“Right, I should check my level first,” Mathew muttered to himself the second he reached the floor he was heading towards.

He didn’t bother to check his progress while they were cleaning the rooms at all. Sure, while it meant he couldn’t really donate his levels as they came, Mathew opted to strictly focus on fighting instead.

But now, with only the ground floor and the confrontation with the monster left…

There couldn’t be a better time to check his progress.

[Level – 1/1]

[Vitality – 32]

[Brawn – 38]

[Agility – 30]

[Mind – 5]

[Arcane – 5]

[Total – 110]

[Accumulated Levels – 2/11]

Mathew stared into his reflection that he procured on a random piece of glass he found on the floor. This was the one advantage of having the school in such a devastated state.

‘I grew quite a lot, didn’t I?’ Mathew thought, taking in the news while trying to keep his calm. ‘I didn’t think it would grow THAT much, though.’

The disparity between Mathew’s expectations and reality was, for once, net-positive.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Mathew uttered, turning his eyes away from the reflective surface of the piece of glass he found.

And there it was. The being covered in a black hood looked human only when looked at from the back or sides.

Mathew took a look at the merchant, only to stand up and move towards one of the classrooms instead.

In order to make a purchase, he needed cores. And since they didn’t want to carry the cores all over the place just to weight themselves down, they were hidden in the classroom Mathew was moving towards.

“There you are,” he muttered a moment later when he finally moved enough rubble away to uncover a small cave within the pile with a bag full of cores.

“There should be about a hundred or two hundred cores in there,” Mathew thought as he grabbed the bag and moved out of the room.

Back in the corridor, Mathew took a moment to stand down, immersing himself in the peaceful atmosphere present in the place.

He closed his eyes and stood by the window, allowing the gentle wind sneaking in through many cracks and gaps in the building’s outer wall to caress his face.

‘If not for all the corpses around, this moment could be pretty tranquil,’ Mathew thought, taking a deep breath.

He then opened his eyes, and with a refreshed resolve, Mathew approached the merchant.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the way in which Mathew summoned the shop.

Just like before, he grasped at the shadow of the merchant’s face, only for the domain of shadows to splurge around him and then pull the young man inside. And just like that, he returned to the familiar place with seven different shelves and the sacrifice altar in the middle.

“I wish to buy knowledge!” Mathew shouted, not even giving the shelves a single look.

“State your desired question.”

For some reason, the system no longer held any emotions. It was as if Mathew’s earlier episode with the merchant never happened.

‘Maybe it’s not happy by allowing its emotions to play a role?’ Mathew thought, only to bite down on his lips a moment later. ‘Look at me, already assuming the merchant is a conscious being, isn’t it funny?’

Despite forming his thoughts in the way he did, Mathew was as far from laughing out loud as he could humanly be.

The prospect of the merchants actually being conscious and thus holding some sort of agenda…

‘While it wouldn’t be surprising, it would only confirm my guess,’ Mathew thought, his face darkening a little to match the tone of what was going through his head.

“Do spending cores in merchants’ shops affect the progress of the apocalypse?” Mathew asked the one question that he had continued to think about over a while already.

Yet, he received no answer.

“Unable to set a price for the question,” the mechanical voice of the merchant quickly put down Mathew’s hopes.

‘Does that mean I’m wrong?’ the young man thought.

The only logical reason for the merchant being unable to give him a price… Was that either the question was outside of the scope of the merchant’s current level… Or if the answer itself had no value whatsoever.

‘Judging from Murphy’s law, it’s likely the former,’ Mathew thought, looking around the shelves that hold the merchant’s wares. ‘And I guess I really have no other choice but to test it manually,’ he thought before raising his hand towards a random piece of a scroll.

“How much for this scroll?” Mathew asked, raising his eyes towards the densest part of the shadowy fog that made up the whole realm.

“A hundred and fifty cores,” the merchant replied with its usual voice.

‘Perfect,’ Mathew thought, raising the bloodied bag with cores and throwing them all up.

A moment and an explosion of brightness later… Nothing happened.

“Huh?” Mathew shrugged only to raise his eyes up.

Around twenty cores still hung in the air, ready for him to pluck them back… But the lack of change, lack of information appearing… The sudden lack of responsiveness from the system worried Mathew.

“Where is the scroll?” Mathew asked out loud, hoping that the merchant wouldn’t try to scam him just like that.

“You didn’t buy any knowledge,” the merchant replied, a hint of amusement present in its voice. Yet, when it appeared once again, its vibe turned spiteful. “What you purchased is an ability.”