Chapter 86 | Purchasing Tea
There were people in this very complex who would kill for a weapon like that.
Yet no one touched it. No one even approached the stall closely and their was even a wide space around the man.
People kept casting glances at the blade and then at the seated man, and then quickly moving on.
Dexter looked at the man more carefully. He was lean, with sharp features and dark hair that fell past his shoulders.
His clothes were plain.There was nothing about his appearance that immediately announced who or what he was.
But Dexter felt a faint pressure that was almost imperceptible as it distorted space around him.
’Ultra rank hero!’
Dexter’s eyes widened slightly. He had never seen an ultra rank hero in person before but he heard they were vastly powerful compared to Meta humans and Superhumans.
And he was sitting cross legged on the floor of a black market, selling a type 3 blade with his eyes closed.
Dexter could not make sense of it. An ultra rank hero had access to the Hero Association’s most exclusive resources. They could join various guilds receive funding, equipment, and support that ordinary licensed heroes could only dream of.
They were recruited the moment their rank was confirmed, courted by factions and organizations that competed for their allegiance.
An ultra rank hero could walk into any weapon dealer in the country and receive preferential treatment, the kind that came with VIP status and unlimited credit lines.
So why was this man sitting on the floor of a black market, selling a single type 3 blade to strangers?
Dexter stood there for a long moment, watching the meditating ultra rank hero,
’Forget it.’
Then he shook his head slightly, filed the mystery away for another time, and moved on.
He had come here for a specific reason, and staring at an ultra rank hero was not going to help him find an imitation necklace for his wives.
Dexter moved through the black market, checking stall after stall.
The first nine sellers either did not carry imitation jewelry or the quality of their work was so poor that even a casual glance would reveal the deception.
One man tried to sell him a necklace that was clearly just spray painted copper, and Dexter had to suppress the urge to drag the man by his collar to the nearest mirror.
By the tenth stall, he found what he was looking for.
The seller was a quiet woman with gray streaks in her hair and a display case that was noticeably better organized than her neighbors.
Inside, arranged on black velvet, were several pieces of imitation jewelry that actually resembled their higher tier counterparts.
They lacked the mana signature, durability, but visually, they were remarkably close.
Dexter pointed to a necklace that shared the same design elements as Mira’s. It was a type 1 necklace.
"I will take this."
The woman nodded and reached into the case.
Before Dexter could breathe a sigh of relief, the trader at the neighboring stall leaned over.
He was a short man with a wide grin and eyes that darted between Dexter’s face and the wallet in his pocket with the subtlety of a hungry dog watching a steak.
"My friend, my friend," the trader said, sliding around the edge of his own stall and inserting himself into the transaction with practiced ease. "You are buying for a lady, yes? Just one necklace? No, no, no. This is not how you impress a woman. You need the full set."
He produced a pair of earrings from his stall and held them up to the light. They were type one, modest in quality, but they caught the fluorescent light prettily.
"Look at this. Perfect match for the necklace. The same design language, the same finish. A woman notices these things, my friend. She sees the necklace and she thinks, where are the earrings? Where is the bracelet? You do not want her thinking you only care enough to buy one thing."
Dexter frowned. "I do not need..."
"And this," the trader continued, already reaching behind him, producing an anklet with a delicate chain and a small charm at the center.
"For the ankle. Very popular right now. All the fashionable ladies in the city are wearing them. And this bracelet, look, see the workmanship? This is not cheap garbage. This is quality type one craftsmanship."
The trader was relentless. Every time Dexter tried to decline, the man produced another item, held it up, explained why it was essential, why the girls would expect it, why buying just the necklace was somehow an insult to the very concept of gift giving.
He moved between his stall and the woman’s stall grabbing items from both displays and assembling them into an ever growing pile on the counter.
Dexter stood there, caught in the current of the man’s sales pitch, and realized with a distant sort of irritation that the trader was right about one thing.
He did not know what girls liked. He had no idea what they preferred, what they secretly wanted, what small things might make their day better.
He knew their personalities. But not the specifics of what brought them joy in the small, everyday sense.
By the time Dexter extracted himself from the trader’s gravitational pull, he had spent 20,000. Necklaces, earrings, anklets, bracelets, finger rings, and hairpins that the trader had slipped into the pile when Dexter was not looking.
The man had smiled the entire time, that wide, greedy grin that said he knew exactly what he was doing.
Dexter left the stall angrily.
He knew he had been manipulated. It was his own fault for not walking away sooner.
He put it behind him and walked towards where food stuffs were been sold.
The section smelled of earth and green things, cut grass and dried bark and the faint, sweet scent of flowers that had been set out in small buckets near the entrance.
Dexter moved through the herb section first.
Tea herbs lined one entire row, sorted by variety and origin.
Calming blends for sleep and relaxation sat beside energizing blends for morning routines.
Meditation aids, awareness enhancers and, aphrodisiac blends!
Dexter swallowed as he saw it but immediately removed his gaze.