was literal poison.

Usually, only desperate outlaws in the underhive—those who couldn't afford a Mana Primordium but dreamed of leaping into the supernatural ranks in a single step—would bankrupt themselves to buy these defective products to "gamble their lives on practice." For those people, using it almost certainly meant a gruesome death. Yet, there was no retreat in Rowan's eyes. Through his clothes, he patted the sharply angled otherworldly "Mana Primordium" resting in his inner pocket.

With this top-tier primordium acting as the perfect external buffer, even if the impurities in the etching fluid raged like a storm of blades, it would be enough for him to complete the qualitative leap from mortal to formal Mage!

"Purchase." Rowan decisively hit the transaction button and selected the nearest unmanned drop-off point for pickup. The funds in his account instantly shrank by almost half, leaving him with just over four thousand credits. Rowan shifted his gaze to the weapons and armor section. After one trip to the alternate world, his proud high-frequency vibro-dagger had lost its tip, and his stab-proof liner was stained with mud and severely worn.

The thought of Julian's relentless sabotage solidified his resolve: he had to spend all his money on upgrading his combat power. He spent 900 Terra Credits on a new tactical chest rig lined with micro impact-resistance runes. He dropped another 600 credits on a heavy, black-steel Damascus combat short-sword inscribed with a sharpening rune. Finally, his eyes landed on a highly expensive consumable.

[Overloaded Electromagnetic Mana-Grenade — Price: 2, 500 Terra Credits] The item description was simple: By instantly triggering an overclocked short-circuit in its built-in low-grade mana crystal, it erupts with terrifying destructive power approaching a Tier 2 Lightning spell, accompanied by a neural paralysis effect. Note: Lethal blast radius is half a meter. Highly prone to misfires. Do not carry close to the body. Two thousand five hundred credits for a single-use item.

A few weeks ago, he'd have called it an ungodly waste of money. But without a shred of hesitation, he cleared his cart. That lunatic Julian would undoubtedly send wave after wave of harassment. Rowan needed a trump card capable of flipping the board. Half an hour later, Rowan retrieved all his supplies from an unmanned locker at the edge of Scrap Iron Street. Standing on a dim street corner, Rowan clipped the heavy mana-grenade into a tactical slot on his waist.

His left hand slowly traced the hideous surgical scar on his left arm. Beneath the skin, the micro "Aether Core-IIα" lay dormant. Feeling the cold metal and mechanical circuits, Rowan's gaze grew incredibly profound. Up until now, he had relied entirely on this mechanical core to cast spells. In the eyes of ordinary people, he seemed no different from a true Tier 1 Mage; sometimes, his casting speed was even faster.

But only after experiencing life-and-death combat in the alternate world, and personally witnessing how those otherworldly mages fought, did Rowan profoundly understand the chasm between the two. In that world, relying on this cybernetic core, he would only qualify as an after-dinner snack for that Armored Rhino.

"A mechanical cheat is just a cheat in the end..." Rowan muttered softly. The Aether Core was essentially a precision magitech device. It forcefully extracted mana, channeled it through rigid metal etching circuits, and squeezed out the Minimalist Water Blade like a product on an assembly line. This "proxy casting" had an insurmountable, fatal flaw: there was no soul resonance, the cooldown ran too long, and the output couldn't flex.

Although Minimalist Water Blade was classified as a Tier 1 spell in the military index, due to the mechanical wear and energy stiffness of the Aether Core, the water blade Rowan currently fired would always be a grade lower than a true mage's spell in terms of lethality, penetration, and mana purity. At best, it was merely a highly lethal "Pseudo-Tier 1" weapon.

In the Military's special admission practical assessment, if he faced those Consortium geniuses who cast spells using a true "Source Crystal Core," his rigid, pseudo-magic would be instantly shattered by their fluid, pure, authentic magic!

"But after tonight, everything changes." Rowan pulled the lead-sealed vial of "Low-Grade Water Source Rune Etching Fluid" from his jacket. The murky blue liquid sloshed beneath the dim streetlamp, exuding a fatal allure. As long as he used the otherworldly top-tier primordium as a shield, he could use this vial of low-grade fluid to genuinely etch a [Water Source Rune] directly onto his beating heart's crystal core. He would break free from the shackles of magitech.

The water blade he cast would no longer be a rigid product of an industrial assembly line. It would be a supernatural blade carrying the warmth of a soul—a blade truly capable of cleaving through the barriers of social class! Rowan pocketed the etching fluid, pulled his hoodie over his head, and gripped the black-steel short-sword in a reverse grip. As the acid-laced night wind cut past, he felt as though he could already see the image of his destiny fracturing and rewriting itself.

Rowan's figure instantly melted into the boundless darkness, silently creeping back toward his peril-ridden gutter rat's hole.