Xavier stepped away from the counter and leaned against the wall, eyes unfocusing the way they always did when he pulled the system up. The shop didn't change, the surgeon didn't notice anything, but a translucent interface slid open in front of him like a private wound only he could see.
The dinsional store loaded fast. Categories stacked themselves neatly: biological augnts, restorative compounds, forbidden relics, conditional artifacts. He narrowed it down, filtered by regenerative class, cellular overwrite, legacy-grade substances. The list thinned, then thinned again, until it emptied out completely.
He frowned and typed the na in full.
Axiom Vitae Residuum.
The search spun for a second, then returned nothing. No alternatives. No "did you an." Just a blank result and a polite system tone that felt almost mocking.
Xavier scrolled anyway, slower this ti, and that was when he noticed the option at the bottom. Smaller font. Muted color. Easy to miss if you weren't already annoyed.
REQUEST ACQUISITION — NON-REFUNDABLE.
He opened it.
The terms weren't hidden. That almost made them worse. Independent retrieval. Cross-dinsional sourcing. Upfront commission required. No guarantee of success. No tiline commitnt. If the item was located, it would be listed privately for him. If it wasn't, tough shit. Resources, assets, and ti would still be considered spent.
He skimd the fine print again, then once more, slower. It could take days, weeks, and decades. A century, if that's how long it took. Paynt locked the mont he confird, and there was no appeal process worth the na.
Xavier exhaled through his nose and closed the panel without confirming. He wasn't cheap, but he wasn't stupid either. Paying in advance for a maybe, with no clock and no leverage, wasn't a gamble. It was a donation.
He turned back toward the surgeon, who was polishing an instrunt that looked older than the underworld itself. "So," he said, voice flat, "hypothetically speaking, if soone wanted that Axiom thing you ntioned, would they find it sowhere specific."
She didn't look up. "No."
"What about the Hidden market? Cult stash? Or so kind of Forgotten lab?"
"No."
"Maybe soone is hoarding it?"
She finally glanced at him. "If they were, they wouldn't be alive long enough to admit it."
That answer sat heavy, but before he could push further, his vision flickered. A system alert slid in at the edge of his awareness, subtle but unmistakable.
NEW SSAGE — DINSIONAL STORE: RCHANT INQUIRY.
Xavier blinked once, then opened it.
No sales pitch. No automated phrasing. Just a short line from a verified rchant account.
You searched for Axiom Vitae Residuum. Are you looking for the original compound, or an equivalent capable of full biological reversion?
Xavier stared at the ssage for a mont, then let a slow smile creep in.
He hadn't paid the commission. He hadn't agreed to anything. And yet soone had noticed.
He looked back at the surgeon. "You said no one has it."
She shrugged. "I said you wouldn't find it."
Xavier turned his gaze inward again, fingers hovering over the reply field. "Looks like soone might have found first."
Xavier opened the ssage thread and replied without dressing it up.
"What's the difference between the original and the equivalent?"
The response ca faster than he expected, like the rchant had been waiting with the window open.
[Original Axiom Vitae Residuum restores a biological state to its last genetically stable peak. Cellular mory is rewritten, scars and degradation erased. Side effects include temporary neural overload, identity dissonance, and loss of adaptive mutations acquired after the peak.]
Another line followed imdiately.
[Equivalent compounds vary. Vitae Fracta accelerates regeneration but does not rewrite cellular mory. Damage heals, but structural distortion remains. High failure rate under repeated trauma.]
Then more nas started stacking, one after another, clinical and ugly.
[Chroma Vitae — partial rewrite, unstable pigntation, sensory bleed, chronic pain in so species.]
[Genesis Ash — full reconstruction possible, but requires continuous intake. Withdrawal results in catastrophic cellular collapse.]
[Eidolon Serum — costic restoration only. No structural repair. Long-term neurological decay.]
Xavier exhaled slowly through his nose and dismissed half the list with a thought.
He looked back at the surgeon, who was still muttering while reviewing his scan results on her own equipnt. "Hypothetically," he said, keeping his voice casual, "if soone wanted their face restored to what it was before everything went to hell… fully restored… what would you even recomnd? I will give you nas of so compounds. Give a screen to write on."
She snorted without looking up. "Hypothetically? I'd recomnd they stop fighting for a living." She glanced at him, eyes sharp. "Nothing clean does that. Anything fast leaves scars inside even if the skin looks fine."
She slid a tab at Xavier, and he wrote the nas with all the details as written in the rchant's list.
Her finger tapped the screen once. "This one," she said, pointing at Vitae Fracta. "It'll make you look less like a walking warning sign, but it won't fix what matters. You'll still break the sa way."
She scrolled further, eyes narrowing. "Genesis Ash is for idiots with too much money and no plan to live long. Chroma Vitae is a gamble even I wouldn't take, and I've stitched heads back onto bodies that didn't ask for permission."
Her finger stopped at the first entry again. "The Axiom is best of all, as I told you. That's why it's rare. It doesn't just heal, it decides what you were ant to be before everything went wrong."
Xavier exhaled slowly. "And the side effects?"
She shrugged. "Your brain will scream for a bit. You might forget things that don't fit anymore. Or rember things you didn't know you lost. That's the price of a reset."
He leaned back, eyes drifting to the ceiling. "Figures the best option is also the one no one can sell openly."
The rchant sent another ssage, like they'd heard him thinking.
[If acquisition is successful, expect extre cost. Paynt will not be purely monetary.]
Xavier's mouth twitched. "Of course it won't be."
He locked the screen and looked back at the surgeon. "If I sohow got my hands on the real thing, you'd do it?"
She snorted. "I wouldn't stop you. Whether I'd help depends on whether you walk in or crawl."
Xavier nodded once. "Fair."
Xavier told the rchant that he needs Axion.
[We have that. What will you pay for it?]
Xavier responded that he would pay one justice point.
A response ca after a while.
[You will have to pay more than that.]
Xavier had two justice points. He could pay both, but he didn't feel like it. He told the rchant that he will only pay one justice point, which is the standard.
[Thanks for the purchase. Axion will shortly be delivered in your space inventory.]
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