Teaching, Learning, Growth (2)

"Hmm..."

My evaluation after reading the announcement regarding the new Trade Tab boiled down to a single question: "Why do something like this all of a sudden?"

What welled up inside me was neither disappointment nor enthusiasm, but plain bewilderment. And understandably so—I personally had zero to gain from an interdimensional trade board or whatever they chose to call it. The reason was painfully simple: the sheer absurdity of being trapped in the Dimensional Depth 100s had rear-ended me yet again.

Trading? Trading sounded wonderful on paper. If I could barter across worlds, I might discover a way to salvage Earth and resurrect human civilization. But when even Old Man Noah—wielding that legendary cheat-tier artifact, the Ark—could barely scrape through the dimensional barrier, physical deliveries were a laughable fantasy. Depth 100 was a technological quarantine zone where squeezing mere digital data through the cracks was an uphill battle. In short, even if I tried using the Trade Tab, the likelihood of receiving anything tangible was practically zero.

And that was only half the problem.

What was commerce at its fundamental core? It was give-and-take—a mutual exchange. Yet from where I stood, the entire "give" half of that equation was nonexistent. What could I possibly offer in return? Even if cross-dimensional logistics weren't completely severed, the only things I could box up were bent scraps of metal and the blasted rubble blanketing the face of the Earth.

Sure, someone might ask, Couldn't you dig up some usable pre-war tech from the debris and hawk it to demon lords from medieval worlds? But that line of thinking ignored the most terrifying reality of the Demon Lord Gallery: this place was an absolute madhouse packed with every archetype in existence.

Murim demon lords, high-fantasy demon lords, and romance-fantasy demon lords were merely the baseline. Xianxia cultivation demon lords, modern-fantasy demon lords, and hard sci-fi demon lords were crammed into the member roster by the thousands. Without looking far, typing "EMPEROR" into the search bar would immediately pull up an immortal despot ruling an entire galactic empire through hyper-advanced engineering.

With monstrous competitors like that flooding the market, how could a penniless nobody like me—armed with nothing but a humiliating "Newbie" tag—ever hope to conduct an honest transaction? I would be stripped clean by scammers before I could blink.

To put it bluntly, the Trade Tab annoyed me because it offered me zero practical benefits, and my sour grapes were definitely flavoring my skepticism. Even setting personal bias aside, however, dropping a sudden notice about interdimensional commerce made no damn sense.

In the nearly six months I had spent lurking on this board, I had only witnessed items being officially traded between users twice. The first instance had been a handful of high-tier demon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lords handing out charity donations during the Pandemonium Regular Meeting. The second had involved a desperate demon lord facing dimensional pruning, groveling stark naked on his knees and pledging his entire life savings to anyone willing to save him. Aside from those rare spectacles, bartering among demon lords occurred maybe once every three months—and without the scheduled council meetings, it barely happened twice a year.

A major reason for this drought was the unspoken cultural taboo against cross-dimensional meddling, not to mention the fact that the gallery was crawling with stubborn megalomaniacs who would rather choke on their own blood than swallow their pride and ask for a handout. But setting their egos aside, the impending launch of the Trade Tab was monumental enough to upend every established precedent in a single stroke.

Consider an extreme, exaggerated hypothetical.

Suppose a demon lord reigning over an early modern, gunpowder-era world managed to purchase a Death Star from a sci-fi tyrant. Yes, that Death Star—the planet-shattering superweapon from Star Wars. What would happen to his dimension?

The summoned Hero and their grand coalition of nations wouldn't mean a thing. Stage 0, Stage 1, Stage 2 Causality Correction? Utterly meaningless. Did anyone honestly believe a Hero could survive being centered in a blast that vaporized an entire planet into cosmic dust? A handful of transcendent freaks might manage it, but you could count them on one hand.

And that was just the extreme end. Imagine a swordsman demon lord abruptly unfurling an eldritch grimoire overnight, or automatic assault rifles flooding a Murim martial arts realm. The ripple effects would be catastrophic.

In short, the second that Trade Tab went live, the precarious equilibrium between Demon Lords and Heroes would shatter, and the subtle, cold-war factional power struggles simmering beneath the surface of the gallery would violently explode.

"...No matter how I look at it, this is going to turn into a bloodbath."

I could bet my life on it. Whether between Heroes and Demon Lords or among the demon lords themselves, open warfare was guaranteed. And as if to validate my instincts, the conceptual posts on the front page were already sparking like powder kegs.

While I felt a fleeting prickle of sympathy for the poor soul who wrote that second post, one fact was blatantly obvious: the entire gallery was gearing up for a glorious bonfire.

Having fully anticipated the chaos, I didn't panic in the slightest. I simply sipped my lukewarm coffee and settled back to enjoy the show. But as I spent the next half-hour combing through the forum's shifting atmosphere, I stumbled across a prevailing sentiment that went completely against my expectations.

"Wait, there's way more backlash than I thought?"

Aside from disenfranchised outcasts like me who couldn't benefit from interdimensional logistics anyway, I had assumed the vast majority of demon lords would welcome the Trade Tab with open arms. In reality, the negative feedback and outright resistance were staggering.

Some users were furious that the administration had bulldozed the feature through without consulting the community. Others warned of a runaway wealth gap, claiming only the top one percent of apocalyptic rulers would reap the rewards while the weak starved. A vocal contingent expressed deep, philosophical dread that tampering with external resources would irreversibly warp the cosmic balance of The Scales.

Thanks to this unexpected surge of opposition, the forum split cleanly down the middle, with both camps passionately hurling insults and philosophical dissertations back and forth. I was leaning back, thoroughly entertained by the dumpster fire, when a sudden alert flashed across my vision.

"Oh?"

A notification pinging a secret thread could mean only one thing: Leon was summoning me.

The private post function, which I had relied on for more than two months, had essentially evolved into a secure, encrypted communication hotline between Leon and myself. I quickly tapped the notification, and just as expected, a string of replies from Leon materialized before my eyes.

And what he had typed out was shockingly extensive—and loaded with startling news.