"Alright, now please sell this spear for now, then tell me how you buy monsters," impatiently said Noon.
Since Noon was no longer considered as an enemy by the system, there was no need for Five to try to delay the situation any further. He quickly turned his attention to the spear and opened the dungeon shop to sell it.
"It's such a pity, selling a grade 9 item like that. If only I had enough DP, I could have bought it from him," thought Five. There were no doubts that Grade 9 items were extremely rare in this game, even in the late stages, there would be no more than 20 of them for the entire player base.
The spear's design was rather simple; it did not have any fancy decoration and was rather light. If Five did not see that it was a Grade 9 item, he could have easily mixed it with other low-level items.
Through the dungeon shop, he quickly found the option to sell the spear and although he was prepared to see the sky-high price, seeing that many zeros still shocked him. 5.5 billion DP, that was the selling price of the spear. The seemingly normal spear alone costed a thousand time more than all the DP he had gathered since entering the game.
Furthermore, it was just the selling price, if he wanted to purchase such an item in the future, it could easily be twice as expensive as the selling price.
Looking one last time at Noon who simply nodded in approval, Five decisively pressed the "Confirm Button" and the spear slowly crumbled into pieces. Just like that, one of the game's most precious item was gone.
"Alright, can you show me how to search for monsters? I would like to see how many more items I need to take out to summon a member of my race?" During all the time Five had been staring at the abnormally huge number on his screen, Noon had maintained his expressionless face and simply waited. However, if that continued, he would soon be forced to return his tribe.
Five quickly recovered and opened the monster section. From that point, he allowed Noon to control the interface. Due to his oath, he will be unable to learn anything about Noon's race and would certainly not be able to summon them in the future; that was something Noon seriously insisted on. As a result of the oath, the monsters' icons temporarily appeared to be completely blurred.
Fortunately, Noon was a quick learner and rapidly stated that he had found his own race and could unlock it for 30 Billion DP! While Five, Dreidus, and Lyra blankly stared at Noon, the latter simply took out a few more items and placed them on the table.
"Here, this should give you a little over 30 Billion DP. There is more than needed but we'll also have to factor in the cost for summoning the monster."
Five no longer knew how to react to Noon's indifference; his heart was in pain as he saw so many grade 9 items in front of him. "So many good items are going to be sold... Just what kind of monster would require that much DP, it should be one of those legendary creatures?"
He quickly complied and soon, all the items were sold for a total of 28 Billion DP. The interface now clearly displayed the DP count as 33.5 Billion.
"All sold, you should be able to unlock the race now," said Five with a pained expression. Although it was not his items to begin with, Five was still pained to watch them all disappear like that just for the sake of one monster.
"I know. Now, here's a few more items for you to sell. Summoning a member of my race cost 5 Billion, it should be enough to barely get 1.5 Billion." Noon wore a satisfied smile for the first time. It would not be long before he would no longer be the last survivor of his race. He did not hesitate to take out all his items to sell but at the same time, he did not want Five to benefit from this.
As a result, the items taken out this time were grade 8 items which were 10 times less expensive than a grade 9 item. When he saw the items, Five immediately understood the situation. He initially thought that he would be able to use the leftovers from the items sold by Noon for his own use but as it turned out, that would not be the case. Even if he could use 1% of what Noon had spent tonight, Five would be satisfied but unfortunately, Noon was absolutely against this.
The Totem Spirit slowly took out items after items and even took out a few Grade 7 items and in the end, he was able to bring the total amount of DP exactly 5 Billion above the original 110000 that were already there before they arrived.
Although he did not make any concrete losses, it was still a psychological defeat for Five who had been expecting to at least scrape a few DP from Noon. In the end, he failed and now, only Noon was happy about the situation.
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"Alright, we have reached the required amount, I'll do the summoning!" For the first time, Noon wore an excited expression. He was intently looking at the icons which appeared completely blurred to the others. His eyes shone as he finally pressed the button.
Five, Dreidus and Lyra were all already used to summoning monsters. They stared at the empty spot as the summoning circle appeared. They were also obviously excited, it was not every day that they could see a monster worth billions of DP being summoned.
However, what they saw next once again left them dumbfounded. Five initially thought that since such an expensive monster was being summoned, it would be accompanied by some flashy visual effects but as it turned out, the summoning process was no different from when he summoned his own monsters. As for the monster itself, Five remained perplexed as he looked at the innocent little creature in front of him.
While Five, Dreidus and Lyra looked at each other, wondering if something went wrong during the process, Noon suddenly rushed forward and pull the small creature into his arms. For the first time, the expressionless muscular man became emotional and a few tears even started to appear from the corner of his eyes. "Finally, I am no longer alone!" excitedly exclaimed Noon.
'It seems that the process did not go wrong... I should have expected something like that from his tribe's name...' thought Five. He scratched his head as he looked at the monster. Unexpectedly, the monster that was summoned was nothing more than an innocent little white sheep.
After a few moments, Noon finally calmed down and placed the sheep on the floor. The latter had been abnormally quiet since it had been summoned; it did not even bother to look at anyone besides Noon.
"Alright, since you have done your part of our agreement, I shall also do so but for now, I would like to regain my freedom, as well as that of this little fellow there," said Noon as he returned to his usual expressionless self.
As soon as he spoke, Five immediately received the system prompt:
[System prompt: The monsters, Noon and ??? have requested to be released. Would you like to proceed?]
Five absent-mindedly stared at the system prompt for a moment. He knew that it was part of his agreement with Noon to release him as soon as he would successfully summon the monster. Yet, at that moment, Five felt reluctant to do it. For the first time, he pondered about the consequences of not abiding by his oath. After all, wasn't that simply a spoken promise? Although it was unethical to break one's verbal promises, it was different from written contracts. However, Five soon dismissed this idea, at the moment, he was in a game where the rules were different. Besides, he did not want to anger Noon especially after having seen how unfathomable the totem spirit was.
"Yes!"
Immediately, the bond between Noon, the little sheep and the dungeon core dissolved into nothing. Noon let out a faint smile before saying, "Do you feel like you did not get your worth in this agreement? I will remind you that we are simply abiding by our words!" With his sharp eyes, Noon had naturally noticed Five's hesitation when he asked to be released.
With his experience, Noon quickly associated this behavior with the fact that he had obtained less than what he expected. He was well aware of human's greed and was almost certain that Five had hoped to benefit more from their exchange.
Five lowered his head in shame, "Sorry about that. Do not worry, you are free to go but before leaving the dungeon, can I get a few minutes to arrange a few things?" asked Five.
"Mmm, I will hold my own end of the agreement and will protect your dungeon until the end of your incoming trial. Since I have been looking into reproducing through dungeons, I have naturally investigated them to a certain extent. I am well aware that dungeons regularly go through sudden waves of attack. You don't have to worry about your next trial, I alone will be able to deal with it. If I am not wrong, you were planning to use me to save some DP, then please do so."
"I can still stay away from my tribe for 20 more minutes, after that, I will be forced to return. You can do as you wish during that period of time but since you feel like you have been tricked, I shall give you a piece of advice. You should stop using those undead monsters, a few is fine but if you continue, then I doubt your future will be very bright. Balance is key!"
Surprised by what Noon had just said, Five asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"That is all I can tell you, now I will wait for 20 minutes, please do what you need quickly!" answered Noon as he picked up the little sheep and sat on one of the chairs.
When he saw Noon's actions, he knew that he would not obtain any more information from him. Instead, he turned toward Dreidus, "What does he mean by that? Are undead monsters that bad?"
The latter was confused, "I don't know. I have spent a large portion of my life as a necromancer with undead monsters and I can say that they are definitely not to be underestimated. If undead monsters were that weak, Necro Valley would have never existed."
"mmm, alright. I was originally planning on making a new floor using the Zombeasts, but I think that we should just wait. Since we have secured someone to protect the dungeon, we should start saving our DP for the incoming auction. If we are not reckless, collecting one million DP should not be an issue," said Five as he stared at the dungeon interface.
Although he was not sure why Noon told him to stop using undead monsters, Five still decided to hold back for now. He did not know what was waiting for him at the auction and since he was safe until then, he might as well wait before making any changes to the dungeon.
"Where are Angela and Alice? Did they go out?" asked Five.
"Yes, Angela went to her lessons and I believe that Alice brought Ivan outside," answered Dreidus.
"Mmm, okay. You did a good job, I don't know how much longer I'll stay with the barbarians but it should not be very long. Since I have nothing else to do here, I might as well leave. Take care of the dungeon!"
The lich nodded as he answered: "Of course, please be at ease."
Five smiled and walked toward Noon who was casually playing with the little sheep.
"You are already back? Not even one minute went by," said Noon as he raised his head.
"Yes, I'll listen to your advice for now. We should just go back. I have to wake up early tomorrow to go with the scouts," said Five.
"Mmm, you sound dispirited. I really thought you would have asked me to stay here for the full 20 minutes to milk out as much DP as possible from me," said Noon as he smiled. Now that he had accomplished his task and no longer had to be careful of tricks, the Totem Spirit became friendlier toward Five.
"That's true, I would not say no to more DP but it still hurts to think that I missed so many millions from you!" answered Five.
"Hmmp, I was just being careful. I am not stupid and know that these items are all extremely rare. Besides, I don't want to leave my mark here. After two weeks, you won't hear from me again. It does not matter if by then you discover my race, you won't be able to summon any of them anymore. I simply wanted to hide information about me to avoid any immediate danger while we are dealing with the townsmen."
"Why are you saying that to me?" asked Five.
"To waste time. Since you are not happy about it, let us just go. I have already left a spatial anchor here and can teleport back if your dungeon is in danger. In two weeks, it will disappear by itself. Now, prepare yourself," declared Noon.
Without waiting for an answer, the totem spirit quickly held the little sheep in his arms and activated his skill.
[Stellar Transposition]