Shovels In Spades

"Now, of course, as telling as this name is, it doesn't quite explain what these lovely little fruits do, now does it?" Pheldorapod asked rhetorically.

He basked in the anxiousness and curiosity that absolutely filled the auction hall before he continued talking. "A Limitless Fruit of Evolution is quite special, even by the system's standards. I can assure you of at least that much."

Pheldorapod adjusted his eyewear for a second and said, "I'll be using my authority as the owner and master of The System's Grand Auction to reveal that a lowest-class species can evolve a maximum of five times normally."

He frowned internally as he felt the system trying to reject his attempts to divulge even more sensitive information regarding evolutions. 'You cheeky little creature. This isn't the first time that I've done this, so why try to stop me now?'

The system didn't answer and continued to wrestle away the octopus' ability to speak on this topic right at this moment. 'Hmm... Are you trying to keep this information from Daz? Is this to help his growth by making everything more organic?'

A tremble in the system's attack gave the powerful alien all of the knowledge that he needed. Grinning internally, he thought, 'Fine. I won't fight you over this, but you owe me yet another favour.'

A feeling of consent washed over Pheldorapod as the system stopped interfering with him.

Nodding softly, Phedorapod coughed. "Ahem. As I was saying, this very special fruit will grant the consumer a free evolution chance!"

'If Daz wins one, I sincerely hope that he figures out on his own what I wanted to say before the system stopped me,' he thought a little bit regretfully. "Much like with many other items during today's auction, good testees of Earth, these fruits are bound to their winners. Any other person who tries to eat them might break their teeth, so caution is advised."

With that said, the auction began.

Crusher, Han, and Mu, were all actively participating in the auction for the fruits while Daz just watched on in silence.

Vanessa found this a bit odd, so she voiced the question that was plaguing her mind. "Um, Daz... Aren't you gonna buy one too?"

He raised an eyebrow as he looked at the girl. "You didn't realise what I was doing with the Class Reset Tokens? I'm doing the same thing here."

"Ah, um, the thing with your instincts? I didn't quite understand it..." Vanessa admitted as she scratched her cheek lightly.

Daz nodded. "Basically, I can tell when a ticket will be used on an item. I need to focus a lot, but I can do it. I'm saving as many points as I can for the final five items - the Skill-cap Upgrade Tokens, as well as for my home city, Waterford. Because of that, so long as I win the challenges, I can get the items free of cost."

"Ah! So you're trying to get more points by only bidding when you'll get challenged? I could never do that... What if you got beaten in the challenge?" Vanessa asked with genuine worry in her tone.

A snort filled the suite. Rose cast her new friend a side-long glance. "At this point, considering all of the cheats my idiot of a big brother has at his disposal, anyone who can beat him in a legit one-on-one fight deserves a medal or something."

Daz smiled faintly. He placed his hand on his sister's head and rubbed it roughly. "As much as I love your twisted praise, don't call me an idiot, please."

The ten-year-old grunted in agreement.

"By the way, Rose, are you gonna bid on a fruit?" the reaper asked.

Rose shook her head while Daz was still rubbing it. "It won't help me, and my points are better spent elsewhere."

Daz smiled wryly then removed his hand. "If you say so."

Vanessa was, of course, envious of this little show of theirs, but she continued to wear a smile as she chatted with the pair of siblings.

Crusher was successful in winning the first fruit. Upon her win, Pheldorapod stated that each person could only use one fruit. The consumption of more than one would result in no further evolutions.

Crusher didn't eat her fruit immediately since Rose belittled her for even thinking about it. The girl's reasoning was that the fruit should only be used when so much time had passed that it seemed like further natural evolution was impossible.

Since Crusher viewed Rose as both smarter and wiser than herself, she agreed with the foul-mouthed kid.

Han and Mu continued to bid on the second fruit but were defeated by a woman called Akira Mai who had bid a grand sum of thirty-two million merit points for the fruit.

Daz calmly stood up as soon as bidding began on the third fruit. "This one's mine," he casually said to Mu and Han.

Mu didn't mind in the slightest, so he happily accepted and wandered off to the suite's bar to have a drink with Crusher. Han was far less okay with Daz's claim, but she knew that she couldn't match him as far as merit points went, so she backed down as well and stopped bidding.

The bid on the third Limitless Fruit of Evolution continued to rise until it had finally apexed at a grant total of thirty-nine-million merit points. Daz couldn't hide his excitement at the prospect of being given that large sum of money by his challenger.

As he had hoped for and predicted, just as Pheldorapod was announcing him as the victor, the system gave Daz a notification.