The inside of the auction house was broken up into a general assembly, with boxes for any team who’d collected at least three hundred points, and luxury boxes for those few who’d collected over a thousand.

The basic box that Kene and I were assigned was nowhere near as fancy as the one that Orykson had brought me to, with chairs made of magically shaped stone and thin pillows, but I was frankly just impressed that the Delitone group had built it so quickly.

Kene and I chatted for a little bit as we waited, Dusk chiming in from time to time, and Siobhan curled up at Kene’s feet, but before long, Cettilyn stepped on stage

“Ladies, gentlemen, and other distinguished guests!” she said, her voice echoing around the room. “Thank you all for attending tonight’s auction. We’re happy to have you, and we have quite a few interesting items up for auction tonight!”

There was a murmur from the crowd, and Cettilyn smiled, then nodded.

“We’re going to begin with arcanist and above level, and then we’ll have a brief intermission before we move on to the spellbinder and below, then another, and we’ll end the night with items like mana sources… Including the golden elixir plants!”

“Smart,” Kene murmured.

I nodded my agreement as the first item was brought on stage. It was a silver feather, glowing with gold and white magic, and giving off a serious amount of power, enough to rival the crystal that Kene and I had found.

“One of the three rare items that has actually reached seventh gate!” Cettilyn said, and a hush fell over the crowd.

“And that someone decided to sell,” I muttered under my breath, and Kene chuckled.

Cettilyn removed a cloth from a table to reveal a small purple sphere. I could barely make it out, since it was only the size of a marble.

But I could feel it. At least as strong as the ascending crystal that Kene and I had found, with a blend of mental, knowledge, and temporal magic.

“A lilac-mind sphere,” Cettilyn announced. “This is one of the ultimate mental enhancements, a natural treasure that will allow your mind to always operate at peak efficiency, process information smoother and faster, and more. Mentally taxing activities will become as easy as breathing.”

“Seven hundred,” Kamal called, and then I heard another voice, one I didn't recognize, call out seven fifty. The bidding went back and forth, until eventually Kamal called out nine hundred, and won the bid.

The next item to be brought out was a shield that looked like it was made of wood and scute, but that could completely shut down any magic below arcanist level, and would dampen the power of arcanist level magic. That was truly absurd, and four people got into a bidding war for it. In the end, Kamal shouted out “Four thousand points, plus one and a half million sun-notes.”

I had to take a moment to do the conversion in my head, and I hadn’t checked the conversion rates in a while, but that was at least a hundred thousand Mossford silver standards.

“No exterior funds!” someone called, and I could hear Kamal’s smirk as he responded.

“That wasn’t listed in the rules,” he said.

“We will accept Kamal’s bid,” Cettilyn said, before introducing the next auction item, a sphere of naturally forming glass with warped space inside.

“Inside of this sphere is a large, fully aspected plains biome demiplane that can be bound to anyone who’s blood is spilled on the glass,” Cettilyn said. “It covers an area of just over one hundred acres, and by our estimations, will gradually expand over time as it absorbs ambient magic.

I glanced at Dusk, who whistled that she wasn’t impressed. She thought she’d be that size, or bigger, when she ascended to fourth gate.

“That is also your entire body and magic,” Kene pointed out. “Wor… Living-bound things like you kind of break the rules.”

Dusk shrugged and said it wasn’t her problem that others weren’t as skilled as she was.

The bidding war over this wasn’t as fierce, but it was still notable, going for just over five hundred points.

With the occultist level items out of the way, we moved into the arcanist items. There was a surprising number of those – strange spheres of roiling liquid that could temporarily allow you to take on the form of an elemental or magical beast, the heart of a giant baboon that had passed away peacefully that would bestow an absurd permanent increase in strength to the user, a gemstone that could absorb a portion of magic from any offensive spell and convert it into telluric energy in a manner that almost reminded me of temporal basin, and more.

“This is a half-grown crystalheart,” Cettilyn said, and Kene sucked in a breath.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What?” I asked.

“A crystalheart is… Possibly one of the most perfect treasures for you,” he said. “It’s a crystal that fuses to your mana-garden and body, and acts as a reserve of mana and energy, while also generating its own power. In essence, it doubles the amount of mana and energy running through the body.”

“This particular crystalheart was broken before its generation core was completed,” Cettilyn said, “and as such, it cannot restore its own mana or energy. It’s fusing function is also somewhat damaged, as it won’t be able to bind to you and grow indefinitely to match you, though we believe that the use of a bindingknot should fix this.”

She held up her hand.

“I realize these are severe damages, however, even with them, this is a useful tool, allowing you to store away an average amount of mana and energy for a later date, perhaps more and of higher gates if you were to gather a bindingknot and repair it. We’ll start the bid at thirty points.”

“Thirty!” I called out immediately.

“Thirty-five,” someone else called.

We went back and forth, and in the end, I picked up the broken crystalheart for fifty-five points.

A few more items went by until I spotted something that Kene might like.

“This rose is a natural treasure that will uniquely alter your ungated mana, making it more ideal for working with a wide variety of external mana sources. Perfect for the enchanters and alchemists in the audience! We have six roses, and the bidding starts at seventy-five.”

“Do you want it?” I asked Kene. I thought it would be better for me to keep mine unchanged – I needed it for wardcrafting, and I’d been doing that more than I’d have liked to admit to Orykson’s face. But for Kene? It was marvellous.

“It would be nice, but we don’t need it,” Kene said. “It’s useful, but don’t blow all our points on it.”

I nodded and waited the first four roses out, where people were blowing a few hundred points apiece on it, then called out during the fifth round.

“One hundred and fifteen,” I said as the starting bid. Too high for anyone who’d been trying to be miserly, but not so low that it would cause Kamal or the other whales to think that there was something freaky about it.

“Going once…” Cettilyn said.

“One twenty,” someone called out.

“One thirty,” I said. There was silence after that, and Cettilyn counted down, then called out sold. I sat back in the chair, and smiled at Kene.

“Thank you,” they said, lacing their fingers in with me.

“Now, something that will surely be of great note!” called out Cettilyn. “This is a natural treasure that will transform life mana into a more complex composite, very similar to that of a caladrius.”

My eyebrows crept up at that. If I’d found that, would I have used it? Probably not, but it was interesting nevertheless. Kene, on the other hand, might have found some use of it. I glanced at them, and they shrugged.

“It’s very useful to a healer,” Kene said. “I would take it, but I’m already able to mimic most caladrius spells, except the mental healing, but taking in the caladrius mana would make my plant divination and alchemy spells unusable. Too much of a tradeoff.”

I nodded and watched as a small bidding war erupted. A few more mana-altering objects were taken out, but none I thought I could make much use out of. I didn’t even know enough about what glass-eyed toad mana was to decide if I wanted to make use of it, for example. When another fifth gate hudau heritage stone was put up for sale, and Kamal bought it with an absurd amount of cash, as well as over a thousand points.

It was a bit frustrating that the best items could just be bought by Kamal, but I dismissed it. I’d never been rich, even if I’d never truly wanted either. No sense in moping.

Dusk fell asleep as we moved onto the next part of the auction, this time for spellbinder and below items. To my surprise, this was actually where most of the items I wanted were, as well as where the items we’d sold were.

Kene and I watched in some amusement as two incredibly brawny mages argued over the alter-truffle, and a part of me was debating seeking that girl out and trading for another perfectly suited treasure.

Each of us purchased several items. I picked up things that could be integrated to help me catch up on the amount of mana I had, while Dusk bought a few things to help her push forwards in her third gate, and Kene bought a purification stone that he thought he could fold into his tattoos.

“This is the petrified egg of an omnieye,” Cettilyn announced. “Quite difficult to crack open, but if you can manage to break it during an ascension, the power will wash out and enhance your mana senses and sensory spells of all stripes!”

“Fifty points!” I said, bolting up.

When nobody challenged me over it, I felt a bit foolish, but I was just glad to get it. My mana senses were one of my greatest strengths, and I wanted to double down on them, especially with the power that my Foxstep spell’s ingrained effect had given. I wasn’t certain it was entirely based on my mana senses, but it seemed likely.

“This is a pile of lightening stones,” she said. “Not lightning, lightening. For those of you who practice lightening skills and movement patterns, you may find them of some use, as they reduce the pull of gravity on whatever they’re touching ever so slightly.”

I grabbed one of those, since I figured I could add it onto my necklace and make use of it with Immovable Lock.

Kene grabbed a glowing blue crystal shard that enhanced defensive auras, probably meant for Siobhan, and Dusk grabbed a treasure that would help her master the flight spell.

Her flight spell was very different than the standard one that a tempest mage might use, integrating aspects of gravity control, force, and other, stranger effects, but it should still be effective.

As the auction wound down, and the auctioneers brought out the vast number of destiny plants that had been brought in. I looked at Kene, confuse.

“Surely even if they’re not alchemists, it would be easier to pay someone,” I said. “It’s an amazing long term advantage.”

“And a minor one,” Kene said. “If you didn’t know what it was, you’d just think it was a flexible, yet powerful, elixir. For a lot of people, I’d bet they’re more concerned with rounding out their power via more specific treasures.”

“It’s still…”

I trailed off, then shook my head, sighing. We spent the last of our points buying up nine destiny plants, and then went ahead and headed to the back to pick up our items.

Several other people had that idea too, and as we waited idly in line, I leaned down to pet the cat that had wandered up.

Then I sensed it. Just the faintest flicker of lunar mana.

I flared my mana senses out at full power, and for just a second I saw a blurry figure streak past me. The streak stopped next to Kamal, sliding between his guards, and tapped Kamal’s finger. There was a flicker of spatial mana, and then the blurry figure turned and teleported a hundred feet back.

Kamal jerked back.

“Someone stole my spatial ring!” he shouted.

Chaos exploded through the hall.