The smell of smoke mixed with the delightful aroma of spiced meats as Dollar rested against a brick wall. He was inside the biggest marketplace in the city of Tiber, his hood furled over his head and a smile on his lips. Around him, young children cradled the legs of their parents, teenage boys perused flowers for their romantic interests, and crowds of people from all walks of life strode excitedly across his vision. If the architecture and clothing styles weren’t so distinctly different, he’d have mistaken the place for a bazaar on Earth.

Dollar passed the time by flipping a bronze coin in front of his eyes, examining the nearby stalls as he did so.

“Fifty-nine bought meat skewers. Five bought flowers. Twenty bought tools,” Dollar murmured to himself, the light of the sun reflecting off the coin as he counted. “Most entered from the south side, but the choke point at that entrance means they’re all pushed past the stalls placed there and forced to move further inside.”

A day had passed since Dollar had finished the creation of the artifacts he would be selling. But another emotion was curling around his excitement at making money. There was an urgency to his gait and movements that hadn’t existed before, and he felt it growing with each passing hour.

I want to help Bill. He realized. Sooner, not later.

The shadow of the invisible creature that had stalked him and Mitsy was nowhere to be seen, a fact that they had been very cautious of when making their way back to the city. Now, he was leaning against the wall of Tibers City’s Office of Business Administration, which overlooked the market area of the outer ring of the city of Tiber.

They called it the Veil.

Everyone has weird names for the buildings in this world. He thought.

Dollar was sure that there was a rich and storied history behind the name, but to their credit, they had built the building to be shaped like a veil. A transparent crystal mesh covered the outside in a cascading pattern, folding at the entrance and allowing people through. Inside, he could see a mass of blonde hair bobbing up and down as Mitsy animatedly made her plea to have her business idea accepted, her silver-ranked adventurer’s badge pinned clearly on the lapel of her black jacket. Her eyes were confident, and he could see from the employee’s movements that Mitsy’s pitch interested her. A few minutes later, they exchanged a silver coin for a slip of paper, and Mitsy punched the air in celebration.

“I’m now a business owner!” Mitsy declared as she threw open the doors to the Veil. “I can’t wait to see the look on the old man’s face when I tell him.”

Dollar smiled as Mitsy’s voice drew several stares and drew his hood further over his head. Any publicity was good publicity now.

“You did great,” he said.

Mitsy beamed at his praise. “Thanks, and you were right. It costs us a silver coin for the stall rights.”

“Of course it did. I checked with the nearby stall owners beforehand.”

The lone silver coin that Mitsy had paid meant that they had six bronze coins left in the war chest. It was barely enough to buy food.

“Can we set up wherever there’s space?” Dollar asked.

“Yup,” Mitsy nodded. “Where are we going to set up? That stand we made was pretty big.”

A smile crossed Dollar’s lips as he pushed off the wall, guiding Mitsy with a gesture toward an empty spot in the northern section of the marketplace. Her eyes zipped from side to side as she viewed the products, hunger growing in her eyes as the hypnotic smells around her laid forth their temptations.

“Here,” Dollar said.

“Here?” Mitsy asked.

She glanced from side to side and found them standing in front of an empty spot near the northern entrance. The only other stalls inside were those belonging to people selling tools, and a single vegetable seller whose produce looked like it was well into retirement.

“This area sold the most tools and, on average, the coin spent was higher. Also, there’s a natural breathing point here where people can stop and window shop instead of being forced ahead by the people behind them.” Dollar’s eyes glimmered with joy as he spoke. “So, yes, here.”

A stone box appeared in the space, gathering the curious eyes of the nearby stall owners. They had carved the box out of sea stone. It had a hole in the middle, but none of their eyes could penetrate the darkness within.

Mitsy placed a banner made of parchment on top of the box. It had one large message scrawled in paint.

[Grisham’s Artifact Dispensary: 1 try = 4 bronze coins. Discount: 10 tries = 3 silver.]

Followed by a much smaller message to the side.

“Why do we have to put the old man’s name on it?” Mitsy complained.

“Because nobody knows who Grisham is,” Dollar said. “Darkness symbols are rare, but not so uncommon that an external symbologist couldn’t come in and make artifacts from them. Just field questions about Grisham to me. Anyway, let’s begin.”

Dollar lifted himself on top of the box, his legs dangling over the edge, and he took out another sign from his storage ring. This one was smaller, and he’d painted the letters as boldly as he could.

[Do not ask about our sponsor.]

“Okay, it’s showtime,” Dollar said. “Let’s draw their attention.”

Mitsy’s armbands pulsed with red light, drawing the eyes of the marketplace toward her. Multiple shoppers stopped instantly, pointing and staring. The nearby stall owners cursed in surprise and covered their wares, unsure what the armbands would do. Several people wearing fine robes and jewelry paused, their eyes resting curiously on the blonde girl. The effect was grander than Dollar thought it would be.

Now it’s my turn. Dollar thought.

Dollar reached into his ring and brought out a small mask made of bronze and adorned with glossrock. Mitsy had twisted the mask into existence, her fingers crushing and molding heated bronze blocks like they were butter. It had been terrifying to watch.

Darkness erupted over his features as he activated the mask, striding over his features in set patterns. It spread over his ears, giving them a pointed look, and left his forehead open. When it was done, the darkness had taken the shape of an elf, his eyes uncovered and the rest of his features impossible to see.

Gasps hit his ears when the bystanders saw Dollar activate the artifact. Beside him, Mitsy also had a mask of her own, her features disappearing as she activated it. Unlike his mask, Mitsy’s was slender, folding over her features, highlighting her cheeks and leaving her lips uncovered. When the activation was complete, the darkness formed a mask in the shape of a fox.

The crowd’s whispers intensified as they saw the artifacts.

One mask of darkness was a coincidence. Two activated together were products.

“Come one and come all, to Grisham’s Artifact Dispensary!” Dollar called out to them. “Try your luck and you might earn an artifact worth five silver for a measly four bronze coins!”

Hesitations spread across the onlookers, but none of them dismissed his words or left to go to other stalls.

An emotion that was all too familiar appeared in their eyes. It was greed.

Mitsy was right. Dollar grinned. Artifacts are objects that most people will never own. It’s time to make use of that fact.

A confident man in workman’s clothes approached, his metal-tipped boots sending puffs of dirt up from the stone floor of the marketplace.

“Hey kid, who’s your sponsor?” the man asked. “I’ve never heard of Grisham.”

Dollar smiled under his mask, and Mitsy rolled her eyes. This was the exact reason he had put up the sign telling people not to ask about the sponsor.

It would guarantee that they did.

“Grisham is a silver-ranked symbologist from the west, revered for his artifacts. Traveling the world, he is currently eyeing the central continent, but on the way there the city of Tiber has sparked his interest. He has family here, and so he sent us to set up this shop while he visits them. He prefers to work in the background, and we’ll be gone when he leaves.”

Dollar kept his lie simple, sprinkling it with truths about the real Grisham.

“Tell me, do you want a mask like mine?” Dollar asked, his eyes resting firmly on the man’s. “Four bronze coins, and yet you can get one. If you’re lucky.”

“If I’m lucky?” The man asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Stick your hand into the box, and you will receive an artifact. That much I guarantee. However, not all artifacts are equal. Watch carefully.”

Dollar waved his hand, and four artifacts appeared on the box.

One was a square block of sea stone, followed by an artifact made of sea stone but carved into a figure ‘8’ with a string attached. After that, there was a bronze mask, bulky and unapologetically ugly.

Finally, Dollar gently placed down an intricate bronze mask. It was unique in its design, with faint lines carved into it that suggested the image of a cat.

Dollar activated them all, and darkness sprouted from the artifacts, covering them completely. The man’s eyes grew greedy as he viewed them, but a single crack of Mitsy’s knuckles killed any ideas of theft running through his mind.

“Everyone runs into trouble, eventually.” Dollar’s words caused a sense of urgency to rise within the man. “The stone blocks will hide your valuables in a pinch. Even those parchments you don’t want the wife to see. Or they’ll serve as an invisible projectile during the nighttime.” He waved his hands over the next artifact, carved into a figure ‘8’. “These stone glasses will cover your nose and eyebrows with shadows, disguising your features, and the bulky bronze mask next to it will spread the darkness across your entire head. Finally, we have unique masks, each with an original design. They are worth their weight in silver.

These are four kinds of artifacts that we sell. However, you can’t buy them directly. Instead, place your hand inside the box, and one of them will fall into your hands. The process is random, and each item has a different chance of dropping. Stone blocks are the most common. However, if you get lucky, you may receive a mask immediately, earning back your bronze and then some.”

“Is that so?” The man’s eyes glazed over as he tried to work out the system. “So, is it all luck? I’ve never heard of this kind of shop.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Grisham’s ideas seem like they come from another world,” Dollar said with a straight face. “I believe he spent his last market trip buying enough raksha to draw the attention of the Citysworn. He says it’s just a good spice for roasted birds, but I think he was lying, mostly because he was smoking it from a pipe. Coincidentally, he came up with the idea for this sales method that same night.”

Mitsy choked back a cough at Dollar’s words, and the man’s face lit up with a grin.

“Ay, that’d be an interesting dinner,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll buy a single try. No more. I like to keep myself paced.”

The man took our four bronze coins from his purse, and Mitsy took them, giving him a gentle smile as she did so, eliciting a blush and drawing the eyes of multiple onlookers. As she saw them staring, she waved cheerfully, her vibrant energy charming the crowd.

She’s a natural. Dollar thought.

Mitsy’s movements were graceful, her arms and legs toned from years of adventuring. Several teenage boys perusing the marketplace lumbered up to the stall, not-so-subtly sneaking glances at Mitsy’s smile and emerald eyes every few seconds. A gaggle of women quickly joined them, clucking about her youthful vigor and natural perkiness and commenting on the mask she wore.

“Stick your hand inside, and it’ll give you an artifact,” Dollar said. “I promise it won’t bite you. Maybe.”

The man chuckled nervously, and the onlookers cheered him on.

Dollar’s first customer winced as he stuck his hand into the stone box, the darkness within not receding at his touch. He hit a tiny lever and there was a click as a hole opened up above it, dropping an item into the man’s hand.

He dragged it out to reveal a stone block, and his palm was red where one of the block’s corners had fallen onto it.

“Ow,” the man grumbled. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

When the space above the lever emptied, Mitsy pushed the artifacts forward using a small hole in the back of the box. That caused them to bundle up on top of the hatch. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was the best Dollar could figure out with the time and resources he had.

“One stone block down,” Dollar’s eyes shone as he spoke. “That means there’s a higher chance for the next artifact to be a mask.”

Technically, he wasn’t lying.

Inside the box were a little over a thousand sea stone blocks, fifty sea stone glasses, and ten regular bronze masks. He had crafted ten unique bronze masks, but had only put three inside the stone box dispensary.

The man lifted the stone block, eyeing it curiously. His eyes twitched to the side, reading through the message The System had sent through automatically.

A burst of darkness covered the stone block as the man activated it, and his eyes glimmered with joy.

“I can use this,” he said. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you,” Dollar said.

Several people stepped forward as they saw the man activating his artifact, confirming that his purchase had been genuine. Even if the price of four bronze was steep for a trinket, buying a single stone block wasn’t a hard decision.

Just owning an artifact would allow them to brag.

I might have underpriced these. Dollar thought. No. Let’s see how we fair over the day.

As people hovered around the stall, ready to pounce, the first customer raised his hand, stopping them.

“Wait,” he said. “I didn’t say I was done. It’s my payday.”

“I’ll let you know now. You’re likely to get stone blocks.” Dollar said.

“But I could also get a mask,” he said, his eyes twinkling with greed. “Right?”

“You are correct,” Dollar said.

The man reached into his pockets and threw out a silver coin to Mitsy. “Two tries.”

Dollar nodded, and Mitsy handed the man two bronze coins as change. The customer stuck his hand into the dispensary without hesitation.

He pulled out three bronze blocks.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he gazed at Dollar, a vein on his forehead throbbing in anger.

“Are you sure there are masks in here?” He asked.

“That’s the luck of the draw,” Dollar said, his eyes dispassionate.

“This is the biggest scam I’ve ever seen,” the man declared. Then he raised his hand and slammed two silver coins onto the counter. “Give me five more tries.”

Dollar gestured at the box, and the man stuck his hand inside. Instead of pulling it out straight away, his eyes widened, and he blinked in surprise. When his hand left the box, it was holding a shining object.

It was a bulky bronze mask.

“Well, would you look at that?” Dollar glanced at the mask. “Looks like you’ve robbed me blind.”

Lucky bastard. Dollar’s lips curled into a smile. Maybe I should pay you for the perfect timing.

“Holy gods, it’s real,” the man examined the mask carefully.

Then he placed it on his face and activated it, darkness covering his features. Unlike the masks that Dollar and Mitsy wore, the shadows covering his head were uncoordinated and messy as they enveloped his skin and hair. They only left his eyes untouched, making him more like a demon of the night than a human.

The man’s next four attempts yielded stone blocks, but the customer left with a radiant smile.

Dozens of eyes followed the first customer as he walked away, humming happily into the air. Then they turned toward the stone dispensary, greed in their eyes. Each of them rushed forward, pulling coins out of their pockets faster than Mitsy could take them.

“Three tries.”

“Five tries.”

“Ten tries. I want the discount!”

Dollar’s eyes rested on the excited customer, each of them rushing forward with coins spilling out of their hands. Even if the chances of getting a stone block were astronomically higher, none of them thought they would get one. They all believed they would be the ones to get a bronze mask.

He glanced at Mitsy and saw her looking back at him.

Yeah, Bill’s going to be fine. Dollar thought.

Mitsy’s lips curled into a smile of joy, a slight quiver of vulnerability and relief revealed within.

They would have the money they needed in no time.

****

The evening sun dropped low across the sky as Dollar settled into the room of a comfortable inn in the outer ring of the city of Tiber. There were two beds, each with a bedside table, and a cupboard for storing any luggage, and an artifact was nailed to the wall, emitting a soft light. He examined the artifact curiously. Light and water artifacts were the most common artifacts in Ioa, but he didn’t have access to the light symbol.

Later, I’ll buy one to study it. Dollar thought. [Symbol Array Deconstruction] needs to be my focus. It’s incredible. One day, I’ll collect more symbols than the symbologist guild.

The door to the room slammed open, interrupting his thoughts, as Mitsy strode in. She spread her arms out wide, belly flopping onto the nearby bed, long strands of blonde hair sweeping across the sheets, and she groaned. Physically, she hadn’t broken a sweat, but mentally she wasn’t used to talking to so many people.

Crowds had gathered around the stall all day since the opening, with many of the customers cursing Grisham’s name as they left nursing piles of stone blocks.

However, Dollar had seen them smiling as well. Most considered the stone blocks reward enough.

“Master Grisham?” Mitsy asked.

“Symbologist extraordinaire,” Dollar replied. “May the city forever remember his name.”

Mitsy’s muffled voice floated out of the bedsheets. “If my Dad had any hair left to lose, he would lose it. We can never tell him about this. We’ll say we fought a legendary monster instead and collected its bounty.”

“Your dad is the mysterious sponsor of our stalls, they’ll whisper his name in legends.” Dollar pulled out his notebook, and skimmed through several pages of notes written in chalk. “Especially since so many people now own one of his artifacts.”

Or at least they think they do. Dollar smiled. They wouldn’t be so willing to buy the artifacts if they knew that a seven-year-old had created them.

211 stone blocks.

19 stone masks.

3 regular bronze masks.

They’d sold a lot of items today.

As more customers came and left, Dollar kept meticulous records, tracking each item sold so that he could adjust what was inside the dispensary for the next day. He also needed to keep a stock of his inventory so that he could recreate the sold artifacts once he got back to the dome.

He had also been watching them at the same time.

I saw a lot of them wearing finer fabrics for their gloves and boots. Some even had scaled robes that flashed with light. Dollar had analyzed his customers carefully. I’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure I can use those materials as casing materials for symbol arrays. At least lower-ranked ones. But I need money to buy them.

“Mitsy, don’t fall asleep yet.” Dollar clapped his hands together. “This is the fun part where we count our money.”

The teenage girl moaned, sliding down the side of the bed and flopping onto the ground. Then, with a bounce of energy, she pushed herself up and reached into her choker, taking out a pouch of coins and tipping it over to pile their earnings on the small bedside table.

The pile was bigger than Dollar’s head.

Most of it was made up of hundreds of bronze coins, with silver coins becoming increasingly common toward the end of the day.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t gained a level yet.

Level shift (billions): Gain levels by increasing your total net worth. Loss of net worth will not revert levels. The net worth value will be measured in the standard currency of Ioa.

I’ll still gain levels based on the extra money I make when selling artifacts for more than they’re worth. I think. Dollar gazed at the screen. But if a stone block is worth two bronze and sells for four, then I only gain two bronze more toward my next level. Not the full four. At this rate, I need several gold coins to gain a single level.

Technically, only half the coins earned were his. He was splitting it evenly with Mitsy.

“Gods, this is a lot of money.” Mitsy rolled coins playfully across her fingers, flicking several into the air and catching them with nimble snaps of her wrist. “My hands stink from handling it all.”

“All together we have seven gold and six silver,” Dollar counted the pile three times over, a wide grin on his face. “More people took the discount of ten tries for three silver. And none of the new customers hesitated. Not even the ones that could only purchase a single try.” Hmm. “That’s not good.”

“Really?”

“It means I set the prices too low,” Dollar admitted. “I should have listened to you. Artifacts are rarer than I thought.”

Mitsy glanced at him, then at the money, then back at him.

Her nose crinkled as several emotions crossed over her in quick succession. Confusion, disbelief, turmoil, and finally, she settled on curiosity.

“I’ve never seen a shop doing something like this. I kept it to myself, but I thought nobody would buy anything,” Mitsy said, looking like she still didn’t quite believe it.

“You told me that out loud several times,” Dollar said dryly. “But I never doubted us.”

“No, you didn’t.” Mitsy tapped her chin pensively.

Ignoring the pile of coins on the floor, she tilted forward toward Dollar, her spark of curiosity turning into a flame.

“Why did it work?” She asked. “A few were hesitant, but after the first try, it’s like they discovered a pile of treasure. They couldn’t stop buying tries until they ran out of money, even if they only pulled out stone blocks.”

“The human mind is an enigma,” Dollar waved away his explanation.

“Really?” Mitsy’s head tilted, the ghost of a smile crossing her lips. “Because this seems more like something you’d see in a gambling den.”

Dollar coughed awkwardly. Explaining to Mitsy how he knew about gambling methods when he wasn’t old enough to enter a gambling den would be a hassle. In truth, he knew he was going to use this type of business method from the beginning.

The fact that it didn’t exist anywhere else in the city of Tiber was a huge plus. It meant that nobody had any resistance to the allure of the shopping addiction. He’d even double-checked that no stores operated this way during his first trip to the city.

“My mother used to teach me about business, and she said that this method works best where she came from,” Dollar said.

“The bloodline inheritor,” Mitsy nodded.

“It comes with a lot of intelligence,” Dollar immediately grasped the explanation Mitsy had dangled in front of him. “Which is why I can’t wait for my grandma to return. That kind of boost could help me a lot.”

“But you don’t need it now,” Mitsy pointed out. “Not if we can find a cure for Bill in the city.”

Dollar shook his head. He had faith in the information the fisherman’s guild held, and his ability to purchase it, but while the bloodline was a potential way to help Bill, that wasn’t the reason that he was learning it.

His larger priority was stopping the threat that House Tiberius posed to him, whether that was through avoiding them, or by conquering them.

Every coin I earn now is a means of growing closer to destroying them.

“I’ll unlock it anyway,” Dollar said, his conviction resolute. “I need every inch of power I can get my hands on.”

Mitsy leaned forward, cupping Dollar’s cheeks in her hands, two emerald pupils staring into his almond-gold eyes.

“Don’t push yourself too hard, Dollar,” Mitsy said. “If you continue to rush for every opportunity that comes your way, one day you’ll collapse and missing many more.”

Her tone was deadly serious, and Dollar smiled.

“With risk and opportunity, I know what I can and can’t do,” he said. “Trust me.”

Mitsy pulled back, nodding her head.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to close up the moment we reach ten gold,” Dollar said. “Then we pay our old friends at the fisherman’s guild a visit.”

****

“You did it.”

Gherm’s disbelief broke his rugged demeanor as he stared at the pile of gold coins that quivered on the reception desk of the fisherman’s guild. Mitsy stood proudly with her hands on her hips as she watched the receptionist count the coins carefully, occasionally flicking them with his fingers or biting them to test that they were real.

Dollar had popped by the local bank to exchange the coins they had for their higher value equivalent. He didn’t want to make things harder for the people he was trying to buy life-saving information from.

“Ten gold, just like you said,” Mitsy said. “Hand over the information.”

“A deal is a deal, and the fisherman’s guild never breaks a deal.”

Gherm lowered his hand under the desk and withdrew a piece of paper. Mitsy plucked it from his hands and stared at it, showing it to Dollar.

It was blank.

Dollar frowned and opened his mouth to question it when a blue box appeared in his vision.

[Dragonsleep: Cause: Unknown. Cure: Ingredients containing life essence or magic. Most effective: Greil Petals, Quiet Leaves, Urstead Oil, or Juiel Drops. Apply one to the grec’s tongue and wait a day for the effects of the sleep to dissipate.]

“Huh,” Dollar read through the list carefully.

He hadn’t heard of those items.

“Listen, I don’t know how you found the gold, but the fisherman’s guild hosts an auction on the fifth day of the first week of every month. Usually, you can find one or two of the items on this list.” Gherm pocketed the gold coins as he spoke, his rough demeanor disappearing, replaced with a respectful tone. “However, all of them are popular. I can’t tell you how much it’ll cost, because that depends on who wants them on the day. And how badly they want them. Gold coins are the standard.”

“The fifth…” Dollar paused as he realized he didn’t know what date it was. “How long until the next auction?”

Gherm smiled.

“Four days from now.”