CHAPTER 101: YOUNG PEOPLE THESE DAYS...

The market lane after sunset were a completely different world from the daytime commercial bustle.

Magical lanterns cast everything in warm, shifting colors while spirit vendors hawked everything from enchanted jewelry to crystallized moonbeams.

The atmosphere was relaxed, almost festive, a perfect antidote to tournament intensity.

Floating orbs of light in every conceivable color drifted between stalls, their voices calling out deals and bargains with the kind of manic enthusiasm that only incorporeal beings could sustain indefinitely.

"Okay, new rule," Lia declared as they wandered between stalls. "We’re not allowed to discuss strategy, tactics, or anything remotely educational. This is purely about buying ridiculous things we don’t need."

"I can work with that restriction."

Their first stop was a vendor; a swirling ball of purple and gold light that bobbed excitedly as they approached.

It was selling what appeared to be bottled weather patterns, its voice high-pitched and slightly unhinged.

"Welcome, welcome, beautiful humans! I have storms! I have sunshine! I have that weird drizzle that makes everyone depressed but smells really nice!"

Lia immediately became fascinated by a small vial containing a miniature thunderstorm complete with tiny lightning and actual precipitation.

"It’s completely useless," she said with delight, watching the storm rage in its glass prison. "But I love it."

"Fifteen hundred AP!" the spirit declared, pulsing brighter. "For you, beautiful storm-appreciator, because your friend has the aura of someone who tips well!"

"Fifteen hundred?" Ren repeated slowly, his smile taking on a distinctly predatory edge. "For a bottled storm that serves literally no practical purpose whatsoever?"

The spirit’s glow flickered nervously. "Well, it’s... it’s very atmospheric!"

"Oh, it’s atmospheric alright." Ren picked up the bottle, examining it with the clinical detachment of someone dissecting a particularly disappointing exam answer.

"Let’s break this down, shall we? Materials cost—maybe two hundred AP for the bottle, enchantment framework, and magical preservation matrix.

"Standard weather manipulation spell, probably took you what, twenty minutes to cast? And you’re asking for a seven hundred percent markup?!"

"But... but the artistry!" the spirit sputtered, its colors shifting to anxious yellows and oranges.

"The artistry of trapping a weather pattern that occurs naturally every other day?" Ren’s tone remained conversational, almost friendly.

"Don’t get me wrong, it’s competent work. But you’re essentially selling us nature with a cork in it."

Lia watched in horrified fascination as Ren systematically demolished the vendor’s entire business model while maintaining the demeanor of someone commenting on particularly nice weather.

"Twelve hundred!" the spirit offered desperately. "And I’ll throw in a complimentary light drizzle!"

"Counter-offer," Ren said pleasantly. "Six hundred, and we’ll pretend we didn’t notice that your ’miniature thunderstorm’ is actually just an illusion spell layered over a basic water circulation charm."

The spirit’s glow dimmed to a mortified deep purple. "How did you—that’s completely—fine! Seven hundred! But only because your friend seems nice!"

"Six hundred," Ren repeated with the patience of someone explaining basic arithmetic to a particularly slow child.

"Or we’ll walk over to that vendor three stalls down who’s selling actual weather elementals for eight hundred."

"WHAT?!" The spirit spun frantically to look at the competition. "That’s impossible! Weather elementals cost at least—oh. Oh no. She’s got a special running."

Its voice dropped to a defeated whisper. "Six hundred. Take it. Please. I have seventeen children to feed."

"Spirits don’t have children," Ren observed mildly as he handed over the coins.

"We have... spiritual offspring! Very hungry spiritual offspring!"

As they walked away with Lia’s prize, she stared at Ren with a mixture of awe and terror. "That was the most ruthless display of commercial warfare I’ve ever witnessed. You made that poor spirit question its entire existence."

"Spirits don’t have existential crises. They have profit margins."

"You literally convinced it to sell at a loss while being polite about it!"

"I was extremely polite. I could have mentioned that their preservation matrix is going to fail in about three weeks."

Their next stop was a floating black top hat that was somehow managing to look dignified despite the fact that it was advertising "Mystical Mood Accessories for the Discerning Student."

"Ah, customers!" the hat proclaimed in a posh accent that would have impressed nobility. "I sense you’re people of refined taste who appreciate quality craftsmanship!"

"We’re broke prospectives looking for shiny junk," Lia said cheerfully.

"...I also have a clearance section," the hat admitted, its dignity deflating slightly.

Ren picked up a set of color-changing hair ribbons that responded to the wearer’s mood. "Interesting enchantment work. Emotion-responsive chromatic matrix with... is that a built-in mood stabilization charm?"

"Indeed!" the hat perked up immediately. "You have an excellent eye! Those ribbons don’t just change color—they actively help regulate emotional fluctuations! Revolutionary therapeutic applications!"

"So they’re medical devices being sold as fashion accessories without proper licensing," Ren mused. "Fascinating liability exposure you’ve got there."

The hat’s color shifted to a nervous gray. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"Two thousand AP seems steep for unlicensed therapeutic equipment," Ren continued thoughtfully. "Especially considering the academy’s strict policies about unregulated magical medical devices on campus."

"I could do fifteen hundred?" the hat offered weakly.

"Or," Ren said with devastating reasonableness, "you could do eight hundred, throw in that temperature-regulating scarf, and we’ll forget this conversation ever happened."

"Deal!" the hat practically shouted. "Please take them! I don’t want any trouble with the authorities!"

As they walked away with their purchases, Lia shook her head in amazement. "You’re going to single-handedly crash the spirit vendor economy."

"Competitive pricing benefits everyone," Ren replied serenely.

Their shopping expedition continued with Ren demonstrating an increasingly terrifying talent for identifying exactly what each spirit vendor was most insecure about and leveraging it into ridiculous bargains.

A crystal that played whatever music you were thinking about? Originally five hundred, negotiated down to one hundred and twenty after Ren casually mentioned that the thought-reading enchantment probably violated several privacy laws.

A scarf that maintained perfect temperature regardless of weather? Three hundred reduced to hundred when Ren pointed out that the thermal regulation matrix was identical to ones used in standard academy dormitory heating systems.

"You’re like a commercial predator," Lia observed as they shared street food from a vendor—a cheerful green orb—who had practically given them free samples after Ren spent five minutes discussing the regional spice variations and somehow convinced it that they were food critics.

"I prefer ’informed consumer,’" Ren said, sampling their questionably legal magical pastries.

"That poor hat spirit looked like it was going to cry."

"Spirits don’t cry. They just dim dramatically."

"Same emotional impact!"

They found themselves in a quieter section of the market, where artistic vendors displayed handcrafted items under softly glowing magical lights.

The atmosphere was intimate, almost romantic—a sharp contrast to the bustling commercial energy of the main lanes and Ren’s systematic destruction of vendor profit margins.

"Can I ask you something?" Lia said as they examined a display of impossibly delicate glass sculptures being sold by what appeared to be a floating monocle with artistic pretensions.

"Sure."

"Do you ever feel bad about completely demolishing those vendors’ pricing strategies?"

Ren considered this seriously. "I’m not actually cheating them. These spirits are programmed by their owners to start with inflated prices specifically designed to exploit academy students."

He gestured back toward the main market lanes where other students were clearly overpaying for similar items.

"They’re counting on our lack of knowledge about actual material costs, our rich family backgrounds—which most students have—and the fact that most people are terrible at haggling."

"So you’re... leveling the playing field?"

"Exactly. When I negotiate down to six or eight hundred AP, that’s still a reasonable profit margin over actual costs. The spirits aren’t upset about losing money—they’re upset about losing the massive markup they were hoping to extract from uninformed customers."

Lia blinked. "So all that dramatic deflating and nervous color-changing..."

"Is programmed behavior designed to make customers feel guilty for negotiating. Classic psychological manipulation."

Ren’s expression was matter-of-fact. "The purple spirit with the weather bottles? It’s probably made more profit tonight than it usually does in a whole day, even with our ’aggressive’ bargaining."

"Oh good," Lia said with obvious relief. "I was starting to worry you had some secret villainous side where you enjoy financially ruining innocent magical creatures."

"You thought I was capable of economic cruelty?" Ren asked with mock hurt. "After all this time knowing my amazing, wonderful, inspiring, morally upstanding personality?"

"Well, you did make that hat spirit sound like it was having an existential crisis."

"That was educational theater! I was helping it understand market dynamics." He grinned at her skeptical expression. "You really should trust my impeccable character more. I’m clearly a paragon of virtue and fairness."

"Your ’impeccable character’ just spent twenty minutes systematically destroying every vendor’s confidence in their pricing structure."

"With scrupulous attention to ethical business practices," Ren countered smoothly. "Really, Lia, your faith in me is touching."

"My faith in you is perfectly calibrated, thank you very much." But she was smiling now, the tension from earlier completely dissolved.

"Though I admit, watching you explain profit margins while being genuinely fair about it was... unexpectedly attractive."

"Unexpectedly?" Ren raised an eyebrow. "I’ll have you know that ethical market analysis is one of my most charming qualities."

Lia felt something shift in the space between them.

The easy friendship and undeniable chemistry that had been building for weeks, combined with this playful banter and watching Ren navigate complex social systems with both intelligence and integrity, suddenly crystallized into something more immediate and dangerous.

"Ren," she said quietly.

"Yeah?"

Instead of answering, she stepped closer and kissed him.

Not the sensual, horny, steam-fogged encounter from their shared shower, but something deliberate and honest that tasted like magical pastries and the satisfaction of discovering that someone could be both strategically brilliant and genuinely good.

When they broke apart, Ren’s carefully maintained analytical detachment had completely evaporated, replaced by something raw and genuine that made her heart race.

"That was..." he started.

"Completely unstrategic?" she suggested with a smile.

"Perfect," he corrected, pulling her closer for another kiss that lasted long enough to scandalize the nearby monocle vendor, who muttered something about "young people these days" in a distinctly disapproving tone.