Chapter 301 - 301: A Galactic Bazaar
The weeks leading up to the Celestial Auction had become a blur of frantic, joyful civic engineering and relentless, highly structured dungeon grinding. If the Confluence had been a war for raw survival, this current period was the postwar economic boom on magical steroids.
I stood on a newly constructed, elegant sky-bridge in the bustling artisan district of Bastion, taking a deliberate, appreciative bite of a sugar-glazed pastry that Masha's apprentices had concocted. It tasted vaguely like a strawberry that had been hugged by a particularly soft cloud, bursting with a gentle, non-aggressive pulse of reinvigorating mana.
Below me, the city streets were a vibrant, interwoven tapestry of integrated species and developing tech. The Dweorg masonry guilds had finally completed the first phase of the municipal heating system — an incredibly complex magitech marvel that efficiently utilized the latent, heavily-contained geothermal runoff piped directly from the deep [Earth-Shaker] tower I'd cleared weeks ago. It was the onset of a crisp winter, but the main thoroughfares and broad sidewalks in Bastion radiated a comfortable, ambient, localized warmth.
"They actually figured out the grav-sleds for safe public transit," Eliza noted cheerfully, hovering comfortably beside me on a small, motorized disc she'd tinkered together. She pointed down past the railing to a sleek, elongated metallic gondola that was smoothly, silently floating exactly three feet off the warm cobblestones, ferrying a large group of cheering, chattering Elven and human schoolchildren.
"The repulsion plates harvested from the Constructs on Floor 80 are a bit over-tuned, though," she continued, pushing her soot-smudged glasses up her nose. "I had to calibrate the feedback dampeners twice. If the conductor sneezes and loses focus on the primary control rune with the original design, that carriage might accidentally achieve low orbit."
"Tell Leoric's team to dial down the raw energy output by another 15% before public release," I smiled around a mouthful of pastry. "But it definitely beats walking in the sleet."
My own daily routine had shifted entirely from a tense, proactive investigator trying to hold a planet together to an aggressively hyper-productive, calculating exterminator preparing for a cosmic shopping spree. The looming Celestial Auction demanded an unprecedented level of capital, and I finally had the systemic means of production.
I had firmly situated my [Echo], heavily armored in dense void-alloys and practically vibrating with resonant, empowerment sigils, in the lower Tower floors. It ran a seamless, brutal 24/7 kill-and-consume operation on the seemingly infinite Tier 5 and 6 localized horrors, indiscriminately funneling their raw, unrefined essence directly into my Mythic [Hunger] via our Soul-tether.
Simultaneously, I was crisscrossing the entire globe utilizing the System network, rarely pausing to sleep.
I didn't just ruthlessly farm our faction's 25 assigned Towers. I negotiated with the others, seeing a mutual opportunity for growth. The Solar Ascendancy, the cautious Azure Syndicate, and the territorial Iron Covenant all severely struggled to clear efficiently past Floor 55 of their respective Towers.
"I will personally clear Floors 56 through 100 for your specific territories," I had proposed evenly during a highly secured, localized summit meeting a month ago. "I take half of all the resulting rare material drops, and the essence for my people. Your factions keep the remaining fifty percent until you can clear it on your own."
Korg's assigned ambassador, a heavily scarred kineticist who had fought during the blockade, had practically choked on his spiced wine. "Fifty percent? The Lord deigns to act as a mercenary for a mere half-cut of our loot?"
"I'm aggressively building lasting partnerships here, not a fragile empire of resentful vassals," I had stated mildly, letting my aura remain completely contained and unassuming. "I could theoretically demand it all as tribute since it's essentially lost loot, but I learned a very hard lesson on Wahash: a wealthy, secure neighbor is far better than a starving, desperate one when the interstellar quarantine borders inevitably drop. We need a strong planetary front. Do we have a deal or not?"
They signed. Almost suspiciously fast.
For the next two solid months, I became a blur of highly optimized, calculated violence across the continents. I methodically hunted localized gravity-wyrms in the shifting desert towers of the deep south, violently wrestled raging tempest-avatars in the crumbling coastal spires, and painstakingly stripped centuries of condensed, highly volatile starlight from the crystalline, multi-armed guardians of the northern mountain ranges.
The overarching Prime System market interface was incredibly, ravenously thirsty, even for raw, completely unrefined Tier 7 and early Tier 8 materials being actively produced by a recently stabilized 'Nursery' planet operating under 'First Clear' enhanced spawn rates.
I was sitting deep in a reinforced, padded chair in the War Room, when Jeeves silently manifested near the tactical map.
"Master," the Shadow-Seneschal announced softly, a distinct note of quiet, calculated pride coloring his synthesized voice. "After completing the sales and liquidating a lot of the 'Sludge Essence' and the acquired resources from the Tower and Dungeon runs, your current capital assets have crested 4.5 billion Quintessence Shards. The localized predictive logistics algorithms estimate a 0.2% variance over the next few hours based on current galactic market saturation, but it appears we currently possess… sufficient funding for most anticipated endeavours."
I let out a long, heavy breath, slumping fully back into the chair, the exhaustion momentarily giving way to awe. 4.5 billion QS. I was fundamentally richer than entire fledgling galactic empires probably were at the onset of their chaotic integration periods. It was a sum that could theoretically buy several small, habitable planets outright.
"It better be enough to buy what we actually need," I muttered, tossing the final combat-analysis slate onto the desk. "The ticket activates tomorrow evening."
We spent that entire evening carefully finalizing the away team logistics.
The intricate gold [Celestial Invitation] allowed the primary ticket holder plus exactly two distinct, verified sapient 'Guests'. My Anima — tightly bound directly to my intricate Soul architecture — thankfully didn't count toward the restrictive limit, cleanly registering as direct extensions of myself according to ancient System Law operating within the artifact.
"I am unequivocally taking Eliza," I decided immediately, pointing decisively to the frazzled Alchemist who was already frantically organizing an impossible number of empty, high-capacity spatial bags and scrolling lists. "She knows precisely what rare alchemical components, volatile reagents, and complex systemic schematics the Bastion labs need right now to securely push our civilization's overall technology level past Tier 6. If I go alone and see a bubbling, shiny beaker, I'll probably overpay; I desperately need an appraiser with zero impulse control but perfect knowledge."
"And you're absolutely not going shopping on a cosmic scale without your sister," Anna declared loudly, stepping into the room and leaving zero room for argument or debate. "You are decidedly not walking into a millennia-old galactic market surrounded by literal, bargaining gods without me watching your back. Please? Besides, I genuinely want to see if they sell any kind of clothing that doesn't immediately smell like monster ash, ozone, or blood."
I hesitated for a second, mentally cycling through the defensive lineup. Lucas and Freja were perfectly capable of holding down the fortified city for a few days alongside Arthur's defense grid and the combined efforts of the guilds.
"Fair enough," I finally relented, chuckling as Anna pumped a fist in victory. "We are going on a shopping spree, not a frontline raid though, so we have to behave."
I tapped my chest, feeling the resonance of the Anima bond.
"We're also taking Jeeves for high-speed tactical analytics and market comparisons. Kasian for deep historical pricing references, localized galactic lore, and ancient artifact identification. Leoric for his expertise in materials and our needs."
The following evening, as the designated planetary twilight fell over Bastion, we gathered quietly in the most heavily warded, conceptually sealed room of my private Sanctum.
I pulled the heavy, intricate gold coin slowly from my pocket. It was humming violently now, burning hot to the touch, physically reacting to the rapidly impending, predetermined timeline etched into its cosmic code.
"Alright," I said, looking seriously at my bouncing sister and my slightly vibrating, over-caffeinated Alchemist. "Ground rules. No casually picking bar fights with ancient, twelve-armed Emperors. No rogue negotiating for mysterious stuff without letting Leoric or Jeeves scan them first. If someone or something tries to instigate, try to avoid conflict, we're not sure what we are up against here."
"Should tell yourself that," Anna smirked, shifting her shoulders comfortably.
I laughed, drawing a deep breath, and channeled my mana into the gold coin.
The ancient, indestructible metal simply melted. It rapidly pooled in my armored hand like glowing water before violently, sharply arcing outward into the empty space of the room. The liquid gold moved with incredibly fluid purpose, tracing a deeply elegant, impossibly ornate, twenty-foot-tall, freestanding archway directly into the sterile air of the Sanctum. The localized space trapped inside the glowing, golden frame rippled aggressively like a disturbed pond, then violently stabilized into a flawless, perfectly opaque, humming sheet of concentrated starlight.
"Well," I said, tightening the strap on my spatial bags. "Here goes nothing."
We stepped confidently through the starlight.
The transition wasn't a violent, nausea-inducing spatial pull or a terrifying dimensional drop like the local Spires often induced.
It was an instantaneous, breathtaking realization of extreme, absolutely incomprehensible opulence.
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My heavy combat boots, practically customized by Leoric for crushing rock and shrugging off magma, stepped softly off the hard, unyielding stone of Bastion and immediately sank a half-inch into sprawling, seamless carpeting that felt undeniably like it was woven directly from highly compressed, velvet-soft storm clouds and pure, unrefined silk.
The smell hit us almost instantly before our eyes could even adjust — a meticulously curated, perfect olfactory blend of fresh fruit, old paper, incredibly expensive, intoxicating spices, and a deeply embedded sensation of raw, distilled, polite power that literally tasted like quiet serenity on the back of the tongue.
We were standing casually near the edge of a truly vast, impossibly sweeping curved balcony that comfortably stretched for what visually looked like hundreds of miles in either direction. The flawless, perfectly even floor beneath us was constructed entirely of seamlessly polished, deep-space obsidian, aggressively shot through with brilliantly glowing, active veins of actual singing silver mana that resonated harmonically with every careful footstep.
And the view was staggering.
There was absolutely no sky, no local sun, no planetary horizon.
We were evidently situated safely inside a massive, impeccably transparent, seemingly infinite geode currently floating silently and precisely in the exact geometric center of a swirling, incredibly violent, technicolor cosmic nebula.
Immediately outside the thin, terrifyingly flawless 'glass' barrier holding back the void of space, furious, roaring ribbons of highly charged, luminescent cosmic dust, actively birthing miniature stars, and swirling purple plasma violently crashed in utter silence against the incredibly thin invisible shielding, creating a constant, breathtaking backdrop of magnificent, quiet cosmic destruction.
We weren't just visiting an exotic market on an asteroid. We were casually hanging suspended in the deep, untamed, impossibly volatile vastness of the universe.
I took a deep, grounding breath of the perfumed air and instinctively engaged my [Void-Lattice Perception] to maximum output, proactively preparing my mind to quickly scan the immediate environment for heavily cloaked hostile intents or to identify any crucial threat markers of the thousands of attendees currently gathering on the sprawling, massive concourse far below our balcony.
The feedback return was absolutely jarring, and completely null.
My highly evolved vision violently stuttered. Where there definitely should have been complex, glowing, interwoven strings of deep causality, brightly burning personal auras, and shifting emotional intent indicating strength… there were just… blank outlines.
I looked intensely down at the tens of thousands of varied, colorful figures actively mingling on the grand, marbled main floor sprawling thousands of feet beneath the balcony. They weren't showing as complex living people to my magic; they were incredibly resilient, stubborn sensory voids.
To my un-enhanced, naked physical eye, I easily saw towering, many-armed figures draped in heavy, gem-encrusted robes, metallic beings walking fluidly in flawless, seamless power armor, and amorphous, glowing entities that literally looked like floating, sentient quartz crystals drifting past humanoid nobles.
But to my incredibly sharp, deeply evolved magical Perception?
They were all rendered as completely uniform, impenetrable, completely blank gray silhouettes. Their core essence, their estimated power levels, their specific alien species, and even their aggressive or passive intent, were completely and absolutely obscured from my vision by a localized, overarching, unimaginably powerful System Authority that so vastly outstripped my current understanding of mana it made my Mythic skills feel like parlor tricks.
I felt a sudden, massive rush of pure adrenaline. I hadn't been effortlessly, casually blocked this thoroughly since my horrifyingly brief, terrifying encounter with the World-Soul of Sylvaris.
I turned quickly to Anna, a fierce, genuinely excited grin spreading across my face.
"They certainly aren't kidding around about the guest protections," I whispered happily, vibrating with anticipation as I completely cancelled my struggling [Perception]. "The privacy and anonymity masking here is absolute, Tier 11 stuff at least. I can't accurately read a single person in this building, and if my Deep Perception can't punch through their standard complimentary cloaks… they can't accurately read our auras or guess our status either. We are truly off the grid here. No one knows we are new to the scene."
"It's so beautiful," Eliza murmured in profound awe, completely and blissfully ignoring the underlying massive, multi-tiered threat levels entirely, tears slowly seeping from her eyes as she stared out at the swirling, violent nebula silently tearing itself apart outside the 'glass'.
A lone, unassuming figure approached our group on the balcony.
Unlike the heavily shielded, completely grayed-out silhouettes of the thousands of wealthy guests below, this single entity was easily perceivable to me. He was clearly a designated attendant. He looked functionally, perfectly human in scale and structure, but his pristine skin was composed entirely of finely faceted, flawless pale-blue crystal that caught and refracted the brilliant starlight from the nebula. He wore a crisp, impeccably tailored, sleek dark suit that violently defied all functional logic by somehow managing to look incredibly elegant despite currently being worn by an inflexible gem-golem.
"Welcome to the Celestial Concourse of the United Trade Federation, Highly Honored Guests," the crystalline attendant greeted smoothly, executing a sharp, perfect forty-five-degree bow. His voice didn't make a physical sound; it was highly melodious and was instantly translated directly into pure intent within our minds.
"I am assigned as Concierge Unit Seven. Your ancient invitation token has been thoroughly verified and logged. The High Celestial Auction officially commences around twenty-three standard hours from this current moment. In the interim period of relaxation, you have full, unrestricted, unbothered access to the extensive, legendary Pavilion of Delights."
He casually gestured a polished, faceted hand broadly out toward the endlessly sprawling, illuminated lower tiers extending like a cityscape beneath our balcony.
"Please, feel absolutely free to partake in our restorative facilities, the ambrosia springs have always been a favorite. You may also utilize the high-density zero-point gravity meditation matrices to align your cores, or simply peruse the sprawling, independent, highly-vetted merchant stalls dotting the thoroughfare. We pride ourselves on currently hosting the finest curated curiosities, incredibly rare, unrefined raw materials, and flawlessly forged historical artifacts found outside the High Courts personal Vaults across seventy sectors. May your impending bids be immensely triumphant."
With another crisp, utterly fluid bow, Concierge Seven glided away backward on seemingly invisible skates, leaving our small, suddenly overwhelmed trio standing frozen on the balcony overlooking the most utterly ridiculous, magnificent shopping mall imaginable.
We walked silently toward the immensely wide, sweeping grand staircases made of actual polished ivory leading down toward the Pavilion, taking in the dizzying sights.
The sprawling, magnificent architecture gave high-end Zenith resort a run for its money. Immense, towering pillars formed of entirely solidified, flowing water seamlessly supported intricate, curving footbridges composed entirely of frozen, hard-light rainbows.
Incredibly dense, hovering, zero-gravity gardens casually featured dangerous flora I absolutely couldn't comprehend existing — giant, weeping flowers that constantly sang low, calming harmonic frequencies capable of soothing jagged mana lines, alongside massive trees bearing translucent fruits that seemed to visibly pulse with heavily contained, localized temporal distortions that warped the light around them.
"The structural weave holding up those water pillars…" Jeeves said through our secure mental link, sounding profoundly offended and slightly jealous by the astronomically inefficient, incredibly flex-heavy display of magical engineering power. "To continuously, perpetually maintain a perfectly stable temporal-loop field specifically on that single branch simply to ensure that particular golden fruit always visually appears 'perfectly ripe' requires an expenditure of continuous ambient power significantly higher than what currently operates Bastion's main continental planetary defense shield generator for a month."
The actual merchants' assigned stalls down on the busy concourse weren't simply physical booths; they were highly organized, individualized, expansive pocket-dimensions seamlessly lining the glowing, bustling grand promenade. Customers simply walked into floating shimmering arches and vanished into seemingly infinitely expanding stores.
We walked slowly past a sleek, floating exterior display case practically overflowing with impossible, shimmering materials that aggressively defied all laws of systemic physics I knew.
[Raw Stardust-Thread Spools (Unrefined): 15,000 QS per standard meter.]
[Liquid Ambition Conceptual Extracts (Single Vial): 750,000 QS.]
[Soul-Forged Original Behemoth-Class Reactor Casings (Dismantled): 4,500,000 QS.]
"Lord Eren," Kasian forcefully projected next to my ear, floating in absolute, complete invisibility to anyone not intimately connected directly to my specific soul space, his voice tight. "Look closely at the weapons display currently hovering independently to our immediate left."
I turned my head smoothly. A remarkably elegant, softly levitating obsidian display case casually presented a single, masterfully, terrifyingly forged long-halberd. The vicious, wicked blade itself appeared to be actively formed from highly compressed, hungry gravity that literally, visibly bent and swallowed the ambient starlight surrounding it in the showcase.
[The Eventide's Reach (Certified Mythic Relic - Mid Tier 7 Classification) - Mandatory Starting Bid: 7,500,000 QS.]
"Seven and a half million," I quietly read the polished floating plaque aloud to my group, blinking very slowly. "Seven point five million shards. Just to start. For a completely finished, finalized, highly stable Tier 7 Mythic weapon capable of manipulating gravity wells on strike."
"That is actually considered a relative bargain, historically speaking," Leoric chimed in hungrily, sounding slightly manic as he stared virtually at the complex, invisible schematic of the weapon with pure, unadulterated engineering lust. "Especially assuming the underlying enchantment matrices managing the gravimetric containment actively hold their structural integrity against continuous high-impact void maneuvers during active, sustained high-tier combat without destabilizing. The forging techniques utilized are hundreds of thousands of years beyond my current localized capability without severely volatile risk."
I stood very still as the groups of disguised guests meandered calmly around us, doing the chaotic, exhilarating math quickly in my head.
A near-flawless, immensely powerful Mythic planetary-class weapon for seven and a half million.
I had roughly four and a half billion QS to spend if I needed to.
If this casually displayed item was merely the very loose, relatively affordable casual preamble, the 'budget street vendor' section specifically designed and explicitly meant merely for passively distracting lesser guests for twenty-four hours before the real, main event officially even started tomorrow… what on earth were the gods, emperors, and cosmic overlords of these galactic empires going to be aggressively bidding their entire planet's treasuries on during the actual, heavily-guarded Celestial Auction?
The wealth accumulated in this floating room wasn't just large or staggering; it was fundamentally cosmological in scale and terrifying in implication.
And our small faction from a quarantined, primitive little integration-planet had somehow, entirely through sheer, unprecedented violent grinding, a stroke of world-cleansing luck on a dying world, and absolute, brutal efficiency, elbowed our way in, carrying just enough literal weight to sit at the table and play the high-rollers' game.
I slowly turned away from the halberd toward an awe-struck Anna and a wide-eyed, completely overwhelmed Eliza. A genuine, broad, and completely unburdened, dangerous smile finally broke clearly across my face for the absolute first time in several very long, tiring years of constant preparation and imminent dread.
The continuous tension of fortifying Ferra, the overbearing, constant fear of the hovering empires, the stressful, imminent approach of the forced global Integration Crucible… none of it mattered right here, right in this precise moment, completely protected and utterly unidentifiable within an impenetrable Ascendant-grade veil located inside a massive gem in a violent nebula. We were free to just exist and prosper without the consequences of managing an apocalypse for one day.
"Alright, team," I announced brightly, loudly cracking my heavily armored knuckles and decisively opening my glowing blue, heavily-funded System marketplace ledger window. "I believe the rules are relatively straightforward. We try not to annoy anyone carrying an active supernova in their pocket. Besides that? We try to get our hands on anything we think might help us or others on Ferra."
"Let's go do some shopping!"