Rajendra didn't panic. The scale of the Fragment Hall would break a normal mind. It just made his focus sharper.
He watched the entities flow toward the auction. Their movements weren't random. They had purpose. He analyzed them not as aliens, but as competitors. What were their tells? The gas-cloud pulsed faster when interested. The insectoid's mandibles clicked in a specific sequence before making a bid. The tree-trader's roots glowed when assessing value.
He wasn't here to gawk. He was here to learn.
He glided away from the main concourse, into a quieter annex. Listings here were darker. Not illegal—concepts like 'legality' were meaningless here—but aggressive.
Mercenary Contractor Framework - Standard Galactic Template
Cost: 2 Sovereign Credits
He focused. The System provided a data burst. It wasn't a list of soldiers for hire. It was the blueprint for how to structure a private, deniable, multi-species military force. Command hierarchies, payment systems in mixed currencies, legal loopholes to exploit across planetary jurisdictions, standard contract clauses for atrocity denial.
He didn't buy it. He studied the structure.
Next listing:
Belief System Weaponization - Case Study: The Creed of Absolute Consumption
Cost: 1.5 Astral Marks
Another data burst. A clinical dissection of how a primitive ancestor-worship cult on a Tier-2 world was systematically twisted into a fanatical engine for resource extraction and population control. The memetic triggers. The ritual reinforcements. The economic levers. It was a step-by-step guide to manufacturing a religion for profit and power.
Suryananda's "Iron Mother" was a child's finger-painting compared to this.
He moved on.
Non-State Logistics & Sovereignty Evasion Protocols
Cost: 3 Sovereign Credits
This was it. The advanced course. MAKA was a smuggler's network. This was the theory of building a sovereign logistics entity that existed in the blind spots of stellar nations. How to use corporate charters as camouflage. How to bribe with data instead of money. How to turn a trade route into a fact of life, then into a law.
Rajendra's mind, upgraded and racing, didn't just understand. It synthesized.
He didn't need to buy the alien mercenaries. He needed to understand how their contracts worked, so he could build his own version with human material.
He didn't need the psychic vampire nest. He needed to grasp how emotions could be harvested and weaponized, so he could guard against it—or use the principle himself.
He didn't need to sell Earth's biodiversity. He needed to learn how such an assessment was made, so he could inflate Earth's perceived risk-to-reward ratio, making it a toxic, unappealing asset.
The goal crystallized, cold and clear: Upgrade Earth's defensive value by mastering the attacker's playbook.
A presence manifested beside him. Not an entity, but a localized ripple in the Hall's data-field. A communication channel opened, raw and direct.
Query: Persistent observation of foundational frameworks. Intent: Analysis or acquisition?
The "voice" was genderless, a packet of pure meaning. It came from no visible source. A moderator? A curious senior merchant?
Rajendra's avatar remained still. Deception here was likely impossible. He sent back a packet of his own, stripped of emotion, pure utility.
*Intent: Analysis. Tier-0 host assessing scalable adaptation methodologies. No current acquisition capacity.*
A pulse of something that might have been analytical approval.
*Logical. Caution: Framework application without cultural calibration induces systemic collapse. Observed in 73% of Tier-1 attempted integrations.*
A warning. A free one.
*Acknowledged. Calibration is the primary variable, Rajendra returned.
The presence rippled and faded. The interaction lasted three seconds. He had passed some minimal test. He hadn't been ejected.
He had what he needed. The inspiration wasn't a product. It was a perspective.
He looked back toward the grand auction chamber, a nexus of blinding transactional energy. He felt no desire to join it. Not yet. Let them trade singularities and legions. He had found a quieter, more dangerous market: the market for ideas that become weapons.
He triggered the disengagement protocol.
The fractal sky, the shimmering pillars, the alien merchants—they bled away into streaks of light, then into the silent, dark familiarity of his bedroom.
He was back. Sitting on the floor. The smell of jasmine. The hum of the fan.
But everything was different.
He opened his eyes. They were no longer the eyes of a man trying to win a game on a single board. They were the eyes of a merchant who had just seen the entire casino floor, memorized the dealer's tells, and was now calculating the odds of breaking the house.
He stood up. His body felt light. The idle dread was gone, replaced by a silent, terrifying energy.
Strategic recklessness wasn't about being stupid. It was about changing the battlefield to one where only you knew the rules.
He walked to the window, looking out at the sleeping Pune street. A dog barked in the distance. A scooter puttered by.
I don't need alien soldiers, he thought again, the idea now a solid foundation.
I need alien methods.
And he now knew where to shop for them.
The first phase of his awakening was complete. The Fragment Hall had not shown him his weakness. It had shown him his path.
It was time to restructure. Time to unchain MAKA. Time to stop hiding his ambition from the void.
He turned from the window. A plan, vast and cold, was already unfolding in the new, limitless space of his Level 7 mind.
The quiet was over. The preparation had begun.