As Adyr watched the stream rising from the ground, a small disappointment settled in. The islet wasn't the living creature he had hoped for; it wasn't a Spark, and the green liquid welling to the surface wasn't blood. Even so, it was a rare resource he had once seen in the market district.

Back then, it was sold in small containers, priced at about 2–3 energy worth of crystals per liter, as far as he remembered.

Judging by the liquid pooling along the wound and by the islet's overall size, Adyr estimated a subsurface reservoir of roughly 5,000–7,000 liters inside this chunk of land.

"Apart from its value, it's an underground stream. If I can adapt it to one of my own islands, I can create a completely natural wind environment."

He did not yet have a subdued Spark that required such a habitat, but as a future asset, it looked like a sound investment.

He moved quickly from idea to execution. Adyr's Earth-side body handled procurement first: 50-liter barrels from the Player Headquarters shop, sturdy enough to store a liquid known to generate ambient air currents around itself.

To extract the flow cleanly, he also purchased a pump capable of vacuuming the fluid and filling those containers.

After the spending—especially considering how many swords he had bought so far, even with a 75% discount—his merit balance showed 1,250 remaining.

"Never mind. I'll hand over some of this liquid and other resources to the Research Team in exchange for merit," he decided as he descended into the Player Headquarters depot.

Merit points were no longer a pressing concern for him or for the government, yet he still preferred to work within the system and reinforce an image of being selfless and consistently contributing to humanity.

I can speak with the 12 City Managers about this. Maybe merit can replace credit as actual money, not only inside the Player Headquarters but across the entire world.

A social system that paid everyone strictly according to measurable contribution appealed to him. In such a model, inherited fortunes and tycoons' capital would stop pooling in a few hands; value would flow through a central Merit Bank. That bank would issue spendable merit only for proven benefit to society, and in proportion to the impact delivered.

It could work. Or not…

Adyr was not naive. Changing the system—or the name of the currency—would not stop people from trying to capture it. Sooner or later, someone would bend it to their advantage. Before that happened, he intended to place the levers in his own hands, step by step.

If he controlled merit, the money of the future, he would control one of the cleanest tools for shaping people's behavior. It was, in a way, even a better control type than raw power itself.

Even on old Earth, when a new sultan or king ascended the throne, they replaced circulating coins with ones bearing their own name and seal, pushing them into common use. It strengthened authority and broadcast the image of power. Policy aside, there was a psychological return as well: every coin silently reminded the public who governed. Merit could serve the same function—if he owned its mint and its flow.

Labeling those ideas future plans and not a current priority, Adyr collected the tools from the depot and sent them to his other body.

He primed the gasoline pump; when the engine caught, its hard drone rolled across the islet. He lowered the intake into the fissure, and the green liquid rose, pouring into the large barrels he had staged.

Barrel after barrel filled. After about 1,000 liters, the air over the islet visibly shifted: the chaotic wind slackened, each gust weaker than the last.

When he finally drew off the last of the green liquid and screwed the cap onto the final barrel, the islet fell into complete stillness. The Sparks hovering just above the ground bristled at the sudden loss of their habitat, their movements tight, alert, and uneasy.

"Now let's see if I can catch you." After sending every barrel to his Sanctuary, he unfurled his wings and drove a powerful beat into the air, closing the distance to the nearest Bristleleg Leafbug in a single, direct line.

He extended his arm for a clean snatch, fingers poised to lock, intent on ending the chase in one motion.

As he expected, the Spark twitched to flee the instant it felt the threat. A moment ago, with the wind saturating the islet, it might have slipped free on a gust and ridden the air like a seed. Now, with the wind element stripped from its surroundings, the burst never came. Its acceleration faltered, its path flattened, and his hand closed around it with steady pressure.

The Spark bucked once, then went still, trapped in a grip that did not give it room to twist or slip.

Adyr examined the creature closely in his hand. It was a little larger than his palm yet almost without weight, a strange contradiction: a flattened, leaf-like body that felt rigid under his fingers, firm enough to resist gentle pressure despite its near-weightlessness.

Its thin, hair-fine legs quivered as if they could sense even the faintest shift in the air. The small, black head carried only 2 dark eye sockets and nothing else—no visible mouthparts, no antennae, no ornament—just that blank, watchful face.

After studying it from every angle and fixing each detail in memory, he drew a cloth bag from his belt, eased the captive inside, and pulled both cords until the knot bit tight.

The Spark's tremor traveled through the fabric and into his fingertips, a quick, insect-like shiver that faded as he tied off the ends. He did not linger. He pivoted and moved on to the next.

Soon, in a matter of moments, he captured all the Sparks one by one, even the one that tried to hide by using its camouflage to present itself as part of the soil. He placed all 5 into the cloth bag and slung it across his back.

It was not a good way to carry them. The bag would heat against his back, the Sparks would jostle, and their agitation could draw attention. Until he found a better method, or a way to transfer them to his Sanctuary without subduing them first, it would have to do. He took a breath, felt the bag settle, and set his eyes on the next objective.

Bringing the map from memory into sharp focus, Adyr angled toward the islet that had gripped his curiosity from the start, where a crumbled structure stood at its center—strange yet deliberate, a ruin that felt purposeful rather than accidental. Weather-scored stones ringed a sunken core, and the whole formed invited a closer look, as if it had been built to hide something singular.

So far, counting both the resources he had looted and the Sparks he had taken, he had spent more than 200 energy. In return, by market prices, the loot already in hand was worth roughly 15,000 to 25,000 energy. And that total came from the first 2 islets alone.

With that return already banked, he moved toward the ruin with a steady confidence, certain that as he progressed, he would uncover even more valuable finds.

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