NOVEL NEXT Chapter 209: Auction of a Dread Plunderer
Mila
Other than the Bloodforged Living Armor for Isaiah and some A rank materials for the array formation to temporarily increase Earth to B rank, both of which Nana Xara had bought and Diana had exchanged using completed quests from their force destroying the Violet Mountain Sect, Mila hadn’t seen anything in the main auction which really tempted her.
This is not to say the items on the main stage weren’t interesting. They were amazing and every single one was something Mila wanted, but they were items with minimum bidding prices in A rank universal credits, and even Nana Xara wasn’t wealthy enough to bid on things their force didn’t absolutely need.
In the daily silent auctions, however, both Nana Xara and Mila had bought quite a bit, with even Joma buying some things which Aalam could use due to the contract between their forces including a clause about the Forest Cauldron having to pay half the price for all the resources Aalam would use for his own advancement and personal artifacts.
Mila mostly bought resources needed by the more talented members of Earth to turn their E, D, and C rank race evolutions into upgrades, the resources to do the same for B rank way too expensive. But she also bought quite a lot of crafting materials as well for several useful blueprints in Aalam’s now very large collection, such as Territory relays, automated factories, and golems. Her favorite purchases, however, were all special features to add to Earth which would be automatically ranked up along with the planet.
There were four special trees which could only be planted on a planet undergoing integration during the first 36 years, an Earth Lotus Tree, a Wind Lotus Tree, a Fire Lotus Tree, and a Water Lotus Tree, all named after the shape of their flowers. When all were planted on the same planet, they would help increase the density of primal energy, usually resulting in unique powerful areas like Earth’s enlightenment zone. And, most importantly, the rank they would grow to would match the rank of the planet as they stole large chunks of energy from the System when the planet’s rank was growing.
Mila had to spend over half her B rank universal credits, all received from Aalam killing the Violet Mountain Lord and from B ranks teleporting into the former Territory of the Violet Mountain Sect, on their purchase, but it was worth it.
Other than the lotus trees, she also bought three other special items that would transform with Earth. First there was a Seed of Endless Iron, a large watermelon sized metallic orb that, when buried into the ground on a planet undergoing integration, would bond with the planet to create a large endlessly regenerating iron mine of the same rank as the planet’s. Second was a Spacetime Essence Spirit Source, which would bond with a planet and produce an endless amount of the main material for spatial storage devices, the rank of the essence the same as that of the planet. And third was an artifact known as an Idol of the Harvest God, a naturally forming brown crystalline gemstone that, when merged with a planet during integration, would transform an area so that any crops grown within would contain minute amounts of natural nascent energy, capable of adding stats to G ranks and making babies more likely to be born with higher grade races if consumed by mothers during pregnancy. The size and potency of the area affected was based on the rank of the world and, for an A rank world, it would extend to an entire continent and almost guarantee talented babies.
There were a couple other artifacts which could be bonded with planets undergoing integrations, but they were either not capable of having extra effects on an A rank world or would potentially cause destruction or dangerous elemental imbalance, so she wasn’t interested in them.
Over time, an A rank planet would raise the rank of all other planets in its solar system up to B rank, but this was over a period of thousands of years at the least, not the same as an integration, so these items couldn’t be used on any of the many other planets in the solar system where she and Nana Xara were planning to move Earth.
Every such item without such defects so far, however, Mila had managed to buy. And she would continue to buy any which would work with Earth, as the return on investment would be well beyond anything she could be expected to spend.
Nana Xara, meanwhile, had mostly bought other materials related to the array for temporarily boosting Earth to B rank, but she had a couple other interesting purchases as well.
There was a portable set of three array disks which could be used to trap the soul of a creature if set up before the creature died. They were excellent for allowing other members of their force to capture souls for use by Aalam or Mila, but their best use would be for interrogation. Souls separated from bodies were very weak to charm effects, Mila’s specialty, but it was generally hard to capture a soul with its memories fully intact so as to make this useful. With these array disks, however, it would be possible for Mila to kill someone of the same rank and then interrogate them fully in an extremely safe and accurate manner, even without Aalam around.
Sure, the ethics were incredibly questionable, but Mila didn’t think she’d feel that bad if she chose assholes with massive amounts of blood on their hands, something sadly extremely common in the universe.
Nana Xara had also bought several other materials which would be useful for making plagues, seemingly mostly for her own experiments if she ever revived, and every acupoint opening order which came up for sale that their force didn’t already have, something they couldn’t get from the War of the Chosen but would need when the powers of Earth started to reach D rank.
Joma, on the other hand, had only been buying one kind of item which could be used by the United Federation of Planets, elemental fruits. When raiding the storage of the Violet Mountain Sect, one of the best race advancement materials Mila and Isaiah had found was called the Fruit of Life, a resource useful for increasing the grade of a cultivator’s race when advancing to C rank. When combined with eleven other elemental fruits, however, along with a Fruit of Chaos and a Fruit of Order, this type of resource could be turned into a Heavenly Spark Ascension Pill through the work of a talented alchemist.
Given they already had such an alchemist and the Fruit of Life, the third most expensive ingredient, along with such a pill being the ideal for Aalam’s D rank race advancement, Mila and Joma were sharing the cost of buying all the other fruits.
Then, a little over six months into the auction, the item Mila wanted most appeared in the daily silent auction, a boon from the System to teleport a planet up to E rank to any other solar system in the universe, and Mila entered into her first major bidding war, two other forces apparently willing to pay well over the normal price.
She finally got it, but she’d used up almost all the rest of the credits they’d earned from destroying the Violet Mountain Sect other than the A rank credits from the Violet Mountain Lord himself, so she could no longer bid when an item she wanted came up, Nana Xara having to do so for her instead.
This was the first item she absolutely had to have, but then, roughly eight months into the auction, another item appeared which was probably even more important, yet this one was being auctioned from the main stage.
“And here we have a D rank Dread Plunderer with the Mythic grade Genetic Enhancer bloodline.” The Mistress of Gold smiled at the audience as her snake tail coiled slightly under her, a sign Mila had recognized meant the goddess was becoming slightly more excited. “If you have any subordinates or descendants with the Genetic Thief bloodline, this monster, preserved right before its death, would allow them to advance their bloodline to Empyrean grade.
“And, even if you don't have such a subordinate, the heart of such a Dread Plunderer would make the perfect core ingredient for many pills which could allow almost any bloodline of a low rank cultivator to advance from Fabled to Mythic grade, or for a race advancement from E to D rank to jump grades.
“I don’t need to tell you how valuable this is. So, let’s just start the bidding at 12 A rank credits and see how much you value your juniors.”
The bidding started, with the monster’s value almost instantly increasing by a factor of 12, and it seemed there were at least thirty-something forces betting.
“I don’t believe it’s going to be the most valuable item before the final stretch, but it will be extremely expensive,” Joma began, not actually turning to look at Mila, her eyes focused on the depiction of the four-armed gorilla like beast on the stage, a Dread Plunderer. “And you could probably get something equivalent from the War of the Chosen, so I’m not sure—”
Joma stopped as Mila created a contract between them with some very basic terms. Mila would give Joma both her 50% off and 75% off coupons for the auction so long as Joma used them to maximize the benefits to Aalam.
Sure, Joma was right, and they would likely be able to get such a reward from the System if they managed to achieve what they wanted in the next War of the Chosen. But that wasn’t guaranteed, and they were only doing as well as they were now, even able to attend such an auction, due to the snowballing effects of getting the best resources as early as possible.
Were Aalam to absorb the Dread Plunderer and increase the grade of his bloodline, there would be a different reward from the System during the War of the Chosen, something they likely wouldn’t have even had access to otherwise, and the snowball would just keep rolling.
“Or we could go for it now.”
As Joma entered the bidding war, she moved to the area of her cultivation cave where Aalam was practicing, Mila sharing his senses, and got right to the point. “You realize how valuable these coupons are, right?”
Aalam nodded. “My chamberlain does.”
“The second one can’t be revealed or it would cause too many questions, as I’ve never even heard of such a coupon being available, so I’ll use it myself just to save some money. As for the first, while there are usually one or two per every ten or so auctions, they’re most valuable when used on the most expensive items, but those are things people at our level will never touch.
“With your permission, I’ll trade it for benefits to one of the underlings of the Divine Child later in the auction.”
“That would be perfect. Thank you, master.”
In the auction, Joma won the Dread Plunderer for a grand total of 32,872 A rank universal credits, but she used the 75% off coupon, so she only had to spend 8,218. And, back in the Forest Cauldron’s main base, she summoned the nearly dead beast, allowing Aalam to absorb its energy, advancing his Genetic Thief bloodline to Empyrean grade.
His bloodline’s name didn’t change, and its effect was pretty much the same, but now he could absorb the genetic energy from two sources per rank, even at E rank as the Dread Plunderer didn’t cause any bloat to his soul, and his control over that energy was much, much higher.
Also, his Heroic grade Advanced Soul Laboratory racial ability upgraded along the path he desired to Elevated Soul Laboratory.
This didn’t change the associated unique soul structure’s size or soul storage capabilities, but his control over the souls inside was increased a great deal, allowing for much easier extraction of skills and an almost flawless ability to extract racial and bloodline energy for use in pills and other types of crafting.
The effects of absorbing the energy of the Dread Plunderer weren’t flashy, but some of the possibilities it opened up were even more overpowered than Multi-Mind, Sensory Domain, or even Aalam’s royal line uniqueness.
