The next day, Saurai woke up early.
Even though he had wanted to study more last night, he decided against it. He didn't know how the next day would turn out, and he wanted to be prepared. He knew how important sleep was for that.
After freshening up, he met up with Bryn and Coral. Together, they went to the dormitory AI to get a special access code. Once they flashed their identities, they received authorization. The three of them were granted limited-time access to go outside the academy.
They left the academy building, and as they moved through the corridors, everything began to change. The paths were wider and cleaner, lined with dull gold veins of circuitry that pulsed softly like a living nervous system. Here, the structure seemed to be built upside down. The deck was considered the "ground floor," and the numbered floors began downward from there.
They took a lift from the residential zone to the first floor, but from that point onward, they had to take the stairs. It was long, winding ones that spiraled upward like a coiled shell trying to reach the heavens.
As they climbed, Saurai couldn't help but notice how many floors there really were. Far more than what they had ever seen in the training maps.
Artemis-5 wasn't a ship. That word now felt too small.
It was more like a floating metropolitan city.
There were many lifts on the first floor, and people were coming out in organized rows. Some were with their families. Some were in groups like them.
Coral nudged Saurai. "Did you see the merchants' lifts?"
Saurai shook his head. "No."
"They're somewhere else," Coral explained. "They're massive big enough to carry hundreds of people at once."
They all moved forward, joining a stream of people climbing the main stairway.
Steel bones and fiber-optic veins stretched upward and downward beyond their field of view. The echo of their footsteps rang faintly in the vast, towering space. No wonder students rarely got access to this area because the academy was just a small slice of a much greater whole.
By the time they reached the top, Saurai was breathless not from fatigue, but from anticipation.
The stairwell ended at a massive airlock-style door, glimmering with heat shielding and embedded sensor nodes. It opened with a hiss, and light flooded in.
But it wasn't artificial light.
It was real light.
Warm, raw sunlight.
The three of them stepped through into a place that felt like a different world.
The deck of Artemis-5 was a sprawling expanse of reinforced plating and smooth, wind-worn tiles, far wider than any school courtyard Saurai had ever seen. Protective shielding domes arched overhead, but most of them were now transparent, revealing the sky above. It was real, open sky, tinged soft pink with fading clouds and a distant horizon that shimmered like melted glass.
Saurai froze.
He inhaled.
The air wasn't recycled. It wasn't stale or filtered through layers of machines. It was cool. Crisp. And full of life. There was a salty scent in it. real salt. The tang of the sea that Artemis-5 hovered above. His lungs didn't quite know what to do with it at first.
He looked up, lifting a hand to shield his eyes.
The sun wasn't harsh, but it was radiant. Warm. Not the cold glare of LED lights from the academy below. A wash of real sunlight bathed the deck in a soft golden hue.
It hit him hard.
He hadn't seen the sky since transmigrating. Not once. And now that he was seeing it so he realized how much he had missed it.
He now realised why it's called " Skybound Market".
"Wow," Bryn murmured beside him. "It's brighter than I remember."
Coral laughed. "That's because you never leave your room, fatty."
"I'm not!" Bryn started, but the words melted into a grin.
They followed the pathway toward the market area which was a raised zone filled with tents and stalls. Some were high-tech; others looked like they belonged in an ancient bazaar, cloth canopies tied to metallic poles. The ground was bustling with people, merchants shouting, and colors flashing.
The smells hit Saurai all at once grilled eel, fried root vegetables, sweet nut pastes, mixed with the acrid scent of monster resin and cleaning oils. Stalls offered exotic meats, monster parts, glittering vials, preserved organs, and glowing samples of unknown bio-substances.
"Are markets held on the deck every day?" Saurai asked curiously.
"No," Coral replied. "They only set up here if the weather's clear and the disaster level is below three. If the level rises, everyone packs up and leaves immediately."
"What do they do then?" he asked.
"Most merchants have permanent shops in the shopping districts," Coral explained. "They come to the deck mostly during holidays because lots of people gather here."
Saurai tried to take it all in and still couldn't.
The Skybound Market
Stalls lined both sides of a winding path like a floating bazaar. One sold fang-polished tools, another offered monster scale fragments compressed into armor plates. Bright glass cases displayed monster eyes in preservation fluid and some of them still blinking faintly. Other stalls sold pickled sea-plants, pheromone candies made from jellyfish slimes, and ornate jars of bio-ink used in advanced research tattoos.
Many of the items Saurai recognized from his studies. But just as many were new, mysterious, strange.
Coral and Bryn's families also owned shops here. Saurai didn't know much about them yet, but they planned to visit those stalls later that day.
Coral was bouncing between booths, chatting with merchants she seemed to know. Bryn followed behind, pointing at various items and marveling out loud.
Saurai lagged a little, lost in thought.
Then he saw it.
A small, almost hidden booth tucked away in a corner.
No glowing signs. No shouting vendor. Just a clean display of sealed pressure capsules containing monster organs and rare sea flora. Next to them a clearly labeled and were names and diagrams.
He stopped in his tracks.
Moltenblood Spine Root. Sea Serpent Tendon. Abyss Coral Eye.
Exactly as he remembered them.
He stepped closer, eyes scanning the labels. These were the materials shown in his secret memory chip. Each one was part of a compound enhancer formula.
One combination could increase muscle strength and speed up recovery. Another would enhance neural response in high-pressure zones. A third could purge poison-type biogels from contaminated land.
The chip had included exact quantities, safe thresholds, and preparation methods. This wasn't just science.
This was power.
The vendor gave him a nod and began explaining the items.
Saurai backed away.
His watch scanned one of the items: 6500 points.
His stomach sank.
Even if he wanted it, the pricing conversion made it impossible. Academy points didn't transfer directly. If he used outside points in the academy, the exchange rate was 100:1. If he used academy points outside, the ratio was 1:10. It wasn't worth it.
And right now… he barely had the required points.
Bryn, noticing him staring, leaned closer. "You've been looking at stuff all day, but you haven't bought anything."
Saurai hesitated.
"If you need points, I can lend you some," Bryn said casually. "Just say the word."