Hunting for food.

"I was thinking of hunting for food." Dee mumbled still half in daze.

"Hunting? I wouldn't recommend doing that in the grand wilderness. There are mostly just monsters of all sorts making their home in there. If you wanted to hunt, then I would recommend going to the southern section of the city. The southern section contains many forests and open areas with plentiful game animals. Our eastern section has something similar in the seventh circle, but I doubt you could kill anything there, as even the wild animals are rather powerful. There's a chance to meet some game animals between the inhabited areas, but they are rather rarer than in other worlds.

Although I say that our city covers a quarter of the planet, my meaning of the word city might be a bit different to yours. Even though we call it a city, there are separate countries and even empires within the walls; mostly in places some race has claimed an area for their settlement. There's even a large ocean in both cities. The reason you can't see the edge of the inhabited area surrounding us is because the people crowd around the teleportation gates for obvious reasons. I suppose you could find some game if you get outside the inhabited area, but I doubt there is any in close proximity. Why do you want to go hunting though?" The monk asked in confusion.

"I'm hungry, and I have no money to buy food. Hunting is something I can do, so…" Dee's voice trailed off.

"Oh right, I keep forgetting that you're not from around here. Most stores take both money and power as payment. Even if you're weak, you should be able to eke out enough power to not die of hunger." The monk said as understanding dawned on him again.

"Power? How does that work as currency?" Dee asked, getting even more confused.

"Well, all work and items require either power or labor to produce. They require either physical work in the form of labor, or magical power to at least ease the work. Most crops are grown with the help of magic for example, and most items require power either to produce or to work better in the form of enchantments and so on. Even work that strictly speaking doesn't require power is made easier by it. Many jobs are performed by magitech, and that requires power to run.

You can earn money with your work, or you can make your power do the work for you. A day's worth of mana represents a day's worth of work as well. As such, it can also work as a form of compensation. Nearly every store in Pantheon has ways to store power to be used later, so power can be used as currency. Most people prefer to use physical currency, but there are always people that would rather use power to pay instead." The monk explained.

"Two questions. How is power as currency quantified? I mean people don't have same amounts of power so there shouldn't be a single amount for day's worth of generated of mana. And what about people with no mana? I'm not a mage." Dee asked, the explanation's bringing even more questions.

"Power is power after it is stored, no matter the form. Mana, ki, I've even heard of priests using the power gained from their gods as currency. Once you send your mana or ki into the storage device, it transforms simply into power. As for quantifying it, there's a standard measure in place. A normal human's full amount of mana is valued equal to a day's work. The storing devices themselves will announce the gold value of the deposited amount of power. As the production of those devices is heavily controlled and monitored by powers that be, the measures are the same." The monk looked towards the funny moving monks in the yard and continued. "Now, I'd love to tell you more, but I have to get back to my training. Take care little sister."

"Take care." Dee mumbled back. There was something that confused her a bit about the explanation. The monk had mentioned something about taking a whole day to recharge their power, but wasn't everyone's ability to recover different? Dee herself only needed few hours to fully recharge even if her powers were completely drained. Would this not lead to a very unbalanced economy? Well, from everything she had read before, economy wasn't something fair in the first place.

'Time to find some food.' She thought as she took a final look at the weird stretching exercise of the monks. It had started looking more aggressive now.

-----

As Dee walked down the street while munching on a fruit, she considered the price of the food she had eaten. She had eaten her fill and then some, and while the price had not been cheap in currency, it would only take her about thirty minutes to regain the lost power. Was this world going to be ok, or was she herself just weird? She would later on discover that the reason the economy of this world worked just fine was because the more powerful beings usually resided in the inner circles where the prices were adjusted to the average power level of that area, and the consumption of said power was much higher as the goods and devices consumed more power to produce and use.

She had been a little worried that her psionic power would not serve as payment, as the monk had not mentioned anything about psions, but that worry had been wasted. Power was indeed power no matter the form. Now with her food secured, what she needed now was lodgings and information. She could probably pay for lodging in a way similar to how she had paid for the food, assuming they would rent a room to a young child like her. The real problem was information. She had to decide what to do now, but she couldn't make any informed decisions without gathering enough information. Plans would be cruddy plans if you had no information to base them on.

As she walked towards what she assumed to be an inn of sorts, she came across a group that seemed to be gambling in a game of some kind involving cards. She observed the game from behind the backs of the people for a while before coming to some conclusions. First of all, two of the people present were clearly losing, and more than a little desperate. Secondly, the other people gathered were working together to fleece the two. They were clearly cheating, but since they never cheated for themselves, but instead for the benefit of their comrades, it was a little harder to detect. A little harder, but not really that difficult.

Dee harrumphed. "This is such a scam. Well, if you don't have the perception and knowledge to avoid it, you can only blame yourself." Her voice was rather quiet, not really meant to be heard by anyone else, alas that was not to be.

One of the people being scammed as well as one of the people doing the scamming came from races with particularly good hearing. "What did you just say?!" One of the people being scammed suddenly asked with a raised voice.

"Get 'er! Get the girl!" The scammer who had heard her words yelled. The surrounding people were part of a rather large gang operating in the area and they were used to following such commands. Several of the gathered people started moving towards Dee.

Dee could see the situation deteriorating quickly, and decided to quickly leave the scene. Unfortunately for her, she didn't know the area and didn't have the necessary experience to know not to run into the back alleys. She would've been better off trying to find people and slipping into a crowd, but she was thinking only of trying to use her abilities at concealment combined with her speed to run away, and didn't consider the possibility of running into a dead-end after taking only two turns.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? A nosy brat meddling in things that aren't her concern. Now what shall we do about this?" A man's voice came from behind her.

Dee let out a growl. This would not end well. She had gotten a look at the people pursuing her, and there were quite a few of them. Even if she was able to defeat any single person thanks to her psionic power, beating them all seemed rather unlikely, especially considering the difference in size and strength.

-----

A man with a human's appearance dressed in black long coat and a rimmed black hat was returning from his business with the local gangs. His eyes were covered with round glasses that had such dark lenses that they could almost be called sunglasses. His forehead was covered in a frown as he cursed his bad luck. The business had been rather bad. The gangs were able to acquire many of the products that he required and didn't dare to ask too high a price, but none of the products had been very high quality. They met the minimum specifications but only barely, and he didn't have much hope for them.

His attention was drawn by a commotion coming from the back alleys, as he heard several screams of pain and some incoherent growls. Did the gangs corner some beast going berserk? Pure curiosity drew him towards the back alley, as he just wanted to get his mind off the business earlier and he also knew there was nothing in the twelfth circle that could hurt him. As he got a better look at what was going on, he could see that the walls of the alley were covered in blood and guts, and five gang members were pressing down something that looked like an adolescent Beowulf.

The Beowulf looked badly hurt, but was in much better condition than some of the gang members, whose blood and guts were now decorating the walls. That was about to change soon though. "Halt. Explain." The man in black said in a calm voice that brook no resistance from the gang members.

The boss of this little group recognized the black clad man. "Lord Malik! This little bitch interfered in our business and we chased her to this alley to teach her a lesson about meddling. Who knew the little bitch would turn out to be a werewolf of all things. She used some strange power and managed to gut three of our brothers. We were about to return the favor. With her being able to regenerate and all, this might turn into a long and gruesome lesson." The boss said grimly.

'Weird power?' Malik thought to himself and reached towards the wild creature with his mind. When he sensed psionic power, he immediately drew his mind back. 'Can my luck really be this good?' He thought happily.

"I will take her." Malik said simply.

"Lord Malik, I know you buy children from us, but we have plenty of them gathered at the headquarters. I don't know what you need them for, and frankly it's better if we don't, but you should not need this one. She killed three of our brothers and wounded others. We need to make an example of her." The gang boss tried to convince Malik.

His attempts made it clear that the man was a low ranking boss at best; otherwise he wouldn't be as foolish as try to argue with Malik. "You idiot. Quality is more important than quantity." Malik waved his hand rendering the werewolf girl unconscious, and surrounding her with a magical shield that pushed the gang members away. "Not that it makes a difference."

As he walked towards the mouth of the alley, with the magical cocoon surrounding the girl floating after him, the gang members were about to stop him until he spoke again. "Zabaniya. Kill everyone here, and everyone that might have seen, heard or detected any of what happened here. No one is to know of her existence."

After he finished, several individuals covered in black clothes appeared seemingly from nowhere, and started their grim work.

As he walked away after stowing the cocoon in his dimensional bracelet, Malik gave a wide smile. 'Master Sabbah should be pleased with my little gift. She's exactly what master has been looking for.'