The Rotten Sector greeted Sebastian with its usual damp blanket of smog, but after the encounter with the Aegis patrol, even this poisoned air felt sweet to him. He quickly passed the twisted building frames, pressing his backpack to his back. In his pocket lay an electronic chip with credits from Bruno — an amount that only a week ago had seemed fantastic to him. But the most important thing was a small container of "A+" corporate standard mana filters.
When he climbed to his fourth floor, the usual silence reigned in the hallway, interrupted only by the distant roar of the block's life support systems. Sebastian opened the apartment door and immediately felt the heavy, metallic taste of the air. His mother sat by the window, veiled with dirty gauze, and her breathing was intermittent.
"You're back," she said, smiling barely perceptibly. "It was especially hard to breathe today. The Distortion is pressing on the sector again."
Sebastian didn't waste time on words. He went to the old ventilation block barely buzzing in the corner of the room and pulled out the old cassettes clogged with rust and mana soot. In their place, he installed the new corporate standard filters. As soon as the system restarted, the sound changed to a clean, barely audible hum. The air in the room began to clear rapidly, filling with a freshness that could only be felt in the Upper Quarters.
His mother took a deep breath and, for the first time in a long while, did not cough. Her face began to gradually regain its natural color.
"This... this is very expensive, Sebastian," she whispered, looking at her son with concern. "Where did you get such filters?"
"I found a good job in C-5, Mom," he replied, sitting down beside her. "Now we'll have clean air. And food too. Don't worry about the credits; I know how to earn them now."
He left her some of the money and a supply of food, then went to his room. He had a decision to make. His Luck score of forty-two units made him an anomaly, but he understood that to reach level sixteen, he needed something more than just luck. He needed a weapon that matched his combat style.
Sebastian opened his status and reviewed his stats once more. His Strength was sufficient for Rank F, but for Rank E, his body had to undergo a full transformation. He remembered Kaspar's words about the "Golden Gates" and The Wild Field. To survive there, he had to learn to use his luck not just to dodge blows, but to deal devastating damage.
He took the Wolf core from his backpack, the one he hadn't sold to Bruno. It pulsed in his hands like a living heart. Sebastian knew that some hunters used cores to enhance their weapons, but it was a risky process — if the core's mana was incompatible with the knife's metal, the "Black Star" could simply explode.
However, looking at the knife, he felt a strange confidence. With his forty-two units of Luck, the probability of a successful fusion was significantly higher than a statistical error.
"Let's see how lucky I really am," he said, bringing the core to the knife blade.
The room filled with a brilliant blue glow. The air around Sebastian began to vibrate, and the "Black Star's" mana-conducting threads glowed white-hot. This was the moment where he could either gain a Rank E weapon or be left with nothing in the very center of a hostile city.