The sun was a blazing white ball in the sky when Ben left the lonely Dead Park. He washed the sticky blood from his arm and hid the glowing Beast Core deep in his pocket.
Beside it, his bag felt unnaturally heavy. The Man-Eater Plant was a dead weight now, bloated and dormant after its gluttonous feast.
Ben walked back toward the city. He did not go to the clean, bright streets near the Tower. He went to the "Shadow Alley."
The Shadow Alley was where the poor people traded. It was a narrow street covered by old tarps to block the rain and the sun. It smelled of wet dog, spices, and rust. Here, people sold things they found in the trash or stole from the dead.
Ben pulled his hood up to cover his face. He walked past a man selling broken swords. He walked past a woman selling old potions that looked like muddy water.
He stopped in front of a small, dark shop at the end of the alley. The sign above the door was broken. It just said: [Items].
Ben pushed the door open. A bell rang.
Ding.
The shop was full of dust. Shelves were piled high with strange junk—cracked shields, monster bones, and mysterious stones. Behind the counter sat an old man with one eye. His name was Silas.
Silas looked up from a book. He looked at Ben's dirty clothes.
"If you're here to waste my time, kid," Silas rasped, not looking up from a tattered grimoire, "the door is still behind you."
Ben walked to the counter. He did not speak. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the white crystal. He placed it on the wooden table.
Clack.
The Beast Core shone brightly in the dim room.
Silas stopped moving. His one good eye widened. He picked up the crystal and looked at it closely.
"A Beast Core," Silas whispered. "From a Mutated Hound. And it is fresh."
He looked at Ben with suspicion. "Where did a kid like you get this? Did you steal it?"
"I found it," Ben lied smoothly. "In the trash near the Tower."
Silas stared at him for a long moment. He knew Ben was lying, but in the Shadow Alley, questions were dangerous. Business was business.
"Fine," Silas said. "I will give you 400 credits for this."
"Don't fool me. The standard price is 500," Ben said firmly.
Silas laughed. It was a dry, coughing sound. "Smart kid. Fine. 450. Take it or leave it."
Ben nodded. "Deal."
Silas opened a metal box and counted the dirty plastic chips. He pushed them across the table. Ben took them. 450 credits. It was heavy in his hand. It felt like freedom.
"Is there anything else?" Silas asked, ready to go back to his book.
"I need seeds," Ben said.
Silas paused. He looked confused. "Seeds? This is a weapon shop, kid. Go to the market if you want to grow a garden."
"I don't need normal seeds," Ben said. "I want seeds from the Tower. The ones nobody wants."
Silas narrowed his eye. He stood up and walked to the back of the shop. He searched under a pile of old rags and pulled out a rusty metal box. He slammed it onto the counter.
The box was full of strange, dry things. Some looked like rocks. Some looked like dried insects. They were seeds, but they were dead and gray.
"Hunters find these sometimes," Silas explained. "They think they are treasure. But they are useless. You can't plant them in normal soil. They don't grow. They are just trash."
Ben looked at the box. To Silas, it was a box of trash. But to Ben, the air above the box was shimmering with information.
[Skill Activated: Soil Analysis (Seed Mode)]
Information flooded Ben's mind.
[Seed: Iron Vine]
[Status: Dormant (Sleeping)]
[Requirement: High Iron Soil]
[Seed: Poison Puff]
[Status: Dead]
[Seed: Unknown Carnivore]
[Status: Dormant]
[Requirement: Fresh Blood]
Ben's heart skipped a beat. There were treasures here.
He reached into the box. He picked out three specific seeds. One looked like a small, rusty ball. The other was black and spiky. The last one was pale white, like a piece of bone.
"How much for the whole box?" Ben asked.
"For the whole box?" Silas sneered. "Give me 50 credits and get that garbage out of my shop."
Ben paid the money instantly. He put the rusty box in his bag next to his sleeping plant.
"Pleasure doing business," Ben said.
He turned to leave.
"Kid," Silas called out, his voice dropping an octave. Ben stopped, hand on the rusted latch. "You reek of blood. And not just the four-legged kind. Watch your back. The Tower doesn't like it when the rats start developing teeth."
Ben didn't look back. He stepped out into the chaotic noise of the alley. He had the credits for his mother's medicine, and in his bag, he carried the seeds of a new army.
He walked toward the pharmacy, but his mind was already back in the Dead Park. He looked at the pale white seed in his hand. The System text for this one was different.
[Name: Skeleton Flower]
[Grade: Rare]
[Ability: Necrophagous (Feeds on Bone)]
Ben's lips curled into a thin, dangerous smile. The Dead Park was overflowing with bones.
...
The pharmacy was a sanctuary of sterile, artificial light, a jarring contrast to the suffocating gloom of the Shadow Alley. White tiles gleamed with a blinding intensity, and the air carried the sharp, biting scent of disinfectant and lemon zest. It was a place for the wealthy, and Ben felt like a stain on its perfection.
He approached the glass counter, his muddy boots leaving a trail of the Dead Park's grime behind him. The woman in the white coat didn't hide her sneer; she looked at him as if he were a particularly stubborn mold.
"I need a bottle of 'lung relief'," Ben said.
"That will be Three hundred credits," the woman said coldly.
Ben didn't hesitate. He piled the dirty plastic chips onto the glass. It was the price of his blood and sweat, the literal value of his life against the hounds, but as the small blue vial was slid toward him, he felt only a surge of relief.
He ran all the way home.
Inside the small room, his mother was coughing. It was a dry, painful sound. Ben knelt beside her bed.
"Mom," Ben whispered, gently lifting her head. "Drink this."
The blue liquid went down. Almost instantly, the violent tremors in her chest subsided. Her breathing slowed, deepening into a rhythm of true rest. The lines of agony on her face smoothed out, replaced by the mask of a peaceful sleep.
Ben slumped onto the floor beside her bed, the crushing weight on his chest finally lifting. She was safe.
For now.
A week. That was all three hundred credits bought in this world—seven days of peace. To buy her a life, he needed more. He needed to become the apex predator of the wasteland.
He turned to the canvas bag in the corner. The Man-Eater Plant was rustling inside, its leaves scraping against the fabric in a restless, hungry greeting.
"Let's go," Ben said. "The night is just starting."
...
The Dead Park was terrifying at night.
The gnarled trees stood like skeletal sentinels against a bruised sky, their branches clawing at the moon. The wind didn't just blow; it shrieked, a chorus of ghostly laments that would have sent any sane person running for the city walls. But Ben moved with a predator's focus. He wasn't the prey anymore.
He reached the clearing where the hounds had fallen. The "Hungry Soil" of the park had already done its work, stripping the carcasses of their meat. Only the white, jagged remains of the Alpha dog lay scattered across the black earth like broken ivory.
Ben knelt in the center of the ribcage. He reached into the rusty box and pulled out the pale, bone-colored seed.
"You eat bones right?," Ben whispered to the seed. "Well, consider this an all-you-can-eat buffet."
He buried the seed deep into the earth, right where the Alpha's heart had once thundered.
He covered it with dirt.
"Fast Growth."
He poured his Mana into the ground.
Click. Clack. Snap.
The sound was different this time. It was not the wet sound of a plant growing. It was the dry sound of bones hitting together.
A sprout pushed out of the dirt. It was not green. It was pure white.
It did not have leaves. Instead, it had long, thin ribs that curled outward. The stem looked like a spinal cord. It grew fast, twisting and turning until it was as tall as Ben's waist.
It was beautiful and terrible. It looked like a flower made of a skeleton.
At the top, a large white bud formed. It opened slowly. There were no petals. There were only sharp, curved finger bones.
[Name: Skeleton Flower]
[Grade: Rare]
[Status: Active]
[Ability: Bone Shot]
[Radius: 10 Meters]
Ben touched the stem. It was cold as a tombstone and twice as hard.
Suddenly, a twig snapped in the darkness behind him.
Ben turned around. The Man-Eater Plant hissed and faced the noise.
Out of the shadows, a Giant Rat crawled forward. It was the size of a dog, with yellow teeth and dirty fur. It smelled the lingering scent of blood.
It saw Ben. It screeched and charged.
Ben prepared to command his Man-Eater, but the white flower moved first.
It sensed the movement. The flower at the top spun around. It pointed at the rat.
Thwack!
A small, sharp piece of bone shot out of the flower. It flew through the air like a white arrow.
It hit the rat right in the head.
The rat dropped instantly. It slid across the grass and stopped at Ben's feet. Dead.
Ben stared at the rat, then at the Skeleton Flower. The flower slowly grew a new piece of bone to replace the one it fired. It was reloading.
"A turret," Ben realized. "It is a living turret."
He looked at his garden. On the left, the green Man-Eater, a savage brawler. On the right, the white Skeleton Flower, a silent sniper.
A grin spread across Ben's face.
The Dead Park was no longer just a wasteland. It was a fortress. And he was the commander.
"Welcome to the team," Ben said.
He sat down on a large rock. He checked his System window.
[Territory Established: The Garden of Bone]
[Owner: Ben]
[Security Level: Low]
"Low," Ben repeated. He looked at the vast darkness surrounding him. "We can fix that."