"I want to play scissors, Honorable Devil nyan. Would that be fine?" Akira asked.
Hermes saw no reason to refuse. He gave a small nod, then cast rock.
The contract vanished at once, which meant the wager had been sealed and settled.
[Sell Personal Assets]
[Sell Now] [Mike Jordy's Earth Assets] [3,800 CC]
[Sell Now] [Akira Nyan Purrfectia VII Nyan Prime Assets] [859,000 CC]
He had hit the jackpot.
For one sharp, greedy instant, Hermes thought of the Luck attribute and whether it deserved to be fed now. Even then, something in him recoiled. He could feel his luck thinning, subtle but real, much like the way a fighter learned to trust the stir of danger before the blade was ever seen.
That instinct did not feel human. Hermes was almost certain it came from the leprechaun trait folded into his blood, some sly little warning that fortune, when pressed too hard, had a habit of slipping the hand that tried to clutch it.
So Hermes discarded the thought of forcing another upgrade into his DNA. What he wanted now was not chance, but monopoly.
Back in the survival guide, streaming had been mentioned as something most participants failed to understand at the start. It usually did not enter common play until around the fifteenth event, sometimes as late as the twenty fifth.
By then, whoever discovered it first almost always kept quiet. That was why the earliest users tended to snowball so hard while hiding the true extent of their strength.
Hermes, however, did not think like them.
He had no truly special combat skill to lean on. At best, he could summon a great slab of rock and little more. He knew the Peddler class was not built for battle. It began with money, information, and advantage, not with raw killing power.
Later on, that gap would become monstrous. A combat class like the Rank EX Sword God, the very sort he had already seen once and pushed away, would eventually stand above the field like a tyrant. That kind of being could manifest sword blades stretching for tens of miles, and even that was only one skill in its arsenal.
The difference between that and a peddler was the difference between a knife and a falling mountain.
That was why Hermes kept pressing himself for every edge he could find, and the shop had finally shown him one.
From his purchases, he had learned that items did not all follow the same rules. Some came with hard limits. Learning Pills, Genetic Packages, Seraphic AIs. Those could only be bought once, or in quantities too small to matter.
At first Hermes had considered buying all of them and reselling at profit, but there were simply too many variables, too many pieces, too much spread. He let that plan die.
The second kind were branded items. Those could be exhausted. Depending on the product, it took anywhere from five units to a hundred thousand to grey them out entirely.
Then there were the unlimited items.
Worlds Collide Series Betting Contracts were one example. Every item Hermes had studied that began with Worlds Collide Series appeared to be an endless resource.
That mattered. It meant the system itself had categories, and categories could be abused.
So with that knowledge in hand, Hermes chose the first monopoly he wanted to build.
Streaming.
To buy out every item tied to streaming would cost around twenty million. Far too much this early, even for him, if he wanted enough room left to maneuver. But there was another path. Narrower, yes, though still open.
He could cut the cost down to a little over five million if he banned every other brand and backed only Hyperion. Then he could gather ownership of the streaming equipment under one hand and choke the rest of the market before anyone else understood what was happening.
"Gabby, I'm buying something. Hide my status window from the viewers," Hermes said.
"Yes, Master. Right away," Gabby replied.
[Purchased] [Hyperion Worlds Collide Series Global Streaming Interference]
[500,000CC]
[Details: Uses non-Hyperion products as footholds and siphons the infinite bandwidth of the Cosmic Chronographic System through their internal streaming apparatus, then channels that signal into Hyperion products to drastically improve streaming quality. This product is used across Hyperion world colonies. It can enforce total censorship over any Hyperion product registered under it. It is operable with any Hyperion Seraphic AI species.]
[Purchased x 1000] [Hyperion Mobile AI - One Planet] [10,000 CC]
[Purchased x 1000] [Hyperion Mobile AI - Star System] [30,000 CC]
[Purchased x 1000] [Hyperion Mobile AI - One Constellation] [100,000 CC]
[Purchased x 1000] [Hyperion Mobile AI - Five Constellation] [200,000 CC]
With the ultra-fast thoughts of his species driving him on, Hermes moved like wind through the purchase menus. In barely ten seconds, he was done. Then his attention returned to Akira.
She was a very beautiful cat, and even the feline strain within him stirred at the sight of her, old breeding instincts whispering of offspring and legacy.
Hermes recognized the impulse for what it was and, instead of lunging at it like some uncivilized fool, turned his thoughts to the better use of such beauty.
Akira had presence. Charm. The kind of grace that drew the eye and held it. She was a born star, and Hermes knew beauty like that was worth far more preserved than spent.
"Your payment qualifies you for another kind of contract. Something that could help you earn Cosmic Coins. Are you interested?" Hermes asked.
Akira's eyes lit at once. Even while she had been reduced to gathering moss and small insects just to survive, her gaze kept returning to the system's shop again and again, dreaming of fancy clothes, fine armor, rare genetics, and even the chance to ascend into the next Nyan god, since the system claimed such things were possible through the items it offered.
Even so, she looked at Hermes with caution. The devil, she thought, was being generous, which meant there had to be teeth hidden somewhere.
"Is there a catch? In our culture, devils tempt princesses and make armies from their wombs. Is that what will happen?" Akira asked, one foot already set to bolt.
At once, Gabby shifted the camera angles and muted Hermes's voice from the stream.
Hermes looked at Akira with something near amusement.
"That is a primitive belief. No such thing will happen. I can let your people watch you. You have technology on Nyan Prime, do you not?"
Akira's eyes brightened all over again. Now this sounded real. More than real. It sounded like an opportunity too great to ignore.
"You mean I can communicate with them?" she asked, still struggling to believe it.
"Correct. Give me a minute to prepare the tools. Have a seat over there," Hermes said, pointing toward one of the stone benches.
Gabby knew the signal the moment Hermes asked a customer to sit.
At once, she used her Build-a-Planet add-on and raised a wall around the floating platform, a clean black barrier that climbed a hundred meters into the air around the one hectare space.
Privacy had value. So did spectacle. Hermes made sure of both.
Soft light from the Hyperion Beacons and Lights Resource Package settled over the enclosed space, casting a calm, expensive glow that eased the nerves without making the place feel soft.
Hermes's food had standards as well. Fifty percent. Sixty five. Eighty.
Mike had received the eighty percent grade stock. The best of it, the true one hundred percent quality, remained sealed inside the glass pillar warehouse for premium customers alone, and Akira was one of the few who qualified for it.
"Please wait for a moment," Hermes said. He did not wait for her reply before stepping inside the glass pillar.
The place was warm in a way that invited trust. Safe, almost. Akira felt it at once, and that only made her more wary. Her class, SS-Rank Truth Seeker, came with a passive gift called Cosmic Intuition. It warned her when death drew near, when the next breath might be her last.
What she felt here was not that. This was a different kind of danger, stranger and softer. A danger that whispered she might one day end up as this great creature's woman.
"Nyan. At least I'd be the cat who bred a new nation," she murmured under her breath, still clutching at the old tales of devil lords from the myths of her people.
Then Hermes drew out a platter of steaming meat, fresh bread, and a chilled bottle of Devil's Qi Green Tea, and set them before her. Akira stared.
She was starving. The last thing she had eaten was a mutated seven eyed rat, and even now its foul taste seemed to cling to the back of her mouth. She hesitated, and Hermes nudged the platter a little closer.
"On the house. I insist."
There was something in his voice that calmed rather than pressed. After a moment, Akira gave a small nod.
