Quinn, Erin, Fex and Layla all had arrived at one of the school’s gyms as today the student based market stalls were open.

Normally these events took place on the weekend, but due to the fact that the first years were about to go onto their first green portal expedition, the teachers decided to let the students set one up early.

The group went down the stalls, looking at the many items on display. It mostly consisted of people selling items they had made or didn’t need. There were a couple of forgers trying to sell their wares and a few offloading some of their old beast gear.

Erin wanted to go to the in person market place as it would’ve felt better to try out different weapons in her hands as opposed to buying them online. There was also the shop tab that her system had, but... truth be told, Erin had forgotten it. She just didn’t have access to it like Quinn.

"Even though I’ll be buying your gear today, I do have a limit," Erin explained, "We need to succeed in this outing, and I do not want us to fail because we lack the proper equipment. There will be no excuses for doing poorly."

Erin held out her watch, and transferred a total of 5,000 credits to all 3 of them. It wouldn’t be enough money to buy advanced tier gear, but given that they were going to a green portal planet, intermediate was enough.

Quinn’s and Layla’s eyes nearly popped out of their heads seeing the amount of money given to them, Quinn’s especially. This amount of money wasn’t something they could’ve easily gotten. Meanwhile, Fex looked at the cash amount, then back at Erin.

"Is this all?" Fex asked, slightly tilting his head.

Erin gave him a glare, "Why? Are you looking for more handouts?"

Fex raised his hands, before taking out a golden colored card, "Not at all! I just have a lot of money already."

A golden colored card was a type of card that humans would use outside of the military bases, and the key factor of it was that it was capable of holding a lot of cash. There were also silver and bronze cards, but those had smaller limits on the amount of credits they could hold.

Erin’s eyebrow twitched. She wanted to say something mean back to him, but he had saved her life twice. She’d hate to admit it, but Erin had respect for Fex.

Instead, she turned around and walked off in a direction, "Meet up back here after an hour."

With Erin storming off, it made the others stand there awkwardly, not quite sure how to react.

"I did not expect a boy like him to carry around cash like that," The system commented.

’Of course you wouldn’t. You’re just a system AI,’ Erin angrily thought to herself.

Even though she had a lot of money on hand, she knew better than to just spend it all. The only income she had was the daily 10 credits the military gave all of their students, which might as well be pocket change to her. There was no way anyone could buy a decent beast weapon with that allowance, unless they never bought anything ever for the entire school year.

As Erin walked off, she was looking around for a forger selling their creations. There was another reason why she wanted to go in person, and it was to do something with her palewalker beast crystal. It was an intermediate tier, and Erin believed it could make for a good weapon if the forger could give it an active skill.

—

The group looked at Erin walk off, before turning to look at Fex.

"What? Did I say something wrong?" Fex questioned.

"Well, its that you might’ve seemed... ungrateful," Layla explained.

"Oh shoot, I didn’t mean that at all!" Fex said.

"I don’t get why she’s concerned about the cash in the first place. I thought the ice ability was rare," Quinn spoke, "Not only that, but she’s an upper mid tier ability user, so she had to have come from some money."

Layla thought otherwise. Last night, Erin had told her that she didn’t have any backing, and there was a darkness behind those eyes of hers. Was there something more to Erin’s story than she let on? Layla knew there had to be.

’I’m sounding like Quinn when it comes to Peter,’ Layla thought, ’But that’s different. I can’t compare Peter betraying us to Erin being slightly rude.’

With nothing else to discuss, the 3 of them went off in their separate directions looking for beast gear.

—

[Inspect]

[Horned Axe]

[Intermediate tier]

[Strength +5] [Agility+2]

As Erin was using the inspect skill on the stalls, she was looking for intermediate tier weapons with active skills, but hadn’t had much luck.

She went to another stall that had a lot more weapons than the other stands. To the side of it, there was a barrel holding several spears with 4 sharp black teeth as the head, and red spikes on the bottom.

[Inspect]

[Bloodworm Spear]

[Basic tier]

[Strength +3] [Agility +1]

[Passive Skill: Vice Grip]

[Each strike has a small chance for the spearhead to open up, and grab onto an enemy]

[Creator: Alex Way]

Despite it being a basic tier weapon, Erin knew that active skills on lower quality crystals was a difficult feat. It was easier when the crystal was more powerful as there was more energy to draw out, so to see it on a basic tier weapon intrigued her. It was a sign that its creator was talented.

"Are you Alex? Do you take commissions?" Erin asked to the girl sitting at the stall.

The girl, initially leaning back in her chair, sat up straight, now realizing that Erin was talking to her.

She was a tall girl, with black eyes, and dark blue hair that went down to her neck. There was this look on her face that indicated she was commonly bored.

"Huh, me? Nah, I’m Asahi," She corrected, waving a hand, "While I do take commissions, I’m assuming you wanted Alex instead of me, right?"

Upon a closer look, Erin realized that Asahi was very visibly toned, and was by no means thin. It made her realize that Asahi was very likely a forger, someone who crafted beast gear by hand.

"Correct, I have an intermediate crystal that I want to be crafted into a sword," Erin said as she took out the palewalker crystal, "The sooner the better."

Asahi took the crystal from Erin’s hands, and took out a special magnifying glass to inspect its properties.

"So... You want this done by tomorrow for the expedition, am I correct in my guessing? Because not a lot of forgers can create a beast weapon in that time, much less one with an active skill, and definitely not if this is the only crystal you have," Asahi explained before tossing the crystal back to Erin.

"I suppose if you had the cash to pay for multiple forgers, you could, y’know, theoretically speaking, get this done sooner," Asahi vaguely gestured in the air.

"Oh! And don’t think about paying me in exposure! I’m not falling for that again," Asahi added, then nodded towards Erin’s watch which listed a level 5, "A lot of higher leveled students think that’s worth anything."

Erin gritted her teeth. She only knew so much about purchasing beast weapons, and she was too young to even be involved in that whole process years ago when her parents did it. All she knew was that they were expensive, and lower tiered beast gear with abilities were harder to make.

"Okay, what about these?" Erin said as she used her shadow ability to take out several rattaclaw crystals on the stall.

Asahi grabbed a crystal, and examined it like she did with the previous ones.

"Hmm... Again, it’ll be hard for anyone to make something with an active effect with crystals this low quality."

Erin nodded, "That’s fine, I just need some armor done, preferably covering up as much skin as possible."

Asahi looked at the crystals, then at Erin. She wondered how someone was even able to get so many beast crystals before their first portal outing, but it really wasn’t her business. She just wanted to get paid.

"Can do, missus. Just give me your information, and Alex and I should be able to ship it to you in two days. Don’t worry about the portal outing, we’ll get it there."

Erin sighed, and paid for the commission.

However, what was really concerning was her lack of a sword. She could fight somewhat without a weapon, but if she was going to fight beasts then she needed the reach a sword could give her.

"If you had checked the system shop, you would’ve seen that you can get a sword with just that singular palewalker crystal," the system said.

’Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ She asked the system, frustrated that it knew more than it let on.

"Well, I didn’t think to tell you after you called me ’just a system AI.’" The system said, a little offended.

Erin’s eyebrow twitched.

She could’ve gotten a new sword by now, and the system was silent about it this entire time. It was getting really annoying with how the system was giving her a hard time, and when did it have time to develop a personality?

’Whatever... I’ll just talk to Quinn about this,’ she thought to herself, and walked off from Asahi’s stall.

Now that she was level 10, it was time to finally use the shop.