“Tell me what you know.”

The Goblin nods and leans back, "All right, but first I need to make sure that you're committed to this. I'll need two things from you: Four million Credits and a favor.”

I almost fall off my chair when I hear Krognar’s request. Four million Credits?! What can he possibly want to buy with that much money?! That’s going to make a big dent in my bank account…

And he wants a favor too, so I can’t follow my initial plan of Rewinding after getting the information.

Ah! Fuck!

I want to refuse, but I have no choice and the bastard knows it. So I control my anger and nod while handing my credit card to the Goblin, who swipes it over a small orb he had in his pocket.

I can feel a part of my soul leaving my body when he hands me my card with a bright smile.

"All right, now for the favor…" he jumps off his chair and grabs a large rectangular piece of glass encased in brass before putting it on the table. The shopkeeper then removes the tip of one of his metallic fingers, revealing a small metal prong that he shoves into a hole at the bottom of the plate.

The device comes to life and the entire metal frame glows. Krognar waits until the metal stops glowing before typing something on the glass, and I gasp when a three-dimensional image appears above the tablet.

“I bet you don’t know what this is, huh?” he points at the floating image and I nod. I’ve never seen anything like it; it looks like a solid piece of the night’s sky.

He grins, “Yeah, I thought so. There are not a lot of people who know about this material even existing, it’s so rare that I’ve never seen a real one. And I’ve been around quite a lot during my youth.”

“So what is it?” I reply.

“This is Starmetal, a legendary material with incredible properties. Its mana resonance alone is enough to-”

He interrupts his sentence and chuckles, “And I’m rambling again. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about, right?”

“You lost me after Starmetal.” There’s no point in pretending, so I answer honestly.

He chuckles again and swipes on the tablet, causing another image to appear. This time the image shows a light blue rose with petals made out of white sharpened crystals. A small blue orb pulses in the middle of the petals.

“This is a Frostcrystal Rose. It’s beyond rare and only grows in very specific conditions.”

“There must be a reason why you’re showing me this, right?” I ask but I’m almost certain that I’ll have to buy those materials.

The shopkeeper nods, “Of course, I think you already guessed it but I need those materials in large quantities. I want two hundred pounds of Starmetal and twenty Frostcrystal Roses.”

Fuck, that’s a lot! You bastard, do you want to empty my bank account or something?!

“All right… Then do you know where I might buy those materials?” I say while maintaining my poker face.

The Goblin laughs and smirks, "Lad, you would've never come to me if your pockets were deep enough to buy what I asked. And it wouldn't matter if you could since there isn't even a quarter of the amount I need on the market."

Great, so I paid four fucking millions Credits for nothing?! This is a waste of time!

This Goblin scammed me hard. But it’s not like I can’t retaliate, so I reach for my gun and-

“But you can find the materials instead of buying them," he says just as I was about to pull my weapon out.

I’ll listen to him for now, but I’m not giving him another Credit.

“What do you mean?” I ask while glaring at him, if looks could kill then this bastard would already be a pile of smoldering ashes.

“What do you know about World-Hopping?”

I scratch my head but I can’t recall ever hearing that word before. The shopkeeper read my expression and smiles, “You know there are a lot of unexplored worlds out there, right? And those untouched planets are sometimes filled to the brim with rare resources-”

“You seriously expect me to wander around empty planets until I stumble on the materials you want?!”

The Goblin laughs at my outburst and shakes his head, “Of course not! Kid, let me explain you a thing or two about World-Hopping. First of all, you don’t just teleport onto any random world and hope for the best. Doing that will not only cost you a ton of whatever materials you use to teleport between worlds, but you’ll get yourself killed.”

What does he mean by teleportation requiring materials? I can go pretty much everywhere I want with my Portal Gun, and it costs me nothing at all…

When I thought about it, Riley had used a complex ritual to teleport us into Edmund’s cavern. And it was only on the other side of the planet, so maybe long-distance costless teleportation is an exception? I’ll have to look into the subject when I have some free time.

“All right, but that doesn’t tell me how I can find the materials you’re looking for.”

The shopkeeper chuckles, “It’s pretty simple, you just need to get yourself a Mana Scanner. It’s a sort of large Mana Tracking Device, except it can read all of the possible mana signatures at once.”

“And let me guess, you can sell me one for a fair price?”

“Ah! Lad, you learn quickly!” the Goblin has a brief burst of laughter before becoming serious again. “You know, I used to be a pretty good World-Hopper during my youth. And I know my equipment was, and probably still is, better than what you could find on the regular markets.”

I hate to admit it but he’s probably right, nobody has teleported into my house since I bought one of his barriers.

“And how much would that cost me?” I sigh and take out my credit card.

“I’m not selling any old Mana Scanner! It’s a repurposed Scanner that’s been thoroughly upgraded by yours truly. In fact, it’s normally reserved for military use but... I have my way of acquiring things.” he winks.

“And that’s not all,” he continues, “The Scanner is sold with a portable Mapping Device that’s compatible with most of the mapping methods used today. So you’ll be able to easily map the planets you’re going to be exploring.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking this but...How much?”

“Ten million Credits. And the price is nonnegotiable.”

If I was drinking something then this would be the perfect moment to spill it over the table. Ten million Credits isn’t a small sum, and my finances already took a big hit…

“All right,” I say while holding back tears as I hand him my credit card, “But it better be worth it.”

“Heh, you’re not going to be disappointed!” he almost dances in his chair and nearly tears my card out of my hands before swiping it over his yellow orb.

“Now follow me. But I’ll have to warn you that it’s quite massive, so transport might be an issue. But I can offer shipping services at a-”

“No thank you, I can handle transport on my own.”

Krognar nods and leads me to a door in the back of the shop. He pushes the wooden door open and I follow him down a dusty and narrow set of stairs that lead to the basement. The room, a bit larger than the entire upstairs shop, is filled with random artifacts in the corners. But the large device in the center of the room immediately catches my attention.

The device is a large cube made of an unknown black polished metal that’s about fifteen feet long and fifteen feet high. A large radar dish made with the same material stands on top of the cube. I spot various brass plates along with large bundles of multicolored wires that are bolted to the dish. All the wires seem to be linked to the brass frame surrounding a large glass panel that’s very similar to the tablet Krognar used earlier.

The Goblin smiles when he sees the construct and walks up to the panel before pulling out a large, ancient looking key from one of his numerous pockets.

“This is the Scanner you just bought, but don’t let her appearance fool you. It’s a masterpiece that outclasses every single Scanner you could find elsewhere.”

I hope you’re not bullshitting me...

He turns the key in its keyhole near the panel and the machine rumbles as it comes to life.

“Sorry about the dust, I haven’t been down here in a while…” he says with a melancholic look before focusing back on the panel flashing with hundreds of different runes.

The infernal machine finally stops rumbling and the runes stop flashing. I focus on the screen and see a large keyboard in the middle of the screen.

“Now, let me teach you how this thing works. First of all, you enter the name of the materials you want.” He places his hands on the screen and I can see the characters on the keyboard shifting to ones I don’t recognize.

“By the way, the machine knows most of the current languages used in the Bazaar and adapts to the user, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

The Goblin types something and the image of a red gem appears on the screen. He points at a slider under the image, “Once you have typed the names of the materials you want then you just have to adjust the size of the search zone with this. Of course, the larger the zone the longer it’s going to take to find anything.”

He then points at a checkbox next to the slider, “And if you’re feeling particularly adventurous then you can check this box, it’ll allow the machine to suggest worlds that are already claimed.”

Yeah, I’m not going to use that. I don’t want to anger aliens…

“Another point of note is the database in this Scanner; it’s very different from the standard ones. I added all the mana signatures of various forbidden materials, like the Starmetal. In fact, just possessing this Scanner is enough to get you arrested in most places!” he lets out a hearty laugh before grabbing a small device hanging on a chain nailed to the body of the Scanner.

He shows the device to me, it’s a phone-sized square of black metal. “To use it you just have to hook it up to the localization device of your choice. Don’t worry about cables or anything like that since it will automatically connect to your devices.” He flips the device around and shows it to me.

“Using it is pretty simple” he shows me a grey button in the middle of the device, “You just press this button once you’re on the planet and it will map your surroundings.”

He hands me the Mapping Device and powers down the Scanner before handing me the key. “Of course I can’t show you if they are working properly since we are in a Shard. But I can guarantee you that they work well.”

This better not be a scam, or I’m going to eat roasted Goblin tonight.

“Okay,” I nod after he hands me the key of the Scanner. “Now, could you leave the room for a second?”

Surprise flashes on his face for a moment but he nods and head towards the stairs, “All right, but you better not steal anything!”

I wait until the Goblin is out of the room before pulling out my Portal Gun. I glance at the massive Mana Scanner and sigh; I thought it would be smaller than that. Now I’m not sure if it can fit through the portals…

Now that I think about it, I never engraved a definite portal size in my Portal Gun. Maybe the portal will be larger if I hold the trigger down for a longer period of time?

I select an empty spot in my mansion with the GPS before aiming at the base of the Scanner. The familiar blue energy gathers into a ball at the tip of the gun, and it keeps growing the more I hold down the trigger.

The gun starts to vibrate in my hands and the five purple crystals in the other chambers start to emit a blue smoke.

This doesn’t look good… I hope I didn’t break it!

I release the trigger and the large glob of energy slams into the ground while the recoil almost breaks my wrist. The ball of energy expands and forms a large portal that’s barely big enough to swallow the Scanner.

I wipe the sweat off my brow and sigh before checking on my Portal Gun; smoke is still coming out of the muzzle but it doesn’t bear any traces of damage. I’m happy that my theory was correct, but I make a mental note to refrain from abusing the Portal Gun like that again.

The vibrations I felt in my hand were too similar to the ones in unstable artifacts. So it’s more than likely that the Gun would’ve exploded if I held the trigger just a second longer.

Krognar, who was probably curious about the ruckus caused by the Portal Gun, slams the door open.

“Kid, do you want to destroy my shop?!” he shouts while surveying the area, his eyes stop for a few seconds on the now empty spot were the Scanner was.

“Sorry about that. Let just say that my method of transport is a bit noisy.” I make a wry smile while scratching my head. The shopkeeper sighs and shakes his head before pointing at the stairs.

“Now let’s get out of here, we still have some things to discuss.”

I nod and he leads me back into the secure room before sitting on a chair, “If you’re serious about World-Hopping then you’re going to need a few more things, like this device.” he drops a small brass square on the table. “This is a Language Decoder. It’ll be useful if you encounter an unknown primitive civilization and need to interact with them. You just have to press the button and it’ll automatically connect to your translator and update it.”

He raises his hand when I pull out my credit card, “No need to pay me for this one, let’s just say that it’s included with the Scanner.”

I nod and stuff the Decoder in my pocket before focusing on the Goblin, “So is there anything else I need?”

The Goblin cups his chin and looks me up and down from head to toe before nodding, "You might want to consider buying a set of special armor. You'll need one to protect your lungs from the harmful air of certain worlds. The armor will also need to protect you from the extreme climates you’ll encounter since your jacket isn’t going to cut it.”

So he identified the enchantments on my jacket with just a glance? This guy knows his stuff…

Krognar glances at my Shield Glove, “I see that you’ve already taken care of shielding, so we can skip that. You’ll need some special compartments if you want to keep carrying all the stuff you’ve strapped to yourself. And you’re also going to need a special backpack if you want to bring back some of the more…dangerous stuff.”

Great, more stuff that costs money!

“I can make you the armor and the backpack but it’ll cost you a million Credits, I work fast and I don’t have any orders at the moment so it will be ready in a week.”

I cup my chin and review the Goblin’s offer, a custom armor made by a master craftsman sounds appealing. The small waiting period is also miles better compared to the other offers I saw on the regular markets. And the price isn’t too bad either…

“All right, let’s go with that. I’ll be back in a week.” I pay the Goblin and leave the shop before teleporting back home. This little outing has been… draining, to say the least.

...??? PoV…

“Good job, you’re dismissed.” I wave the Devil away once he finishes his report. Those last few days have been rather difficult: The Enforcers in this area are increasing their patrols ever since those two Werewolves discovered our presence.

But it’s not like it matters anyway. They can’t catch us and our complete disregard for the Rules keeps them too busy to seriously chase us.

I drink the rest of my tea and sigh, “At least some things are going well…”

The recent report confirms that those rumors have some truth to them, so we’re getting closer to our objective. We already secured the critical components of the ritual, now we can focus all our efforts on finding the last and most important puzzle piece.

Of course, the knowledge about this item is beyond restricted. There’s not a single mention of the Relic on the HiddenNet, but the ancient records of our ancestors were never wrong before. So I’m certain it exists, it has to. It’s essential for the survival of our Family, but it’s also a promise of a better future for our kin.

“Sir, I have urgent matters to report.” A kneeling Devil appears in front of me.

“We’ve found a location that matches what we’re looking for. The defenses are not anything we can’t handle and it’s likely that they have information about the sacred Relic.”

“Good,” I nod in acknowledgment, “What about the situation of the Family we’re going to attack? Do you know if they have any strong enemies?”

The Devil nods, “Of course sir, we have already prepared the Illusionary Cloaks.”

I smirk, “Then tell the men to prepare themselves, we begin the raid in two hours.”

The Devil vanishes from my view. I get up from my chair and take a deep breath before entering a fit of laughter. This plan is beyond perfect: We’ll raid the Enforcers to steal their records about the Relic while we are disguised as their most hated enemies.

They’ll never know what we’re up to and the raids will certainly spark a conflict or two. A large-scale war will be an excellent distraction and it’ll make it a lot easier for us to raid the other Enforcers.

Everything will change once we find the Relic, and nobody will be able to stop us from gaining our rightful place as rulers of the world.