The Attendant and the Gallimians spent a whole minute trying to pick their slack jaws off the floor.
“Young man, are you messing with me?” the three-handed deity finally asked.
“I’m not,” Percy insisted. “I want to sell a method of cleansing a mortal’s core twice as fast. I’m talking about the most obvious method – the one that involves eating a certain type of glowing paste after each cleansing session, mending the cracks in one’s core. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, since I refuse to believe that a faction as rich and influential as the Sapphire Pavilion is unfamiliar with this secret.”
He didn’t feel the need to explicitly sell them the Aurora Dew’s recipe. It would be trivial for the faction that bought the information to figure out how to bond the cyan powder to their stable form of beast mana, but Percy saw no reason to make things even easier for them.
The god sighed from all three of his mouths, clearly realizing that Percy was telling the truth.
“I wasn’t aware that Rom had discovered the secret. That information is indeed valuable enough to become the final lot of today’s auction, surpassing even the opportunity to obtain a Focus from the wise gnomes,” the Attendant admitted. “However, there is a reason why the Sapphire Pavilion doesn’t sell the secret directly, and why no other faction dares to auction it off.”
“Will you not accept the listing?” Percy asked.
“We will, if you are certain about doing this, but I need to make sure that you understand the risks. The Sapphire Pavilion’s stance on the matter is that we wish for more worlds to obtain more effective means of advancement. The more lesser springs that evolve into greater springs in the universe, the more wealthy customers we will be able to trade with, after all. Unfortunately, not all the powerful factions share our view. We can’t be held responsible if a third-party decides to sell the secret at one of our auctions, since they could have just as easily sold it on their own, without anyone knowing. But we won’t be able to shield you from the consequences either.”
Percy frowned. “What about my anonymity?”
The Attendant shrugged. “We will maintain your anonymity both as a seller and a buyer to the best of our ability, which should be more than enough to keep you safe from the vast majority of the attending factions. That said, your actions may place you at odds with some of the most powerful worlds, and we have no idea what means they may have at their disposal.”
Percy gritted his borrowed teeth, genuinely unsure of how to proceed. He didn’t want to implicate Tiberius or Duwa’s people, but he also didn’t want to miss out the chance to acquire a Focus now that the Attendant had confirmed that the rumours were true.
Foci were the most valuable weapons of one of the strongest factions, and this might be his only opportunity to legitimately obtain one. The artifact would elevate his fighting strength by another level, allowing him to fight against demigods, and the boost should follow him well into the Concept realm. As far as he could tell, this was the sort of powerup that he wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere, and it would stack nicely with his other advantages.
The problem was that lots of wealthy gods would be emptying their coffers trying to win the auction, so Percy would need a serious sum of tokens to guarantee his success. Considering that his advance would only amount to a fraction of the estimated value of his listing, he would need to sell something at least three times as expensive as the invitation to Mithril. Probably more, since the rarest items were guaranteed to sell for several times their estimated value.
Nothing else in Percy’s possession would qualify, except for the Dance or the Moirais’ Decree, and he’d already gone over this choice with Micky. Percy would rather strengthen a lesser spring and piss a few greater springs off than strengthen a greater spring and anger the Moirai.
‘Can they even find us?’ the Huehuan asked through their connection. ‘Without any other information on the seller, they’d have to rely on some kind of conceptual tracking that relies on our mere intention to sell the secret. Tiberius and the Gallimians have very little to do with our decision, so the clues would lead straight to us. Will there even be a trail for them to follow after we escape through the soul plane?’
Percy mentally nodded. The obscure nature of his bloodline gave him some confidence in taking the risk – it was the main reason he was even entertaining the idea. Locating him would probably require multiple powerful gods with rare affinities working together. Even among greater springs, there might not be many capable of producing the right lineup of specialists.
Besides, even if a hostile faction managed to locate Remior, he should be able to placate them by offering them his other secrets in exchange for peace – as a last resort. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about dooming his entire planet. Even the greediest greater spring would rather take the Dance and a few hundred mortals with second cores and leave Remior alone than insist on the world’s destruction. Percy could enforce the terms with Kerfyl’s Decree if the worst came to pass.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Even if he tried to sell other things to gather the required tokens, Percy would inevitably step on some toes when he tried to outbid everyone else trying to buy the invitation to Mithril – let alone all the other items that he was planning to purchase in not only today’s auction, but all the future ones. If he was going to draw the ire of a bunch of greater springs anyway, he might as well keep things simple and generate all his tokens with a single move.
“So long as you’re certain… ” The headless deity nodded, before falling silent for a few seconds. “The value of the secret is difficult to estimate, since the impact it will have on the development of a lesser spring is pretty much unlimited, and nobody can predict what the world in question will eventually produce.”
“Then how is the item going to be evaluated?” Percy asked.
“Our policy in such situations is to limit our assessment to the next hundred thousand years. That’s roughly enough time for an entire generation of new Yellow-borns to have a shot at divinity. Depending on the population of the faction that ends up buying the secret, it could easily result in up to a hundred thousand deities.”
Percy’s eyes widened at the number. Didn’t this also apply to Remior? Sure, Percy’s planet probably didn’t house as many mortals as whatever rich lesser spring would end up winning the auction, but they would still probably produce thousands of new gods.
He’d obviously known for years that the secret of the Aurora Dew would have that kind of impact on his world – this was precisely why the Divine Root had chased him and Micky to the ends of the continent – but it was another thing entirely to have an Attendant from the Sapphire Pavilion confirm his speculation.
The god wasn’t done, however. “Quantifying the value of a deity is also difficult, because we have to take their lifetime accomplishments into account. Many will remain at the very bottom of the Self-Discovery stage forever, not producing even the cheapest affinity-changing treasure in case they die, while some might reach the peak of that stage or climb even higher. A select few will certainly become titans, casting Decrees that will further change their world. For the most developed lesser springs or newly-risen greater springs, we usually estimate the average value of a deity to be around twenty-three point four tokens.”
An invisible force lifted one of the pale tablets from the stack, pulling it to the Attendant’s left hand. The deity’s clawed digits turned into a blur as he inserted some information into the object, before tossing it over to Percy.
“Press your hand against the screen and think of a twelve-digit number that will serve as your identification,” the god instructed.
Percy followed the instructions, picking a random number and trying to burn it into his mind. His eidetic memory would have certainly helped with that, but there didn’t seem to be a need. The enchanted tablet resonated with his thoughts through some sort of mental enchantment that Percy didn’t fully understand, carving the number into his brain in a way that he was sure would never allow him to forget it.
Glancing at the screen, Percy realized that it now showed his new balance: ‘780,000 tokens.’
“Expect to have a lot more tokens than that by the end of the auction, though this amount will hopefully be enough for you to buy whatever you want today,” the Attendant said as he finally moved to exit the room.
“Wait! I still haven’t given you the item!” Percy yelled.
“No need for that. It’s just information, so I know what to write on the parchment – your intention to sell the secret is enough to lift the responsibility off of our shoulders and place it on yours,” the deity explained, though Percy heard the Attendant mutter something else right before the door closed, “I sincerely hope that you live long enough to enjoy your newfound wealth.”
Tiberius swallowed hard. Or was that Percy?
He might have just made one colossal mistake, though it was probably too late to change it.
Shifting his attention back to the Gallimians, Percy noticed that they were all staring at him with incredulous expressions. Even Duwa and their goddess looked at him like he was some kind of madman.
“Ahem. Now that that’s been dealt with, I was wondering whether you guys can let me crash at your planet for a couple of years,” Percy said on behalf of his host, scratching the back of his borrowed head. “Since there’s a… hopefully remote chance that a couple of angry gods will come knocking on your door, blaming you for spreading out the secret of faster core-cleansing, I suppose that it’s only fair to share it with you as well. No sense in suffering for a treasure that you don’t even possess.”