The Ranch

Central Market (2)

Tih and Kai walk through the maze-like path, exploring what each district has to offer, and eventually making their way to the center of the Market.

A beautifully designed fountain lays in the middle of an open space. Gracefully decorated tiles line a white and dark blue marble. A very life-like dragon sits atop the fountain in an elegant manner. Kai sees the green and silver dragon and speaks up," That should be the Jiaolong dragon, frequently characterized as a "scaled mythical beast"; it is hornless as indicated by specific researchers, and said to be oceanic or stream staying. It might have alluded to a types of crocodile." He recited from memory. "The color...should have originally only been metallic in color, the green seems to be rust. Green rust was first perceived as an erosion outside on iron and steel surfaces. It occurs in nature as the mineral fougerite. Fougèrite was first found in Fougères, Brittany, France, and recognized as a substantial mineral species by the Mineralogical Association in 2002. It is blue-green to blueish-grey in shading, and looks like dirt minerals in propensity, framing hexagonal platelets of submicron distance across. The mineral is unstable in air, and deteriorates by oxidation, dehydration and decarbonation, to ferrihydrite, and eventually to lepidocrocite or goethite. The water...might be the source of the rust. Don't get to close to the fountain Tih." Kai continues to describe things in their surroundings, like the material of the stores or the history of mazes. Tih absentmindedly looks towards the fountain.

Noticing his lingering gaze, Kai pulls Tih over to the electronic board that's in front of the fountain, thinking that's what Tih was focused on. Kai swipes his ID and the screen opens up to a leaderboard. The leaderboard ranks all the stores in the market. It has different categories, such as most popular, unique goods, customer service, etc. The Market even has its own rating system, where each customer can give it a certain amount of stars or write a review. The catagory That first popped onto screen was "Best Store", emphasizing that it's an overall rating.

Tih looks at some of the top placing names and remembers their shops being overcrowded, which means their more than popular. This leaderboard not only serves as free advertisement, it's a popularity contest in which all the shops fight for dominance. It keeps tensions high and pushes the workers and business owners further.

"It's a good system," Kai thinks to himself. Great, in fact. Whoever created this system must have been a conniving genius in marketing. It's definitely not a new idea, but the reason it works so well is because we're on an isolated island. The only place one can buy products from is the Central Market. There's no other competition because you already own everything.

Kai is, in fact, referring to the business owners. The people at the very top of the food chain. Kai notices that there doesn't seem to be a limit onto how many shops you can own. Searching a little deeper, you might realized all of the top shop's owners own multiple stores in each district. The higher the stores earnings, the more money they make, the more businesses they can own, repeat. It's created a sort of monopoly.

Something that Kai didn't expect to see was Instructor Maddox's name. The Instructor is actually one of the people Kai was talking about. He owns the second ranking for "Best Store" and numerous other stores in different districts. Unexpectedly, Instructor Maddox was a golden thigh.

Kai immersed himself in a whirlpool of thoughts. Tih was only interested in the rankings for a few moment before he turns his attention back to what he was truly looking at. For some reason, Kai didn't talk about the thing Tih was most interested in.

The most unique thing about the fountain is not the object itself, but what flows through it. Blood red water glistens in the sunlight as it streams down the fountain and pools at the base, creating a deeper red, almost black. Tih stares intently at the cascading water.

His mind is in a daze until Kai snaps him back to reality," We better get a move on. I want to cover everything before time runs out!" He says with an eager grin. They've already covered half of the market and now only need to walk around the other half. Tih obliges and follows Kai as he leaves the center of the market.

They continue through the winding path and look around without entering any of the stores. Kai explains," Its better to not buy anything and save our money." They end up "window shopping" for their entire trip. The only thing they're gaining is a better understanding of the market and its system.

With only a small portion left to explore and an abundance of time, Kai decides that they can spend more time looking through this last section and even go into a few shops. The area they happen to be in specializes in weaponry. More specifically, weapons, because although the district sells "weaponry", it include armories, blacksmiths that mostly deal with customized products at higher prices, energy and recovery drinks, and other fighting-related goods. The two have already been to those other area and only have to look at the shops that sell weapons before they've covered the entire market.

The storefronts are lined with any weapon imaginable from any area of the world imaginable. Shurikens, nunchucks, longswords, daggers, axes, and scythes are some of the things these shops are offering. There are also some unusual weapons like the urumi, rapiers, whips, and Kakutes. Prices range from affordable to exorbitant. A tag is connected to each weapon stating it price, material, and maker. Weapons made by well known blacksmiths are priced higher than its true worth. Not only because it's made by a reliable source, but because those weapons are usually on a higher tier than their fellow weapons.