Joss sold the second Quick Step fragment on the morning of Day Three for 195,000 gold.
The buyer was a surface Ranger, level 22, who'd been farming the starter field for two weeks hoping for the drop. He found Joss's listing on the eastern trading post board -- "Skill Fragment: Quick Step, best offer" -- and practically ran to the counter.
"One-ninety-five," Joss said.
"The listing said best offer."
"That's my best offer."
The Ranger looked at him. Underground kid, level 3, common gear, flat expression. "Market price is two hundred."
"I know. That's why I'm asking one-ninety-five. You save five thousand gold. I skip the negotiation. Everybody walks away happy."
The Ranger paid. Joss watched the gold hit his account -- 195,000, just like that, a number so absurd against his life that his brain kept trying to add decimal places. He dismissed the notification and walked three blocks to the northern trading post.
By noon, he'd sold two more Rabbit Stew recipes (49,000 and 51,000 gold), eight Moonpetal herbs (120,000 gold total), and a stack of Field Herbs at bulk rate (400 gold). Combined with yesterday's earnings and the fragment sale, his balance sat at 271,400 gold.
His hands weren't shaking anymore. They had been, yesterday, when the numbers first started climbing. Now the process had settled into something mechanical. Farm, sort, sell, repeat. The shaking had been replaced by a buzzing in his chest, like the hum of a generator spinning up. Not excitement. Potential energy.
He ate lunch at the same bench in the commercial district. Different skewer this time. Chicken, with a red sauce that made his sinuses burn. 50 gold. He'd stopped feeling guilty about the price.
A system notification blinked in the corner of his vision:
**[Level Up! Warrior Lv. 3 → Lv. 5]**
**[Stat Points Available: 8]**
He distributed them evenly. Strength, Agility, Vitality, Endurance. Two each. The conventional wisdom said Warriors should dump everything into Strength and Vitality, but Joss wasn't fighting bosses. He was farming. Speed mattered more than power when your targets were rabbits.
The afternoon was rabbits. Three hundred more kills, more or less, spread across the eastern field. His sword arm ached by hour two, the repetitive motion grinding into the joint. The system's Basic Slash guidance helped with form but couldn't compensate for the fact that his body had spent eighteen years hauling pipe fittings, not swinging swords. Different muscles. Different strain.
He pushed through it. Underground kids knew how to push through things.
At 5 PM, he stopped. Not because of the encroaching Fog -- that was still ninety minutes away. He stopped because his inventory was full again, and he'd made a decision.
Tomorrow, he was going to the main trading house. And he was going to spend everything.
---
The main trading house occupied a four-story building in the city's commercial heart. Marble floors, enchanted display cases, NPC clerks in matching uniforms. The ground floor handled common and uncommon transactions. The second floor was rare-grade items and guild contracts. The third floor was legendary-grade and above, by appointment only. The fourth floor was the Thaler Trading House's private offices -- one of the city's most powerful merchant families.
Joss walked in at 9 AM on Day Five with 670,000 gold in his account and a plan that would either launch him or break him.
He'd spent the previous day selling. Aggressively. Every trading post in the city got a piece of his inventory. He rotated cover stories -- the uncle who farmed boars, the lucky streak in the field, the bulk purchase from a retiring player. None of them were good lies, but they didn't need to be. Each transaction was small enough to avoid scrutiny. The sum was enormous, but nobody could see the sum. That was the trick.
670,000 gold. Forty-six years of his family's income.
He walked past the ground floor without stopping. Past the second floor. Took the stairs to the third floor, where a velvet rope and an NPC attendant blocked the landing.
"Appointment?"
"I'd like to see the legendary-grade catalog."
The attendant looked him over. Common iron sword, scuffed leather armor, underground-pale skin. His expression said everything his training wouldn't let him verbalize.
"The legendary floor requires a minimum transaction value of 500,000 gold or a guild endorsement."
"I have the gold."
"Sir, the minimum--"
Joss opened his account display and held it up. The number glowed: 670,342 gold. The attendant's script broke for half a second. Then training kicked back in.
"Right this way."
The legendary floor was quiet. Thick carpet, warm lighting, display cases that hummed with enchantment barriers. Three other buyers were browsing -- all of them in gear worth millions, all of them flanked by guild escorts. Joss was the only person on the floor who looked like he'd slept in a tunnel. Because he had.
He found what he was looking for in the weapon display.
**[Moonfall Blade — Legendary]**
*Type: One-Handed Sword*
*Requirement: Warrior Lv. 5+*
*Attack Power: 450-520*
*Effects: +25% Shadow Damage, Night Vision, Shadow Step (Active — teleport up to 5 meters through shadows, 30-second cooldown)*
*Price: 480,000 gold*
Next to it, in the armor section:
**[Moonfall Set — Legendary]**
*Full Set: Helm, Armor, Boots, Gloves*
*Requirements: Warrior Lv. 5+*
*Full Set Bonus: +30% All Stats, +15% Night Resistance, Shadow Affinity*
*Individual Prices: Helm 280,000 / Armor 420,000 / Boots 310,000 / Gloves 260,000*
*Full Set Price: 1,270,000 gold*
And in the accessory case:
**[Void Ring — Legendary]**
*Type: Storage Accessory*
*Capacity: 200 additional inventory slots*
*Requirement: None*
*Price: 500,000 gold*
Sword, full armor set, ring. Total: 2,250,000 gold.
He had 670,000.
Joss stood in front of the Moonfall display for three minutes, running numbers. A normal person would walk away. Come back when they had the money. A normal person wasn't sitting on a talent that generated six figures per day.
He flagged the floor attendant.
"I want the full Moonfall set, the blade, and the Void Ring."
The attendant's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "That's 2.25 million gold, sir."
"I know. I'll put 670,000 down today. The rest in three days."
"We don't typically--"
"The Void Ring as collateral. If I don't pay in three days, you keep the ring. That's 500,000 gold in security against 1.58 million in debt. I know the margins are tight. But you'll have the money."
The attendant stared at him. Joss kept his face flat. Trader's face. The silence stretched.
"I'll need to consult with the floor manager."
"Sure."
The floor manager was a heavyset man in a tailored vest who smelled like pipe tobacco and disbelief. He looked at Joss's account balance, looked at Joss, looked at the balance again.
"You're underground."
"Yes."
"You've had an account for five days."
"Yes."
"And you've accumulated 670,000 gold in that time."
"I'm a fast learner."
The floor manager chewed on something invisible. Joss could see the calculation happening behind his eyes -- the risk assessment, the margin analysis, the question of whether this underground kid was a con artist or a genuine anomaly.
"Three days," the floor manager said. "If you miss the deadline, we liquidate the Void Ring and you forfeit the down payment."
"Deal."
They signed the contract. The Moonfall set appeared in his inventory piece by piece -- blade, helm, armor, boots, gloves. The Void Ring went into escrow. 670,000 gold vanished from his account.
Joss walked out of the trading house wearing 2.25 million gold worth of legendary gear over his tunnel-worn clothes, with an account balance of 342 gold and a three-day deadline that would make or break him.
The Moonfall Armor hummed against his chest. He could feel the stat boost immediately -- his steps were lighter, his vision sharper, the world more detailed than it had been thirty seconds ago. +30% to all stats at level 5 was ridiculous. He was, for all practical purposes, a level 8 player in a level 12 player's body with the gear of a level 40 veteran.
He flexed his left hand around the Moonfall Blade's grip. The weapon was lighter than his common iron sword but somehow more solid. The edge caught the light and held it.
Not bad.
---
The boar forest started where the rabbit fields ended. Level 10-20 zone. Thick trees, uneven terrain, boars the size of large dogs with tusks that could punch through common-grade armor. A normal level-5 Warrior would last maybe one fight before retreating to heal. Two fights on a good day.
Joss killed his first boar in eleven seconds.
The Moonfall set's stat bonus turned the fight from dangerous to mechanical. Basic Slash carved through the boar's hide like it wasn't there. Quick Step let him sidestep the charge. One more slash. Done.
The loot window opened.
**[Boar Meat (5 kg) x1] — Common — 30 gold**
**[Boar Hide (thick) x1] — Common — 50 gold**
**[Boar Tusk x1] — Uncommon — 500 gold**
**[Boar Bone Stack x1] — Common — 40 gold**
**[Boar Charge Skill Book x1] — Rare — 500,000 gold**
**[Toughened Leather x1] — Uncommon — 2,000 gold**
**[Boar Heart x1] — Rare — 25,000 gold**
**[Recipe: Nine-Turn Intestines x1] — Legendary — 3,000,000 gold**
**[Spirit Medicine Fragment x2] — ??? — N/A**
Nine items from one boar. Including a legendary recipe worth three million gold.
Joss dismissed the window, checked his surroundings, and killed the next boar.
Same thing. Full table. The boar's loot dwarfed the rabbits'. Common materials alone were worth ten times more. The rare items -- Boar Charge Skill Book, Boar Heart -- were the kind of drops that guilds organized week-long farming rotations to obtain. And the Nine-Turn Intestines recipe was the kind of item that appeared on auction listings once a month and sold for enough gold to buy a surface apartment.
He got one from every kill.
The debt was 1.58 million gold. He had three days.
Joss stopped thinking about the debt after the fourth boar. The numbers were already past it. Way past it. The Nine-Turn Intestines recipe alone would cover the balance twice over, and he'd gotten four copies in twenty minutes.
He didn't sell the recipes. Not yet. Legendary items on the open market from a level-5 kid would set off alarms from here to the guild quarter. He stored them in his inventory and kept farming.
By noon, he'd cleared thirty boars, accumulated a fortune in materials, and leveled twice. Level 7. The experience was flowing fast -- the Moonfall set's stat advantage meant he was fighting monsters five to ten levels above him with minimal risk, and the system rewarded the level gap with bonus experience.
By sunset, he was level 8. His inventory was bursting. His sword arm had gone numb two hours ago, but the system's Basic Slash correction kept his form clean even when his muscles wanted to quit.
He walked back through the city gate at 6:15 PM with three days' worth of payments in his pocket and a growing collection of silver fragments that the system refused to explain.
Five Spirit Medicine Fragments now. No description. No value. No answers.
He added it to the list of things he didn't understand. The list was getting long.
But the gold? The gold, he understood perfectly.
