Chương 632: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Fifty-One

The token was delivered to their booth while the auction proceeded, another courtesy given to them based on their long and prosperous relationship with Seven Lights. The token itself was a black slate about the size of Beth's hand and half an inch thick and the whole thing thrummed with power. Whatever instance or special realm it was supposed to teleport her to, it was clear the thing needed a lot of enchanting and magical work to make it, well, work.

Beth studied it for a moment, noting it was indeed meant for one person to use and only one time, before she stashed it in her necklace and resumed watching the last couple items before the finale. There was a powerful sword up next, because of course there was, and it wasn't quite good enough to count as a finale item, but it was still impressive.

Level seven-fifty and masterwork, it would be a powerful blade for any capable Ascended to wield, considering level six hundred wasn't even possible until rebirth twenty. Beth was still happy with her equipment; despite being a bit lower level, both her sword and gauntlets were extremely powerful and wouldn't really need an upgrade for some time. Her armor had fallen a bit behind, but that was something they could sort out pretty quickly, especially if she could get Old Tom and the others to make her something.

It would be a good trip to make, as Beth was sure somebody in that little community of crafting recluses could also take care of Sera's magic rocks without any trouble. A couple other items passed that didn't interest either of them, including an airship; not a starship, but something very similar to Beth's first ship that they rarely used these days. This one was special in that it came with an item that was spatial storage just for the ship.

Being a specialized spatial item, it couldn't store anything else, but the small, four-person airship would fit inside the bracelet without even having to fold up. There was a lot of interest in the item from the lower floors and from the private booths on the third floor, though the luminaries on the fourth floor ignored the ship.

Beth doubted it would be something they were interested in even to give to a descendant or promising candidate in their organization, and she noticed the other third floor booths that had bid on the very valuable items were refraining from entering the fray on this one. After the airship, which went to someone on the second floor balcony when the last private booth gave up in disinterest, there was one more item before the finale, causing Beth and Sera to laugh.

They hadn't given all their loot to the Black Ships over the last close to two years, including when coming back from the level five hundred dungeon, and the penultimate piece before the finale was a special, level five hundred fifty boss beast core they had given to Seven Lights. To Beth, it was a valuable item, but she and the team had harvested hundreds of such cores to get enough to meet Mortaine's quota.

To everyone else, it was an incredible find of immense value; most of the crafting materials sold at Seven Lights, even at the yearly auction, didn't get much more than level four hundred. Ironically, it was easier for people to stumble into a level seven hundred, high rarity sword than it was to other items, and most crafters of that level weren't selling their wares through consignment or auction.

Materials were tough to gather and could be quite rare; Ascended weren't going out gathering all that much, and even most of them would play it safe and gather some lower-level items. Anything over five hundred was already rare, to a certain extent, but Beth's team always had to go the extra mile, with a five-fifty boss beast core being a step above even the unusual. To Beth, it wasn't much, and she was expecting a small profit, or maybe a big profit?

After all, despite the danger it would pose to most, her team had ripped apart that instance, spiked, with little effort, slaughtering the boss time after time. For her, it was a few hours' effort and the use of a spike. For others, however, it was much more significant, and the price reflected that.

It helped that the Seven Lights firm had great auctioneers and attendants and they did a lot to talk up the piece and show it off in an impressive light, even going so far as to talk about it being a rare find from a spiked dungeon. The auctioneer didn't go so far as to directly say it was because of the spike that the core was the level and mana types it was, but the implication was there, which would click in a lot of people's minds and make them want the core even more.

Now, it wasn't strictly true, that the dungeon needed to be spiked to produce such a core, or that a core like it couldn't be found elsewhere, but with some careful wording, the auctioneer had done a brilliant job in what was left unsaid and how what was said was implied. Beth watched the bidding with a growing interest when it almost immediately blew past her expectations and started climbing like a mountaineer on ten days' worth of coffee.

It didn't take long after the start for the fourth floor guests to get involved, either, with bids ringing out from the special area that were definitely meant to drive away even the private booth bidders. The gloves were off early, likely also because it had been made clear this was the last item before the finale pieces.

Even the fourth floor guests weren't guaranteed to walk away with anything from that final block, so this was also a chance to nab a valuable item that was a highly prized crafting material before they potentially found out they weren't quite as rich as they thought. Despite Seven Lights taking a cut, and a modest tax on the sale of the good, Beth's team was going to be making a lot of money off just this one item.

As the price climbed up through the orichalcum bracket, she thought about the large pile of materials from the dungeon that they hadn't turned over to anyone yet, some of the most valuable of valuables. If this one core caused this kind of feeding frenzy, she was tempted to go present a truly rare piece and ask them to put it in the finale.

It was a nice thought to entertain for a moment, but she had no intention to actually do it at present, as they had plans for at least some of the remainder, and they were likely also going to send a lot of it through the Black Ships, who could guarantee very high prices, considering their extra-galactic connections.

The core sold for a whopping eighty-one orichalcum, which might not sound like all that much, considering how Beth was throwing adamantine around, but it had to be understood that that was more wealth than a lot of mid-sized factions in the Milky Way could gather. Some of the poorer mid-sized factions couldn't gather eighty-one orichalcum even if they sold everything including the kitchen sink, so to see that paid out for a single crafting material, not even a set, was still pretty shocking.

It was also like others had told her, she remembered, in that stuff at and over level five hundred was just treated differently. That was a range that most early Ascended were still cautious of fighting in, and there were few enough even of them. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. One of the big things that happened in Ascended is that people got really busy, though not with fighting and farming dungeons, but they still needed things.

Weapons, armor, potions, elixirs, arrays, wards, traps, enchantments, pills, spatial items, and more. Beth and her team were a bit lucky there, or better to say it was another part of how exceptional they were, in that they had very high-rarity gear. A lot of Ascended would us rare or epic swords at or below their level or power requirement, and one could imagine what happened to a lot of that equipment.

It led to this kind of odd scenario where Ascended fought less than previously, but broke and churned through more equipment. And, again, these were people who wanted level four or five hundred gear, or more, not level one hundred gear. It created a scenario where a lot of stronger gear, equipment, consumables, and so forth was in high demand and low supply.

A common scenario, in fact, was an Ascended getting lucky on one of the dungeon runs they did and getting a powerful piece of equipment they couldn't use, so they sold it at an auction just like this one and then tried to use the profits to get what they actually needed. It was where stuff like that level seven-fifty sword came from; some Ascended at forty rebirths got a little time free to go do dungeons and found the sword after a particularly challenging run, but they were a spear wielder.

Sell the sword at auction, take a big lump sum, try to buy a decent spear or commission something halfway-good with the money, etc. There was more to it than that, and there were reasons why the economy was so strained at the higher end, but Ascended found themselves in this high demand, low supply state quite a lot. For Beth and her team, who had few responsibilities and a lot of both free time and power at their disposal, it was almost a perfect scenario.

If they kept pushing their crafting skills, even just to the beginning of Grandmaster, it would be even better. That core that just sold for so many coins, instead transformed even into a consumable by Kris and Neph's alchemy, would have gone for triple or quadruple that amount. The team just wasn't at the point of working with materials between level five and six hundred, so they wound up selling most of the materials, keeping a small stock for when they eventually hit Grandmaster.

Maybe Beth would take a bit of a crafting vacation with Sera at Old Tom's, if he didn't kick them out, but they also had so much to do. It had been long enough that she was sure there were Platinum missions ready for them, and she wanted at least one person on the team to get to Platinum before they messed around in the City or anywhere else too much. Even with time dilation, she had so much to do and so little time.

After the core was sold and taken off the stage, it was time for the final few items, the big finale show, and the excitement had certainly been building. Even having been to several auctions like this before, including with very high ticket items, Beth still got caught up in the flow, and by the way Sera's tail was writhing around her and squeezing her, she could tell her wife was feeling the exact same way.

And, boy oh boy, did Seven Lights not disappoint, though the first of the finale items wasn't something for Beth. It was, however, something that had Sera's tail going wild, and she had to stop her wife from just jumping up and dumping a massive bid right at the start.

"Easy, Sera!" Beth exclaimed, laughing.

"Beth! Come on! I gotta have this!" Sera exclaimed, trying to lean forward and press her face against the glass of the booth.

"Sera, relax, you can't even use it yet," Beth laughed even more, pulling her wife back.

"But, don't you see it?! Ah, that craftsmanship! And the length of it! It would be perfect for me!" Sera exclaimed, turning to Beth with a giddy smile that became slightly sly.

"With how long it is, I could even get taller to use it. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Oh, stop," Beth said, rolling her eyes, though she did bring one of Sera's hands up to her mouth to kiss the back of it.

"You know you don't have to tempt me like that."

"Hehe, sorry, sorry, it's just so awesome," Sera said, practically vibrating in her seat.

"Well, we have money, you can definitely bid. I just wouldn't pay more than a neutronium for it," Beth said, rolling her eyes again when Sera grabbed her and started kissing her cheeks and forehead rapidly. After a few moments of that, Beth intercepted her with a firm kiss on the lips before breaking it off and saying, "If you don't settle down, you'll miss the bids."

"Oh, shit!" Sera exclaimed, though it wasn't really true; Beth had just been trying to refocus her. She did steal some more kisses on Sera's right hand as the dragon used her left to put in bids. She was, of course, so excited about a level one thousand spear that had appeared. If that had been all, she might not have gotten as wound up, but as she had said, the spear was almost custom-made for her.

It was very long, with a slightly thick haft, and had a long, tapered blade that would be good for piercing, but even better for broad, slashing attacks from a long range. The item details also showed it gave a good increase to all stats and had a special ability that let the wielder infuse the weapon with mana, creating bursts of mana to attack, either by shooting what were essentially beam attacks, or by adding the mana to a slash, leaving an area of disrupted mana in its wake.

It would work directly with the person's affinity, as well, which was something rare in weapon and armor skills, which meant Sera could fully display the might of her void affinity, a powerful affinity that had astonishing destructive potential. Of course, a spear like that wasn't something that was going to go for peanuts, and it was pretty clear that it was going to be a battle between Sera and a few people on the fourth floor right from the outset.

Only one other third floor booth had even attempted to enter the bidding, and they backed out almost immediately when the price shot off through the roof after only five bids. They were in the adamantine range immediately and making a fast run through that, which had Sera a bit nervous, but luckily, the pace slowed down at the fifty adamantine mark.

If she didn't miss her guess, and she had a feeling about these things, especially after working with her parents for so long and attending events with them, then several of the people on the fourth floor were buying it for a family member or faction member. That always put a bit of a crimp in what someone was willing to spend; when it was the perfect item for oneself, it was easy to go crazy. When it was the perfect item for a great grandson, well…

Sera did have to break through Beth's limit at the very end, but they had the money, and getting a weapon she could use likely all the way until Exalted, even if she had to wait a while to use it, was a big deal. It required level one thousand, which would normally be something they would only hit at rebirth forty, but that was if Sera didn't use anything to lower the requirement, which she absolutely would do.

Most items like that could bring requirements down a hundred levels, sometimes a bit more, but Sera could get her hands on something that would lower the requirement by over three hundred levels, maybe even three hundred fifty, allowing her to use the spear not long after the group hit Ascended. Still some time away, but not all that long at the pace they were on.