Felix strolled further down the floating wooden boardwalk, finishing the last candied hawthorn on his wooden skewer.
He tossed the clean stick into a stone brazier near the bridge railing, wiped a speck of sticky sugar from his thumb onto his hemp trousers, and looked around with mild curiosity.
The floating market was surprisingly well-stocked.
There were stalls selling roasted spiced nuts in paper cones, copper kettles bubbling with sweet almond milk, and woven baskets full of dried mountain mushrooms.
Every vendor he passed bowed so low their noses nearly touched the floorboards.
Felix assumed it was standard customer service for this realm.
Back on Earth, convenience store clerks in certain countries bowed when handing you a receipt.
In a high fantasy martial world, people probably bowed whenever a customer had actual currency.
Halfway down the southern pier, Felix stopped in front of a particularly large produce stall.
The stall was built from thick, iron-reinforced oak beams, resting across a heavy two-wheeled cargo cart.
Dozens of large, round melons sat on velvet cushions beneath a gold-embroidered canvas awning.
Each melon was dark emerald green with deep black tiger stripes, perfectly round, and coated in a delicate layer of cool morning dew.
Behind the cart stood Merchant Lord Song of the Golden Scale Clan.
Merchant Lord Song was a man accustomed to commanding trading fleets across three mortal empires.
He wore five-color embroidered silk robes, rings set with luminous pearls on every finger, and a tall jade crown.
Right now, however, Merchant Lord Song was shivering like a wet stray cat.
His hands were clasped together against his chest, his rings clattering against each other in an unbroken, frantic rhythm:
*Clink-clink-clink-clink.*
"G-G-Greetings, Exalted Sovereign of the Great Sun," Merchant Lord Song whispered, his voice trembling so violently he nearly bit his own tongue. "This humble worm welcomes your divine presence."
Felix glanced at the trembling merchant, then looked down at the dark green melons.
"Morning," Felix said casually. "Those look pretty fresh. What kind are they?"
Felix focused his vision, letting his passive Inspector HUD do the appraisal work.
A clean black bracket flickered into existence above the nearest fruit:
【Item: Jade-Striped Southern Cloud Melon】 【Grade: High-Tier Spiritual Fruit】 【Origin: Cultivated in the fertile volcanic loam of the Southern Sun Oasis】 【Flavor Profile: Ice-cold, incredibly sweet, bursting with pure mineral spring water】 【Effects: Restores 50 Stamina. Provides the 'Hydrated Chill' buff for 2 hours (100% Heat Resistance).】 【Inspector Note: The ultimate summer afternoon fruit. Perfect for cutting into thick wedges and eating on a shady porch while ignoring your responsibilities. Fair retail price: Two copper coins.】
Felix’s eyes lit up beneath the brim of his straw hat.
"Watermelon," Felix said, nodding with deep approval. "Real, proper watermelon. The texture looks crisp, too."
Merchant Lord Song swallowed hard.
His eyes darted toward the sky, silently praying to his ancestors for salvation.
*He called it a 'proper watermelon',* the merchant thought in sheer terror. *The Southern Cloud Melon is an ancient spiritual medicine! Our clan spent three centuries breeding it with the blood of jade serpents to purify its spiritual marrow! Yet in the eyes of the Sun Sovereign, it is merely an afternoon snack!*
"May I pick one up?" Felix asked politely. "I want to check the ripeness. You have to thump them to see if they're hollow."
"P-P-Please!" Merchant Lord Song stammered, dropping to both knees behind the counter. "Whatever the Heavenly Master desires! All creation belongs to your hands!"
"Thanks," Felix said.
He reached out his right hand, wrapping his fingers around the stem of the largest melon on the front cushion.
He lifted it into the air.
To Felix, the melon felt like a hollow plastic balloon.
Inside his chest, his 1.0-Earth-Mass Sol-Class core burned at fifteen million Kelvin in perfect hydrostatic equilibrium.
His body was permanently anchored to the cosmic mass of an entire planetary body.
Holding an eight-pound fruit was literally imperceptible to his muscles.
He held it up to his ear with one casual hand, raising a knuckle with his other hand.
*Thump-thump.*
A deep, hollow, resonant sound echoed from the rind.
"Nice," Felix muttered. "Solid rind, lots of juice. Not mealy at all."
He smiled, satisfied with his selection.
However, Felix didn't realize what was happening at a subatomic level.
Because his fingers had gripped the rind for several seconds, the passive gravitational density radiating from his palm had bled directly into the fruit's cellular structure.
The atoms of the watermelon compressed.
The localized gravitational pull around the rind spiked from normal Earth gravity straight to one hundred times planetary density.
To Felix, it still felt like a feather.
"Yeah, I'll take this one," Felix said happily.
He set the melon down onto the wooden counter of the cart.
The moment his fingers released the rind, the full, unbuffered weight of the melon hit the oak surface.
*CRACK.*
It wasn't a normal snap of wood.
It sounded like a siege cannon firing at point-blank range.
The four-inch-thick solid oak countertop instantly sheared in half.
The heavy iron support brackets buckled like wet tin foil.
The massive wooden cargo cart groans under the impossible, concentrated gravitational load:
*CRUNCH-SNAP-BOOM!*
The entire cart folded down the middle like an accordion.
Both iron-banded wagon wheels shattered into wooden toothpicks, flying outward in all directions.
The heavy oak frame collapsed straight down into the boardwalk planks, flattening completely into a pile of splintered kindling!
The melon sat serenely in the exact center of the ruined wood, completely unblemished, resting on the deck with the absolute, unmovable authority of an iron anvil.
Felix jumped back two steps, his eyes wide with shock.
"Whoa!" Felix yelled, waving his hands. "What the heck?!"
He stared down at the splintered wreckage of the cart in sheer horror.
"Man," Felix grovelled internally, rubbing the back of his neck in acute gamer embarrassment. "Did I drop it too hard? No, the collision box must have clipped into the cart mesh! Classic indie game physics! One physics prop touches another prop and the whole structure explodes!"
He looked up at Merchant Lord Song, who was staring at the crushed cart with his jaw hanging completely unhinged.
The merchant was so terrified he couldn't even breathe.
*The Primordial Gravity Dao...* Song’s mind screamed, his soul on the verge of shattering. *He didn't even exert any effort! He merely set a melon down, and the ambient density of the heavens crushed an enchanted dragon-oak cart that could withstand the charge of a demon beast! He is showing me the weight of mortality compared to the weight of the stars!*
Around the boardwalk, forty imperial guards and merchant princes dropped to their knees, their faces pale as parchment, trembling at the terrifying display of sovereign destruction.
Felix felt terrible.
He had just wrecked this poor street vendor's entire livelihood because of a clumsy physics glitch.
"Hey, man," Felix said quickly, his voice full of genuine apology. "I am so sorry about that. The wood must have had dry rot, or maybe the axle was already cracked, but I definitely should have set it down gentler."
Merchant Lord Song stared at him in disbelief.
*The... The Supreme Sovereign is apologizing to me?!* Song thought, his eyes welling with terrified tears. *Is he mocking my clan's fragility?!*
"Look, I'll pay for the damage," Felix insisted.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out two more worn copper coins.
He placed them carefully on a clean, unbroken splinter of cedar beam that stuck out from the wreckage.
*Clink.*
"Here," Felix said earnestly. "Two coppers. One for the melon, and the other one to help cover the cost of a new cart. I know it's not a lot, but hopefully it helps you get the wheels fixed."
He reached down, casually picked up the one-hundred-G melon with one hand, and tucked it comfortably beneath his left arm like a football.
To Felix, it was light as a cloud.
To everyone watching, he was carrying a compressed mountain under his armpit while adjusting his straw hat with the other hand.
"Have a good day," Felix said, offering a friendly nod. "Sorry again about the cart!"
With that, Felix turned and shuffled back toward the mountain switchback, his straw slippers clicking against the gravel as he made his way back up to Solitude Spire.
Behind him, the entire market remained frozen in dead silence for two full minutes.
Merchant Lord Song slowly crawled forward on his hands and knees.
He reached the splintered beam where the two copper coins lay.
The moment he drew near, he felt the faint, warm golden aura radiating from the metal.
The coins were heavier than lead, pulsing with the faint, steady heartbeat of a living star.
"Clan Elder..." a disciple whispered, crawling up beside him with trembling hands. "Should... should we spend them to buy a new cart?"
"Fool! Brainless pig!" Merchant Lord Song shrieked, slapping the disciple across the back of the head. "Spend them?! These are Primordial Solar Seals! They carry the personal karmic blessing of the Sun Sovereign!"
Song pulled a pair of golden velvet tongs from his inner sleeve.
With surgical, sobbing precision, he lifted the two copper coins from the wood.
"Fetch the Nine-Sun Golden Glass reliquary!" Song shouted, tears streaming down his face as he cradled the tongs against his chest. "Lock this stall! We are returning to the Southern Oasis immediately! Our Golden Scale Clan has received the Supreme Ancestral Talisman! For ten thousand generations, no demonic army will dare cross our borders!"
Up on the mountain trail, Felix took a deep breath of fresh mountain air, adjusting the melon under his arm.
"Got the melon, got the buns," Felix muttered with a happy smirk. "Now I just need to string up that hammock and see if the cloud view is as good as the patch notes promised."