[Account Credited: ₵5,785,000]
[Account Balance: ₵5,790,000]
Winston stared at the number for a mont, then kept walking.
He’d had five thousand credits before today — the accumulated savings of six years at the academy, built up through careful spending and not much else.
The energy stones from the pagoda had changed that in a single transaction.
Since they were Level 50 and above and each level was roughly equivalent to a thousand credits on the open market.
The math was straightforward.
’The life of a class holder is genuinely sothing else.’
He hadn’t included the Blood Emperor’s energy stone in the sale.
A Level 140 stone would have raised imdiate questions and the receptionist wouldn’t have been able to stay quiet about it, and within hours the detail would have connected publicly to the gate incident.
Winston wasn’t ready for that level of scrutiny yet. The Tier Four revelation was information he wanted to control the release of, not have it inferred from a market transaction.
He flagged a taxi and gave the address of Golden Estate.
The na belonged to the property managent company rather than any particular building, but the complex itself was exactly what Winston had been planning toward since his second year at Nightwing.
It sat in a stable district — low cri, good infrastructure — and more importantly, it was within close range of multiple fixed gates.
Easy access to the Astral Heaven was a non-negotiable for anyone serious about progression.
Winston had made his mind up about this location long before he had the money to act on it.
The housing agent t him at the entrance with a slightly strained smile.
"Mr. Winston, apologies for coming late. I didn’t expect an inquiry this evening."
"I prefer to handle things quickly."
The agent nodded, swallowed whatever else he might have said, and led Winston inside.
The apartnt was on an upper floor. Three bedrooms, clean modern layout, hardwood floors throughout.
The agent walked him through each room. There were two minimalist guest rooms, a master suite with its own bathroom and a storage that actually made sense.
Winston followed without many questions. He already knew what mattered.
They ended the tour in the main living space, and that was where the apartnt made its case.
Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the full length of the outer wall. The city spread out below in every direction, lights, movent, the faint glow of fixed gate markers visible at the district edges if you knew what to look for.
And with an added bonus the furniture was low-profile and unobtrusive.
The agent paused by the kitchen island.
"It looks even better with the city lights on, doesn’t it?"
Winston looked out at Key City from above — the city he had grown up in at ground level, in an orphanage, with nothing — and felt sothing settle quietly in his chest.
"I’ll take it."
[₵2,125,659 has been deducted from your account]
Winston looked at the deduction with a small frown that he didn’t quite manage to hide fast enough.
The agent noticed and his wide smile — the one that had replaced all the exhaustion from being called out past ten at night — dialed back slightly.
He studied Winston’s expression with the careful attention of soone trying to figure out if a sale was about to fall apart.
"Mr. Winston... is sothing wrong?"
Winston smoothed his expression and exhaled.
"Could the price have been rounded down at all?"
"..."
The agent stared at him. He had seen the news. He knew who Winston was. He was one of three Sacred class holders from the false gate incident, soone who had most likely deposited a significant sum from selling high-level energy stones.
He had assud, reasonably, that the paynt amount wasn’t the issue. Apparently he had completely misjudged the situation.
’He has a strange obsession with round numbers.’
The agent kept that thought firmly to himself, made so light conversation, handed Winston his card, and excused himself from the apartnt with professional grace.
Winston looked at the card before pocketing it. Timothy Shalamay, Golden Estate Residential Services.
He unpacked, which didn’t take long, since six years of dormitory living had kept his possessions minimal.
After that he took a cold shower and by the ti he finished he changed into a tight body hog and grey sweat pants before he dropped onto the bed, with the city lights still moving outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
After getting comfortable he picked up his phone and found a notification he hadn’t expected.
’I was added to a group?’
The admin was Zelda.
Zelda has created a group: The Trinity
Winston stared at the na and cringed visibly, alone in his new apartnt, with no one to witness it.
He opened the chat. Zelda had sent a brief explanation of why she’d made the group. Below it was a single response from Freya: ok.
’Her texts are even drier than the way she talks.’
Winston sent a sticker mocking the group na and set his phone down, expecting that to be the end of it.
Unfortunately the both of them ca online within thirty seconds.
Zelda: You have absolutely no right to mock anyone’s naming sense when your naming sense is similar to that of a webnovel protagonist.
Freya: Good evening, Winston.
Winston looked at both ssages, shook his head slowly, and started typing back.
❖❖❖❖
Winston was up at four.
His morning routine had been the sa since his second year at Nightwing — not because anyone had told him to build one, but because structure was the only thing that had consistently moved him forward when talent wasn’t doing the job.
Stretching, bodyweight work, then the jog to close it out.
Two hours of running, not two kiloters. The distinction mattered to him. Distance-based runs had a variable endpoint, finish early or late depending on pace, and the rest of the day’s schedule shifted accordingly.
Ti-based runs kept everything predictable. Winston liked predictable. It left less room for the kind of drift that wasted mornings.
The city was quiet at six. Key City’s streets had that particular early-morning stillness where the overnight crowd had gone ho and the dayti crowd hadn’t fully erged yet.
Winston moved through it at a steady pace, mind running through the week ahead, the Valerian training arrangent starting today, the Crucible in six days, the trigger conditions sitting open and waiting.
By the ti the two hours were up, he was back on his street and climbing toward his building.
The elevator opened and Winston stepped into the corridor. Soone was standing in front of his apartnt. Winston’s step didn’t slow but his attention sharpened imdiately.
Whoever this was, they were strong.
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