The impact of Alan’s price board began to spread faster than he expected. Within a month adventurer teams from nearby towns stopped by Dustfall because they had heard that this strange young man offered stable buying rates and clear explanations. Some came out of curiosity. Others came because they were tired of being cheated by greedy merchants in larger cities. Dustfall had never been busy before but now the village square felt almost lively.

One morning a worn out adventurer group walked in. They looked worse than most. Torn cloaks. Dull weapons. A map with holes burned into it. Their leader a tired woman named Ressa approached Alan with a bag full of mismatched beast parts and cracked cores. She expected another argument with a merchant. Instead she found Alan standing next to the price board with a calm expression and a notebook.

She opened the bag and poured the contents onto the table. This is all we have left she said. We have been hunting for weeks and barely made enough to buy food. Alan examined the items carefully. Most pieces were low grade. But something else caught his eye. A cluster of pale blue feathers that glowed faintly.

These are from a Frostwing. Alan said. Ressa nodded. Hard to catch but the price is low. So we sold most before reaching here. Alan shook his head. He explained that Frostwing feathers were common in winter but very rare in warm seasons. They were currently out of season which meant their price should be much higher. Ressa looked confused. No merchant ever mentioned that. Alan smiled. No merchant needed to. But prices follow patterns even if people ignore them.

Alan wrote down a number. Ressa blinked. This is three times what we were offered anywhere else. Alan nodded again. Because you brought them in the right season for buyers. You simply did not know it. Information is also a resource.

Ressa stared at him. You talk like a mage reading ancient runes. Alan laughed quietly. I am no mage. I just watch people. She exchanged a look with her companions. There was relief hope and suspicion mixed together. She asked why he was being fair. Alan answered simply. If you trust my prices you will return. If you return Dustfall becomes stronger. Everyone wins.

It was the first time any adventurer group felt treated as partners rather than scavengers. Ressa agreed to the price and thanked him. But Alan was not done. He asked them to stay a moment. He took out a piece of paper and drew a simple contract. He offered them a future deal. If they brought Frostwing feathers again he would buy them at the same rate for the next three weeks as long as they reported their hunting routes to help him track monster population trends.

Ressa frowned. You want our information. Alan nodded. And I will pay for it. Information is valuable because it helps me predict supply. When supply is predictable prices stay stable. That helps adventurers. That helps merchants. It helps everyone.

The group hesitated until Ressa extended her hand. The deal is fair. You have yourself a partner. This handshake would be remembered later as the first official contract of the Dustfall Exchange though no one called it that yet.

As weeks passed Alan created more such agreements. Adventurers who once saw themselves as lone wanderers now acted like suppliers. They began to understand that their hunting patterns shaped the entire economy. Alan spoke with them about predictable cycles safer routes and the importance of not flooding the market with too many low grade cores at once. Many laughed at him at first but they listened.

One day a traveling merchant from the north arrived carrying a wagon full of unsold beast cores. He complained that prices up north had fallen so low he could not afford to return home. Alan examined the wagon and realized something important. The fall in price was not caused by lack of demand but by oversupply from a single overhunted region. Merchants had panicked and dumped their stock which caused a chain reaction of price collapses.

Alan made another bold choice. He offered to buy the entire wagon at a moderate price not cheap and not high. The northern merchant was shocked. Why would you risk buying all this When prices fall you will lose everything. Alan pointed at his notebook. Prices fall because people react emotionally. If I stabilize the supply through controlled releases the price will rise back to the normal level. The merchant had never heard of controlled supply. But Alan’s confidence was infectious. He accepted the offer.

Dustfall became the unexpected center of trade. Adventurers from distant cities stopped by because they heard rumors that the boy guildmaster could predict prices with strange accuracy. Merchants came to learn why Dustfall never suffered from wild price swings. Even a few low rank nobles arrived pretending they were on hunting trips.

One evening after updating the price board Alan overheard an adventurer say something that made him pause. The boy is dangerous. If he controls prices he controls guilds. If he controls guilds he controls kingdoms. Alan sat quietly after hearing those words. He did not want power. He wanted clarity fairness and stability. But people often feared what they did not understand.

That night he took a long walk beyond the village. The moonlight rested on the grass and the wind carried faint traces of mana drifting through the air. Alan sensed his own weakness. He could barely gather mana. He could barely cast a spark. But he knew how to read the world in a different way.

He knew that mana was not just energy. It was a commodity. It was a resource that flowed through nations like rivers through valleys. Whoever understood that flow could shape entire regions. If he made one mistake he could destroy the fragile balance of Dustfall. If he made the right decisions he could lift the village from poverty.

When he returned to the village square he stared at the price board. It looked simple but it represented something larger. A foundation. A blueprint. The first layer of a structure that could one day become the Mana Spot Exchange. A system that would define not only prices but the behavior of adventurers guilds and nations.

Alan took a deep breath and whispered. If I want to guide this world I have to understand every part of it. Every adventurer. Every route. Every resource. Every pattern. The world ran on mana but mana supply ran on people. And people ran on incentives. He had discovered the first rule of his future guild. Whoever understands incentives understands power.

With this realization the path ahead seemed clearer. But it also brought danger. A system that could stabilize prices could also threaten those who profited from instability. Alan had no idea how many powerful groups would soon turn their eyes toward Dustfall. But he had taken the first decisive steps. The world would never return to the old way of trading mana. And he was no longer just a boy measuring prices. He was becoming something more.

He was becoming a guildmaster.