I decided to make a couple transactions, with some of the shady Merchants and Dealers in the slums, in preparation for my future plans.

Even though they were shady, they were still Businessmen, and probably had great connections to important people.

I bought 3 Martial Manuscripts at the cheap price of 1,000 silver coins out of pure curiosity.

The Manuscripts I bought were of things that were a set of Fighting Arts.

I wouldn't have even noticed them had the titles in them not caught my attention.

One was called “Manuscript for the Lost Art of Boxing”, the other was called “Manuscript for the Lost Art of Karate”, and the final one was called “Manuscript for the Lost Art of Tae Kwon Do”.

The words used to describe the Martial Arts within the Manuscript were weird, but once I skimmed through all three of them, my interest was immediately piqued.

At first glance they didn’t look like anything special; one Manuscript was about fist striking, another about a peculiar way of combat fighting, and the last almost exclusively focused on kicking strikes and leg attacks.

There were a number of various fist strike oriented Techniques and Schools, as well as close combat oriented Arts and even more kicking oriented Arts, in fact I had faced one of them, the Heavenly Hop School.

Nevertheless, I caught many things within the Manuscript that had a deep resonance with things Kemoro had taught me through the Combined Fighting Method.

Things like emphasis on positioning, emphasis on posture, emphasis on clinch techniques, emphasis on stance fluidity, unique philosophies, powerful attacks, creative combination sequences, it was a hidden treasure trove.

What truly inspired me was how different all three Arts were, as if they purposely handicapped themselves in order to maximize the mechanics and reasoning behind their philosophies.

They were definitely flawed in many ways, but they seemed to be aware of it, as if it was meant to supplement not stand on its own.

I decided to study them all in my spare time, to further nourish my knowledge of Techniques.

Kemoro had taught me many moves, but he didn’t have the time to teach me all the moves he knew.

He encouraged me to learn as many, and as diverse types of moves as I could, the weirder, the better so that I could unlock the range of movement my body had to its fullest extent.

The three Manuscripts gave me something to do in between training until my wounds fully healed.

Once they did, as soon as I had my now scheduled training breaks, I headed on over to the Black Market through the guidance of some of the local young Experts I had acquainted myself with in the neighborhood.

Luckily Yupow had been kind enough to get my belongings from the room I had rented, or else I would be crying in having lost access to all my wealth as little as it may be.

I brought 1000 gold coins with me and 5 platinum ones just in case something of worth showed up.

I almost didn’t bring the platinum coins, thinking of the horrible experience I had gone through, as a result of bringing a platinum coin to the Black Market in my hometown; but I felt like I was more powerful and experienced now, and being a Ranker it would be unbecoming of me to be afraid of civilian establishments.

The Black Market here was surprisingly just barely busier than the one in my hometown, and it actually looked like there was less variety, as there were few Marksmen and Hunters in the Citadel and therefore no stands that held any firepower.

I had arranged with the Experts that I wanted to be left alone in my shopping, and the young Experts who actually knew who I was, and who I could tell had a bit of fear of me, agreed without complaints.

Of course I paid them a gold coin each for their services, since I wasn't trying to bully them.

Once I got to the market I noticed that a couple people stared at me.

It seemed like I was more well known than I thought.

I didn’t pay it any mind and walked along with confidence and authority.

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If they knew me they should also know I wasn't one to mess with, and sure enough most people backed away from me instead of causing problems.

Now that my wounds had healed I was actually itching to teach a couple of these Martial Nerds, who so openly laughed at me before, a lesson or two about the fighting fundamentals.

Still I reminded myself it wasn’t good to be arrogant, and that I definitely wasn’t top dog in this place, so I decided to keep a cool head, and only resort to my Ranker Status when absolutely necessary.

As I looked around at all the stands to my joy everyone seemed to leave me alone.

I heard a few murmurs here and there but nothing that I felt was threatening.

I focused on my shopping looking for anything that caught my eye.

Again, like in my hometown's Black Market, everyone flaunted around, their most prized or precious item front and center, which was usually a weapon, more often than not, steel and metal blades.

There was an absurd amount of metal blades of all kinds: sword like, axe like, dagger like, polearm like, and everything in between.

It was hard for me to tell if any of them were special, without going up and asking the salesman, something I was trying to avoid unless absolutely necessary.

I was mainly looking out for any weapon that had a color hughe like the weapons at the shop.

I did manage to see a few of them, but after looking at some of their prices and thinking of the possibility that many of these could be fake or low quality replicas, I decided on not buying any Inner Energy weapons until I could actually use Inner Energy.

After quite a bit of time looking around, I noticed a big lack of raw ingredients here as well.

I figured since it was a Black Market they would be more stocked, but it looked as if Martial Citadel wasn’t too attractive a destination for the Black Market Merchants and Hunters.

The few shops that did sell that stuff, were charging an arm and a leg, and still many people were buying from them.

Martial Citadel citizens were definitely starved.

I figured the wealthier Experts probably traveled or imported their stuff from Will City, since it was so close, making things in the City even more dire.

I now confirmed raw beast parts would be my definite path to wealth.

I was hoping I could find Magical Blood of some sort, so I could also start making my special weapons, but there again the market came up empty.

Despite the abundance of metal type forged weapons, I didn't see any weapon that resembled the type that I could make.

Only more money signs kept appearing through my eyes.

Turns out I was a savvier Businessman than I gave myself credit for.

Eventually I got tired of window shopping after not finding anything I wanted, and decided to settle on a stand that sold scripted items that looked interesting.

Usually there was always something interesting to be read in these kinds of places.

The shop sold rumor pamphlets, and news articles, but the price for them was definitely stupidly outrageous for me.

I knew information and insight were paramount for a Ranker, but this guy was ridiculous, I would rather get my news from a trusted source when I found one.

I found some Manuals on crafting related to woodworking, metal smithing and forging, stone crafting, and leather tanning that I found interesting.

I didn’t know if the Manuals would be of any help, but I was always interested in improving any skill I had.

I bought the Manuals for 100 silver coins, dirt cheap in my opinion.

It seemed people in the City didn’t appreciate crafting skills, as much as fighting skills.

After my purchase I skimmed through more of the stuff, but didn’t find anything good.

I decided to call it a day and left the Black Market.

In the future I would try to figure out how to set up shop there.

Right now my mind was set more on selling than buying, but to do that I had to go on a hunting trip.