Rak quickly made his way around the bazaar visiting the vendors he did before and was fortunate enough to be able to still buy up their stock. This action was observed by the mercenary group and reported to Cle.

“He bought large stock of pills? Three different types?”

“One was in liquid form but the other two were pills.”

“Alright you can leave. We’ll set out early tomorrow, get some rest.”

After receiving the reports and ordering the man out, Cle was left alone with Featherfall. Cle has let down her indifferent expression and is in deep thought frowning.

“What is it sister Cle?”

“You should know this Abstinence has only been in the city for a few days, and this should be his first interaction with a trading Strange zone like the Bazaar tower.”

“So?.”

“He’s already found three viable items to stock up on.”

“So? Anyone can buy a few pills.”

“You aren’t looking at the whole picture. He bought very specific pills, meaning he tested around seventy to a hundred different items. Maybe more depending on his luck”

At this point Feathefall picked up Cle’s meaning.

“Your saying he’s richer than expected?”

“That or newly rich and is wantonly spending coin.”

“He’s a Manipulator but pretty weak, so he might be one of those book types.”

“It’s not impossible.”

Cle didn’t believe Rak was a scholar, he certainly didn’t look it. Rak hired them to delve into this Bazaar tower, he didn’t put up a too polite front, making his natural aristocratic aura sneak out. It wasn’t much but Cle has mingled amongst the more ‘cultured’ and Rak certainly had some of their bearings.

“Forget it, even if he tested hundred items, it's just a few gold coins.”

“Are you interested in him?”

From Featherfall’s perspective, what Rak did was nothing special. But Rak is young, handsome, somewhat skilled and apparently wealthy. If this doesn’t attract a woman, the rest of humanity is going to have a hard time. Though to be clear, Rak’s abilities in combat are still very much lacking.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

Featherfall felt she hit the mark but Cle’s expression remained the same and showed no signs of being flustered.

‘Why is sister so curious about this man?’

Even though Cle denied any interest she was already putting a few things together. Her mercenary group didn’t get to where it is today by being ill informed. Rak’s history has already been roughly dug up. But none of Gou’s men know about Rak’s brewery, hence Rak’s wealth is still a mystery.

“His relationship with the Falli family is shallow, but any relationship with the Falli has to be taken seriously.”

It can be exceedingly difficult to gain information in Chaos theory, especially when the target is from another city. If Rak was from Kalloway, this wouldn’t have been an issue.

“Speaking of the Falli family, Gou Jovel returning means there might be internal conflict.”

“You know we don’t take up those sorts of jobs, Featherfall. Our Bazaar mercenary group is already showing promise. We have seventeen products identified already and in the future it will only rise.”

Cle has great aspirations and the groups current ‘work’ in escorting people into the bazaar is a veil to disguise their recent wealth. As a group specializing in the Bazaar tower and ignoring other Strange zones, they have accumulated an extensive list of valuable items. Their total wealth even rivialing Rak’s. It would be even more impressive if they didn’t take great precautions.

Once people find out their lucrative business, they’ll have to share it or meet with a very miserable end. Even though death isn’t permanent, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be held captive, extorted or even tortured.

They do have certain precautions in place in the case of being captured by people with ill intent, one of which is suicide. The death penalty would be welcomed if they can escape from old wealthy families. This is common practice in large cities, not to mention a medium empire city like Kalloway.

“I guess I miss the old days.”

Unlike most people, Featherfall is something of a fighting addict. A few years back they had to fight often, in underground arenas, deadly Strange zones or even upright battle arenas. Living in a large city can cost a lot of coin, living safely is even more expensive. Danger makes heroes and Cle and Featherfall are certainly that.

But with this dangerous life came strength. As Cle and Featherfall became strong enough, their earnings skyrocketed. Now they are even engaging in investing their wealth and getting high returns. In a few years, if they can scale up their operation and perhaps monopolize the Bazaar tower through wealth, political power and personal strength. Then they might become an aristocratic family worth fearing.

“I haven’t stepped foot in an arena for over a year.”

Featherfall continued to reminisce. It has to be understood that Cle and Featherfall might carry some vicissitudes of life but they are still young. Cle stopped thinking and looked at Featherfall who is staring into the middle distance.

“Don’t we spar regularly? The fifth floor challenge is also deadly.”

As Cle said, the group is a three star mercenary group. This is their official status but in reality they have managed to reach the fifth floor. Only on the fifth floor are peak tier one items that are considered failed tier two items. These peak tier one items are a lot more hassle to test.

Even just their spending on the fourth floor causes them to feel a heavy weight when they carry the items out of the tower and prepare to sell them through various means. It isn’t until the items are sold and they’ve recouped losses that they can breathe a sigh of relief. And this is with them only buying small quantities.

The Bazaar tower has been a constant drain on their coins but in recent months the mercury group has been making incredible profits reaching tens of gold. This sort of profits is like turning a beggar into a king.

“Sparring isn’t a life and death fight. And what’s there to worry about on the fifth floor? It’s just the other people that can’t hold their ground. And we still haven’t even tried the sixth floor.”

“If we challenge the sixth floor and fail we’ll be exposed. We can hide our success but we can’t hide our failures. If people know we reach the fifth floor they’ll quickly tie those high level items to us and in less than a year we’ll be exposed.”

At this moment Cle has been speaking like they are villains. In some eyes they are indeed villains, having coin can be a crime in the eyes of the established rich or the desperate poor. This sort of income has to be properly managed. The team’s current income isn’t much in the grand scheme of things but if manpower is poured into it and it’s managed well, the income will similarly scale to enormous proportions.

Cle and Featherfall continue to discuss various things while Rak attempts to analyze his ‘failed’ items. According to what Rak has read about these sorts of unidentified items, as they can also be found in other Strange zones through other means. What he read is that most of them should be mid grade or high grade. This is true whether they are malignant and poisonous or beneficial like the Small water pill.

The Small water pill is a mid grade item and its very gentle nature is the reason why a simple low tier paper puppet was able to survive ingesting it. The Small power potion is a low grade and is just weak enough for the paper puppet to survive the more volatile energy from it.

“It seems the cheapest option is a combination of healers, some potion concoters, alchemist specializing in consumables and some sturdy people would be the most cost efficient.”

No matter how Rak tries to think of ways to increase profits, in the end it is best to rely on specialized skills rather than these puppets. Even if the puppets promise certain success rate, whose to say there aren’t many exceptions? The items might be just a bit too volatile for a low grade or the paper puppets quality could be compromised.

“Only by consuming the items can you be certain of their effects. Even if I can determine that the item is harmful, there might still be value in it, only I won’t risk consuming to find out.”

After sorting the forty seven items into five categories of solid pills, soft pills, powder, liquid and finally what seems like organic materials. The last category are things like a piece of leaf, which should not be something crafted but grown and nurtured, either naturally or by a person. Of course the liquids and powders could be natural products as well, but they cannot be differentiated into organics reliably.

“With long term investments it is possible to record viable items slowly. But the real profits would be to bring a large group specializes in testing at low cost.”

Rak is rolling a small pill between his fingers and tapping the table with his other hand. The candle flickers slightly with every tap.

“If it is possible to create reusable test puppets that could also an option. Maybe it is possible to lower the cost of these puppets as well.”

With the paper puppets being fairly popular their prices have slowly risen, especially since Cle’s mercenary group has been stealthily buying large supply of them. In the future they plan to create their own workshops with the sole purpose of fabricating paper puppets and other materials.

Setting up a workshop can be a risky thing, without Chaos theory support and becoming a part of the system, their income will be dependant entirely on the Bazaar tower. Presumably they’ll have to produce some amount of products to sell on the market as well, until they have established themselves and no longer fear being swallowed by larger businesses.

After analyzing the consumables five additional piles have emerged. These are Rak ́s guesses as to which are just volilate low grade consumables or higher grades. The other pile is what he suspects to be harmful products. Without proper foundations Rak’s guesses are almost at random. The analyzing can be considered practice, even if the results are lackluster.

In Cle’s mercenary group they have already begun researching various unranked crafting jobs and use their knowledge to identify valuable items. Their profits are already impressive and should continue to grow as they continue to nurture their support jobs.

When one thinks about all these things, it brings out the thought, why has no one systematically researched the Bazaar tower like this before? Almost entirely because the investment cost is huge, and comparing to similar investments in other Strange zone it pales in comparison. There are still some people that routinely make profits but few are consistent.

The real reason as to why there isn’t too big of a market for the Bazaar tower’s items is that reaching higher levels gets harder and harder. In other Strange zones, sometimes just staying in one location and knowing it well, can be very bountiful. The risks are far lower, and it is possible to retreat from battle, unlike the Bazaar tower’s challenges. This means over time less and less new fighters challenge the tower in favour of other easier Strange zones.

Vast majority of people engaging in the Bazaar tower are those that have already invested time it. Even though a few tens silvers per trip isn’t much, for some it is entirely adequate. This is especially true if they can master the first or second floor challenges. The risk becomes purely in what items to buy and then resell in the Kalloway market.

Over time people find niche items that just rotate within the vendors and are only annoying to find but they always end up finding. Even though they do this often, the market never lacks more items to consume.

“When I return to Alp town I won’t be able to enter a Strange zone at all. But if our guess is correct about the Endless mountain range, it won’t matter.”

Another way to check for item’s value is to give them to animals. Frail small animals will directly die under too much energy but they are still better than paper puppets, being able to endure mid grade energy, only high volatility might still cause complications.

If a person has tamed the beast they can directly see the effects of the consumables. There goes some effort into taming a beast and not many are heartless enough to endanger their tamed beasts. It isn’t impossible for people to buy tamed beast however, just as Rak did with his two horses. Survivalist and other adventurer type jobs will buy a tamed beast exactly to test foreign plants, meat of beasts or even random consumables found in wild Strange zones.

“Father should have already made some preparations but its still very early.”

Rak’s current location in Kalloway causes his time to crawl to only two times that of reality. This also means that those living at the Endless mountain are living in a time dilation that is two times faster than Rak’s. Two months here will be four months by the Endless mountain range but only one month in reality. This worries Rak, but this is also why his income has increased so much.

The time in the Bazaar tower is approximately the same as the outskirts of the Endless mountain range. After spending a day in the Bazaar tower, only half a day passes in Kalloway city. Time related things quickly become convoluted and tedious to ponder.

“Forget it, I’ll deal with it when I return. As for these items, I’ll have to continue researching these items in the future and slowly learn.”

Understanding that his knowledge is shallow and that reading isn’t the same as experiencing Rak decided he’d use some of his time to learn about items that strengthen people. He’s looking for items that strengthen his Manipulator abilities but anything that can show long term profits is worth his interests.

Rak scrambled the items into five piles again, wanting to attempt the same task tomorrow morning. Tomorrow they’ll challenge the second floor and the day after that the third.

In the morning Rak returned to his pile of items.

“Even if I can’t confirm it, I think there is a good chance that Chaos theory will acknowledge my act. With enough practice I might gain an ability.”

Having read a few books on jobs, abilities and ways to improve oneself Rak found that often simple repetition can cause abilities to appear. While his Manipulator abilities seem to be tied directly to his job as a Manipulator and everything surrounding it, his passive stamina ability, Basic stamina, originated from him just walking around. Along with some literature subtle pointing towards it but never directly saying, Rak’s is fairly certain it works.

“I can’t regain passive stamina and this is the next best thing I could think of.”

With limited knowledge it is hard to make good guesses. Practicing physical activities that increase strength like lifting weights or simply doing pushups can induce an ability called Basic strength. There is also a Basic dexterity, Basic agility, Basic thought, Basic rest and even far abstract ones like Basic breath. Some can be stumbled upon but many require dedicated effort.

Just stretching casually won’t produce Basic agility, occasionally crafting won’t give you Basic Dexterity and just thinking about complex things through won’t award you with Basic thought. A person that tackles complex issues daily will certainly gain Basic thought, the key being consistency. Even if it is just playing a game like chess for a half an hour a day.

Everytime Rak returns to the real world he will relax for a time, review some reports, eat, maybe play around a bit and then search for things like passive abilities, new unknown jobs and more. In the end quite a bit of information makes its way into the real world but a whole lot of it is censored.

Chaos theory is not something that is directly running governments but it certainly has the ability to do whatever it wants. If people attempt to spread key information through digital media, they will be stopped. It is still possible to meet with people and speak frankly, this sort of information sharing is slow and can’t cause too much harm. Spreading to the entire world with a finger press is different.

There are hundreds of jobs claimed, a lot of variant evolutions of the jobs but there is no way to know how they got their jobs. The best they can do is tell people directly what their abilities do. Knowing what abilities they have is half the battle as it can be somewhat deduced what skills are prerequisite for them to get a job advancement quest. It is also possible to say something like, ‘I went to an unranked Manipulator workshop and I am now a Manipulator.

“I should sweep the Bazaar once before the appointed meeting time.”

While the words sweep were used, Rak just casually inspected various items, occasionally buying an item he ‘expertly’ guessed to be good. Of course he didn’t test the new items and only hoarded them away, putting it into his inventory with his other collection. None of the items stacked and looking through it in the inventory is an eyesore, but Rak doesn’t let that affect him as he continues to incrementally increase the pile.

“I should go meet up with the team.”

When Rak arrived just outside the bazaar, nine people were already gathered, six are having a lively discussion and laughing while the seventh person is talking to Cle and Featherfall.

“Oh, your already here?”

“I thought I’d be here a little early, to think I was the last one to arrive.”

It is exactly this way of talking accompanied by casual expression that lets you know that it's all just flattery. There is an art to flatter someone without saying something about them and at the same time let them understand that you are indeed intentionally flattering them.

This sort of tactic works most of the time but Featherfall has a disdainful expression and lets out a whiff of air through her nose. Cle glances as Featherfall but ignores her otherwise.

“With you here, we shouldn’t waste time. We will challenge the second floor immediately. This time I’ll have to ask you to stay back behind Heave.”

Heave is the long range attacker of the team but in general the tactics are make sure he can attack from afar while also being protected. This makes it so that he’s always the furthest back.

“You don’t need me to set up a few shields?”

“I’ll trouble you to protect yourself in this round.”

Unlike the first round, there is less room to let a newbie like Rak play around. The Bazaar tower is a lot less forgiving than other Strange zones. With more risk there is a need to make sure no one gets injured due to negligence, and because they can’t depend on Rak, it is better to just not include him in their plans. A popular saying is, fear not a competent enemy but a foolish friend. Or something along those lines.

“Okay.”

In the end Rak has no power within this group, in their contract it very clearly showed that Rak could not order any of them and Rak would have to listen to their arrangements or they would relinquish any responsibility for his safety.

This contract has plenty of room for exploitation but in the worst case, Rak would just die and lose the items he’s bought along with a public announcement within the tower that lets people know that Rak died during the second challenge. Which wouldn't faze Rak but for some people this sort of thing can be humiliating.

“We’ll begin into the challenge then.”

Just like before everyone in the group is prompted with a familiar notification.

Cle Velio has invited you to join the Bazaar Tower’s second floor

Accept | Decline

If five people accept then the challenge is set to five people difficulty but once six people accept it, it is set to ten people difficulty. On the second floor’s challenge area the entire group suddenly appears. Cle waves her hands and her team immediately moves in a coordinated fashion towards the enemy location.

As before the enemy are plant related humanoids, this time around vines can be seen wiggling on the ground or even swaying into the air. They all come out of the ground and originate from two vine variant plant humanoids.

The difficulty of this level is now compounded as these vine queens will create up to three vines, one of which acts independently and the other two in coordination with the vine queens commands. Here the biggest threat is the independant vine as it can be unpredictable.

This new difficulty is still of little challenge to the experienced mercenary group. Everytime a vine digs out of the ground it is struck down mercilessly and the vine queen has no choice but to regenerate the vine at the cost of energy and time. Other than this the challenge is exactly the same as on the first floor.

The projectiles are easily blocked, deflected or dodged. The vines are expertly taken care of and when they enter melee range, which is the teams strong suit, they massacre the plant humanoids. Clear viscous liquid spreads on the ground with plant material, everything from soft green stems to hard bark are scattered everywhere.

Rak’s current role is that of an observer. He has three shields rotating slowly around him, he has not made a single move so far other than preparing for one of those vines to pop up. In the end the entire affair was uneventful but Rak still thoroughly enjoyed watching the fight.

“It's hard to see how difficult the fights are but I still remember how difficult it was to just block the projectiles on the first floor. From the looks of it, I would really just be in the way.”

The last enemy died and immediately the team got a new alert in their logs. They were then teleported to the second floor’s bazaar. Without much fanfare Rak was again on his own while the mercury team went on with their secretive business. They wouldn’t let Rak or any of their customers see what they buy, and if they did it would be for the purpose of misdirection.

“The items on the second floor are still very similar to the first floor but they are supposed to be more likely to be of medium or high quality. From what I’ve read it is still mostly guesses and its difficult to confirm.”

The Bazaar vendors do sometimes sell information but it is exceedingly rare. This information is almost never shared. Even selling it can be dangerous unless you deal with the government, in which case you get more reputation with the government than actual coin. Your safety is however guaranteed.

Rak rents out another mansion to use. The cost is just not that high, the bazaar isn’t a city and there is no valuable land. With the mansion dealt with, Rak begins slowly inspecting various vendors wares. The bazaar is already thirty percent larger than on the first floor, making it even more difficult to inspect everything in a short time.

This time around Rak has decided on a new strategy, he wants to see if items really do change depending on the time. With no other methods Rak can only write down a few vendor’s items. He can only see their name, quantity of the item and how much they cost.

After taking down the entire stock of ten vendors Rak stops recording everything and just casually browses for the rest of the day. He eats when he’s hungry and buys items at random acting according to what he believes to be good items. Of course his gusses are still almost entirely at random, but that’s to be expected.

“Still no ability.”

When evening arrives Rak returns to his mansion and sorts his items.

“Hundred sixty four consumables. Excluding the three items I stocked up on.”

The price of items has already gone up a degree but with Raks pocket money of tens of gold, he could practically one of each item. Actually this tactic isn’t something people haven’t thought of, but whose brave enough to try it? The more excessive costs come from identifying good from bad later on.

“This might be my mind playing tricks but I feel like I’m becoming better at differentiating aspects of these items.”

Finding differences between items is not the same as knowing which are beneficial and which are harmful. In Rak’s case it is more the case of understanding that out of ten specific pills, five are maybe good for the body while three are for the mind and two are still ambiguous. All this is still random and very inaccurate but the intention is to ‘practice’. Rak ́s goal is to gain some ability related to the identifying or analyzing items.

“Level two Manipulator.”

With the combination of defeating two Bazaar levels and prolonged practice of his Manipulator abilities over two months, Rak has reached level two Manipulator. This level has far higher rewards than Rak ́s previous ten levels as an unranked.

Base energy increase by 36

Base energy regeneration increased by 0.2%

Physical attributes have increased slightly.

All attributes have been replenished.

A feeling of refreshing spring wind washes over Rak, small imperceptible wounds heal and even old scars appear to be lighter. This sort of feeling is like waking up from a short nap with and all fatigue has been washed away.

“It really is an amazing feeling. I can understand becoming addicted to this”

In the real world, quite a few people have described the sensation of leveling up their jobs and some swear that it gets more enjoyable with every level.

The main source of experience comes from either crafting, quests and killing various enemies. There are others like explorations and various discoveries but these last two are almost inconsequential in comparison due to their frequency, the amount of experience is still good hower.

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My fiction page: Nevatrue!

Experience is now infinite however, already the mercenary group gets next to no experience for killing familiar enemies. This holds true even if they are still ‘challenging’. Variety is just as important as a challenge is. Which is one of the reasons that multiple Strange zones are so important.

If Rak took it upon himself to fight alone versus some of the easier Strange zone enemies, he would easily regain his status of level ten and only then would his leveling slow down. To give a comparison, Cle and Featherfall are only around level thirty four and thirty three. This is because of lacking challenges. Their teammates closer to twenty five to thirty but not too far behind.

On average the highest level people are usually dedicated crafters, those that seek to improve their craft rather than those that chase wealth. But even this has limitations as materials for more higher tier crafting will not be available. But crafting has limitations and this is why highest levels are almost exclusive to fierce fighters as well as dedicated crafters.

At the current state of the world, levels are not apparent when it comes to personal strength but as levels grow they continue to have incremental differences to the point that a level thirty person should have some advantage of a level twenty. Much of this advantage can be explained away by their own combat experience but there is also the case of attributes making a difference.

It is when people gain their tier two jobs that significant distance can be seen, one which it becomes very hard for a tier one job to defeat a person with a tier two jobs, even if they are at the peak of tier one.

When it comes to these sorts of things there are no absolutes but there are undeniable differences between a tier one job’s abilities and a tier two’s. This can perhaps be bridged if a person has very good synergy with their supportive job, perhaps two supportive jobs that align with each other and in turn align with the combat focused job. Individual ability in combat can be significant as well, and then there are special cases where some job’s strengths directly strikes at the weaknesses of another job.

“The benefits to leveling seem high.”

Rak had been practicing his basic Manipulator abilities when he leveled. His previous sense of tiredness and loss of energy vanished. He was filled with vigour to the point he began messing about with his various consumables.

The vendors outside mostly sell mysterious consumable items but some vendors also have miscellaneous items with no descriptions. In the case of colored pencils and a set of painting tools, Rak was not bothered about their lacking descriptions. It is these items that are coming in handy now.

Outside of documenting various consumables prices, names, vendor locations and general description for their appearance, Rak has begun drawing them with greater enthusiasm and detail. Only now has begun attempting to color or give them shading. This activity is one of leisure but can also be considered practical.

“These aren’t half bad.”

Rak has little experience in drawing or coloring but there is really no need for a picture perfect sample in this case. At first Rak didn’t notice but eventually he saw his logs and in them each pencil was slowly draining Rak’s energy. At that point Rak realized that the pencils hadn’t lost their sharpness and still looked near pristine.

“So there are things like this exists as well?”