Chapter 3: Super Inheritance
Han spent a long time browsing the dark web, going from slave trade sites to looking at sales for psychic power potions, weapons, and even different types of galactic battle ships. In conclusion, as long as you have money, the dark net has everything you will ever want.
“What do I need the most?” Han asked himself, and started thinking as he stared into the night.
He quickly made his decision, what he needs the most is a super power. After all, it is the Galactic era, where the espers are granted unlimited privileges and favours. You could hold your head high anywhere you go, not to mention the monthly bonus that is paid to you by the United Government. Most importantly, next year is the Galactic Meet, the competition where Earth lost its strongest hero, Ke Lake. Due to the lack of any new supreme talents right now, it is not impossible for Earth to lose and become a colony for another planet.
Although it’s called being the colony of another planet, the actual relationship will be more like slavery. Earth’s resources will be exploited, and its people will no longer have rights. As he thought of the possibility of becoming someone’s slave, he felt a chill down his spine.
However, he can avoid this fate if he obtains a superpower. Even if Earth becomes the colony of another planet, he can still leave and travel to another planet to live because espers are not bound by the same rules. While ordinary humans can’t even apply for a galactic passport and are stuck at Earth, people with super powers can travel without restrictions.
Super power originates from source energy, and the ones that have powers usually already had it since they were born. But Han is already 16, far gone past the age to collect and cultivate source energy. If he was left alone, it was already certain that he will not obtain any super powers.
“Maybe the dark net can help.” Han thought.
He revisited the GDN, but this time Han went to the discussion forum instead of the market. All websites on the Dark Net were independent, and those well-established stores of course won’t need to advertise on the home page. They already have an established client base, so they didn’t need to take any unnecessary risks and could just hide in the depths of the dark net conducting their business. It’s hard to find these kinds of stores, but luckily there are always chatty posters on the forums that write posts to show off the awesome websites they’ve found.
People that visit forums all know that without the help of a search engine, it is very difficult to find what they are looking for in sea of threads and posts. The Dark net prohibits any indexing of pages, leaving Han no choice but to search page by page. Being the observant and conscious person he is, at the same time of going through pages to find posts on super power, Han also jotted down other websites recommended by people that could benefit him in the future.
Han has the determination and patience that normal people in his age doesn’t, and for the next three days and three nights, he spent no more than 4 hours sleeping and the rest all on navigating through the forums. The world of the dark net is too tempting, even when Han was resting, he was still thinking about those strange trades going down. The dark net soon took control of his life, and he spent even his time eating in front of the computer.
Finally, his hard work paid off, and on Han’s fifth day in a roll reading the forum posts, he discovered a key word that immediately grabbed his interest: Super power inheritance.
According to enthusiastic netizens, after the death of espers, their brains will transform into a crystalline substance. If someone ordinary can get their hands on this crystal, they can inherit the power of the esper who died. However this way of acquiring power is prohibited by the Galactic society, and not-surprisingly it is being sold publically on dark net, although the price is through the roof.
Han could barely contain his excitement and hastily opened the link posted on the thread, and was led to a page boldly titled the House of Inheritance. The name sounds really cool, and the page displayed lists of different color elliptical crystals about the size of an adult’s thumb.
“Combat Category: Normal Fire Type Power Inheritance, $10,000,000 GC”
The top listing on the first page already scared the crap out of Han… What is the equivalence of $10,000,000 GC? With that much money, he can buy at least a thousand young, healthy, and sexy female slaves, or a small galactic destroyer that could travel the galaxy. But on this “House of Inheritance” website, it is only enough to purchase a small crystal? That’s way too expensive.
Han continued on reading, “Combat Category: Normal Water Type Power Inheritance, $10,000,000 GC”
“Combat Category: High Level Water Type Power Inheritance, $35,000,000 GC”
“Combat Category: Elite Level Thunder Type Power Inheritance, $200,000,000 GC”
Han couldn’t help but shake his head, any combat category power inheritance was priced at a minimum of $10,000,000 GC, and there also existed crystals above a hundred million GC. Non battle type crystals are a bit cheaper but they were still unaffordable. The most basic calculation type power asks for a million GC, and any higher level sensory powers need at least three or four million GC.
If Han had money, he would for sure choose the best combat power on the market, who wouldn’t want to be the best? If you get those powers that helps you calculate math faster, you still won’t beat the quantum computer…
But the thing is, Han is broke, and he couldn’t even afford the power he didn’t even want to get in the first place.
After reading the instruction post on House of Inheritance, Han started worrying. It says that there is a limit to the time span in one’s life that one could inherit a power: range was 100 days before to 100 days after one’s 16th birthday. If you are too young, the shockwave when absorbing the power crystal can shatter you neuron connections and kill you; if you are too old, your brain has already fully developed and won’t be flexible enough to absorb any power crystals. If you want to successfully inherit the power, you need to use the crystal within the stated two hundred days period, not even one day earlier or later.
Five days ago, Han just had his 16th birthday, so that means he only has 95 days. If he cannot get a crystal within the next 95 days, he won’t be able to acquire any super powers in this lifetime.
“Holy crap, so much pressure!”, Han lightly clicked on the tab to arrange the crystals from cheapest first to see the least pricy choice available, since having some random useless power is still better than having none.
The list instantly refreshed, and the first item shocked Han. It was a bucket of black rocks, still labelled as power crystals even though they were not only ugly, but it was also impossible to tell what power any of them actually contained. As a result, the merchants had decided to sell them at the relatively minuscule price of ten thousand GC each.
“Isn’t this a bit irresponsible…” Han thought to himself. Actually, you can’t blame the seller, because the source all these power crystals was said to be through grave robbery. Basically, the merchants investigated which abilities the esper had and where these espers were buried, and then they find the right time to dig them up and take out the crystal inside their brain. But accidents do happen, and as people dig, they might have made a mistake and uncover some unknown corpse. The crystals in these unknown people’s brains were usually lower quality and also there appearances were usually uglier. Even the tiniest mosquito still had protein, as the saying goes, so these types of unknown crystals are still kept and sold for a discounted price. However, there is still another reason behind the cheap pricing: the better quality the power crystal, the more transparent it is and the more pure the color. Fire types are usually red, water types are usually blue, light types are white, and so on. These black rocks are usually the lowest quality inheritance crystals, not to mention that their power is unknown, and that’s why they are being sold for dirt cheap.
This reminded Han of a funny story Li Qi had told him a while back. Li Qi is from a business family and they traveled a lot and had a lot of acquaintances. Sometimes, these acquaintances also visited them. One day, an esper visited them. After all, the ratio of espers to ordinary people on Earth is around one in one hundred thousand, so Li and his family was very polite to this visitor, and asked him to stay for dinner to ask what kind of power he has. After knowing the answer, Li’s dad almost fainted: this guy’s power was actually the growth of teeth. So if he accidently loses a teeth, he will grow a new one within three days. What kind of power is growing more teeth? Does it enhance your chewing ability and help you eat more or something?!
Han sighed, these cheap rocks probably contains useless powers like teeth growth or something, but as he considered more, even that guy with the teeth growth power can still receive bonuses from the government, use flight and hotel services for free, and enjoy a lot more other benefits. Even though it sounds stupid, but he still gets tons of perks.
If Han buys one of those rocks for ten thousand GC, guess the luckiest he can be is a playboy.
Sigh, “I guess I should think about making more money first,” Han thought, because even those garbage abilities cost at least ten thousand GC.