Alex was wearing a mask and a hoodie. He did not want others to identify him, especially in a black market. And it was normal to do so. That was why the shopkeeper let the suspicious-looking Alex come inside the shop.
Even then, the shopkeeper looked at Alex, scrutinising his each and every move. Any unwarranted action from Alex would put him at death's door. After all, the black market was not a forgiving place.
With that in mind. Alex was also cautious with his actions. He didn't want to spook anyone. The black market is backed by people far more powerful than the police or judicial system. Messing with such people was a bad idea through and through.
His only mission here was to gather information about Dark-matter. The future S-class villain, who would hold a city hostage and terrorize the world. For that, he needs to remember the bits and pieces of the novel.
The novel, Outerworld goes into depth providing information about each and every character and Alex couldn't remember everything. But the information about Dark-matter was some of the few he remembers.
You might think that Dark-matter was very strong to be called an S class villain, right? But nothing could be further from the truth. He was strong, but not in a conventional sense.
Dark-matter was not the strongest superhuman. His strength was average, and his speed was average. He did not have superhuman healing power or the ability to bend space-time. He was an average joe among all the villains in Outer-worlds.
But his wit and abilities stood apart from the rest. Mainly, his ability to create a special dark matter which was harder than steel from the palm of his hands. While in contact, he could bend and transform this material into any shape he wants. And the major defect of his ability is the inability to control and shape a large amount of it at the same time and the limited amount of dark matter he could produce per day.
Not that strong right? Only a decent defence type superhuman ability.
That was what most people thought before he was crowned as an S-class superhuman. There was one more attribute to his dark matter that no one knew about. His dark matter was an everlasting material and once he was in its range. He could destroy it and release an enormous amount of energy out of it.
So, the longer he lives, the more dark matter he has at his disposal and he could destroy it within a certain range releasing an enormous amount of energy in the form of an explosion. Now you can expect how he held a city hostage. If he wanted to, he could have wiped the city out of existence.
Now, Alex has to find that person. If possible he has to save him and prevent him from turning into a villain. It was easier said than done though. Looking at the creepy old shopkeeper who was eyeing him, Alex felt a chill run down his spine.
—----------------
POV Alex
Friday, the shop was just a front. The real business happens somewhere else. But I can browse the merchandise from Friday and go to the main auction later. That was also one of the reasons I came into this shop.
After going through multiple security checks and confirming I was here for the special merchandise. The shopkeeper finally allowed me to view the merchandise.
It was a special tablet computer containing a list of all the humans they were ready to sell. It had photos of people, nudes and clothed, age, and superhuman ability, all classified accordingly. The more I browsed through it, the more disgusted I became.
They were selling people like livestock. Human rights! It was a nonexistent idea among these people. Or are they even people? I have my doubts that those who run the black market might not even be even human. After all, I know about the demons who plot massive schemes behind the scenes.
Finally, After browsing through the catalogue. I found who I was looking for. Item no. 879, age 10, male.
The image of a kid who was staring aimlessly at the camera could be seen. He was short for his age and looked malnourished. But it was easy for me to identify him as the villain Dark-matter. This non-threatening looking kid would turn into a psycho nut job.
The most important feature of Dark-matter was his hands. As said in the novel, his hands were pitch black and looked like large black gloves were covering them.
If I couldn't recognize him even after that. I should just give up my survival plan. Now that I confirmed his identity, I looked at the shopkeeper.
"What is with this kid's hands?" I asked light-heartedly. I didn't want to show my interest in 'merchandise' as they would call it. I was just a curious customer asking the obvious questions.
"Oh! That item? It had those marks even before we got it. You could buy it before finding out what it is. Do you want me to book it for you? We can even give a discount to you if you are buying it now." The shopkeeper was excited that I noticed the kid. It looked like he wanted to quickly sell him off and wash his hands clean.
"A discount! Business might be booming for you to give me a discount. Or is there something wrong with the merchandise?" The slimy face of the shopkeeper changed to an honest smile. But to me, he looked dishonest either way. I never expected to find buddha in this shit hole.
"Nothing, never! We never sell poor quality goods. I can assure you that he is a catch. You wouldn't be able to buy a superhuman at a cheaper price than we are giving. It's just that the merchandise has a bad personality and with those awful black hands. No young misses are interested in him. So, he has been in storage for too long. But buying him wouldn't be a bad deal, I stake my reputation on that." The shopkeeper gave me his awful sales pitch.
But I was stunned to hear it. One of the strongest S ranked superhumans alive was being sold cheap. Yeah! He might not be that strong now. Even then, can someone make this kind of mistake? It might only mean one thing. They don't know about his explosion ability.
I peered into the catalogue again. As expected, It only shows his superhuman ability to make black beads and named marble-creation. Do they actually think that he can only make black marbles like beads with his ability? And his ability was graded as D-class.
In this world, a superhuman ability can be graded on the basis of its potential to grow. Factors like the ability to store mana inside the body, utilise the mana effectively and specific abilities through which they utilise the mana all compounds to create the grading system for abilities.
While the superhumans ranked on the basis of the quantity of energy they have. In the west, they call this energy Mana, while other places call it different names such as Qi, Ki or Spiritual energy. This energy was considered the driving force of all superhumans.
So the personal rank can be different from the ability grade. Rank corresponds to how strong a person is in an overall context. It is related to all the other superhumans in this world. While the grade of a superhuman ability corresponds to growth potential and its use case.
And it was common sense in this world that anyone with a high graded ability has a higher chance of becoming a powerful superhuman. Even though there are edge cases, high ranked superhumans with low graded abilities achieved their current power through intense hard work and luck.
But now imagine grading Dark-matter as a D-grade ability called marble-creation. Who was the stupid guy who did it? I should personally thank him from the bottom of my heart. He practically helped me overcome a lot of hassle.
D-grade were at the bottom of the ability grade. There was an E-grade below D, but an E grade meant useless ability overall. Like growing a horn on the head like the nurse from the hospital.
You can grow a horn on your head due to your superhuman ability. But what can you do with it? The simple answer was nothing. So E-grade was considered useless. And a D-grade was not much far off from being useless.
But I kinda know why he was graded so low. Time was Dark-matter's greatest friend and also his greatest enemy. His powers were of the cumulative type. The more time he has, the more dark matter he can produce and the more power he can accumulate. He did not have a large reserve of mana nor exceptional control over it yet. And he was also hiding the fact that he could explode his dark matter. A significant part of his ability is unknown to all.
Only with time and future training can he achieve his greatness. That might have caused his grade to be so low. A critical oversight of the examiner who graded him.
"So, you mean I should grab him while I can. I believe you are not cheating me, right? So, how about you sell me the kid now. That way we both can be happy sooner."
"Oh sure, sir You can take it for 100,000 Creds. We take both cryptos and cash of equivalent value. Sir, It is a pleasure to do business with you. You could leave with him now after paying." Now, I am almost a customer. The shopkeeper's mannerism changed, he was even willing to call me sir. But 100,000 Creds was a huge amount of money, equivalent to 100,000 USD in my previous world. Humans cost too much! Yet I paid money in full. I can't let go of this chance.
I was guided out of the shop by a new person. He was taking me towards where they kept their 'merchandise'. I coughed up and paid the money already. So, if this guy kills me. I would be just an unlucky soul drifting in the great slums of Nova city. Nothing more or nothing less. Even my corpse wouldn't be found and all my hard work would be for nought.
Soon we reached the place.