Chapter 203: Chapter 203—Weird Merchant

Mara had made leaving the academy grounds part of her routine.

Not for recreation. Not for any social reasons. Just for deployment.

Every three to four days, she volunteered for Shroud missions—Tier 1 and Tier 2 incursions that the Republic’s military command posted for academy students willing to earn merit points and combat experience. Most students waited for mandatory deployments. Mara volunteered constantly.

It was the fastest path to breakthrough. Pressure. Real danger. The kind of life-or-death stakes that forced soul force refinement through necessity rather than meditation.

She’d been doing this for weeks now. Leaving through the academy’s south gate in the early morning, heading to Central’s military coordination center, accepting deployment assignments, returning exhausted and bloodied but incrementally closer to Initiate rank.

The route had become familiar. Through Central’s administrative district, past the Senate building, into the logistics quarter where military operations were coordinated.

Today, passing through the merchant district—a shortcut she’d discovered that saved ten minutes—something unusual caught her attention.

A traveling merchant had set up a small stall between two permanent storefronts. This was not unusual in itself. Central’s merchant district always had vendors hawking various goods. Alchemical supplies. Weapon maintenance kits. Training equipment.

What was unusual was what this particular merchant was selling.

Cores.

Actual Crawler cores. Extracted, processed, and ready for integration.

Displayed openly on a cloth-covered table like they were common merchandise instead of strategic resources worth fortunes.

Mara stopped walking.

It was a known fact that most people in the core business were either absurdly rich or possessed strength that made wealth irrelevant. Cores were expensive. Rare. Dangerous to acquire. The market was dominated by established merchant houses, military suppliers, and occasionally desperate individuals selling inheritance cores after family tragedies.

Street vendors didn’t sell cores.

It was too risky. Too valuable. Too likely to attract theft or violence.

Yet here was a merchant—elderly, unremarkable appearance, patient expression—with roughly a dozen cores arranged on his table. Each one labeled with small parchment tags describing their abilities and estimated integration difficulty.

Mara approached cautiously, hand resting near one of her daggers out of habit.

The merchant smiled easily, unbothered by the edge beneath her silence. “Student from Sparkshire?” he asked, nodding toward the Academy insignia stitched into her uniform.

“Yes,” Mara replied, offering nothing more.

“Looking for advancement cores?” He gestured toward the glass display between them, where crystalline fragments rested in velvet-lined slots. “I have several appropriate for Fledgling-to-Initiate breakthroughs. Reasonable prices. Authenticated quality. And no questions about buyer background or intended use.”

His tone implied discretion as a service.

Most people waited before integrating a core.

Advancement traditionally came first—strengthen the vessel, widen the capacity, let the body adapt gradually to a new facet of power. Only then did they introduce a core, once the “cup” had grown large enough to safely hold more.

It was cautious. Predictable. Safe.

And safety was popular.

The alternative path was less respected.

Fill the cup first—push power beyond current limits and allow the strain itself to force expansion. Risk fractures. Risk instability. Risk failure.

But for commoners, for those without prodigious soul capacity or noble lineage advantages, it was often the only viable route. Integration could spark advancement directly. Dangerous, yes—but efficient.

Desperation favored efficiency over comfort.

For those born with soul talents, however, the equation changed entirely.

A soul talent did more than grant ability—it subtly reinforced the foundation beneath it. Increased baseline capacity. Reduced instability thresholds. Softened the consequences others feared.

For them, risky advancement was rarely necessary.

Their “cup” expanded almost as quickly as it was filled.

Mara’s gaze lingered on the cores behind the glass.

The merchant’s smile widened slightly.

He did not need to ask which path she was considering.

The tension in her posture answered for her.

Still the last part of his statement was what made this really suspicious.

Legitimate core merchants tracked buyers. Documented sales. Reported to Republic authorities when necessary. It prevented cores from ending up in the hands of criminals, foreign agents, or anyone else the Senate deemed problematic.

This merchant was explicitly offering anonymity.

Mara should have walked away.

Instead, she examined the displayed cores more closely.

Most were standard options. Enhanced Strength. Speed Augmentation. Improved Endurance. The kind of capabilities that any combat specialist might want but nothing particularly special.

Then she saw it.

Near the back of the display. A core that looked different from the others—not in appearance, but in the way her Clear Mind core seemed to notice it. Like recognizing a puzzle piece that would fit perfectly into a gap she hadn’t realized existed.

The label read: Phase Strike

– Allows brief intangibility during attacks. User can pass through defenses for a split-second window during strike execution. High integration difficulty. Combat-focused application.

Mara picked it up carefully.

The core was small. Pale gray with a faint shimmer that suggested spatial or dimensional properties. It felt warm in her palm despite the cool morning air.

“Ah.” The merchant’s expression showed approval. “That’s a rare one. Found it in a Tier 3 breach last month. The Crawler that dropped it had been phasing through walls to ambush soldiers. Nasty creature. Even nastier core.”

“What does ’brief intangibility’ mean exactly?” Mara asked, keeping her tone neutral despite the excitement building beneath her Clear Mind’s emotional filtration.

“Exactly what it says. During the execution of an attack—the moment your blade is in motion, committed to the strike—you become partially intangible. Your weapon remains solid, but defenses that would normally block or deflect the attack pass through harmlessly. Lasts maybe half a second. Requires perfect timing.”

Mara’s mind was already cataloging applications.

Twin daggers. Precise strikes. Clear Mind providing the mental clarity to time the intangibility window perfectly. Bypassing armor. Ignoring defensive cores. Turning every attack into something her opponents couldn’t block conventionally.

“Perfect synergy with twin daggers,” the merchant observed, noticing her weapon configuration.

“How much?” Mara asked.

“80 merit points. Or equivalent gold value.”

Mara blinked.

That was… cheap.

Weirdly cheap.

She’d been researching core prices for months. A rare combat-focused core with spatial properties should cost three hundred to four hundred merit points minimum. Probably more given the tactical advantages Phase Strike offered.

Eighty was absurdly less than she’d budgeted for a standard Initiate-rank core.

“That’s too low,” she said bluntly. “Why?”

The merchant shrugged. “I don’t need the money. Already wealthy beyond caring. I sell cores because I enjoy watching people advance through well-matched integrations. Call it a hobby.” He gestured to the core in her hand. “That one suits you. I can tell. So I’m pricing it appropriately for a student budget rather than holding out for a noble house that’ll overpay.”

It was the kind of explanation that should have made Mara more suspicious.

Wealthy eccentrics with mysterious motivations. Cores priced far below market value. Convenient timing right when she needed a breakthrough core.

She even had the fleeting thought that the seller might be some kind of spiritual entity granting wishes. A story from her childhood about wandering gods who tested mortals through impossible generosity from the times of old.

Ridiculous.

But she was holding the perfect core for her build, and the price was within reach.

Mara had been saving aggressively. Combat deployments. Mission bonuses. The merit points the squad had pooled for her. She had approximately one thousand one hundred points total.

This would cost eighty, leaving her with a thousand for emergencies or additional equipment.

It was financially irresponsible to spend that much on a single purchase without more research.

But it was also perfect.

“I’ll take it,” Mara said before her pragmatic side could object further.

The transaction took less than five minutes.

Mara pressed her Academy bracelet against the merchant’s handheld slate. Authentication glyphs flared briefly—identity verified, merit balance displayed, transfer approved.

The points vanished from her account.

A confirmation chime followed.

Official.

Clean.

Far too clean.

The documentation registered as legitimate within the Academy’s network despite the merchant’s obvious lack of formal business credentials. No licensing seals. No guild insignia. No regulatory stamp.

And yet—

Approved.

It wasn’t surprising that Academy bracelet authentication functioned beyond school grounds. The Republic’s financial architecture had long since outgrown physical banks. Traditional vaulting systems were obsolete in a society where wealth was fluid—converted between gold, merit points, and limited-circulation currencies through specialized intermediaries.

Behind every “instant” transfer was a web of individuals with transaction-linked cores—abilities designed to validate exchanges, regulate conversion rates, and secure digital pathways in ways old-world banking never could.

A living system.

Self-regulating.

Difficult to trace.

Which made what had just happened even more unsettling.

Still, the transfer was complete.

The merchant slid a reinforced case across the counter.

“Pleasure doing business,” he said.

Minutes later, Mara walked away with Phase Strike secured at her side, heading toward her scheduled deployment.

She deliberately avoided dissecting the improbability of the exchange.

The legitimacy.

The speed.

The quiet absence of interference.

Figure it out later, she told herself.

Right now, I have Crawlers to kill.

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