Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 135: Mystery Stones

Zac’s hand gripped Ogras’ shoulder, firmly embedding the demon in his chair. During the past months Zac learned that the shadow-skills of the demon were not invincible and there were ways to counteract them.

For example, if he got hold of the demon and pushed out some cosmic energy through his hands the demon wouldn’t be able to turn into shadows and disappear. It was very convenient at a time like this when he clearly was up to no good.

“Are you insane?” Zac wheezed out. “You will get yourself killed and me kicked out. For what? To meet an actress?”

“You’re too hesitant all the time. Going around calling yourself Monk. Not wanting to make a scene. Being low-key. You’re a powerhouse, act like it. That’s Emma, from all the movies. This might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to court her. You shouldn’t be stopping me, you should be fighting me of who gets to take her back,” Ogras wheezed back, unfortunately loudly enough for the last sentence to be heard by a few of the closest people.

Zac cringed under the glares, but at least the demon seemed to have listened to him as he stopped trying to teleport up on the stage. In fact, he was wondering if the demon was correct. Not about the starlet, but about his demeanor. Both Billy and Thea were walking tall and proud, not hiding who they were. But he, the number one powerhouse of humanity, was still hiding around.

Displaying who he was might actually help him out in various ways. People would bend over backwards just to be able to make some connections with him and provide various types of support in the hope of becoming friends, or at least allies. Scrubs like the men earlier wouldn’t trouble him either, even if Ibtep started flipping them off.

However, Kenzie still held him back. He would stay incognito as long as he could. Honestly, after his actions in Greenworth the government should already have some pretty strong suspicions about his identity unless their information-gathering capabilities had turned to shit. But hopefully, they hadn’t found his real identity yet, which in a sense was even more important for him.

“Whatever. There seems to be an important meeting after the auction. You can go flirt with her then,” Zac said.

A sweet voice echoing through the speakers cut their conversation short, and both turned their gazes back to the gorgeous woman on the stage.

“Welcome all to the second half of the New World Government Auction. I am Emma MacHale, your new host,” she said and threw out a radiant smile.

The area erupted in cheers and whistles, and Zac could only shake his head when the demon joined in. Ogras had almost become addicted to the movies over the past months, and Zac wondered if he even remembered his promises about turning the movies into sellable items.

“As my colleague said earlier there will be fewer items in this second half, but each and every one is a true treasure. At least we think so, since honestly we do not know exactly what some of the things for sale are!” the hostess said with a laugh.

“Also, Thomas Fischer, the Mayor of New Washington will say a few words afterward, so please stay behind. It will definitely be information you don’t want to miss!”

It didn’t take long until the first item was rolled out, and to Zacʼs surprise he actually recognized it when a picture was shown on the large monitor. It was one of the entrance tickets to the Treasure Hunt that would take place in roughly two months.

Zac wasn’t surprised however to see a token come up for sale here. He wasn’t sure how many were awarded during the tutorial, but they shouldn’t be too rare if Selas was able to snag two of them. There surely were many who didn’t want to risk entering such a place, competing against both the environment and all the powerhouses, and instead chose to sell it for a profit.

“You should all recognize this, the prize for the elites of the tutorial, an entrance ticket to the Treasure Hunt happening soon! Not much is known about it, apart from the fact there will be chances to gain both titles and rare treasures. Having a few extra friends to go with you might make all the difference. The starting price is 250 000 Nexus Coins or equivalent!”

It was a hefty sum, but it was clearly worth it for the forces who were planning on heading in.

“Two hundred and fifty,” the guard next to the Marshals said.

“Three hundred fifty!” a thundering exclamation came from billy.

“Five hundred thousand,” Ogras shouted as well, surprising Zac.

“Can you even use it?” Zac asked Ogras in a low voice, surprising him.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked back.

Zac only fished out his own token from his bag and handed it over.

“See if you can use it before you spend all your money,” he said.

The demon snatched the token up and fiddled with it a bit, a frown quickly forming on his face.

“Is this a fake?” he warily asked.

“Why would I have a fake? I got it on one of my excursions. I knew that only natives could go,” Zac answered with a roll of his eyes.

“Bah, Ruthless Heavens indeed,” the demon muttered angrily as he threw back the token to Zac. “There should be some mystic realms opening soon in any case, who cares about your stupid treasure hunt.”

Mystic realms were something that covered all of the multi-verse. There were quite a few types of them, with everything from tombs of powerful warriors leaving an inheritance to mysterious zones created by aberrant energies.

The most common type though was spatial pocket realms that simply had been detached from a main dimension for some reason or another. Some of these realms were desolate wastelands, but others were pristine areas filled with various rare and precious materials.

It was quite a common thing for adventurers to make their living exploring mystic realms, hoping to either strike it rich or rack up enough experiences to help with breaking through their bottlenecks.

The Mystic Realms were usually accessed through finding soft spots, where the membrane between the main dimension and the mystic realm was at the weakest. At these spots one could place specific arrays whose job was to create stable portals through the dimensional barrier.

Finding a good Mystic Realm and claiming it could become a huge steady stream of income to a Clan or force. Some could be turned into training fields for armies, as long as there was a prolific species living inside. Others were even larger than planets, making it worthwhile for adventurers to keep heading through, as many treasures might still lie in wait.

The most sought after ones were those holding ruins from old civilizations. Many of the mystic realms came from quite highly ranked original worlds, such as A and B ranked continents. There needed to be quite a bit of energy involved for a whole section of a dimension to be ripped out and thrown into the folds between universes after all.

Usually the energy had mostly dissipated in the Mystic Realm, making the Cosmic Energy far scarcer compared to that of a real A-Rank continent, but if there was a civilization in the pocket realm the chance for finding a huge treasure was great. Any small gadget or information crystal from an ancient A-Grade civilization would be worth a fortune.

It didn’t take long until Billy snagged the tag for a whopping 1 Million Nexus coins. Actually, any time Billy started bidding on something there was simply no stopping him. He truly treated money like water, not caring in the slightest what the prices became. His confidante had tried to rein in his spending, but the giant had only laughed and called him stupid.

Following the first Token they actually sold another 4 of them, and they all sold in the same range. The Marshall clan was showing off its muscles, actually buying two of them. One went to an old man among the Ishiate, with the final one being sold to a hooded person in the back.

“Next up we have a unique material an explorer found deep in a cave. It is not a metal that was previously found on earth, and it doesn’t conform to the laws of physics,” Emma said as a larger reinforced tray was rolled out.

“It is only as large as a fist, but it weighs over two hundred kilos. More amazingly, its weight drastically changes depending on its temperature, and inside a fire it actually floats,” she said. “Perhaps a skilled craftsman can make something amazing out of this thing in the future.”

Zac thought it was an interesting item, but he was unsure how he personally would go about using it. Perhaps someone who used either fire- or ice-based attacks could somehow take advantage of its unique properties and creating some strong weapon.

“Ten thousand,” Zac suddenly heard from his left and saw the Calrin holding up his paddle.

He was actually standing in the chair as to be seen, slouching on the backrest. However, Zac had gotten to know the gnome a bit over the past months and saw that the lackadaisical expression was mostly an illusion. He really wanted this stone.

“Fifty thousand,” a voice in the back shouted, starting off the bidding in earnest.

The item was interesting, but not many people were willing to go too far in the bidding. Most likely knew that it might be valuable somehow in the future, even if they didn’t know how to utilize it today. But money was limited this early into the integration, and few were willing to spend hundreds of thousands on an investment that might give a return in the distant future.

Luckily for Calrin it seemed that Billy wasn’t interested in the stone, and he managed to secure it for 350 000 Nexus Coins. As soon as the tray came close the gnome bounced down from his chair and immediately put the stone into his Cosmos Sack after paying, and he couldn’t stop a grin from appearing as he walked back to his chair.

“Congratulations my friend. Next item is another mystery stone,” Emma said with a wink. “This one might look like a normal stone, but it is anything but. Apart from being extremely hard it also emits a weird aura. It is hard to explain so we will show you.”

A stone about as large as a soccer ball was rolled out on another tray, but this time it was accompanied by a girl holding a vase with a normal flower in it. After the tray was placed at the usual spot for the items they simply placed the vase down next to it.

Everyone looked at the stone and the flower, unsure what was going on, but soon their eyebrows rose as the flower was wilting with a speed visible to the naked eye. Murmurs and exclamations erupted over the whole area, but Emma once again stepped forward.

“As you can see the stone made the flower wilt. Actually, according to our scientists who have studied the stone it actually absorbs the life-force from the flower, rather than emitting some deadly radiation. In fact, it emits no radiation at all, which any Geiger-counter can testify to. And don’t worry, it is not able to absorb human lifeforce. At least not what we know.”

Zac barely listened to the explanation from the starlet, as he was preoccupied with something else. He was holding on to his cosmos sack with a frown on his face, unsure what was going on with [Verun’s Bite].

Even from inside his Cosmos Sack he could feel his axe throbbing with an almost palpable hunger.