William noticed the gazes falling on him, a mixture of bewilderment and budding suspicion, but he didn't care about them at all. He kept walking towards the market, his boots thumping rhythmically against the stone path, without batting an eye toward anyone around.
What if others wondered what had gone "wrong" with him? What if they whispered about how a lowly porter had suddenly developed the strength of an ox?
They hadn't even spared an eye for him before today. He was invisible to them when he was struggling, just another piece of the academy's furniture.
Why would he bother with those who never bothered themselves to help or care for him before? In his eyes, their curiosity was as worthless as the dust under his feet.
Just as he arrived at the wide, arched entrance of the market, his appearance acted like a magnet for even more eyes. It was still early in the morning, the air crisp and smelling of pine and charcoal, but the market was already bustling.
Sellers were busy arranging their stalls, polishing their wares, and waiting for the affluent disciples and masters to come and spend their allowances.
"Excuse me, my friend! Are you here to sell those items?"
Just as William walked past a few cluttered stalls, one of the merchants broke out of his initial stupor.
He scurried forward to warmly welcome the boy, his eyes already calculating the volume of the leaf bundle William was dragging.
He was a fat, short guy in his mid-forties, with a face that looked like a map of a thousand negotiations. He looked like a man who had lived long and seen a lot.
Despite his girth, his movements were incredibly fast—much faster than such a big body should allow—proving he was no stranger to rushing for a profit. He gave William a look of profound respect, a practised expression that made the recipient feel like the most important person in the world.
This was a standard trick of the trade, a psychological lubricant used by merchants to disarm their marks. But to William, this performance didn't matter.
He had dealt with gods and demons; a fat merchant's fawning was transparent. All he cared about was getting the best deal for his things and claiming as many crystals as possible to fuel his next breakthrough.
"Yes," William said, his voice level and devoid of the typical childish eagerness. "What will you offer for all these?"
William didn't feel tired at all. The adrenaline of his rapid advancement and the intoxicating hum of his thirty-five spirit points dulled any sense of fatigue. He only craved the wealth required to purchase more monster cores.
With a grunt of effort, William pulled back the edge of the leaf-binding, exposing the shimmering scarlet fur and the glinting needles within. He stepped aside, allowing the merchant to examine the quality of the loot.
The merchant's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "Well, well... for a single fur, it is worth twelve crystals," the seller said, trying to keep his voice steady despite his excitement. He smelled a massive profit in this early morning deal. However, he wasn't planning to make it easy for the young William.
In this world, strength wasn't the only metric of value; age and appearance were often used as leverage. In the eyes of such an experienced merchant, he sized William up as a "lucky" disciple from a weak clan or a poor family.
The signs were all there, or so he thought: the boy came alone, dragging everything on his own. He had no entourage of servants, no lower-ranked porters to help him carry the burden.
He was only eleven, looking fragile despite the display of strength, and—most importantly—he was wearing the useless white uniform of the academy porters.
To the merchant, this meant the boy was naive, perhaps so inexperienced that he had simply grabbed the wrong uniform from a laundry pile.
It never crossed the merchant's mind that William was, in fact, an actual porter. After all, porters were forbidden from keeping loot, and no porter should have the strength to kill even one scarlet monkey, let alone three hundred.
"As for the monkey needles, each will be sold for two crystals," the merchant added, his face contorting into a fake expression of struggle, as if he were doing William a massive favour.
"No deal."
The swift and firm decline from William came like a hammer blow, crushing the merchant's dreams of an easy mark.
"The fur is worth at least twenty crystals, and the needles are worth five," William stated, his gaze hardening. He didn't stop there, adding a cold threat to his words: "If you aren't going to buy, then clear the way for me. I don't want to waste my time on shitty deals."
He didn't show an ounce of the respect a child should show an elder. He reached down and started to close the bag, already turning his body to look for the next stall.
He knew the market value of these items perfectly. While individual sales might fluctuate, a bulk collection of this quality was rare. The merchant's offer was an insult.
"Wait! Please, wait, young master!" The merchant panicked instantly. The prospect of losing such a massive inventory to a competitor made his heart sink. "What about sixteen crystals for each fur and four for each needle?"
The merchant was sweating now, caught between his greed and the fear of losing the trade entirely.
William knew this was the "standard" base price for the market—the price one might get if they were selling only a few items.
But William wasn't selling a few; he was providing a month's worth of stock in a single transaction. His old experience as a master negotiator surfaced as he stood his ground with firm resolve.
"Not a single crystal short of the offer I gave you," William said, his voice echoing slightly in the morning air. "If you aren't willing, I believe many others will be."
Showing empathy for merchants was a grave mistake, a lesson William had learned in the blood-soaked negotiations of his previous life.
He knew that merchants, despite their constant groaning and theatre of poverty, would never strike a deal that actually cost them money. Their "suffering" was merely a tool used to make the buyer feel guilty or satisfied.
"Ok, I'll get them all," the merchant said, his voice dropping an octave as he inwardly cursed. Who said age mattered in this world?
This eleven-year-old kid was acting like a seasoned adult—even a particularly hard-nosed one. The boy's eyes weren't those of a child; they were the eyes of someone who had seen empires rise and fall.
"They are all yours then," William said. Now that he had secured his price, his mood shifted. He wasn't one to hold a grudge over a failed attempt at haggling; it was just business. "Get someone to count them and prepare the crystals for me."
"Sure, sure," the merchant replied, his professional mask snapping back into place instantly. He didn't let a flicker of his inner frustration show. "Come and have a seat, young master. May I know the name of the prestigious guest I am dealing with?"
"William," he answered simply. He pointedly did not mention his family name. He knew his family held no significant weight in this region, and providing a name that lacked prestige would only invite the merchant to try and regain the upper hand.
The merchant's eyes twinkled with a thirst for information. He wanted William's family name so he could gauge the boy's future potential and perhaps strike a long-term supply deal.
In the merchant's world, a kid like this didn't just stumble upon three hundred scarlet monkeys by accident; he was a rising star. Knowing the background of a customer was the standard move of a savvy businessman.
It allowed them to navigate the dangerous waters of social hierarchy—showing the correct amount of grovelling to the descendants of Great Clans and the proper amount of cold professionalism to those from nameless families.
But William's refusal to introduce his clan left the merchant in a state of cautious limbo. Without a family name to anchor him, the boy remained an enigma, forcing the merchant to treat him with an almost exaggerated level of care.
"Alright, here are the crystals we agreed upon," the merchant announced, returning to the stall's interior lounge after a few minutes.
William had been sitting inside the wide stall, nursing a fragrant cup of tea that the merchant had offered. It was a high-grade blend, worth at least a dozen crystals per cup, served in porcelain that cost even more.
It was a peace offering. The merchant set a heavy leather bag on the low table between them, the contents clinking with a melodic, metallic sound.
"Thanks."
William didn't even bother to open the bag. Instead, he gripped the drawstring and gave the bag a sharp, practised shake.
He used the heft of the bag and the specific resonance of the crystals clashing against one another to verify the count. It was a natural, fluid movement, but it caught the merchant's keen eyes like a lightning bolt.
One had to know that there was a massive number of crystals in that bag. To judge the count accurately using only weight and sound was a feat reserved for master traders or veteran hunters. It was yet another sign that William was far more than he appeared to be.
"Do you have monster cores to sell?" William asked, his voice betraying a hint of the impatience he felt. Now that he had his small wealth, he was dying to test his theory on higher-quality fuel.
"We have all kinds of cores! What grade do you seek?" The merchant's smile became genuinely wider. He saw a golden opportunity to claw back a portion of the crystals he had just paid out.
"I'm looking for white cores—five of them to start. Any monster will do," William said, laying out his conditions slowly.
The merchant nodded vigorously before vanishing into the back of the stall again. He returned moments later with a smaller, velvet-lined pouch.
"Here. Each one is a hundred crystals," the merchant said, his mood markedly improved. In the span of a few breaths, he had managed to reclaim five hundred crystals from the boy.
William completed the transaction without another word and stood up. He didn't linger for small talk. He hoisted his now-empty leaf-bag and the pouch of cores, hurrying back toward his cabinet. From this day onward, he had a singular, monomaniacal focus: getting stronger.
In his role as a porter, he was technically required to report for work every morning, spending hours carrying luggage and cleaning the equipment of the Academy's pampered students. But he decided right then that those days were over.
With his current spirit power sitting at thirty-five, he already met the minimum requirements to enrol as an official disciple.
Why would he continue to waste his time serving others? Why spend his precious daylight hours as a servant when he could be training his meridians and refining his soul?
He decided to start with these five cores as a litmus test. If his devouring ability worked on cores that hadn't been harvested by his own hand—and more importantly, on monsters other than monkeys—his entire life would change overnight.
A small seed of worry remained: what if the ability was specific to certain bloodlines? If he failed to absorb these crystals, it would be a five-hundred-crystal mistake.
But if it worked, he would pivot his entire existence. He would spend his nights in the Blessing Forest, hunting for raw power, and his days in the market and the training halls.
However, there was a bureaucratic hurdle to clear. The Academy was a meritocracy, but it was also a rigid institution.
They wouldn't allow a porter to simply stop working and stay in their cabinet without a purpose. He had to reveal his strength soon to gain the protection and resources that came with being an official disciple.
He knew that for a "weak and useless" porter of two years to suddenly manifest the power of a Spirit Master would cause an absolute uproar. It was unheard of in the Academy's history.
But William didn't care about the gossip. Instead of worrying about the scandal, he decided to lean into it. He wanted to give everyone more than just a shock—he wanted to give them a scare.
He decided he wouldn't enrol today. He would spend a week in seclusion, devouring cores and pushing his limits in secret.
His target wasn't the first-year class. He aimed to skip the introductory levels entirely and enter the second-year class—the Bronze Spirit Master class, which required a spirit power of at least one hundred.
He wanted to cause an earthquake that would shatter the status quo of the Academy.
As his master had always taught him in his past life: If you are going to make an entrance, make sure you do it with style.