[Weapons Market — same time]

Kira with Predator’s Sense active in front of a maritime weapons stall.

The enchanted harpoon on the left:

[enchantment energy stable]

[designed to penetrate aquatic armor, activation radius adjustable]

[Good.]

*It can work for sea creatures and other pirate ships.*

The arrows in the center:

[Fifteen arrows designed to maintain trajectory underwater.]

[Each enchantment slightly different.]

*They’re not factory‑made, they’re handmade... Better.*

The net in the back:

[temporary paralysis enchantment for B‑rank creatures or lower.]

*Limited but useful as a containment tool.*

Kira pointed at the arrows, the harpoon, and the net.

"Those three."

The vendor looked at the arrows.

"The arrows are fifteen pieces. I don’t split them."

"All fifteen, then."

The vendor looked at the bow on Kira’s shoulder. Then at Kira.

"Are you a hunter?"

"Tracker."

"What level?"

Kira looked at him.

"Enough that you don’t ask questions and make sure you get a repeat customer after weeks."

The vendor nodded slowly.

"Fair price, then."

Alex arrived at that moment with Grim.

"Did you buy already?" 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"Yes." Kira put away the arrows. "Twenty minutes well spent."

"Without comparing prices?"

"Predator’s Sense already compared everything in the stall. Those three were the best."

Alex looked at her.

"Sometimes I forget you do that."

"You shouldn’t." Kira. "I’m the reason you’re still alive on three occasions I remember."

"Only three?"

"The ones I remember. There are probably more."

"Thank you, then... Should I say it out loud, or should I shout it?"

Kira smiled.

"Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea... I deserve it, after all."

Alex prepared to shout.

"THANK YOU, KIR...!!!"

Kira quickly put a hand over his mouth.

"You’re an idiot. Though I love you... Let’s get back to the girls before you draw more attention."

---

[Material Stall — east sector]

Raven in front of a man selling sea creature bones.

Not the kind of stall with a display case and sign. The kind of stall with a tarp on the ground and the vendor sitting on a box smoking something that smelled like burnt salt.

"What do you have from B‑rank and up?" asked Raven.

The vendor looked at her.

"What do you need them for?"

"To use them."

"For what?"

"For crafts for a paleontology museum... there’s no budget to dig up bones, so we do what we can."

The vendor processed that and smiled.

"Very well... Looks like you understand how this works. It’s no wonder you’re dressed like a captain."

"I have a Void Shark jaw. Storm Eel spine, B‑rank. Shadow Whale skull, A‑rank, but it’s fragmented."

"A fragmented skull works just as well. How many eel ribs do you have?"

"Twelve."

"All twelve. The jaw. And the skull."

The vendor started counting the price.

"Wait." Raven. "Do you have more from the same eel lot?"

"I have a complete spinal column in storage."

"That one too."

The vendor looked at her with the expression of someone who had just made the sale of the month without having planned it.

Emily arrived with a bag of sea plants in her hand.

She looked at the bones.

She looked at Raven.

"How many skeletons are you going to build?"

"Enough." Raven started putting the bones into her backpack.

"The ocean has more construction material than any territory on land."

"Doesn’t buying bones like that bother you?"

"No."

Emily processed that.

"Not even a little?"

"Not even a little."

---

[Sea Plant Garden — west sector]

Emily had found the garden by accident — a small shop tucked between a rope warehouse and a boat repair workshop, with plants hanging at the entrance that Emily had seen from the street and followed without a second thought.

Forty minutes later she was still there.

The owner — a gray‑haired woman with hands stained with sea soil — had stopped attending to her formally and was simply watching her move among the plants.

"This one." Emily pointed to a plant with translucent leaves. "What is it for?"

"Passive spiritual filter. Absorbs magical signatures from the environment. It doesn’t grow on land — it needs the ocean’s energy to live."

"What if I grow it in artificial saltwater?"

The woman looked at her.

"No one has tried."

"Interesting." Emily took two. "And this one here?"

Thirty minutes later Emily came out with a bag, three small pots, and the equivalent of an intensive course in marine botany.

Alex was waiting outside with Grim.

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Why didn’t you come in?"

"Because Grim said interrupting was a bad idea."

Emily looked at Grim.

**"You were learning something."** His crimson flames. **"That shouldn’t be interrupted."**

Emily smiled at Grim.

*There are moments when Grim understands things better than anyone,* she thought.

"Thank you, Grim."

**"You’re welcome."**

Alex looked at the bag of plants.

"Are all of them necessary?"

"All of them are interesting. It’s not the same thing, but it’s not incompatible either."

---

[Port Tavern — 1:30 PM]

The whole team gathered for the first time since they had come ashore.

A long table.

Port food — fried fish, rice with something none of them identified but tasted good, hard‑crust bread.

And at the next table over, a veteran sailor — sixty‑something years old, a hand with three fingers, an eye patch over his left eye that no one asked about — who had been looking at the group for ten minutes with the expression of someone who recognized something but hadn’t yet decided whether to mention it.

It was Max who spoke first.

"Something you want to tell us, friend?"

The sailor looked at them.

"Are you heading east?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you have the look of people heading east." The sailor. "And the young man’s hair —" he looked at Alex, "— isn’t natural."

Alex didn’t answer.

"The Three Currents Trench," said the sailor.

Jessica raised her pen.

---

"It’s halfway across the crossing. The ocean’s three main currents meet there — the northern, the southern, and the deep one."

"When they converge, they create an energy field that rises from the bottom."

"What kind of energy?" asked Jessica.

"The kind that affects magical powers." The sailor looked at the group.

"Those with active skills will notice they behave differently inside the Trench. Some get amplified. Others get suppressed. It depends on the source of the power."

"And the Fragments?" asked Jessica directly.

The sailor looked at her.

"What do you know about Fragments?"

"Pirates know more about what happens on land than you know about what happens at sea."