A group of three sat on the ground facing each other, their faces somber and eyes hopeless. It had been more than a decade since they got trapped in the Lower Realm, a group of more than a dozen treasure hunters. By an incredible strike of misfortune, they managed to activate an ancient trap, getting sucked through the portal into the red prison.
At first, they were optimistic, celebrating a new discovery, but when they realized where they were, things changed. They turned against each other, blame was thrown haphazardly around, and people fought, sometimes to the death.
In the end, only the three of them remained after such a long time. You couldn’t call them friends, but they only had each other to rely on in this cursed land. They had to stick together to survive.
In truth, the Lower Plane wasn’t so bad for a group of Spirit Realm Cultivators. There were beasts they could hunt, so food wasn’t an issue, but the Qi required to do so was much more scarce. Gradually they used up their Stones, exhausted the relics, and consumed the pills, leaving them to rely on their Spirit Bodies, which were growing weaker by the day.
The damn wasteland consumed all, and after such a long time, they were nearing their end. The last Soul was converted to energy just a few weeks ago, the Soul Stone sitting empty between them. They still had food to eat, but not enough Qi to fight. It was getting harder and harder to kill, and recharging the orb became all but impossible. Without medicine, pills, and Qi, any fight could turn lethal, even if they eventually won.
It was a sad, depressing thought. Waiting to simply wither and die.
Suddenly one of them lifted his head, looking at a bright light at the horizon. In the land of eternal dusk, it was quite noticeable in contrast with the dark red sky and swirling gray clouds.
“What’s…?” He squinted his eyes, not sure what he was seeing.
“Hum?” The other two turned to see what he was looking at. One of them was confused, but the other quickly jumped on his feet.
“Get up!” He shouted. “That’s a person! And he’s flying at us!”
Indeed, just as the man said, the bright glowing dot rapidly expanded, aiming straight for their little camp. The glow of plasma gradually dimmed as the person slowed down, going subsonic, and they heard the boom just before he landed, blowing dust from the landing site.
The group of three tensed, summoning what little Qi they still had in preparation for a fight. They didn’t hold much hope though. For one to waste the energy on flight, he had to have plenty. There was no rush in the Lower Plane. Time didn’t matter. Anyone rushing around had somewhere to be, something to see, and they often brought trouble with them.
[Hello, gentlemen!] The stranger greeted them with a confident smile. They felt his energy, and it was as vigorous as it was weak. A lowly Level Four. Yet compared to the youthfulness of his body, and the glow of his Aura, they were but weak candles in the storm. The guy was obviously new to the wasteland, full of resources and power.
The three’s willingness to fight dropped even further. If they fought, only pain and death waited for them. Still, they had to show a strong front, and they just might survive this.
“Who are you? What do you want?” One of them barked, flaring his meager reserves of Qi, showing his superior Cultivation Level.
[Haha, no need for that.] The guy chuckled, not appearing bothered in the least. [I’m just going around, looking for various resources. I’ll pay you a fair price.] He then summoned a Spirit Stone and tossed it at them.
The one who took the lead quickly caught it, looking at it with suspicion, and then back at him.
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“What kind of resources?” He asked cautiously, not letting go of his swirling energy.
[Magic metals, precious stones, beast cores, old relics, broken weapons… You know, things like that.]
The three looked at each other, eyes narrowed. They had things like that, but why should they sell them to that guy? He seemed dangerous and untrustworthy. He was too cheerful for a small fry stuck in the wasteland.
Still, curiosity was a powerful force and they gathered plenty of trash over the years…
“I got this…” One of them pulled out a broken Spirit Sword. One on the lower spectrum of value. “What’s your offer?”
[Hmm.] The sword was yanked from the man’s grasp by an invisible hand, landing on the palm of the new guy. [Broken Spirit Sword, half of the blade is missing… Fifty-] He suddenly paused and took a bite, chewing loudly on the metal. [Actually, forty Spirit Stones. The quality is quite low.]
“I…” The man was rendered speechless for a moment, as were his other two companions. “I accept.”
[Excellent!]
A small pile of Spirit Stones appeared in the air and floated towards the man who rapidly stored them in his storage device with a thought.
“I have this… shield. It’s cracked.” Another hesitantly summoned a black round shield about a meter in diameter. It had a nasty crack down the middle, and the metal was partially caved in as if something large struck it there.
[Oh, is that Ferrite? I do need some of that. Two hundred!]
The man nodded and received the payment in those shiny white crystals full of energy. His eyes glowed with desire as he got them in his grasp, his mind a storm at the implication. “Actually, I also have a relic...”
“I just remembered I have a few extra swords and-”
[A hundred each.]
“A suit of armor! It’s damaged, but most of it is still usable, it just needs a recharge!” Another offered.
[Looks nice. How about five thousand?]
“I have some scrap here, it’s from various tools and weapons I gathered over the years…”
[Cool. How about three hundred for the lot?]
“Four hundred?”
[Deal.]
“About my axe…”
[Yes.]
“This force-dampening padding…”
[Sure.]
“My daggers…”
“This amulet…”
“Sword…”
“Spear...”
“Helmet…”
[Gentlemen, gentlemen…] The man smiled. [I will take them all!]
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I grinned from ear to ear with the haul of goods in my space pockets. I offered fair prices at the beginning, however as time went on, I started lowballing the hell out of them. They accepted it all with little to no negotiation. In the end, I paid peanuts for a massive pile of loot. Didn’t even need to fight, if you could believe it.
I gathered a bunch of Ferrite and Spirit Metal, but only a handful of Celestial Metal. As Calla said, the stuff was rare. Luckily I still had hundreds of thousands of Spirit Stones, and still the entire wasteland to traverse, so I was optimistic. I just had to do another fifty to a hundred similar trades to gather enough for my super weapon.
[Hmm… That’s actually quite a lot, now that I think about it.] It took me more than half a day to find the first group and do the trade. The main issue was finding people, not getting the loot.
[Well, better to get going, I guess.] I accelerated, flying even faster and scanning the ground and the sky for traces of human activity. And it seemed I was lucky, because soon after I found another settlement full of people.
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“That’s all we have.” The leader of the village said. Well, it was not really a village, more of a camp with tents and stuff. After long negotiations, we came to a mutual agreement. I would buy stuff from them and in return pay with Spirit Stones and food. The people there looked gaunt and weak, some of them little more than skin and bones. I gladly traded some crystals and a few bodies of large beasts for the stuff they couldn’t use or needed.
I scooped up the small pile of broken treasures and damaged gear, only one tiny piece of which was made from Celestial Metal. It was a small ring that came from the chief, once having been enchanted with a barrier spell. Some time ago the gem holding the enchantment broke, taking the usefulness of the ring with it.
[And here is the promised pay.] I handed over a large bag of Spirit Stones and then summoned the carcass of some random creature I recently killed, enough to feed the few dozen people for a long time.
My visit would prolong their life for a few more years, maybe a decade, and perhaps some of them would escape, but I wasn’t counting on it. They were even lower Level than me. For them, staying in the Ashen Wastes was a death sentence.
The chief bowed deeply and cupped his hands. “Thank you, traveler. May the Gods bless your Path.”
[Yeah… Gods.] I quietly chuckled. The gods were all dead. And I planned to become the new one.
I cupped my fist in return and then left, searching for other poor Souls stuck in this hell to maybe ease their suffering, but more importantly, to purchase the goods.
A few down, a hundred to go. I rose into the sky and nearly instantly accelerated above the speed of sound, flying like a glowing comet, and leaving a loud boom behind.