The whole room stared at the opening doors. The announcer hadn’t been kidding. It was indeed the Tower Lord walking into the auction hall, accompanied by a small entourage of Sylvan attendants and valets.
He was just as he had looked on that broadcast when Ray had won his first dungeon on the Third Floor. Light grey skin that was marked with artful red tattoos.
The difference was that he was dressed in greater finery this time. His two ruby-dangling earrings were matched by a necklace around his throat that held more red rubies. Wait, no. Those stones looked different. Were they garnets? Ray wasn’t an expert in gemstones so he wasn’t sure.
His robes were white, trimmed with gold and detailed with crimson embroidery. A short staff, capped with a skull of some monster Ray couldn’t identify, hung at his waist.
Basically, the Tower Lord knew how to make himself look and feel ostentatious. There could be no doubt that this was the Lord of the Tower of Forging.
Of course, there was a special spot prepared for the Tower Lord. Ray hadn’t noticed it earlier, but near the head of the seating arrangement, there was a small abundance of empty chairs, set somewhat separate from the rest. It was to these chairs that the Lord and his entourage headed, taking his seat there.
Ray did note how the Tower Lord nodded at some in the crowd, acknowledging others, always holding onto a genial little smile. He didn’t know what to make of the fellow just yet.
Considering how rather insane all the Floor Lords Ray had met so far had been, it wasn’t preposterous to think that their boss would be the same kind of crazy, if not worse. So far however, the Tower Lord seemed kind and amicable. He wasn’t fooled, though. Smiles could hide a great deal of unsavouriness.
“He seems fancy,” Marcus said.
“What was your Tower Lord like, or the Floor Lords, if you ever met them?” Ray asked suddenly curious.
“We didn’t have Lords for every Floor, so I don’t think there was any Tower Lord either.”
“Wait, really? The way I heard it, the System often invites races who have experience using the System like the Sylvans to control the Towers. That’s why they’re in this Tower. What in the world did you have to do if you didn’t have Floor Lords setting you Objectives?”
“Well, for us, we had to establish Floor Lords ourselves. Whoever could accomplish a set number of Objectives in a given time was chosen as the Floor Lord on the First Floor. Then on the Second Floor, it was literally a democracy. You had to build your faction and gain the support of the majority.”
“That sounds… potentially tyrannical…”
Marcus shrugged. “There’s a reason I came to a different Tower.”
Ray was about to say that Marcus’s earlier assumption had been that he had come to the Tower of Forging because it was stronger than his Tower, and thus, could provide greater opportunities for growth. He supposed two things could be true at once.
A part of Ray wanted to ask the other humans about their Towers too. Eliza, and maybe even Sameer. He didn’t even know if they were from the same Tower or not.
But before he could figure out how to ask, the Tower Lord spoke.
“Please,” he said. “Do continue. I wouldn’t wish to hold up the auction any longer than we must.”
The organizer lavished them all with a wide smile before turning back to the team of competitors still on the stage. They were all staring at the Tower Lord with differing expressions. The Sylvan’s was subservient, the Holdstar’s almost scathing, while the boulder-alien was unreadable.
Ray only knew the Holdstar was angry because he had seen much the same expression on Ram, Bam, and Lam on the Second Floor.
“As the Tower Lord commands,” the organizer said. “Let us continue with the auction. To summarize, our brave, strong competitors have unearthed a chunk of Alutrium, a material that can cease the function of any and all Mana. It simply deletes it.” He turned to the crowd. “So, tell us, good auctioneers. What are you willing to offer for such a magical discovery?”
Ray wasn’t sure how accurate that was. Was there seriously no other Mana-negating material in all the other worlds where Mana and the System were active? Somewhat hard to believe.
Which was soon proven by the response from the auctioneers.
“Two hundred Mana shards,” came the first bid from someone far back in the crowd.
Even Ray, who was wholly opposed to the Albatross team gaining much in the auction, winced. That was a terribly low starting offer.
“Don’t they have the fluffers?” Gritty asked in a low whisper.
The other competitors in the room were talking in hushed tones too, so her question didn’t garner much attention.
Ray could only shrug. Crowd fluffers, as Sridayne had called them, would be vital for their success. The starting bid of any auction could often dictate the ultimate amount that an item sold for. A higher bid from the very beginning established that it was a worthwhile item to spend on.
That’s why it could help greatly if there were plants within the auctioneer crowd whose job it was to kickstart the auction with a decently high bid.
But it was a gamble too. Posit too high a bid, and there would be no one who would follow up, and then the auction failed. The crowd fluffers were plants after all. Not actual auctioneers. They didn’t have the money to actually back up their bid, so it would all have been for nothing.
Still. Ray considered it a good idea. With the right presentation before the auction went underway and a careful starting bid, they could set themselves up for success.
In this case, it looked like the Albatross team didn’t have any crowd fluffers. Their loss.
“A fine starting bid!” the organizer said. Ray winced again. No way that Sylvan thought it was actually fine. He was just contractually obligated to call even a single Mana crystal fine. “But is that the final worth of Alutrium?”
The rising bids did start pouring in. One after the other. Despite their seemingly bad start, the value of the Mana-deleting item was recognized by at least some in the crowd, and they made it known they wanted it.
Two hundred became four hundred, which turned into seven hundred Mana shards. Before long, the bids were travelling through the Mana pearl category, which was where it ideally should have started in the first place. They started slowing down once they crossed the fifty Mana pearl threshold, however.
Ray noted the expression on the human. The other two were harder to read, but the lone man was definitely trying not to bite his lip. His fingers shot to his mouth on occasion too, though he pulled it down before he could start biting on it. Nervous was an understatement.
Honestly, it was rather refreshing, considering he was part of a team that had cleared a Tier 32 dungeon. In other words, the guy had to most likely be quite strong.
And yet, he was acting so human.
Eventually, the bidding ended at 120 Mana pearls. It wasn’t that bad, though personally, Ray was pretty sure their low starting bid was the reason it hadn’t gone higher.
None of them seemed too disappointed, though. Not the human, nor the Sylvan, and Ray couldn’t even begin to read the boulder-alien’s expression. Honestly, he needed to ask what they were actually called. Referring to them as boulder-alien was getting annoying.
Ray did feel like it was a little suspicious they didn’t look that sad at their final outcome. Unless, this was what a normal auction looked like. Would Ray’s team receive much less when it was time to sell the flesh-studded crystal?
As the first team left the stage, the organizer called out the second team.
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“Will the team of two humans, Sameer and Eliza, and one Ryous, Karkatrix, please come out and present what they wish to auction?” the organizer called.
Sameer glanced back at Ray with a small sneer. “Now you’re going to see how much the people who deserve the treasures they possess actually earn in—”
Eliza shoved him from behind, pushing him towards the stage. “Yeah, yeah, you can tell him to shove it when you’ve got a couple hundred Mana pearls, Sameer. Let’s go.”
Sameer continued to glare at Ray even as he was driven forward by Eliza like was a shopping cart. “Good idea, Eliza. I’ll make sure to shove the Mana pearls right up his…”
His words thankfully faded as he went too far onto the stage.
“Seriously, what did you even do to that guy?” Gritty asked. Sameer was still more or less frothing at the mouth, leaning around to curse Ray silently all the way from the stage. “You gave him a wedgie or something?”
Ray’s lips curled. “I probably should have.”
Once Sameer could focus on the actual auction again, they got underway. The second team’s treasure turned out to be a strange gun. Ray had never seen anything like it, and the only reason he called that weird hunk of metal a “gun” was because its shape somewhat resembled one. It was made of something like gold and lined with red gems gleaming like bloodied amber.
“This,” Sameer said, raising the strange item high in the air just like the boulder-alien had done. “This is a powerful Eradicator. A guaranteed Eradicator. We unearthed this from a dungeon filled with dangers, but this… this was the greatest danger of all.
“I’m sure many of you have already seen what it is capable of. But a mere description fails to truly do it any real justice. Instead, to prove its efficacy, we will need to perform a live demonstration. So if there are any among the crowd who wish to stand back before we show off the true power of this Eradicator, now is your chance to do so.”
Not a single person left their seats. Ray was curious what exactly the item’s description might have stated. He hadn’t tried using Primordial Gauge, as he suspected Sameer’s Amulet of Blindness would have protected him and anything he held against it.
But Ray activated the spell and focused it on the strange, gun-like item.
[Primordial Gauge]
Primordial Gauge indicates there is an item nearby interacting with Mana.
* Eradicator of All: Implement fashioned by the Elstringer Arsonists. When faced against foes and overwhelming odds, when forced to reflect that their innate might was inferior in comparison to their enemies, the Elstringer Arsonists fashioned an item with their very souls. One that was borne from their desire to kill all opposition, no matter how powerful. Striking a target twice with this weapon’s energy will always kill said target.
Ray wasn’t sure at first what was such a big deal with a weapon like that. Come on. He had spells that could kill anything he struck with one hit. Why would two hits make it special?
But there was something about the description, which was filled with lore details but not anything that specific about the item’s exact powers. Just that one line about hitting things twice. Well, Ray supposed he was about to see with whatever demonstration Sameer had cooked up.
Said demo involved creating a portal in the centre of the stage. Clearly, the whole thing had been practiced beforehand.
As soon as a swirling portal materialized in the air, Sameer’s two teammates took positions on either side of the portal. With a wild roar that shook the whole auction—and frightened a lot of the auctioneers—a monster burst out through the portal with a gush of water.
Ray blinked. Huh. So Sameer’s portals could summon creatures from other worlds too. This guy really was overpowered…
Said monster looked like walrus, but pure white. Its head was ringed with a crown of twisting horns, and instead of tusks, it had a sharklike maw filled with razor-sharp teeth. Oh, and it was about the size of a bus. Ray was a little surprised it could fit on the stage.
Not that it was a problem. As soon as the monster appeared, both Eliza and Karkatrix acted to suppress it.
Karkatrix threw out two of his arms, chains emerging from his fists and wrapping around the giant monster. Meanwhile, Eliza summoned up another bubble that warped time, making it enclose the monster’s head. The creature started calming down. Oh yes, this whole thing was really practiced. Ray was honestly impressed.
“I will give you a moment,” Sameer said, raising his voice over the monster’s roars and thrashing, though the monster was quickly pacifying. “A moment to gauge this creature’s strength for yourself.”
Ray blinked. What in the world was he going to demonstrate? The ability of the Eradicator to kill that monster?
Following suit of everybody else, Ray peeked at the monster’s status with Primordial Gauge.
[Primordial Gauge]
Waverider [Monster] [Tier 31] [Level 89]
Ray stared at the very first line. That thing was Tier 31 and over level eighty. Had Ray ever faced a creature that powerful? Even the Eternal Guardian paled against this Waverider. The fact that Eliza and Karkatrix were able to subdue it like that was already impossibly impressive.
But the more impressive thing was Sameer taking his stand in front of the monster before firing the Eradicator. The shot didn’t sound like a gun. More like a strange energy blast, which was essentially what happened. A little pellet of burning red struck the monster dead in its blubbery chest. It began thrashing, rage reawakened, but Sameer fired again.
And the monster died.
Ray tried peeking at it with Primordial Gauge, but the spell failed. Just a small confirmation that the Waverider was indeed dead. After just two shots, exactly as the item’s description had promised.
The only thing was… that monster had been incredibly powerful. In fact, it had to be several levels higher than any of the trio who had summoned it. How did Sameer even have things like that at his beck and call?
But what was really impressive was the fact that the Eradicator didn’t care about level differences or anything like that. Shoot twice at anything, and it would die, no matter how much stronger the target might be compared to the wielder. Essentially, the item was a leveller that had to be extremely uncommon, if not entirely unprecedented.
Ray saw how it functioned pretty easily. Primordial Gauge helped when he focused on it as Sameer summoned another powerful creature to kill.
The first shot from the gun created a weakness on the target. A fatal weakness in the form of a damage multiplier. The following shot took advantage of the weakness, killing the target instantly as the damage rose by several orders of magnitude.
“If that’s not enough,” Eliza said. “We’ve got more where that came from.”
Sameer did indeed demonstrate the efficacy of the Eradicator on even more monsters. Turned out, the Tiers and levels really didn’t matter at all. So long as Eliza and Karkatrix could subdue the monster and hold it in place, Sameer could kill it with two shots from the Eradicator. Ray was starting to see why this weapon would be precious.
“And now,” the organizer said. “Let us begin the auction itself. Who among us will start off the bidding?”
This auction was a lot more interesting than the last one. The starting bid was in the pearl ranges, at eight Mana pearls. Whether that was a fluffer or not, it worked. The bids only went up from there.
Ray had to admit it was annoying to see the way Sameer’s smugness rose to stratospheric levels as the bids went higher and higher. By the time auctioneers had reached the hundreds level of Mana pearls in no time at all, he looked like he could eat his own farts for breakfast.
Sameer almost ran over to Ray when the auction ended. “Did you see? We got over four hundred Mana pearls. Good, fucking luck trying to get that. That’s what people who aren’t bullies get. Ha!”
Ray raised his hand to call over the Sylvan attendant who had first led his team to the room beside the stage. “I’d like to call pest control, please.”
Sameer looked like he was about to lunge and choke Ray’s neck with his bare hands, forget the fact that he could summon otherworldly portals. Thankfully, the Sylvan attendant and his own teammates dragged his struggling and cursing form away before things turned violent.
Despite how successful Sameer and his team had been, it didn’t stick in Ray’s mind for long. It was finally time. Sharing a quick, encouraging look with his teammates, Ray took the stage alongside Gritty and Marcus.
His heart thumped a little in nervousness. He knew beating Sameer’s tally was going to be a tall order. Their ability to influence the auction would be limited too, but Ray had some hope that the mimic constructs he had installed in the auction room would serve well. Sridayne’s idea of crowd fluffers would be invaluable. Sameer’s success was proof of its importance.
Ray stepped forward and held out the flesh studded crystal. The little speech he gave was practiced, though he did his best not to make it sound like it was rote memorization.
“This wonderful little tool is called the Primordial Flesh Conduit.” He paused for a second, letting the words register on the many faces in the audience. “It’s a great item, one that can create flesh and life of its own. But its most valuable property is this.”
They proceeded with their demonstration. Ray summoned up one of his flying Windbane heads with Primal Spiritcraft. Chunks of the same kind of flesh that studded the crystal had now formed on his summons as well. The audience didn’t miss it, several of the auctioneers leaning forward to see what exactly he had planned.
Ray nodded at Gritty. She grinned, then attacked him.
A small javelin of bloodied bone burst out of her palm and aimed straight for Ray’s guts. It should have pierced through his stomach and impaled through him, but as soon as the very tip touched Ray’s robes, it disappeared.
Only to appeared within the summons. The draconic maw yawned wide as the javelin speared through the jaws, weirdly reminding Ray of a toothpick holding a big burger together.
There were many oohs and ahs from the crowd. Ray couldn’t hold back his satisfied grin. Was this how smug Sameer had felt when his plan had gone off without a hitch? It felt annoyingly good.
“In essence,” Ray said. “The flesh from the Primordial Flesh Conduit will always protect you. If someone attacks you, it’s the sacrificial flesh that will take damage instead. You’ll be perfectly fine. Completely safe. And best of all, it’s not limited to a skill or ability. You don’t have to channel it. Not really. Because…”
Ray smiled and pulled out the Carver of the Ancients. He had polished the little stone drawing utensil to help it shine a bit. “With this, you can take the power of the Primordial Flesh Conduit and have it active permanently on anything. No need to train up any abilities. No limits at different Tiers. If something attacks, you will be defended, you will be safe.”
They bent to demonstrating the function of the carver next. Ray drew the same shape of a shield on a chair they took from the auction room’s seating. Then he repeated the same process.
Gritty attacked him after bits of flesh grew on the chair, but it was the chair that took damage, not Ray.
“Let’s get started on the bidding,” Marcus said, stepping up as they had rehearsed. “We’re offering up two items as an indomitable pair.”
It was the organizer’s time to step up. He cleared his throat, but before he could speak, the Tower Lord raised his hand.
“I will bid,” he said, his crimson eyes landing right on Ray, the smile of his never turning unpleasant. “Three hundred Mana pearls for the pair.”