Rex woke up relaxed and restored, and after a magnificent breakfast, courtesy of Aisha, he left towards Victors castle. They would sumarize all the rumors they have heard and plan a few things regarding the auction, that was in the works. Since Rex lived basicly right next to Victor, he had no trouble reaching the property of the city lord adn there were no complications in his entry either. It was only natural- Victor needed Rex to stay in the city for its growth to be guaranteed.
Since Rex was the first to arive- testament to his free and unfettered lifestyle, he exchanged a few quick words with Victor and proceeded to relax in the office they would be holding their meeting in.It didnt take long for the merchants to arive, led by Victor. Since they were all here the lord would like to deal with this meeting as fast as posible, he had a lot of other matters to attend to, part of those related to the coming auction.
"So, how the word spreading regarding the auction?" Rex asked since he wasnt too much in the loop regarding the auction or its intricacies. His job was to be there and provide the main atraction of the event- his services as the blood mage.
"Besides the rumors, that should reach the ears of the rich merchants adn other lesser moneybags, we have spoken with quite a few representatives of other cities and some aristocrats regarding it. We have notified of the events development, now that question are being raised regaring the appearance of the orc champion in my employ" Victor spoke with quite the energy, quite the contrast to his somewhat tired expression.
"You have been workling hard, but we have done quite a bit as well.Brogni and I have been scouring different places for other things to put up on auction, and since we- the merchants guild have complexes for such events in every city, it was easy to set up the core of the auction." Eredar then spoke "So the staff and the grand venue is already prepeared, adn we have been spreading the word, that the auction would happen in three months time, as agreed with Victor previously." after he looked questioningly towards Rex waiting for the man to speak, if he had any complaints regarding the time frame, and understanding the silence Rex shrugged
"Im fine whenever, since im not really needed in the event itself. All I need is to be present when they want to cash in on their prize. But how have you advertised the main attraction of the auction for the big spenders?" This time to Rex question answered Brogni
"The deal would be that we provide cour right to negotiate for a brand once. AS such, besides the fee for us bringing the winner to you, they would have to pay for the branding as well. That price would depend on the targets rank, dificulty and rarity- up to The high A ranks. We excluded S ranks and pinnacle A ranks, since we were not aware of your limits by then, but still, its incredible and a wery alluring offer. Besides we dont really want them aware you can brand S ranks right now. That could bring too much trouble right now. We need stronger network, and a prestige as recognized power. Only then would it be wise to show all we are capable of."
"Raise the amount of meat we are selling by some ten to twenty precent. I need to fatten my vaullt. There might be some nice things in the auction i could desire." Rex spoke once the main discussion was over, and Eredar nodded, then Rex asked anothr question
"Should i brand an extra champion, to sell in the auction?"
After a while of thinking, Victor nodded his head in agreement "Yes, but just a single one for the auction. While we want to flaunt your abilities, we need to keep most of it concealed."
Then they spent another hour, to discuss other finer details of recent events and Rex informed the trio of Ainas sisters eventual arival, so they are not suddenly suspicious. The trio sighed, and resignated themselves to posibly entertain a rather influential person in the near future. Once done they dispersed and returned to their own duties, with Rex again focusing on his personal plans- grinding and providing Eredar with enough meat to fatten both of their coffers. And as such he dived into the dungeon, this time entering in his blood mage garb. Rex would fill up his spatial storage rings with meat and then go down a floor to get his hands on a champion or two.
His path to the dungeon was quite fast, but he heard some wispers here and there, his garb beeing sometimes recognized by some more informed scouts and informants. Of course what they spoke was never meant to be heard by Rex, but his constant trips to floor thirty and continious usage of drain had strenghtened not only his body, mana and stamina reserves but also all of his senses, that he could quite well controll by now. He even had managed to half filter the things he heard, as if having his ever increasing mental capacity split into multiple simultaneously running pararel though proceses. A part of his mind was always dedicated to threat assesment, another few were listening in on the conversations around, zoning out the useless daily rantings of surrounding people while latching onto and focusing on rumors, shady talk and other such conversations, and the last part was his ussual active mind. What he wanted to do, his plans and any other thing that anyone would think of. His support partitions, as he had classified them, worked in the background- subconsciously performing their tasks.
Some of those that recognised his attire from the descriptions they had recieved from their adventurers guild insiders or information brokers, kept their distance and observed from afar, while others tried to discreetly tail him. They came up empty as the man went to the dungeon and soon dissapeared within. Due to Return Tori and the way teleportation to deeper floors worked, none of the stalkers followed in, sicne there was no chance in hell they could run into the man, and as such they all took positions in different locations to wait for his reemergence. They had work to do to track his movements and habits- people would pay a fortune for any weakneses or particular tastes of such men, after all when dealing with such men information was power.
Rex exited the swirling portal in floor thirty, as ussual, and started his hunt to fill up his meat storage rings. What made him particularily happy was that before parting, Eredar had finaly delivered him the spatial ring they ordered from the turtle hermits a while back, and while his ring was here, no hermit had arived with it, since they had some unfortunate accident back in their city that demanded their full atention. And since they considered this an unplesant situation, they had delivered a bigger artifact for the same price as previously agreed, with an apology letter stating they would right this wrongdoing of theirs as soon as they solve their own issues. Rex didnt take it to heart, why would he? He recieved even better spatial storage than requested. Insead of twenty cubic meters he recieved forty, and thanks to his new busineses and upcoming auction that would enrich him even more so, he had Eredar send a letter of thanks, mentioning that Rex had apreciated their gift and was not holding any displeasure towards them, on the contrary, he was requesting another spatial storage ring, much larger this time, and he had no rush in its delivery, so once they solve their current predicament, only then should they move to fullfiling his request, adding that if they had a need for assistance Rex would gladly offer it, as artisans of their caliber should be free to pursue their craft unimpeded.
Rex was also quite happy with his progress regarding his drain chains.He now was controllinh them quite effortlessly, all eight of them, extending and reducing their lenght at will. He could also change their tangibility from ethereal now to full on physical with quite nice toughness. he could easily use these chains to hold down most of the beasts on his floor using a single chain. Of course that didnt include great sabertooths and night prowlers as of yet, but using all chains, he could hold down even those for quite some time. And so Rex spent and entire day farming meat on floor thirty all the while looking for path back to floor twenty-nine. He need that champion for the auction, and he would deliver as soon as posible.
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Night came and Rex was still looking for the path to twenty-ninth, and he was starting to think that he had some pretty shitty sense of dirrection, or the ability to stay on course. A few hours into the night, while deciding his new search direction, he suddenly sensed something he had been looking for for quite some time. He sensed a predator, eyeing him, and focusing on the energy signature he was sure that it was a night prowler. They were way too elusive, or he just coudnt encounter one till now. He had spent a total of twenty days roaming floor thirty, and while one could say its not that much, taking into account that Rex was moving around with much greater speed than the average party, covering much bigger grounds, and he was doing the same at night, he expected he had to have encountered at least a few. But now he had a target, and hewas quite lucky with his encounter, when they happened, and true enough, he was right.
After a few dozen minutes of scouting, Rex concluded that the was being tracked by a rather young specimen. His constant observation of many different beasts had given him a solid insight regarding energy flow and coloring when it concerns the age of the individual he is inspecting. And while he coudnt tell the exact age, he could divide them in categories: baby- days to a few years, child- two to ten years, teen- ten to fully developed, then came a young adult- twenty to thirty, afterwards middle aged- thirty to fourty five(still capable of reproduction), and then aged- anything past fourty five in ordinary human terms of his previous life. And its not the age in years per say, but more like the health and body development that affected the energy flow. For example, if he saw and elven woman who was five hundred years old or older, adn her body still was in its perfect shape, his energy readings would classify her as a young adult, even if in the next few years her energy flow would bring her over to the next tier so to speak.
This specimen was a young adult, so Rex was quite happy. he will get his stealth protector for his home and help to find his way to twenty-nineth. He was quite carefull whn moving towards the panther to not alarm it, and one he was close enough he dashed in its dirrection.As soon as the beast realized it has been discovered, it quickly tried to escape, since they didnt like dirrect confrontation, and if posible opted for ambush strategies. One of the wery rare creatures of the dungeon who didnt go into an instant frenzy upon meeting beings from outside. They stalked and assasinated their prey. For almost five minutes the poor panther tried to outrun her prey, adn realizing that man chasing it could not be shaken off and hidden from, the cat turned aroudn adn leaped at Rex, again trying to take him by suprise.
Unfortunately for the cat, what followed next was not in its expectations. Eight bloody chains shot from the mans back and wraped aroud it, effectively boundign it and not alowing in almost any movement. Rex observed cat for a second and noding his head in aproval activated his magic, branding the panther. The panther was a beautifull black color witha lustre in the fur that gave it a luxurious and soft feeling just looking at it. It was almost two and a half meters high, fully developed, but woul;d grow almots half a meter bigger in height eventualy, as she reached full maturity.
Rex smiled when he realised that his luck was indeed good, as he had encountered another girl. Females tended to be much more docile and easier to be the master of. After branding the beast females looked at the master as the alpha, and tended to be just the perfect pets. Rex looked in the panters yellow eyes adn noticed a small crystal between them. It looked quite beautifull, but was small enough to not be noticed imediatly.
"Thats a pretty gem you have there." he spoke to his new companion, releasing her from the chains than bound her "I will call you Crystal." Rex decided adn named the new member of his family. and after a brief moment of thinking and understandign that Crystal was hungry, explaining the hunt, he fed her with some of his recently aquired meat reserves, and ordered her to help him fidn the path to twenty-nineth floor. It took them less than the duration of the remaining night to find the stairs up under the guidance of Crystal, reinforcing Rex's suspicions that he wasnt all that good with directions and keeping on a path. But hey, one cant have it all was his excuse, besides he could just brand some super smart poket sized magical beast liek raven or something to fix that issue of his, or even some ethereal creature for the same purpose.
Ariving at the twenty-nineth, Rex and Crystal spen a few hours murdering lizardmen untill they found a pack of orcs. Once they were dealt with, keeping the last one alive, Rex spoke in orckish
"I am looking for a champion. Is there one where you came from?"
He waited for few moments and seeing the orc scowling at him, unwilling to provide any info, Rex just sighed
"Well, keep it to yourself then, we will just find it on our own, right Crystal?" the last few words were spoken in common, since Crystal, like all others branded by Rex, recieved the understanting of it through the brand.
"And then we will have a small feast with whoever is there" Rex smiled ominously as he once again spoke in orkish, and snaped the orcs neck.
"Can you focus on their scent and trace it back to where ever they came from? We need to find compatriots." Rex spoke as he aproached and petted Crystal. Sure she was not a canine, ot their ilk, but she was an apex predator nonetheless, and a magical beast. She had her ways of tracking her prey, and with both the nod, purr and the feeling through his brands link, he new Crystal had both teh ability and the desire to hunt. She was young and full of spirit, and unlike Tigra, she didnt have to care about cubs yet. And so they embarked on a fast paced tracking for their target. Rex jumped on her back, using his chains to hold himself in position and to not impede Crystals movement. Her fur was increadibly plesant to the touch, and rex was sure Aina would fawn over her, posibly even more than oer the cubs, since Crystal was a panther- the most beloved mounts of the elves, if one igores the fact that she was three times bigger than the ones elves use. Still Rex found his new kitten cute and he was sure as hell Aina would too. Crystal had that playfulness only atributable to kittens.
They spent a couple of days searching for the origin of the orc group they had encountered, stoping for a few hours for Crystal to sleep and recover. They had moved quite the distance, and Rex had a feeling they were close to their target. At the noon of the third day, they came to a rather large ravine in the center of which they saw quite large settlement. Quick estimates and energy reading gave Rex an aproximation of a couple thousand life signatures. Rex had noticed patrols of orcs around who were keeping watch, but he and Crystal had been quite sneaky, and with their superior capabilities they had avoided any and all detection.
"We will wait for the night, then I will let you go wild." Rex vispered in his companions ear, recieving a happy purr from Crystal, and a soft nudge of hear head against his body. They kept low and hidden while waiting for the coming of night. In his wait, Rex kept watching out for patrols and allowed Crystal to sleep so she can be fully rested before the night. She would surely need all the stamina she had seeing the size of the tribe. A rather big outpost could reach one or two hundred orcs, with a champion, and since here were ten times that, maybee here he could encounter a chieftain? Rex held no illusions for a king, those needed at least ten tousand subjects, from what he had learned from books he read in his spare time at home, which wasnt all that much. He planned a bit, to make this slaughter a bit more efficient. He sighed when he realized, that while orcs were similar to humans in most aspects, he could do nothing but smile at the fact that he had absolutely no issues whatsoever to kill them in droves, and he once again marveled at the adaptability of human consciousness and capacity for cruelty. It seemed to him that it was so much more distinguishable in his case, since he would propably fly off the handle if someone dared to hurt his girls waiting back in his mansion, and that included not only Irina, who he had grown fond of, but all the other maids too. The wilingness to destroy everything that dares to hurt or threathen whats close to you, and do whatever it takes to make sure they have a good life, seemed so human and alien concept at the same time.