The beautiful woman walked in and set the drinks down on the table. She had long vibrant purple hair that extended a little past her shoulders and a set of dark purple eyes. She was around the average height of a woman at 5 foot 5 and had a lithe build. She possessed a poise and grace that showed years of experience as a maid.

“Here you are, sir,” said the maid as she placed a cup of tea down in front of him. “Please enjoy.”

“Thanks.”

Soon, Henry entered the room followed by a young woman woman in what Desmond could only call slave clothes. This second woman was short and pretty with long dark blond hair, but she didn’t compare to the maid that first entered. Desmond instantly knew what Henry was going for.

The first maid that entered was a slave that for some reason wasn’t going to be for sale unless Desmond was willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money. Unfortunately for Henry, neither of the women passed Desmond’s soul test. The blond woman had a single rare orb and the purple-haired woman only had common orbs. Neither of them were the diamond in the ruff that he was looking for.

“Sorry for the wait,” Henry said with a friendly smile. “This here is Renna, and I think she would be a perfect maid for you.”

As Henry was talking the purple-haired maid moved to stand behind him. Henry then motioned for Renna to move forward, who did so with a small curtsy.

“Hello, sir,” Renna said in a sheepish voice.

In this whole process, Desmond was unable to take his eyes off the purple-haired maid. Something felt off about her. She was undeniably a beautiful woman, but Desmond felt no attraction to her at all. Was there some kind of magic at play here?

“Oh, I should introduce my maid as well,” Henry said clearly mistaking Desmond’s stare as interest. “This here is Freya.”

“Good evening,” Freya said in a sweet voice.

Desmond pulled his eyes from Freya to look at Renna. She was more on the cute side with her smaller frame and blushing face but was also undeniably a pretty woman. But Desmond still felt nothing. This caused him to panic a little. What black magic was this?

“Hmmm, so are these the two you wanted to show me?” Desmond asked more to avoid being silent than anything else. He had to calm down a bit and think back. What could cause him to look at a beautiful woman and feel nothing?

“Oh no, sorry,” Henry said. “Freya is not for sale yet. She is still in training.”

This had to be something recent. Desmond was still infatuated with Riki, so it wasn’t his libido that was being affected. And there were other women he found attractive as well like Alivia, Jez, or really any of the women who were at that meeting.

“Renna here is the one I’m recommending for you,” Henry continued completely oblivious to Desmond’s internal plight.

“Shit,” Desmond said unintentionally as he finally realized what was happening. All the women he found attractive shared one similar quality. They were all strong! They could all contend with him in a fight, and many of them could outright kick his ass. Was he only able to find high-tiered women attractive? That was a dangerous quality to have.

“Umm, I’m sorry but this is company policy,” Henry said after a moment. “If you like, I can show you some other merchandise.”

“Oh, sure,” Desmond said, still not really paying attention to the conversation.

Now that he thought about it, there was no real lack of powerful women in this world. Talent wasn’t sexist, and each year about the same number of men and women awakened. By the time you reached disaster class, there were actually more women in the hunter business than men. Not by a large margin but it was notable. There were many reasons for this but put simply, male hunters had a higher mortality rate. Men were more aggressive, preferred the vanguard roles, and were generally willing to take larger risks.

“Well,” Henry said as he stood up. “Please follow me this way.”

Desmond knew he was no exception to this. He had chosen a life or death fight with Ben over slowly and safely progressing with Alivia’s party. Without [Giant’s Blood] he would have likely died a dozen times over already.

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Desmond snapped out of his thoughts as he stood up to follow Henry out of the room. For a moment there he had thought he was whipped. Desmond let out a relieved sigh, at 27 he was still far too young for that. Wait, where were they going again?

***

Desmond was walking around one of the wealthier parts of the city. The rest of his meeting with Henry had been uneventful. Henry only had about 2 dozen awakened slaves for sale and only one of them had a purple legacy. The person in question had been an older man well past his prime and the orb only gave him flat Strength, so Desmond was reluctant to invest in him.

Right now, Desmond was using soul sight to observe the souls of those around him on the street. He wanted to understand just how rare the more scarce legacies were. He had just finished wandering through the mustering yard at the Lodge so he had gotten a good look at a wide range of awakened souls.

From Desmond’s observation, he discovered that around the disaster class, it became almost common for hunters to have at least one purple orb. Gold orbs were far more scarce even at the higher tiers, but Desmond had still seen quite a few among the hunters he had looked through. The sheer number of hunters camping out on the grounds had offered him a very large sample size.

Below disaster class, it was much more rare to see purple legacies. Maybe one in a dozen or so hunters would have them. Desmond expected that this was because a hunter had to be strong or wealthy to get their hand on a high-tiered beast core which could give them a good legacy. But thinking back, his data was definitely skewed. The hunters most likely to inherit a powerful legacy would come from the big noble families, and they wouldn’t be camping out in the mustering yard.

From among the darks Desmond had seen, not a single one had anything more than a green orb.

What would happen if he gave a dark a blue or purple legacy? He would add that to his growing list of experiments to try on someone he didn’t like.

Desmond looked up at the darkening sky. It was still early in the afternoon but a thick set of clouds had rolled in bringing with it a winter chill. It looked like it might even start to snow or worse, freezing rain, at any moment. There was a storm coming, likely the first winter storm of the season.

Desmond decided it was time to head home. The weather didn’t affect him much, but it was still uncomfortable being stuck in the rain. Besides that, all the shops would close with the bad weather as well.

No, he had almost forgotten, he still needed a new bed. Desmond turned and started walking to a nearby market with some haste in his steps.

As Desmond entered the market square, he could see that people were already starting to clear out. The threat of the storm seemed to be ending the business day early. Desmond quickly scanned the market and found a furniture store that would likely have what he needed. In the process, something else caught his attention from the corner of his eye. It was a gold legacy orb. Was there another hunter here?

Desmond focused on the golden orb. It was around a small red sun, likely someone who had recently awakened. So, was it some noble kid with an inherited legacy? This was the group Desmond hadn’t been able to observe in the mustering yard so he was intrigued.

When Desmond used soul sight other objects, besides souls, became slightly transparent. Because of this, he couldn’t directly see the owner of the soul through the crowd of people. Desmond locked onto the small red soul and started to follow it through the market.

It didn’t take Desmond long to follow the soul to a pair of guards at the edge of the market. The small red soul didn’t belong to either guard but to a kid that was on the ground between them.

“Just give back the stuff you stole so we can move on already,” said the awakened guard before kicking the kid in the gut hard. This caused the child to convulse and curl up into the fetal position.

Desmond let out some of his mana, which caused both guards to quickly turn to him and raise their weapons. Mana was an interesting thing and would react to a person's emotions, especially if that person was strong. This is where the concept of bloodlust came from, ambient mana reacting to an individual's mana, that would react to that person's emotions. And Desmond was currently very angry, and the guards could feel it bearing down on them.

Desmond didn’t see himself as a particularly good person, but beating a child in the streets was crossing his bottom line. Desmond approached the guards while trying his best to get his emotions back under control. Both guards were already staring at him wide-eyed and he had drawn the attention of most of the market. He didn’t want to turn this into a larger incident.

“No, ummm, that is,” said the dark guard, having trouble finding his words under Desmond’s bloodlust. “This isn’t what it looks like. We ummm, we’re-”

“We are disciplining a thief,” said the awakened guard clearly shaken but much more composed than his partner. “We caught him stealing in the market and he wouldn’t return what he stole.”

Desmond calmed down a little as he came to tower over the guards. The awakened guard was around tier 4. That was good for a city guard but inconsequential to Desmond.

In truth, much of the legal system in the Empire was barbaric, and this could very well be in their job description for all Desmond knew. It didn’t mean he liked it, but beating up these guards would change nothing and only cause him problems.

“Leave,” Desmond said in a firm tone.

After a moment of silence, the awakened guard replied. “Of course, sir. We will leave this matter to you.”

The awakened guard turned around and had to support his colleague, who had almost collapsed under the pressure, as they both headed off into the market. Desmond let out a sigh, then looked down at the boy who had collapsed onto the ground.