The "Black Market" in Sector 9 wasn't a hidden underground bazaar filled with hooded figures. That was a fantasy for the movies.
In reality, the Black Market was just a row of failing businesses on 42nd Street—a laundromat that didn't wash clothes, a noodle bar that served endangered species, and a pawn shop that smelled of ozone and bad luck.
Ren stood before the Pawn Shop. The neon sign above the door flickered: SILAS'S SALVAGE & REPAIRS, but the "V" and "A" were burnt out, leaving it to read SILAS'S SL GE.
"I smell magic," Gluttony murmured, his voice vibrating at the base of Ren's skull. "Old magic. Stale. Like a wizard who hasn't bathed in a decade."
"That's just Silas," Ren muttered, pulling his hood up against the acid rain.
He pushed the door open. A bell chimed—not a polite tintinnabulation, but the harsh, digital buzz of a perimeter breach alarm.
The shop was a claustrophobic maze of junk. Stacks of rusted Hunter armor created narrow canyons. Shelves were lined with burnt-out mana batteries, cracked weapon cores, and jars of monster organs preserved in yellowing formaldehyde.
Behind a counter reinforced with bulletproof mana-glass sat Old Silas.
Silas was a fixture of Sector 9. Rumor had it he was once a B-Rank Artificer for the army until a grenade took half his body. Now, he was more chrome than flesh. His left arm was a bulky, exposed-piston prosthetic, and his left eye was a protruding red optical sensor that whirred as it focused.
"We're closed," Silas grunted. He didn't look up from the circuit board he was soldering. Smoke curled from the tip of his iron, smelling of burning tin.
"I'm not buying, Silas," Ren said, stepping up to the glass. "I'm selling."
Silas froze. The soldering iron hovered millimters from the chip. The red eye swiveled up, zooming in with a soft zzzzzt sound.
"Ren?" Silas's voice was like gravel in a blender. "Word on the street is you're dead. Kael came back crying about a collapse. Said you got flattened."
"Kael has an active imagination."
"Evidently." Silas set the iron down. He leaned forward, the servos in his neck whining. "If you're here to sell me goblin teeth, get out. I'm overstocked on F-Rank trash."
Ren reached into his pocket. He didn't pull out goblin teeth.
He placed the two High-Grade Mana Potions on the counter. The liquid inside glowed a vibrant, electric blue, illuminating the dusty glass.
Silas didn't blink. He knew what they were. High-Grade potions were restricted military tech. One sip could restore a C-Rank mage to full power.
"Stolen?" Silas asked, his tone neutral.
"Found," Ren corrected.
He reached into his other pocket and slapped the Silver Wings Guild ID on the glass.
Silas hissed through his teeth. "You have a death wish, kid? That's a corporate ID. It has a tracking chip. If the Silver Wings find out it's active here, they won't arrest you. They'll drone-strike my shop."
"That's why I came to you," Ren said calmly. "I need you to scrub it. Kill the tracker. Rewrite the signature to a freelancer clearance."
Silas laughed. It was a dry, hacking sound that ended in a cough. "You want me to crack a C-Rank encryption? That's 5,000 credits. Minimum."
"I don't have 5,000," Ren said. "But I have the potions. Market value is 3,000 a pop."
"Market value is for legal goods," Silas sneered, picking up one of the vials. He swirled the blue liquid. "On the grey market? This is hot property. I have to scrub the serial numbers. I have to find a buyer who won't ask questions. 2,000 for the pair. And I'll do the ID for another 2,000. You walk out owing me money."
Ren stared at the old cyborg.
"He is lying," Gluttony whispered. The AI sounded amused. "Look at his mechanical eye. The aperture is dilating. He desires the potions. His mana core is degrading; he needs that blue juice to ease the pain in his phantom limbs. He would kill for it."
Ren felt the anger rise. Not the hot, explosive anger of a human, but the cold, hungry irritation of a predator being denied its meal.
"4,000 for the potions," Ren said softly. "And you do the ID for free."
Silas slammed his metal hand on the counter. The glass rattled. "Get out of my shop, rat. Before I call the Enforcers."
Ren didn't move. He didn't flinch.
Instead, he let the Hunger slip.
Just a fraction. He lowered the mental barrier he had built around his new core.
The air in the shop instantly grew heavy. The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch toward the counter. The smell of ozone and dust vanished, replaced by the scent of ancient, wet earth and iron.
Ren's eyes, usually dark, caught the light of the neon sign. The violet ring around his irises flared.
"Silas," Ren whispered.
The word didn't sound like it came from a twenty-year-old boy. It sounded like it came from the bottom of a well.
Silas's red eye whirred frantically. [Appraisal] was a passive skill for Artificers. It allowed them to see the quality of items.
But right now, Silas was Appraising Ren.
And the readout was glitching.
[Target: Ren Walker]
[Race: Hu- ERROR]
[Threat Level: PRE-DATOR]
Silas felt a primal chill run down his spine—the kind of fear he hadn't felt since he was a rookie in the trenches of the Third Dimensional War. He wasn't looking at a Scavenger. He was looking at something that viewed him as calories.
"I crawled out of the dark, Silas," Ren said, leaning closer. His breath fogged the glass. "I ate things that would make you tear out your remaining eye. Do not treat me like a child. Do not lowball me."
Silas swallowed. His human hand was trembling. "Ren... what happened to you?"
"Evolution," Ren replied. "Now. The deal. 4,000. And the ID."
The pressure in the room vanished as quickly as it had arrived. Ren blinked, and he was just a skinny kid in a hoodie again.
Silas slumped back in his chair, exhaling a breath he didn't know he was holding. He looked at the potions, then at Ren. He tapped a sequence on his console.
"Fine," Silas croaked. "4,000. ID scrubbed. Give me ten minutes."
He took the ID card and plugged it into a port on his desk. His mechanical fingers flew across a holographic keyboard.
"You're playing a dangerous game," Silas muttered as he worked, refusing to look Ren in the eye. "That ID... once I scrub it, it'll register as a 'Freelancer Class C'. It'll get you into mid-tier dungeons. But it won't give you skills, Ren. If you walk into a C-Rank dungeon with F-Rank stats, you're just delivering UberEats to the monsters."
"I'll manage," Ren said.
Ten minutes later, Silas slid a credit chip and the modified card across the counter.
"Take it," Silas said. "And Ren?"
Ren paused at the door.
"If you ever look at me like that again," Silas whispered, his hand hovering near a shotgun under the counter, "I'll put a mana-slug through your head. We clear?"
Ren touched the credit chip in his pocket. 4,000 credits. It was enough to stop the bleeding, but not enough to heal the wound.
"We're clear, Silas," Ren said. "Pleasure doing business."
He stepped out into the rain.
"He was delicious," Gluttony noted. "His fear had notes of cinnamon."
"We aren't eating Silas," Ren said, clutching the ID card. "Now comes the hard part."
"What?"
"Paying the rent."