On the day before the City’s Big Market Day I decided to change it up, and decided to visit the Black Market.

After digging around and doing some research I found out that as long as I didn't cause any problems with authorities, I could just set up shop in the Black Market, the same as any other Open Market.

No permit or permission was required.

I went with the same cart except this time I didn't fill it with that much stuff as usual, and put only things that would grab people’s attention.

I didn’t bother with some of the more basic stuff as I knew people didn’t go to the Black Market to buy your everyday item.

I actually managed to find an open spot and so I quickly took up the spot and set up shop.

The environment around the Black Market was definitely much more dangerous.

I could see all the lowlifes of the City that I sometimes saw in the slums filling up the Black Markets floor space.

I had already been here before, so I knew how to operate, I only showed off some decent stuff, the real valuables I kept hidden behind a beast hide tarp.

After some time people started to snatch up my normal poisonous spears I had built, poisonous daggers I had crafted, vials of snake poison, all of this stuff was really really popular.

Weird looking Martial Artists enthusiastically bought big amounts of animal hearts, animal intestines, animal stomachs, and animal brains.

These were some of the organs I had some trouble getting rid of, even during the big market day, as many Martial Artists saw them as the dirty organs of the body.

I knew they had their uses though either in medicine, special dishes, or Forbidden Techniques not many people liked to talk about.

Sure enough the customers of the Black Market were going crazy over all these types of items.

Whole jars of animal blood, I still had that I hadn't been able to make into Artificial Magic Blood were also selling like hot cakes, as well as grounded up bone powder, individual bones, or even whole skeletons.

It seems the Martial Artists of the underworld, definitely practiced a variety of Forbidden Arts.

Soon rumors of the items in my shop spread like wildfire.

There were other shops in the Black Market that offered raw materials, but they were selling them for an arm and a leg, none were as affordable as mine.

Eventually a powerful looking man asked me if I carried any powerful weapons and I decided to take out the killers.

I took out a crate full of 16 different spears, all imbued different Magic Attributes and with a bone tip spearhead.

The spearheads weren’t the same as my other batch of bone tipped spearheads; these were hollow and full of poison vials.

I had designed the spearheads so that upon penetration it would release a certain amount of poison into whatever the spearhead penetrated.

That would be the main function of those spears if they weren’t Magical, but these were.

I had initially not wanted to dip this 5th batch of spears into the Magical Blood because I had seen the violent reaction the poison had had with the Artificial Blood.

But after thinking it over for a little bit, I decided to take off the snake vial, and bathe the spears in the blood without it.

Once they came out, they were pretty similar to my other bone tipped spears, except the tips on these spears were hollow and not made from predatory fangs or big beasts.

The blood bathing helped to strengthen the hollow spears tips, which was one of my big concerns and after sealing the spears in magical resin, I inserted the venom filled vials into them.

Because the poison was enclosed in a container while inside the spear, it didn’t react to the magical spear energy.

But once the venom came out after a penetrating action, a violent toxic gas plume ejected and surrounded the target.

The spear length gave the user enough space to back off from the hazardous zone, but the target had nowhere to run.

After a quick demonstration where the magical spears snake venom completely corroded a piece of wood I used as a target, the grim looking powerful Expert immediately became obsessed in obtaining the weapon.

I sold the magical weapon to him for 3 platinum coins, I knew the guy was good on the money since I was sure the people started to recognize, that I was the guy who sold Magical Weapons, and rare items, or else why else would he ask me for powerful weapons, when I didn't really have any on display.

Soon the rumor spread that I carried magical weapons, and dangerous Expert after dangerous looking Expert swarmed the surroundings of my shop.

I showed off the magical poison spears with unique Magical Attributes, 15 of which were left, and I sold each one at 3 platinum coins each.

Despite not everyone being able to afford that price, there were enough people to where all 15 of my spears sold out.

I had now made a profit of 48 platinum coins, which brought my platinum coin total to over 100 platinum coins.

I was now totally comfortable with the resources I had gathered for the Ranker event and could say that my business plan was a resounding success.

Even after my spears were gone, people still hung around my shop looking at what else I offered.

Soon I started hearing the Experts gossip amongst themselves, and unlike the lame rumors I heard in the common market place, the ones I heard here were actually of interest to me.

I started hearing people mention that they had heard that an upcoming Ranker Gathering was soon going to happen close to the Citadel.

Other people confirmed the rumor as well.

Experts who heard the news grew excited and started to ask more questions, and tried to find out more details from those who were privy to the information.

Soon all kinds of crazy rumors were flying around and the atmosphere grew more chaotic.

From the excitement caused by the news of a Ranker Gathering coming close to home in the near future, many people started to spend probably more than they would’ve spended otherwise.

Items were flying off of my shelves and stacks, and people would say things like “they needed to get prepared for the Ranker gathering”, or that “they needed to become a Ranker as soon as possible”.

Eventually most of the merchandise I had brought was completely sold out.

The time was getting close to when I had to close up shop.

My harvest had been a good one for the night.

I earned some more platinum coins and managed to confirm the existence of the Ranker event.

The Black Market turned out to be a good place to sell poisoned weapons and the less appealing organs of beasts.

The days went on evening after evening I would go to either a random street, the Main Market or the Black Market to sell my stuff.

The storage container full of merchandise steadily became emptier and emptier.