chapter 193

It took me a bit of time to ask around in the Adventurers Guild to find out how to deal with the political games in this station. The best advice I got was to head straight back to my ship and let others handle the shopping for me, or get a guide here so that I would be left alone.

The problem with both of those options is that everyone would know exactly what I had purchased. And besides that, I needed to be close to the skills to know if they would fit me or my crewmates.

There was also the option of joining one of the Dukes, as apparently that’s pretty easy to do. But then I would not be able to visit the shops that had the colours of the other three Dukes.

“So, what’s it going to be? Do you want me to be your guide or get you into contact with one of the Duke’s representatives?” I looked down on this small-sized person. Their species looked quite fierce; unfortunately, their stature took a lot away from that.

My mind was running through all the different possibilities.

“I can see what you’re thinking. Don’t, they will harry you constantly, as without backing, you’re an easy target and wouldn’t have the power necessary to get the law on your side. Unless it’s a clear-cut case, which they usually avoid by cheating.”

“Explain that a bit more. What do you mean by cheating?”

“Well, there are a lot of people who have talents that are not good for fighting. They usually end up in places like this, where their talents are appreciated. Best example is faking security footage to make them not look as hostile.”

That gave me some ideas. “Is that standard practice?”

“Oh, most definitely. They are vicious bastards, starting with all smiles but then escalating until they get what they want.”

“And what is it that they want? Why go after anyone not associated with the four Dukes so vehemently?” He didn’t answer me immediately; instead took another sip of the drink I bought him.

“It’s because of the constant power struggle. What do you think, none of the Dukes left for that black portal that opened up close by? If they would have left with their fleets, it would have been a cakewalk to end that threat, but then someone might have gotten a leg up on the others.”

“Still doesn’t make much sense. They can’t take more power. The station is literally built to stop that.”

“That’s how it stops it, constant conflict that’s not open warfare. Only way to keep those Dukes busy. They’re also so aggressive because of the threat that they’re under.” It seems that my questioning look was enough for him to elaborate.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that the high Dukes aren’t the ones in charge of arguably the most profitable real estate in this galaxy?”

“Well, there’s only three of them, so?”

“That’s exactly it. As soon as another arises, all four of the current Dukes will be displaced. But if they have everyone new that comes here under their power, well, not only will that give them the power to stop anyone that’s too threatening, but also, if they find the proper individuals, boost their own strength.”

“So there is a way for one of these Dukes to win. And if they are able to stay here, they would already have a head start compared to the other three high Dukes who would be taking residence here?”

As an answer, he finished his drink. “So, do you want me as a guide?”

The conversation was long enough for me to test out and check some laws. Just needed to register, which shouldn’t take more than half an hour. “No, I’ll be going by myself.”

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It actually took less time than that to register myself as a legitimate recording device. Now, if someone could hack me and change that footage, they would already be in full control of me, so nothing would matter. But anything before that, and their first and best trick would not work.

In a lot of places we have been to, the web was slow and old, but not here. The digital world in this station was even a step above the best Earth had to offer. It was safe, it was accessible, and best of all, my cybernetics made it incredibly easy to interact with it.

There were plenty of forum-like web pages that were all properly indexed and searchable. The filters were especially good. This level of access was unavailable before I was fully verified, and I kinda wanted to go back to the ship so that I could give FH this access as well, but I had already found plenty of good locations that should have at least the basics of what we were looking for.

As soon as I crossed the invisible line two blocks away from the Adventurers’ Guild building, the eyes on me were back. I did not pay attention to them, but I was on high alert, running everything as hot as possible so that my reaction times were as good as they could get.

I made myself a list of things not to do, going down alleys, taking shortcuts, using public transport, calling a taxi, basically anything that wasn’t walking down the main street was a no-go. It meant it took me longer to get to where I wanted to go, but taking more time was better than being reckless.

It took me an hour of fast walking to reach my first destination. The shop’s name was Do You Want to Sense Mana. The shop itself was four stores high and took up an entire block. There were a lot of security guards here. This place was more of a high-volume type of shop.

As I walked in, I was in range of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of skills. It was hard to focus for a few seconds as I distanced myself from all of them.

The thing was that you could actually imprint a lot of skills multiple times, but it wasn’t useful most of the time. For example, an inventory skill with the same name you couldn’t imprint multiple times. No one knew the exact reason, but there were guesses.

Finding a mana sense skill for everyone except FH was beyond simple. On the ground floor, there were hundreds of skills calling for each of their affinities. Skills here were cheap enough that you could actually buy them with credits. I literally got a mana sense skill for every affinity everyone had, and then twenty more generic ones.

It took me reaching the third floor to find a rare skill stone that would accept FH’s affinity. It was bigger than normal, and with every other skill that I wanted to buy, I would need to use one credit coin.

Everything went into my inventory, but I made it look like I loaded everything up into my backpack. The next stop was another two hours away. This place was difficult to find and, unfortunately, was in a less-trafficked area of the station. Fortunately, I could stay on the main floor. I really didn’t want to experience what the sub-floors looked like in this station.

This shop didn’t have any windows, only a door and the name above it, Clarity From Yourself. The shop names in this place were weird. It took me a bit to find this place on the forums, but the comments underneath looked really promising.

Walking inside, it was like I was transported back in time. There was a lot of wood everywhere, and the place smelled dusty, in a good way. A lot of older tech was being used to make this place function, but when I looked at the CRT monitor showing a show, I needed to rethink some of my preconceptions.

My eyes could identify that it was indeed that technology, but taken to its absolute limits. Comparing it to other displays I’ve seen, in some aspects it came just shy of the best; in others it surpassed them, making this overall the best display I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Where did you get one of those?” I asked the shopkeeper, who had been looking at me for a bit now.

“You have good eyes, I’ll write you the shop name.” He took what looked like a sticky note, wrote on it, and then handed it to me. Remembering the name, I should be able to let FH order us some, because I really wanted to know how it achieved all that amazingness.

“I’m looking for skills that help keep a mind in a stable state, not simply protection from others’ skills.”

“I should not be surprised after seeing your taste in displays. But don’t you already have a skill like that?” That made me take a half step back. “Oh, that came out a bit more threatening than I wanted. It’s in your aura, it’s extremely smooth. No way someone of your rank would have that without such a skill.”

“I already have something like that, yes, but I’m not here for myself.”

“Oh, you get more interesting as time goes by, don’t you?” He reached under his table, and with a click, all of a sudden, I could sense skill stones that were in display cases all around the shop. I had been a bit worried that I wasn’t sensing anything, but it seemed like he had a way of blocking skills from calling out to you.

I handed him my tablet with my vault details as I went searching. Pretty fast, I found a clarity skill that worked with the sword affinity. Next, I found one that worked with the bulwark affinity. There was one for the healing affinity, basically next to it.

I needed to walk a bit more to finally find one that worked for Sam and his guns affinity. That left FH, but after walking the entire store, there was nothing here to be found.

“Do you have any more, or is this your entire stock?”

“Did you really not find anything? I had expected you to at least pick something out. But you know, I’m not in the habit of selling off my stock to someone who can’t use it.”

“Oh, I already have four picked out.” I showed him the ones that I wanted. He seemed hesitant at first, but then he seemed pleased after a few seconds of staring at me.

“And this is not enough for you, is it? Come to the back, there’s some old stock there that I haven’t been able to move in a century.”

I hesitated for a bit, but then followed, as this one seemed like a good sort. There were colours of one of the Dukes here, but they seemed faded. Perhaps the Dukes didn’t have as firm control over this station as I believed.

It didn’t take us long to reach a dusty storage room. A skill stone the size of a basketball was calling out, accepting FH’s spaceship affinity. “That one,” I said while pointing at it.

“All of that would come to 3 credit coins.” I winced at that, but this individual knew the value of these skills.

“I will take them.” As soon as the transfer was completed, I stuffed all the skills into my backpack and made them disappear before I reached the door to get out of the store.

“Come back anytime,” the storekeeper said before I left, trying to mimic a smile I had given him, even though his mouth struggled to hold that position. That one was a bit weird.

Walking as fast as I could, I made my way towards one of the main streets. Before I reached it, my sensors went crazy, and before I realised it, my backpack had been ripped away from me, now being in the hands of someone who was twenty feet in front of me.

“Fucking speedsters.”