The corridor outside the auction hall was louder than it should have been.
Not because people were shouting, but because everything moved at once—buyers leaving, handlers guiding transactions, runners carrying stones between secured sections. Conversations overlapped without forming anything clear, just fragments of deals, prices, and complaints.
Riven stepped into the flow without slowing down.
He kept his head level, eyes forward, the same way he always did after a sale. Draw attention, and someone would try to squeeze more out of you—fees, cuts, "processing delays." It wasn't worth the trouble.
The strand was still there.
He focused on it again as he walked.
Nothing had changed. It felt the same as before—thin, incomplete, doing absolutely nothing on its own. When he tried to push it, shape it, or activate it, there was no response.
It didn't even feel like a skill.
Just a piece of one.
Riven exhaled slowly and pushed through the exit doors. The air outside was cooler, carrying the usual mix of dust and distant noise from the lower districts. The auction building sat at the edge of the commercial zone, where official trade ended and everything else began.
He didn't head home.
Instead, he turned toward a narrow side street that cut between two storage buildings. The path led to a small cluster of vendor stalls—nothing formal, just people selling whatever they could get their hands on.
Skill stones. Empty ones, mostly.
Exactly what he needed.
The stalls weren't crowded. Most buyers preferred verified sellers or official channels, even if it cost more. The people here didn't offer guarantees. You paid, you took the risk, and you didn't come back complaining.
Riven stopped at a table lined with dull gray stones, each one about the size of his palm. Their surfaces were rough, faintly marked from dungeon extraction, but empty. No light inside them.
The man behind the stall barely looked up. "Five hundred each."
"Too high," Riven said, picking one up and turning it in his hand. The surface was intact, no visible cracks. "These came from outer zones. Half of them won't even hold a transfer properly."
"Then don't buy them," the man replied without interest.
Riven set the stone down, then reached for another, checking its weight and balance. Same quality. Not great, but usable.
"I'll take two for seven hundred."
The man glanced at him, then at the stones. "Eight."
Riven didn't respond immediately. He set one stone down, kept the other in his hand, and let the silence stretch just long enough to make it clear he wasn't desperate.
"Seven-fifty," the man added.
Riven nodded once. "Fine."
The exchange was quick. Credits transferred, stones handed over, no unnecessary words. That was how most of these deals worked.
He slipped the stones into his bag and moved on, heading toward a quieter section of the street.
A few minutes later, he found what he was looking for—a narrow alley that curved out of sight from the main path. It wasn't completely empty, but no one paid attention to someone standing off to the side as long as he wasn't causing trouble.
Riven leaned back against the wall and pulled one of the stones out.
Still empty.
Good.
He held it in his palm, letting his focus settle.
The strand responded immediately, becoming clearer in his awareness.
He hesitated for a second.
Up until now, everything had happened without him understanding it. Pulling the strand out of the skill hadn't required effort. It had just… worked.
This wouldn't be the same.
He looked down at the stone again.
If the strand needed a base, this was the closest thing he had. Empty, stable, meant to hold something.
That should be enough.
Riven tightened his grip slightly and focused on the strand.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the stone reacted.
A faint flicker of light appeared inside it, weak and unstable, like something trying to take shape but failing to settle.
Riven straightened slightly, attention sharpening.
The strand shifted, as if it was trying to align with something that wasn't there.
[No core skill detected]
[Binding failed]
The light inside the stone flickered once more and went out.
Riven let out a quiet breath, lowering his hand.
That answered one question.
The strand alone wasn't enough.
He stared at the stone for a moment, then tried again, pushing the strand harder this time.
The same result.
A brief flicker. No structure. No stability.
[Insufficient structure]
[Binding requires core skill]
Riven frowned, running the result through his head.
He needed a complete skill first. Something stable. Then he could add to it.
Not build from nothing.
That made sense.
He leaned back against the wall again, the stone still in his hand. The strand remained where it was, unchanged, waiting.
It wasn't useless.
It just wasn't ready to be used yet.
Riven slipped the stone back into his bag and stepped out of the alley.
The noise of the street returned immediately, but it felt different now. The stalls, the buyers, the constant flow of stones moving from hand to hand—none of it looked the same.
Every skill being traded here was more than what it seemed.
They weren't just selling abilities.
They were selling parts.
Riven moved through the crowd at a steady pace, his thoughts already shifting ahead.
If he needed a core skill, then he would have to get one. He wasn't going to use one of his own skills because of the obvious uncertainty.
He couldn't get something expensive.
Something cheap.
Something no one cared about.
Because if he was going to test this properly, he wasn't going to risk more than he could afford to lose.
And this time, he wasn't planning to sell it.