Limitless Path

"I am Senior Manager Illiem. What can the illustrious Black Ships do for our esteemed guest?" he finally asked.

"I'm hoping to establish a trading relationship with your firm," Beth answered. "I have a team of Enlightened that are both constantly exploring and fighting and we are able to get our hands on an immense amount of goods. I have a few things here that are representative of what we would have to offer to trade. We also have quite a bit of money ourselves and we acquire more at a rapid pace from multiple sources."

"Our firm is quite prestigious," Illiem replied calmly, eyeing Beth slightly critically. "What do you have to trade that would interest us?"

"Multiple different resources," Beth replied, setting out an array of items on the small table between them. At the entombed heart, Illiem raised his brow, but it was the array of skill gems and very rare harvests that drew his attention. Beth's looting power was still working its way through Silver, though it was almost Gold at this point, and it was producing some nice results, especially on beasts over level five hundred. The number of people in the Milky Way at the moment that could fight level five hundred and above beasts was a fraction of a percent of a percent of a percent, making everything she was presenting extremely rare and in high demand.

"These are of interest," Illiem said, sorting through the skill shards. "Things like the heart prove your ability to acquire rare and unique, or near-unique, items that our firm would be interested in. The rare resources and skill gems show that you are able to consistently kill at and above level five hundred and harvest such beasts. Do you believe that there are any other factors that we should take into consideration, apart from your recommendation from the Lord of Traversal? Keep in mind, what you say in this room will be held in full confidence."

"Don't have anything to say, but something to show," Beth replied with a small shrug. She held her left hand up, palm up, and created a bare wisp of her Ideal's manifestation above it. It was just the tiniest, smallest bit of white flame, hovering above her hand for a few seconds, but the reaction was profound. Illiem had been slightly impressed with some of the other things she had shown, but now he was truly surprised and a bit awed, rising from his chair to bow to her in a formal manner. Beth returned the bow with a mere nod, but that was entirely the appropriate response given their current standings and her demonstration.

"I understand perfectly," Illiem replied as he resumed his seat. "Based on what you have shown already, the Lord of Traversal's recommendation, and what you have just so aptly demonstrated to me, I can make the decision to offer you membership with our firm. Our membership structure is simple and follows the first seven levels of the metal rankings, from copper to orichalcum. Make no mistake; even a copper membership is highly sought after and not to be taken at all lightly. For you, I would offer you the limit of my powers as an individual Senior Manager: a gold membership. Do you find this acceptable?"

"Explain what a gold membership offers," Beth said.

"A gold membership is the third tier of membership with the Black Ships and gives you full access to our markets. You can buy and sell to us directly, as well as using us to reach an extensive network of various different merchant groups and buying partners. A gold member pays only half the normal fees that copper or silver member would pay, and you have a credit limit of three hundred and fifty adamantine coins. You can also hire the Black Ships directly to transport goods at our standard rate and you can hire the Black Ships mercenary company at a five percent reduced rate," Illiem explained.

"I'm also a member of the Seven Lights trading firm. Will that be a problem?" Beth asked.

"Our memberships are non-exclusive," Illiem replied with a dismissive wave. "As long as you aren't part of any criminal organizations or conduct yourself in a manner deemed unseemly by the firm, we will have no issues."

"Good. And what about auctions?" Beth asked.

"What about them?" Illiem replied with a slightly quirked brow.

"Well, I guess my first question would be: do you host them?" Beth asked in response.

"No," was his simple answer. "Other trading firms and businesses might resort to such things, but the Black Ships have no need for such theater. Our customer network is extremely extensive and includes hundred of companies, polities, and individuals willing to pay premium prices for any good or service on offer. Bidding can be exciting, but we need no such draw to attract either partners or clientele."

"Ah, I see," Beth said, leaning back and sipping her drink. "Is there anything else you think I should know?"

"We do have a registrar of bounties-strictly for items-that you will have access to as a gold member. Anything on that list is deemed in extremely high demand even by our firm, one that trades in extraordinarily rare goods, and the firm itself will buy at premium prices. Often they are goods demanded by multiple clients at once, but that is not always the case. In any respect, that list is something very good to pay attention to if you are looking for some form of work from us; anything on that list that you can retrieve in any appreciable quantity will not only pay very lucratively, but will aid in your standing. It is possible for you to earn your way up the ranks of membership, and every rank provides greater rewards. Orichalcum membership is the level of a member of the board of the firm and has a controlling stake and voting rights in the firm. Of course, getting to orichalcum is not easy, not by any means, and those ranks are all currently occupied by Manumitted and above," Illiem explained.

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"Can you send me that list?" Beth asked.

"You have access to our network now," Illiem said with a small wave of his hand. "The bounties are in the member orders sections, the file marked 'Outstanding Goods Bounties.' Just download it to your communicator and look through it. I believe the highest priority on the list is star-forged mana mithril, which is extremely rare and difficult to find. If you manage to get even a few dozen grams of it, the firm will compensate you commensurately."

"Interesting. I'll check it out," Beth said, grabbing the file after logging in to the network. "Anything else I should know?"

"I will have a token made for you to show your new membership. Otherwise, there's nothing that I can think of at this time," Illiem said, setting his cup down and putting his hands on his thighs in preparation of rising.

"Oh, one more thing," Beth said with a small grin. "Just an information thing; where's the best place to look into buying a property on Zephyr Prime?"

"The firm can handle that. What are you looking for?" Illiem said, moving his hands to the armrests as he looked at her closely.

"I think price is going to be a big constraint," Beth said. "I only have about two adamantine personally right now, not counting the resources I have to sell. Even counting on my team for money, we still don't have all that much."

"Hmm, two adamantine is enough to get you a mid-sized manse in one of the residential districts. It wouldn't be the largest or the best, and not one of the floating islands or anything like that, but there are options," Illiem said.

"Is there a list of places you could send me for that price range? I'd like to think on it for a while, but I think my team might even make this our headquarters for the foreseeable future," Beth replied.

"Certainly. I'll have someone collate the list while I take you down and make your membership token," Illiem said, putting his hands on his legs just briefly this time before rising, escorting Beth out of the room.

The two of them walked out of the room and down to the lobby, Illiem taking Beth to a side counter to make her token. It was a regular heptagon of mana gold about half an inch thick with a unique design on each face. On one side was the image of a black ship embossed into the metal using some technique Beth hadn't encountered before. On the other side was a picture of a sword with furled wings to each side of it, the meaning of which was lost on her, but it did look rather neat. The side with the black ship was otherwise blank, but the sword had the words 'Strength From Afar' across the top above the hilt of the sword. The sides of the token had runes etched into them, only some of which Beth was able to recognize, but they were identification and security measures, at the least. Unlike her Seven Lights emblem, this token was bound to her, Illiem having her use a drop of blood and a pulse of mana to bind it to her. Even if someone stole it, the token would be checked in their systems against her personal signature and couldn't be used by someone that didn't match.

Illiem sent Beth a list of properties before she left the firm, which she did right after getting the token, quite happy with her little outing so far. She reviewed the list of places the Black Ships had for sale on the planet, finding there were dozens of listings within her price range, though she wasn't going to be spending all her available money on buying a place. It was a situation where she really didn't want to scrimp; she didn't want to spend a few dozen diamond coins on buying some place cheap that they would only use for a little before wanting to upgrade to a nicer place. The world did have cheap housing, truly cheap housing, but almost all of that was small apartments in huge apartment buildings that would not exactly be great for even just Beth herself, let alone her team and any visitors that might drop by. The world was expensive, overall, and Beth could tell why just by looking around, but she felt it was worth it.

Well, that was for a different time, or at least a time in the future a bit, as she made her way back to the CRA Hall. She would have to put some serious work into earning money so she could snatch up a very good spot from the Black Ships on the planet and get herself and her team situated well. Beyond that, she was going to need to work on the list for Mortaine and Laselle, and she needed to both continue leveling and to work on her smithing. She had made some progress on that and was now sitting at the very peak of Expert, but she had dedicated precious little time to the craft. That was just an indicator of how good the lessons she and Sera and Blood had received from Old Tom and the crew were and how much improvement she still had to demonstrate based on those lessons. She wanted to get not just to Master, but hopefully get a good bit of the way through Master with her smithing within the next five years, though that date was just a bit arbitrary. She found it good to put some kind of timetable on some of these things these days or she could let things languish for years without even noticing.

The other big thing was becoming a Grandmaster, though she wasn't thinking about her crafting when she was thinking about that. She had made a good bit of progress with her weapon skills; fighting up over a hundred levels at level four hundred was certainly helping with that, coupled with her time in the arena and various other fights and training with other skilled warriors. She was hoping to get her Unarmed, which had pulled a bit ahead of her Swords, not really a surprise, to Grandmaster first. She knew that crossing the barrier to Grandmaster was difficult, but it wasn't anything like crossing the barrier to Sage, which made her briefly think of Veren before dismissing the brat from her mind, and it wasn't technically as difficult as going from Expert to Master, though it was a bit of a conceptual difference. Still, she had made great progress in the recent couple objective years, though it was a decade plus of subjective time with how much time she spent in her gate recently.

She teleported through the CRA network, though her destination wasn't Earth yet. No, she had gotten more contacts from Mortaine than just the one, though she had certainly started with the absolute best of the lot. She didn't have as high hopes for the other two contacts, as both groups were around the level of the Seven Lights. Even so, it wasn't really about impressing her, it was about establishing a broader and more complex network of contacts and assistants. More merchant groups and trading firms meant more places to sell, though that wasn't really all that necessary, but it really meant more places to buy. That was the big deal and why she wanted a broader network; a lot of firms didn't talk with each other or wouldn't request materials from each other. It was a pain, but she would have to go to multiple places and ask if they had things, and few places existed that maintained relationships with multiple firms. She didn't really want to use a brokerage like that, anyway, as that was adding another middleman to the process, which meant more fees and more waiting time on top of what she was already paying.

The first stop after the Black Ships was on a moon that circled a gas giant. The moon was large enough it held its own atmosphere, though the place would have been terribly cold if there weren't a small artificial sun generating light and warmth near the gas giant. She did take some time to marvel at the view, the gas giant taking up a big portion of the sky during part of the day and some of the night, but she eventually got on with her business. This time, she didn't even need to use the entombed heart as bait, as she thought of it, as she was able to show that she was an Enlightened and offer trade in skill gems and rare beast parts. That was more than enough to get a foot in the door at the firm, Red Sun Trading Ltd., and she walked away with yet another membership token. She was starting to collect them like prizes at an arcade, but that was her whole purpose right now, and the more the merrier, especially considering her groups varied needs for rebirth materials. She moved on from there rather quickly, not staying for so much as a cup of tea, instead making her way to her third destination of the trip.