-Radiant-

I don't have anything else to do today after I finish with this. I winced as my wrists burned in pain as I rode in the autonav. Well, maybe just resting would be a good idea. Resisting space magic with just mana resistance is too strenuous on my body; and masking my mana signature right after might have been a bit too much for my body to handle.

I couldn't help but sigh again as I recalled how impulsive I had been earlier. Sure I had checked beforehand with divination if it was going to be dangerous, but social 'danger' isn't really something that a non-specific divination for danger looks for. So even though the divination told me there wouldn't be any danger, that shouldn't have given me the confidence I had.

I looked out the window at the city sights racing by in my nice new clothes I had gotten from a clothing store I had quickly visited. They were nothing too fancy, but they were definitely better than what I had been using before; though that was more because the clothes I had gotten from the Dungeon of Tribulation were a bit dubious to wear, due to them being looted from the dead and all.

As I looked at the passing city sights, I couldn't help but have a few doubts pass through my mind. This is making me question my own thought processes. I previously just dismissed my reckless behavior in the Dungeon of Tribulation as decisions made under duress, but this latest debacle was clearly not the same, and yet I was still reckless. I like to think of myself as a calm and rational person, but now I'm not so certain that's true.

But I didn't have much time to think, as the autonav sped through the city and quickly arrived at the shop I was recommended to go to by Yesemio and Minex. The clothes shop I already went to did have masks that weren't anything special, but this store was located at the edge of the shopping district and was apparently a suitable place where I could get a good mask.

I got out of the autonav and made my way to stand in front of the shop called 'V's Chaotic Shop'. The shop wasn't anything like what I had come to expect based off of the surrounding buildings, with it being off of the noisy, colorful, and vibrant ad-covered streets most of the shopping district was littered with. It was sitting tucked away in an alleyway like some kind of secret shop.

I walked inside without any fanfare, and my first impression of the place was that it was less like a shop, and more like browsing someone's private collection; with the first floor having many different display cases locking away various clothing type artifacts.

As I walked farther in, I saw a middle aged looking man sitting behind a counter near the front of the store. Looking over the Human middle aged man, I saw that he had slightly greying hair, and grey eyes that looked confident and very sure of himself, with a slight scar on his left cheek and jaw that was mostly covered up by his full beard. He looked like a man that had gone through some adversity, yet he had smile wrinkles near his eyes, indicating that he had smiled often too.

He was listening to the radio while enjoying lunch, and he looked up when I entered the store. After wiping his mouth and turning down the radio, he said, "Welcome, I haven't seen you here before. Feel free to look around my shop for anything. I'd show you around myself, but I'm in the middle of lunch."

"No problem sir. I'll just look around on my own for a while."

The man nodded and went back to enjoying his food as he turned the radio back up. While I started to slowly walk through the isles of crystal cases.

There were many different types of cases, but each of them only held one object. I casually looked at some of the items I passed, and read their short descriptions printed on papers that were lazily stuck on the outside of the cases with tape.

The first one I took notice of was a thin black leather jacket with white double stripes down its left and right front and back and arms, with the paper simply reading: a coat artifact that gives a shield. Next to it was a glove artifact that looked like wrapped bandages, with the paper saying: allows the user to control gases and loose material to an extent.

Fascinated by how useful, but also vague, the effects sounded, I moved onto the next one. Inside the crystal case was an extremely ugly looking trapper hat that looked like it was covered in dried blood, with the fur the hat was made out of looking like it was made from a variety of different animals. Its description read: a hat artifact that can 'pause' the energy/movement of things around the user (Note: it only works on things with/made out of blood).

I raised my eye at the strange artifact. Although a person didn't necessarily have to wear the artifact to use it, and it was almost guaranteed that this artifact wasn't going to be worn by any person with a sane fashion sense, since even just having such a weird artifact was bound to draw the wrong kind of attention. I shook my head and continued to browse, finding extreme satisfaction just looking at all the artifacts.

As I felt my TechnicMorph instincts sing to me while walking through the isles, I heard something interesting on the radio the man was listening to.

'The growing crime rates in the city have made many of the citizens uneasy. When asked about the rising crime rates, the officers and officials answered that they have some of their best people looking into it, but currently they can't disclose any information. This somewhat noncommittal answer has led some to speculate that the officers might be investigating the Rebels again, though no confirmed evidence has been collected.'

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At this statement on the radio there came a sound, "Hah!"

I raised my eyebrow at the sudden noise, and turned to the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper, seeing my gaze, said, "Those busybodies only know how to sensationalize things nowadays. Before The New World appeared, everyone had more important things to worry about than petty crimes."

I smiled at the shopkeeper's outspoken nature. The New World huh? Apparently it only appeared roughly twenty-five years before I arrived in this world, though I haven't had much interaction with it.

In any case, I didn't have anything to comment on in regards to the shopkeepers statement, so I just went back to browsing the artifacts.

The artifacts were nothing like the crafted artifacts I was most familiar with, and after a quick question to the shopkeeper, I learned that all of the artifacts in the shop were actually Dungeon artifacts. This somewhat surprised me, and led to me browsing the various artifacts for longer than I originally planned, though I did eventually find something I wanted to buy.

Inside one of the crystal cases was a black mask that I could pull down over my head to cover my entire face and neck like a ski mask. But, unlike a ski mask, this mask didn't have any holes for the eyes or anything. It made me wonder why anyone would want to wear it if they wouldn't be able to see out of it.

By this point the shopkeeper had already finished his lunch, and when I asked him about it he told me that the outside of the mask was 100% permeable (with some exceptions), whereas the inside of the mask was the complete opposite and was completely impermeable (with some exceptions).

The shopkeeper told me to just think of it as a hard to remove, one way mask that didn't show the person's face, but still allowed the person to breathe and generally do everything as if there wasn't a mask on.

It was exactly what I was looking for when I came to this place.

In the future message, I read that previous Radiants would just buy a mundane mask and use some Collected Potential to make the mask have the property of not coming off unless purposefully taken off. In comparison, this artifact mask was exorbitantly expensive, but that was much preferable to spending my Collected Potential, after all a problem that could be solved by money wasn't a problem.

And a mask artifact like this is extremely rare, not because it's unmakeable, but because it would be too wasteful to make one when a regular mask would accomplish the exact same thing this mask does. Of course making a mask artifact that has other properties, like obscuring one's identity or other concepts that a mask would be particularly aligned with, would be regulated or even contraband goods. So a mask artifact like this that was essentially just a really convenient and useful regular mask is wastefully extravagant and unnecessary.

But I don't care, I have a lot of money. It's basically a guaranteed effect of being a time traveler, at least if you're competent. However, I had only withdrawn so much money from the bank earlier, and the amount of money I currently had on me was actually a little less than the posted price of the mask.

I started rubbing my chin and wondering if I could use something in my Internal World to make up for the missing cash, but the shopkeeper must've noticed my distress and said, "What's the problem lad? Are you looking to buy that mask?"

"Ah, yes. But I'm afraid that the money I have on me is a little bit short of the listed price."

"A little short? How much?"

"About five thousand. And with taxes on top, it's much more than that."

"Indeed, that is a bit of a price difference. However I already factored in the tax when I put those notes on the cases, so the amount you're behind is only the five thousand."

I let out a breath, "Phew, that's good. But it still means I'm behind."

"Hmm, that's true." He looked at me as if considering something, "How about this, why don't you tell me what you need the mask artifact for, and if your answer satisfies my curiosity then I'll deduct the five thousand."

I raised an eyebrow, "An answer that satisfies your curiosity. Is that worth five thousand?"

"Oh, absolutely. It has nothing to do with the fact that you saved Minex and his wife."

"Ah. OK." So it's because of Minex and Yesemio. I wonder if they called him or something, saying that I would come by sometime.

I paused for a moment thinking of my answer, "Well I don't know how much you've heard, but I ran into Minex and his team not long after I had escaped from some of my own trouble.

"To keep it simple, I'm currently trying to hide my identity from some people that don't have the best intentions towards me. I'm not overly worried about being found at the moment, but as time goes on, the less people that know my face the better."

He nodded, "I see. Well your answer has sufficiently sated my curiosity; so if you still want it, that mask is now five thousand off."

I smiled, "Thank you. By the way, I haven't gotten your name?"

"Haha, my friends call me eccentric, but my name is Victor."

"Eccentric? Is it because of the strange artifacts you've got?"

He smiled, "I guess you could say that. After all, this isn't even a small part of my whole collection. These are just the items I'm willing to part with for a bit of money."

I found Victor to be a somewhat eccentric man myself, and I casually chatted with him as I bought my mask artifact. While I walked out of the door, I couldn't help but feel that there was something familiar about the man, but nothing was coming to me at the moment.

I dismissed the passing feeling, and pulled out my new cell to call an autonav. It had stopped raining a while ago, but the clouds in the sky were still a heavy grey as I walked out of the alleyway.

My planned goals for the day were now all finished, and my pocket money had all been used up. But I still had a few more things to do before heading back to my hotel, so another visit to the bank was in order. The test I had to take was tomorrow, but I still hadn't fully prepared myself. Hopefully my wrist injuries won't hold me back too much, but this test was too important to gamble on, so I would have to prepare a few more things before tomorrow.

Today was looking to be a busy day.

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