Several hours after passing out, Cynrik awoke to a splitting headache. Trying to get his bearings, he slowly sat up and looked around the room and quickly noticed nothing was out of order except that he was not in his bed but instead still in the center of the room. With a glance, he saw that Brance was seated on his bed with his eyes closed and legs crossed.

‘This asshole didn’t even toss me a pillow. It was the least he could do. So what, did he just watch me pass out and go about doing his own thing?’ Shooting a glare at his motionless little brother and rubbing his sore head, Cynrik stood up and walked to his bed before laying on his back under the covers and looking at the ceiling.

While he wanted to keep messing around with his newly awoken affinity, he couldn’t because his Mana had not fully regenerated. With a quick check, Cynrik noticed his MP had only recovered to 13 points out of his initial 157.

‘There has to be some type of Mana recovery or absorption skill out there,’ one of the things he had come to realize over time was just how painfully slow his mana regeneration rate was. When he inquired further, Tobs informed him that he only recovers one MP every 15 minutes.

Finding this out gave him flashbacks to all the mobile games he used to play in his past life. Every single one of those games had abysmal energy recovery times. Unless you spent your in-game currency, you were forced to wait out 15-30 minute timers just to get a single point back, while it would take 5-10 points just to do a mission. Now he was stuck in a similar situation without a way to replenish his Mana rapidly.

Letting out a deep sigh, Cynrik made up his mind and told Tobs to send him to the RWT and was transported to the VR Bazaar. Brance and Cynrik had connected to it multiple times over the last few months only to come home empty-handed. The reason wasn’t necessarily that they couldn’t find anything they wanted but that they couldn’t afford anything good. This was surprising considering how they gained several more Skill points than the average person.

Even so, Cynrik decided against wandering around aimlessly as he had in the past; he was going to try and find some kind of Mana Regeneration technique, a task he soon found out was going to be a lot more complicated than expected.

After shopping around for over an hour, he still had yet to find a suitable technique and was starting to get frustrated. While he was having difficulty locating the technique he wanted, he came across several weapon stalls that grabbed his attention.

Most of these stalls allowed dual payment of Credits and Skill points, the latter weighing more heavily on credits, not that it mattered since Cynrik was basically a poor peasant without a cent to his name.

As he meandered the bazaar, something eventually caught his attention. There was a building tucked away from the main road between two more significantly dilapidated buildings. What caught his eye wasn’t that the shop was hidden but the small wooden side hanging just above the stall. It read “Buy/Sell Rare Items.”

While it wasn’t uncommon to come across stalls touting similar signage, it was strange to find a shop tucked away and still buying rare items; locating this Shack-like store set off several flags in Cynrik’s head. The first was “Scam,” the second was “Opportunity,” and lastly was just an evil cackle.

A shop hidden like this could only mean one of two things. It was some shady business, or they had the good shit.

Not caring about his safety since this was the VR world and not the Real-world Cynrik decided to look at the shop. Preparing himself for the worst, he walked quickly up to the shop and entered it only to be hit by a musty smell that resembled a room that hadn’t been aired out for decades. This seemed weird since this was VR and not reality, but Cynrik quickly waved away these thoughts as he looked around the roughly 25×25 square foot room. His eyes wandered around, taking note of the shop’s wares. All kinds of strange and old-looking things were messily stacked all over the room Books, weapons, armor, rare plants. This shop had it all and seeing this, Cynrik broke out into an evil grin.

The far side of the room housed a bar-like counter area where a man was sound asleep, face first and sprawled over the counter. His messy, long, green hair was caught under his forearm, and if Cynrik didn’t know any better, he’d assume the man was forcefully holding his head down.

“Go away,” the faceplanted man’s scratchy voice broke the silent air around him. He tried to shoo him off without lifting his head to look at the potential customer.

“What’s wrong, boss, hungover or something. You really shouldn’t drink so heavily its not good for someone your age to get plastered like they’re in their 20’s. It’ll put you in an early grave.” The sarcasm oozed off Cynriks words as he approached the man.

“WHO ARE YOU CALLING OLD, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” The man’s rage boiled over as he suddenly tried to jump up and face the sarcastic punk only to slam his head back into the counter due to him having unknowingly pinned himself down with his arm.

BANG

“FUCK!”

His reaction only caused Cynrik to burst out laughing. “See, you shouldn’t drink so much; you can’t even stand up properly. Come let me help you up, oldtimer.” He couldn’t contain his laughter as he watched the man struggle to meet his eyes.

“Listen here, brat, if we were outside id kick your face into your ass and make you shit yer own teeth.” Rubbing his face, the man sat up and finally presented himself to the customer; however, he didn’t expect the young man in front of him to fire back a response without hesitation.

“That’s fine, 1v1 no camp kills or weapons. I’ll Fuck you up, Guy! You think I’m scared of some old, strung-out dude who can’t even sit up without faceplanting back into his counter?” Cynrik had reverted to his old gamer-level trash talk catching the shop owner off guard.

After Cynrik’s banter, the silence hung in the air for a moment before the shopkeep relented to the unrulily fellow standing a few feet away.

“What do you want, kid?” He sighed heavily while examining the young man. ‘It’s been a few days since someone wandered into my shop, and the first one to come in is some pompous ass, wild type who’s got a sharp tongue,’ he thought to himself while outwardly sighing. “You better have something good or be looking to buy som…” before he could finish his statement, Cynrik waved his hand, causing several smooth, colored stones to appear on the counter, drawing the shopkeep’s attention.

Cynrik had casually dropped the Affinity orbs that he and Brance had decided not to use. The cluster of stones consisted of three Fire, one Earth, two Water, and two Sound orbs.

Crossing his arms over his chest Cynrik just silently waited as the shopkeep glanced from the stones back to Cynrik a couple of times before picking up a rock and thoroughly examining it. His face scrunched up as he rubbed it a few times and flipped it over a couple more times.

The longer he examined it, the more his face began to change as the realization of what he was holding started to sink in. At first, he believed the stones just to be some junk, but the truth smacked him in the face upon using his appraisal skill.

“E..EE…Elemental Affinity Orbs…” the man could barely spit out the words as his mind started spinning at a rapid pace. The small smooth stones resting in a heap on his counter were not only considered rare but could fetch quite a hefty price in the right hands.

He quickly looked up at the young man who had casually taken out the stones with renewed respect. Someone who could take out this many Affinity orbs was not someone he could offend. “Kind customer, how can I assist you? Are you looking to sell or trade using these Affinity Orbs?” He asked without an ounce of greed.

Cynrik noted how the shopkeeper was shocked but not greedy and couldn’t help but smile inwardly. In his mind, these orbs were just useless waste since he had no use for them. “I’m looking for a few techniques and maybe some weapons, but ideally, yes id like to sell them, that is, if the price is right.” While he spoke, Cynrik activated Inspect and looked around the small shack of a shop for something that piqued his interest for a moment before turning back to the shopkeeper, who was struggling as he tried to figure out a reasonable value for the batch of eight Affinity Orbs.