'The long-awaited Goldfinger, I thought it'll never come. ' Ryan was excited, and a little worried. He read a lot about system-based novels, but it's rare to find a good system.
He quickly locked the door and made sure that no one could see what he was doing. If his hands were to be seen floating around in the middle of the night, some questions may need to be answered. He didn't want to be forced to a psychiatrist again.
The instruction of the system caught his eye.
[Every Full Moon, the Interdimensional Trading System (ITS) will be online and pick a new trader. You could trade inside the system marketplace by using items or using interdimensional currency.
You could get currency by selling, doing quests, providing a service, and more. You can refer to the Exchange page for more info on the currency.]
[The trader is now at Level-0. You could trade in the low-level market. Once the trader's authority increased, he can enter a high-level market.]
[Hints- the more you trade, the easier for you to increase your authority]
'Trading type Goldfinger.. I meant system... ' Ryan thought silently while processing his situation. Then, he accepted his new cheat.
He liked this type of cheating better. "I think I have read a novel about a similar type. Or maybe it's a webtoon?"
Rather than Player type, Game type, King type, Villain type, Lottery-type, and so on. He liked to have a choice in what he got, and his improvement is based on his choice.
"Let's see what item is on the marketplace..."
He opened the trading site, but he quickly became disoriented by the display. It's very hard to read the font, and it looked like the Internet piracy site in the early 2000s.
There wasn't any picture or description of the items, so he could only do an educated guess about them. All of the stuff is jumbled together. The listed stuff doesn't even split into categories, such as items, skill, and knowledge. He knew that there is a category here, so….
"What the hell?"
[0- level world.]
¬Fish (10 kg) - 1 tc
¬High quality beer-2 tc
¬Iron forged sword- 5 tc
¬Basic swordsmanship skill-10 tc
¬Basic shooting skill - 7 tc
¬Chinese cuisine recipes - 5 tc
¬Indian cuisine recipes - 5 tc
¬Gene optimization fluid (low quality) - 50 tc
...
There were a lot of items listed there and it was really messy. He compared the market to a night market or flea market instead of a formal market from the display alone
From basic skills to basic equipment. Many stuff here could be found in his previous world, but some are new to him.
He checked for rare items, maybe magical things or of superpower nature, but there was none. He wasn't sure whether he didn't find it yet or its weren't listed in the lower level.
He take a look at his personal page and how much currency he had.
Host: Ryan - Tier 0 Authority.
Currency: 100 tc. (new traders gift ).
To get more currency, he could trade items such as gold, gems, arts, weapons, and more. He could choose to sell it directly to the system, in which he will receive a lower price, but fast trade. Or he can choose to sell to another trader at a higher price, in which the completion time is uncertain.
Ryan opened his upper left drawer in his desk study. There was a handgun with his name carved in gold. It was a gift from his uncle for his 16th birthday. He then checks how much tc he could get using the gun.
Artistic low-quality handgun - 10 tc
He mused to himself. He was going to check the price of another item, but the notification on his panel changed his mind.
The time is already 12.50 am. He got the notification for the trading system when the clock strikes 12. He becomes flustered when he realizes that he could only trade for an hour every session for now. It looks like it's not a sentient system, as it focuses more on the traders.
'What is the connection the system has with the full moon? How does he manage to enter the trading site? Is it a cheat for the transmigrator?' He may never know.
This kind of restrictive trading time makes him frown. But he will learn to be okay with it as the trading system will become support for him in his new life here.
In his first session, he couldn't even read all the instructions yet as the time was too short. At 1 a.m., the trading session is over. The market panel was now gone. It looks like it was never there.
'Still, I can summon the inventory of the item that I have bought.'
There's no indicator, but he could sensed it. If he wanted to, he could summon his gun and placed it back anytime he wanted. He tried to put some other stuff in it, but the inventory didn't respond to stuff other than the ones bought from the system.
Ryan checks his harvest. He had to buy some stuff hastily. He didn't even adapt yet to the system interface.
He sold the gun to the system for quick money and got 110 tc as funds for his first session. He bought some items and skills using his money, that is;
¬Low level gene optimization fluid- 50 tc
¬Basic espionage and counter espionage-25 tc
¬Basic stealth - 25 tc
¬Low level gun - 10 tc.
He used all of his money for the first trade. It doesn't make sense to keep it for the next, as money wasn't a problem for him. He checked it before, and found out that his family is still rich.
Even if they were struggling, he remembered many business models from his previous world and could use them here. After all, this was only the year 2005. Most of the top companies in his previous world were just getting started in this period.
There's already something he had planned, but with Hiddle's excessive monitoring, he needed to keep it on the down-low. It's not that he distrust the old man, it was just a hassle if he did it now. How could he explain his knowledge then?
Showing too many skills and new knowledge may invite a certain one-eyed pirate to his house and he definitely didn't want to be entangled by SHIELD during this time.
Kind off stupid for him to trade a gun for a gun but here's what he thought at that time. His old gun was registered and could be tracked down to him, but the new gun from another world don't have this problem. The new ones also has higher power than the previous one.
Without the artistic aspect and gold inlaid of the gun, the previous gun would only be sold at the price of 2 tc. That's right folk, only 2 tc. His classic gun from the 70s was more like artwork rather than a killing weapon. The new gun was more to his taste as the firepower was increased, made with special alloy causing it to be lighter. Also, the recoil is greatly reduced.
Luckily it uses the same type of bullet as his previous ones. If it used a special bullet, the gun would be useless after 100 shots.
'Do I need to buy more bullets then? Will the bullet match the gun even if I bought it? How the hell should I know if it's the same seller?'
Luckily for him, his worries when he consider the gun was for nothing.
Basic espionage and stealth can guarantee that he could survive if he was targeted and needed some insurance for his safety.
There's a lot of time before the next trade. What if something happens in between? He was a pessimistic guy, always thinking the worst. It couldn't be helped as his previous life isn't something he could be proud of.
He remembered before he got into the adult world, he was a very optimistic dumb kid. It was very easy for him to trust other people.
But after several times being scammed, betrayed, and cheated on, his outlook on life changed. Now, if he could control his own fate, he would NEVER placed his fate in other people hands.
He bought the gene optimization fluid with the hope that it could improve his muscle and body as 3 years of being comatose was hard on him. The true effect of the fluid was that it can strengthened the body, and push the body's genes toward perfection. So his hypothesis wasn't that far off.
Before buying the fluid, he did look at some other options, such as extremely diluted dragon blood, mandrake extract, muscle potion,..etc. It's not that he didn't want to buy it, but he didn't know its effect on the body. (the price is also out of his budget)
After the trading session, his sleepiness has already gone away. The happiness he was feeling was like he'd been drinking several cups of espresso. His experience with the system plus the excitement of some new stuff keeps him up that night.
He decided to go to the gym in the basement. He changed from his pajamas to a sport clothes. It's now almost 2 in the morning and Hiddle was already asleep. He thinks. He didn't know exactly what the old man's schedule was.
"Sneaking around is not important. The important thing is not to get caught."
He didn't want to get nagged because he wanted to carry out strenuous exercise in the middle of the night.
After all, he's still in a physiotherapy session. His body was so scrawny that he could be blown away from then soft wind.
The exercise he planned on doing was to study how much the gene optimization fluid changed his body. He's always been a curious person while he was growing up.
It's just the world was too fucked up that he stopped becoming himself. The inhibition lowered in this new world, or maybe the original body personality has influenced him. Right now, he wanted to know more and learn more.
The basic stealth skill is quickly being put to use. He avoided the camera and the night guard to get to the gym. He tiptoed where he needed to tiptoed. He ducked where he needed to ducked. He needed to go to a lot of trouble just to get here.
Seeing the patrols walking around with a guard dog makes him wonder, "Why are they being so overprotective?"
There's a little suspicion growing inside his heart that his accident is not an 'accident' after all.