Tom's timing was impeccable, as it was almost nine am. "Looks like I didn't hurry for nothing." Tom checked the Empire net and noticed that they were broadcasting the traders arrival. Naturally, he was curious enough to check it out.

The broadcast was just showing an empty spot in the space with a countdown in the corner, and it still had five minutes to go. So Tom decided to get something to eat. Tom had also noticed that his food consumption had significantly increased. Still, he wasn't worried about it, as the traders were just about to arrive, so he would finally get his hands on nutrient paste. It was extremely cheap yet nutritious food, so he wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt.

Once he had gotten some instant noodles, he checked back in on the broadcast. He ate and waited, and soon enough, the timer hit zero. For full ten seconds nothing happened, but then the space was ripped apart. Now where there was just moments ago empty space, now stood a gigantic portal and hundreds of spaceships waiting behind it. The ships didn't wait for long before they crossed through the portal and started descending on the Earth.

And then the hole in space just closed, and it was over like nothing had ever happened. Tom was impressed, and the Empire had only sent some traders to them. He could only imagine what it would look like once they were serious about something.

Tom exercised a bit as he had no idea how the delivery worked and if he needed to be present to receive his order. Only ten minutes later, there was a knock at his door, and once he opened it, a hand-sized drone was waiting for him, it looked to be the same model as last time. After a couple of seconds, it said, "identity confirmed." and dropped the package at Tom's doorstep and shot away.

Tom muttered about careless delivery robots while he picked the package up and made his way back inside. He had ordered a hundred meals of the nutrient paste. Each meal accounted for 1000 kcal, so he could live off them for a good while. They cost him 0.002 credits, so they were ridiculously cheap, and that was precisely what he needed.

Tom opened the box up, and inside there were a hundred tennis ball-sized bags, all filled to the brim with some sort of grey goo. Tom could not say that he looked forward to eating it, but maybe it would taste better than it looked?

But the moment he had dreaded and waited for in equal measures had finally arrived. The Secverse was open to the public, and he would be able to go to the starting town. So without wasting any more time, he logged back in.

The moment he was back inside the Secverse, he faced with the option to be teleported to location, "Main starting city" Accept, decline?

Tom quickly checked around making sure that he had everything he had collected during his time in the Secverse. Tom said, "Accept."

Moments later a completely wet person clad only in his underwear carrying two clumpy deformed wet sacks and his arms and armpits holding onto blue rocks appeared in the middle of a small town.

"Dude, what are you?" Was the first thing Tom heard once he appeared in the middle of the town. And at this moment, he realized that he might not be in the most presentable of states.

Tom quickly hurried off from the middle of the street, or at least he tried, as his movements were extremely awkward because he was trying his best not to lose any of his precious cargo.

There were already quite a few people around, so Tom quickly asked a woman who looked less lost than the others, "Where are the traders?" She pointed in a direction, staring at him like he was some kind of an abomination. But Tom didn't let it bother him. As he started making his way toward the direction the woman had pointed to.

It was extremely slow going, but after good ten minutes of shuffling forwards, he exited the edge of the town, and in the next moment, he realized that he was in a different place altogether. He was in the middle of an empty circular field, and next to him was a stone obelisk. On the edges of the empty circular field, there were four equally sized sectors, each covering one-fourth of the circle's perimeter. He was personally familiar with two of them, the pine forest and the mountainous zone. One of the two was the zone filled with lakes that he had read about, and the last one was a completely flat plane. He could see nothing there, just grass.

He decided that just maybe the pine forest wasn't that terrible starting location.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

He could also see three spaceships parked not that far away from the obelisk. So Tom started shuffling toward the spaceships. And soon enough, he was in front of the first spaceship. Its hatch was open, and he could see a sign saying "Weapons, gear, and equipment," and right under it was another sign that said, "Open." So Tom continued in, yelling "Hello?" once he was halfway up the hatch.

And then he heard "HelLo Welcoome to my Stoore" In maybe a female voice? He wasn't completely sure, as one moment the worlds sounded feminine, and the next, they sounded like flesh smacking together.

And the reason for that unveiled itself to Tom soon enough. As he climbed up the rest of the way up the hatch, he was finally able to see over the mount of stones he was holding.

There was a massive mount of greyish flesh in front of him. It had Tens of tentacle-like arms, which it was using to sort its wares at incredible speed. Tom was equally impressed and horrified by the creature.

"Whaat can I do for you" The creature spoke again. The speech was clearly getting better with everything it said. Tom also found out what had caused the flesh-smacking noises, its mouth was a massive hole, and he was sure that the creature's lips weight more than his arms.

Tom forced himself to focus and get back to business.

"I would like to sell these water rocks" Tom named the blue rock on the spot in the hopes that he would sound more professional and wouldn't get scammed.

The creature pointed at a platter that was on a counter by the wall. Tom quickly shuffled there and did his best to offload his bounty on the platter. He only placed the rocks as he held out hopes that he wouldn't have to sell the core.

The creature ran its tentacle-like hands over the rocks and let out unidentifiable sounds. That Tom chose to interpret as approval.

"30 kg of water source stone in incredibly bad shape, most of their energy has been expended, and it's somehow different. What have you done to them? This place just opened, so everything should be pristinely fresh perfect tier zero material?" The creature asked, clearly confused.

But Tom saw his chance to gain some information, so he ignored the question and asked."What do you mean by,' This place just opened, so everything should be pristinely fresh perfect tier zero material?'"

And to Tom's delight, it didn't seem to mind the question as it answered matter of factly. "I mean that this is a main starting city. So the AI has created a perfect environment for 50 km in each direction to establish a city. The environment has everything, wood, water, minerals, stone, and space to grow and expand, in other words, a perfect place to start a city. And the best part is that the environment is created by the AI using the purest elemental mana, so even if it's only tier 0 material, it is worth twice as much as it would be elsewhere. This is also the reason why there are even traders here."

Tom finally understood why the environment had been like it was.

The creature continued "As these are in so bad shape, I can at most pay 0,001 for them."

Tom defeatedly placed the core on the table.

And then all of the creature's arms shot toward it simultaneously. "Oh, this makes so much more sense now..." The creature muttered while greedily touching the core.

"A tier 0 earth elemental that has evolved into an iron elemental. And then again into some sort of mix between iron, earth, and water-source stone. Truly an impressive find... I have never seen anything like this before. What must have happened to the elemental for it to be driven to do a such risky thing..." The creature rambled on Tom and listened awkwardly while trying to look innocent. Who knew that a rock would have feelings...

After another minute of rambling, the trader seemed to finally remember that the core wasn't yet its. So it focused back on Tom and said. "This right here is why I came here. Only the purest of elementals would be able to do something like this. There's no way that some natural elemental would be able to do something like this at tier zero as they just don't have enough energy to survive it."

"As this core is in really bad shape I can only offer you a let's say 0,6 credits"

Tom tried his best to haggle the price up, but the creature kept repeating that she wasn't allowed to scam him yet as humanity was under the protection of the integration period. And Tom found out during their little haggle session that the monstrosity before him was a female named Sandy, she had chosen a human name that was close to her original name, as apparently, it would be good for business.

Tom ended up using another approach, he traded the core and stones for gear. As he didn't have that much expertise in the Empire's equipment, he referred to Sandy's expertise while choosing them.

Firstly he got new clothes, as his current outfit wouldn't work without the mountain of stones leaking water. He got a leather outfit made out of some tier-zero monster. He also got the biggest backpack Sandy had, and an extra sack, just in case.

Then he got to the fun part, weapons. He spent a good half an hour testing different weapons. He quickly realized that as nice as it was to hide behind a spear, he wasn't that skilled with it. He also realized that his biggest advantage was his movement and reaction speed, so he ended up choosing two short blades, that were roughly as long as his forearm.

Tom also bought one smaller knife and two hammers that were a bit shorter than the swords with double-headed hammers at their ends. He wasn't going to ignore the possibility of enemies like the golems. He also got a pickaxe just in case that he ever found his way back to the cave. And to top it all off, he haggled that Sandy throw in some rope to close the deal. And just like that, he had earned and spent 0,6 credits, but at least now he had some gear.