Tracy saw that Cris had already driven the car over, so she couldn't say no.
Very soon, they arrived at Tracy's home. After saying goodbye to Cris, she went back inside. She immediately entered her dimensional shop. It was already this late. She wasn't sure if any customers had come.
"It's open, finally open. Boss Tracy, why did you open so late today?" a customer outside asked.
"I'm really sorry. Something came up suddenly, so I opened a bit late today," Tracy replied.
"Boss Tracy, what's that notice on the wall? Are you going to limit the amount of things people can buy from now on?" another customer asked.
"I opened this shop so more survivors could live better. The supplies I can get are not endless. After thinking about it for a few days, I decided that limiting the number of items people can buy is the best way. That way, everyone can get enough to survive," Tracy said.
"Boss Tracy, you really care about people. We respect that. But since we've already come all this way, it would be sad to leave with nothing," the customers said.
"Of course I won't let you leave with nothing. Your team has many people. If each of you buys something, the total is still about the same as before. I just want to stop someone from buying everything. It won't affect you much. You can just come back again," Tracy explained.
The customers were not very happy about the new limit, but they knew Tracy was very strong. They couldn't use force to threaten her. Besides, they still wanted to buy supplies from her, so they didn't want to make her angry.
After hearing her explanation, they thought about it and felt it made sense. At least this way, everyone in their team could still buy supplies. Even though their team was strong, inside the base, they were still not considered powerful. If one of the major forces from the base came and bought everything, they would be left with nothing.
So maybe this limit wasn't that bad. They could just bring more people next time and buy more that way.
This worked only because Tracy had shown her strength before. She had turned a group of people into stone statues and placed them in front of the shop. That made everyone afraid. Otherwise, even if her reason sounded good, no one would have listened.
Tracy had been worried that people wouldn't accept the new rule. Now that she saw they stayed, she felt happy. This way, she could make more trades every day.
Because she opened late today, many people had been waiting. There were maybe thirty to forty people. If all of them made trades, that would mean thirty to forty deals. Reaching one thousand trades wouldn't be hard at all.
So many people lined up to trade. Tracy was very busy. After she finished trading with everyone, she finally sat down to take a break.
Even though she was tired, seeing the trade number grow made her happy.
Lately, many evolved zombies had appeared. Survivors were hunting them in large numbers. Now, most people used crystal cores to pay. Gold was limited. Even if the price was better with gold, people didn't have it.
Now that Tracy had awakened her powers, crystal cores could help her become stronger. So seeing so many crystal cores made her happy.
She had planned to ask Kei and the others to help bring more beginner strengthening potions, but now that she had powers, there was no need.
Taking energy directly from crystal cores was much more worth it than using potions.
After sending away the first group of customers, some small teams came as well. Altogether, she made more than sixty trades today.
But when Tracy walked over to where she had placed the crystal cores, she noticed something strange. The crystal cores had changed. The energy inside them was gone.
Before, Tracy was just a normal person and couldn't feel energy. Now that she had powers, she could clearly feel that the energy inside the crystal cores had completely disappeared.
How could this happen? Things placed in the dimensional shop were supposed to be safe. No one except her could take them. How could the energy disappear on its own?
She couldn't figure it out. Until she understood what was happening, she didn't dare store crystal cores here again. If the energy kept disappearing, she wouldn't have anything left to grow her powers.
She had been kidnapped twice already. Tracy felt she really needed more power. Otherwise, she couldn't even protect herself.
Even though there was no problem keeping crystal cores outside the shop, she couldn't always wait to absorb them all before leaving. She needed to solve this.
She also didn't dare bring crystal cores into the real world. What if that caused a disaster in her world? She couldn't take that risk. She didn't want her world to turn into a dead land like the apocalypse.
Tracy took out one crystal core and placed it where the others had been. She watched it closely.
She saw the crystal core slowly change from clear and shiny to cloudy. At the same time, she felt the energy inside slowly disappearing. It felt just like when she absorbed the energy to strengthen her powers.
What was going on? Why did the energy in the crystal core disappear just by being placed in the shop?
Who was taking the energy?
As the owner of the dimensional shop, if she wanted to find out, she could.
Tracy focused carefully and sensed that the energy was being absorbed by the sleeping spirit of the shop. The shop told her that if the spirit absorbed more energy, it could wake up faster.
But what made Tracy feel strange was this. The energy in ten crystal cores was equal to the energy from just one trade. Did that mean trades gave her so much more energy than the cores?
Although Tracy is now the owner of the dimensional store, she still doesn't know where the energy used during trades comes from.
Even though she doesn't fully understand it, as long as it's beneficial to her, she doesn't worry too much.
While crystal cores can provide energy to the store, it seems like doing trades gives even more energy. That means trading is the better way to gain energy, which is a good thing.
Although trading is more efficient, Tracy didn't hesitate to use her crystal cores to help wake up the store's spirit.
Based on how many trades she's done and how many crystal cores she's gathered, the store spirit could wake up in about ten days. That was definitely good news.
Now that she knew the store spirit was absorbing the energy from the crystal cores, Tracy kept a few for her own training and placed the rest inside the store for the spirit to absorb.
After all, the spirit had fallen asleep while trying to save her. It was her responsibility to help bring it back.
Besides, the store would only be complete with its spirit. With the spirit awake, the store's features would increase. Right now, she could only use the most basic functions.
After the store closed for the day, Tracy didn't leave.
She needed to train her powers and grow stronger. She didn't want to feel helpless again like she did before. That sense of powerlessness was something she never wanted to go through again.
She only dared to use crystal cores inside the dimensional store, not in the real world. So if she wanted to train, she had to do it there.
But there was an advantage to this. Even though the world outside was in an apocalypse, for some reason, the air in the dimensional store contained a small amount of energy.
That meant training inside the store would definitely be more effective than training outside.
Other powered people in the apocalypse didn't dare to train for too long. Even though they had some immunity to the virus, long training sessions would still wear them down.
But Tracy was different. The store was sealed off from the virus, so she didn't have that problem.
As long as she had crystal cores and was willing, she could train as long as she wanted.
With enough crystal cores, Tracy could feel her powers growing quickly.
The energy inside her that she could control was slowly getting stronger. She hadn't tried using her power yet, but she believed she could now release it many more times.
Of course, training for a few hours couldn't raise her power level right away.
She was a level-one ability user when she first got her powers.
Based on her current training speed, it would still take several days to reach level two.
But if others in the real world found out how fast she was training, they would be full of envy.
For them, going from level one to level two could take years.
In the real world, powered people who didn't have access to resources would need years of training to increase their power level.
And that was only possible for people who had good potential in the first place.
Those with no talent and no resources might stay the same level forever.
They would be stuck at the level they were at when they first got their powers.
In the real world, crystal stones were very rare. Unlike Tracy, who could use crystal cores freely, most people didn't have that luxury.
Even those who worked for the government and were given resources only received a limited amount.
Lower-level powered people would get only five pieces of crystal stone per month.
Although the value of crystal stones was high and five pieces a month was a generous amount, each low-grade crystal stone only gave energy similar to a level-one crystal core.
Also, because of the impurities in the stones, not all the energy could be absorbed.
That meant powered people in the real world trained very slowly.
Even if they had enough stones, they couldn't keep using them continuously.
They had to wait after each use, or their bodies couldn't handle the impurities.
So even with enough crystal stones, it would still take them at least three months to go from level one to level two.
Tracy knew all of this, which was why she understood the need to hide how fast her powers were growing.
Luckily, she didn't join the national special task force earlier.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to keep her power growth a secret.
She didn't want to slow down just to keep secrets.
This world wasn't like the one she used to know. There were all kinds of dangers everywhere.
Without strength, there was no way to feel safe.
Actually, Tracy found it strange. When she was still just a normal person, her life seemed completely ordinary.
The people around her were also normal. So why did so many strange things happen after she got the dimensional store?
But thinking more about it, maybe it wasn't because of the store.
If her life had continued normally, she probably wouldn't have encountered these events.
When she came back to the real world from the store, it was already late.
After quickly eating dinner, she went to bed.
Since getting her powers, Tracy's mental strength had improved a lot.
She didn't need to sleep as much as before, but she still kept her regular sleeping habits.
While she was peacefully asleep, she didn't know that a conflict between two nations had already begun.
Earlier, Huro and the others had sent back the method for making gene-enhancement serum to their homeland.
Although many of the enemy spies had been caught, there were still some who had gone undetected and were still hiding in the city.
They were still able to receive certain pieces of information.
They had already learned that Huro's serum experiment had been successful and had helped someone gain powers.
Tracy didn't know this, but the reason Cris had been so quick to register her as a powered person wasn't just because everyone needed to be recorded and monitored.
It was also to protect her.
Once her information was moved into the files of the Flame Nation's special organization, it would be much harder for foreign spies to find her.
That's why even though the enemy spies knew the experiment worked, they still didn't know who the test subject was.
But they didn't care who the person was.
As long as the serum worked, that was all they needed to know.