The mortals that Percy and Tiberius quickly befriended looked quite similar to their god. Their fur was less vibrant than the deity’s, its colours ranging from orange to beige, while their bodies were noticeably less toned, though Percy wasn’t familiar enough with their species to spot any other differences.
As expected, the six mortals had instantly flooded Tiberius with uncomfortable questions about his unlikely survival in the vacuum of space – a topic that clearly fascinated every Colour mage in the universe – not just Percy. Interestingly, each possessed a bulky translation device just like their deity’s, once again supporting Percy’s speculation that they hailed from a planet significantly more developed than his host’s.
For the most part, Percy had allowed Tiberius to handle the interrogation, since the latter didn’t know much more about him than the long-necked people. The caped man was also bound to a strict spectral contract that prevented him from revealing anything sensitive, thus forcing him to choose his words carefully.
Percy and his host had seized every opportunity to steer the conversation toward less dangerous and more interesting subjects, eventually gathering a few valuable tidbits of information about the auction.
The Sapphire Pavilion were running a business, first and foremost, with the attendees of their auctions being their primary customers. While their goal was obviously to make money, they were wise enough to ensure that everyone left their branches satisfied and safe. Forbidding any form of violence from taking place near their venues was but one of many measures that the intergalactic vendors had employed to that end.
Another was granting the sellers the option of auctioning their items off anonymously, much to Percy’s relief. It wasn’t always possible to do that, as some products were unique and famous enough that every attending faction would instantly know their origin, yet anonymity was a massive help for weaker worlds that needed to make money without attracting the wrong kind of attention.
On the topic of money, there was no universally accepted currency. The closest thing was the currency that dozens of member-factions of the Void Hand shared, but that obviously didn’t circulate in other places as much. To solve the problem, the Sapphire Pavilion had implemented their own system for evaluating and paying for the auctioned products – one that was based on the value of affinity-changing treasures.
Every faction in the universe – from the weakest lesser springs to the peak worlds – constantly produced talented mortals, so they were always in need of affinity-changing treasures. Before the start and after the conclusion of every auction, the Sapphire Pavilion allowed the attendees to exchange their treasures directly with them, for tokens that could be spend during the auction – or kept in their account for future dealings.
Of course, affinity-changing treasures came in all shapes and sizes, so the exchange rate varied greatly according to certain rules. For one, the Sapphire Pavilion refused to buy treasures too close to their expiration date, as they might fail to sell them or get them in the hands of a mortal in time. That said, the greedy vendors were more than happy to sell such resources that they already had in stock.
It had taken Percy some back and forth to figure out how long exactly the minimum accepted duration was, since his host and the long-necked people used different units of time than what they had on Remior.
‘So, five days, more or less?’ Micky asked him in private, the Huehuan’s estimates roughly echoing Percy’s own. ‘I don’t think the dandelion will survive that long.’
Percy mentally sighed, offering the first use of the treasure to Tiberius. Upon storing what were essentially Julius’ remains inside his seal, Percy hadn’t missed the wave of sorrow permeating his host’s soul, though Tiberius had been too polite to request the object from the person who had saved his life.
Now that they no longer had to worry about the relative uselessness of the sound affinity in the vacuum of space, and since the magical plant was likely to go to waste soon, Percy saw no reason to hold on to it. He had initially hoped to exchange it for a few tokens to spend at the auction, but it didn’t sound like the dandelion would have fetched much money anyway.
For common and composite affinities, the Sapphire Pavilion generally paid a single credit per remaining use. The value of the resources didn’t scale linearly with their duration, but a modest fifty percent was added to the price if the treasure in question had more than fifty days left, with another fifty percent added for durations longer than five hundred days.
Had Percy sold the dandelion immediately after picking it up, it would have only earned him a couple of tokens. It didn’t sound like much, though his travels had probably skewed his perception of the value of common affinity-changing treasures. The simplest way to exchange for even a single token required the death of a god, making each extremely valuable.
Even the dandelion currently rotting away inside Percy’s seal was clearly not the sort of thing that the Divine Order managed to get their hands on often. Remior had only produced about a hundred deities in its entire history, with only a dozen or so currently active, so killing other Concept mages was obviously an uncommon occurrence for Percy’s people.
As for how they had claimed the Lotus of a Myriad Rivers – Percy wasn’t sure, though he doubted that they had slain a god strong enough to produce such a potent treasure. It was more likely that a pair of extremely powerful experts had killed one another, and Remior’s deities had simply been lucky enough to flee with the prize before any of the other vultures got their hands on it.
Either way, the seed of the Lotus could have been exchanged for a whopping twenty thousand tokens. It had only produced half as many petals, and the flower itself had only lasted a little over three weeks after blossoming, but the seed hadn’t had an expiration date, so Remior’s gods could have planted it whenever they wanted. In fact, it was expensive enough that they could have probably auctioned it for even more.
‘It’s a pity they didn’t do that,’ Micky lamented. ‘They could have exchanged the tokens for more affinity-changing treasures for future generations of Holy Children – without having to give them the water affinity within a strict timeframe or share a third of the petals with the noble Houses.’
‘Hey, whose side are you on?’ Percy asked with an internal chuckle. ‘If they’d done that, you would have never eaten one, repaired your body, or survived our battle with Deimos.’
Jokes aside, Percy couldn’t help but wonder why Phoebe hadn’t brought the seed to the Pavilion. The titaness had seemed knowledgeable enough about the top factions to at least be aware of the vendors’ existence. Perhaps, there simply wasn’t a branch close to Remior, or the human deities hadn’t felt confident in their ability to travel to and from the venue safely, despite the rules forbidding violence. Not that Percy could blame them, given what had happened to Tiberius’ people.
Outside of the standard rates, the Sapphire Pavilion apparently reserved the right to manually adjust the prices based on supply and demand. If their stock of, say, fire-granting treasures happened to be lower at any given time, they might buy and sell them at a premium.
In theory, the same rules applied to rare affinity-changing treasures, though the exchange rate was typically multiplied by a factor of ten thousand. In other words, the Lotus that the Divine Order had used to grant a mindboggling ten thousand mortals the water affinity had only been worth as much as an object that could grant the life affinity to a couple of people.
‘That’s fucking expensive!’ Micky exclaimed with a mental groan. ‘No wonder we weren’t able to claim one from the regional tournament or the Blue reward pool in the Vault.’
Based on what the long-necked people had said, nobody was dumb enough to sell the rare treasures directly to the Pavilion, as they were pretty much guaranteed to make at least three times as much by auctioning them. The only caveat was that the Pavilion was “generous” enough to not take a cut from the direct exchanges, since their purpose was purely to help the attending factions liquidate their wealth. The vendors made their money exclusively from the auctions, by keeping ten percent of every sale as a commission.
“Do we have any idea what’s going to be auctioned this time?” Percy finally asked through his host’s mouth.
While the Sapphire Pavilion was willing to accept new listings even hours before the event – provided that they were luxurious enough to make the cut – those who wanted to sell rare or expensive resources generally preferred to inform the Pavilion weeks or even months in advance, to give them the time to advertise the products properly and attract more potential buyers. Consequently, the attendees often had an idea of what to expect even before an auction, though Tiberius’ late mentor had unfortunately not given him any details.
Percy wasn’t expecting anyone to sell a life-extension or core-cleansing method directly. Such things were rare and typically controlled by greater springs. Not to mention that this was just one of many branches of the Sapphire Pavilion, used only by factions from neighbouring solar systems.
However, this was still his best chance to gather information and potentially connect with dozens of new worlds. Maybe the event would give him a lead on promising places to visit, otherwise he would gladly settle for any way of raising his strength by another notch.
“Well… afat ler kein… lesser spring called Drukalan… brok mar… selling limited access to their bloodline Decree every single year… beleth ram… wouldn’t be surprising if they show up again,” the ice user said, though the gurgling sounds of the surrounding magma coupled with the flawed translation made listening to him a chore.
Still, Percy couldn’t help but perk up. “What does the Decree do exactly?”
“Serem hath… increases the odds of a newborn… maldrak sim therez… bloodline if they don’t inherit one from their parents,” the alien replied.
“Isn’t it risky to invite outsiders to their planet?” Percy asked.
One of the Violets shrugged. “Zaz kor tem… were already in trouble before auctioning their coordinates off… Halat rom zek… smart way to get out of the mess.”
Percy nodded in understanding. While powerful factions could crush the people of Drukalan like bugs to take what they wanted by force, there was no need to resort to that when a peaceful alternative was available. If anything, the lesser spring had only protected themselves from their rivals by proactively offering their most precious resource to stronger worlds, as nobody would risk invading them and offending a greater spring.
Either way, Percy wasn’t too interested in this particular item. He already possessed one of the universe’s most ridiculous bloodlines, and he very much hoped to pass it to his descendants unchanged one day. If his children failed to inherit it, it would probably be better if they didn’t develop a new bloodline at all, as it would increase the odds of Clone resurfacing in his grandchildren’s or great-grandchildren’s generation.
Even if the Decree was marginally useful for others on Remior, mixing multiple bloodline Decrees without clear benefits was unnecessarily risky, and Percy wasn’t going to waste time or money purchasing something like that.
“Is that it?” he asked again, starting to feel that sharing the cyan powder with the long-necked people might have been a mistake after all.
Perhaps it would be wiser to try and auction the red powder from Ruby Heart off, rather than the secret of Crystallization. On Thess’kala, the cheapest affinity-changing treasures had been worth as much as one of the three ingredients of the Ancestral Lineage Sect’s ritual. Going by that logic, an item that could give somebody a mutation should be worth somewhere between ten and thirty tokens.
Percy had enough portions for around fifty people inside his seal, since he had initially planned to grant the mutation to Sol and all the Green-born Melodians. Even if he considered his reinforced bones to be less valuable than his strengthened physique and resistance to toxins, selling the powder in bulk should fetch at least five hundred tokens.
It should be enough for the Sapphire Pavilion to accept the listing at the last minute, and the vendors apparently paid the sellers a fraction of the opening bid of the auctioned items as collateral before the event, allowing them to participate even if they lacked other funds.
The mortals exchanged uncertain glances for a couple of seconds before one of them spoke. “There’s a rumour that has been circulating… fel kar don… Lord Porros thinks that it’s probably false… Ver lam tan… Sapphire Pavilion occasionally hire third parties to spread fake advertisements… brok lon dith… too good to be true.”
Percy tempered his expectations, yet he couldn’t contain his curiosity. “Fake or not, you can’t leave me hanging with that kind of introduction.”
The mage who had spoken chuckled. “If the information is trustworthy… blak sor doon… selling invitation to Mithril… draf thon bil… chance to receive a personalized Focus… fir kiil… wise gnomes.”