To their credit, the Gallimians initially refused to accept the secret of the cyan powder from Percy – or any other payment for that matter. Apparently, Duwa had been even more forthcoming about their time together than Percy had imagined, so everyone – including the mortals in the group – had known about the young Green-born’s second core and Percy’s bloodline.
According to the goddess, Aje, the Gallimian leadership was extremely grateful to Percy for saving the boy. Despite the harsh trials that they put their children through to earn the Decree, or perhaps because of them, they valued the life of every single mage greatly.
Obatala himself had instructed his deities to repay the favour if the opportunity ever arose, so fulfilling Percy’s request to take care of Tiberius for a few years was a given. The goddess had even offered to escort the mortal directly to his planet – Rom, according to the Attendant from earlier – but Percy’s host unfortunately didn’t know the way back. The Violet’s only hope would be to have the Gallimians keep bringing him to future auctions until he managed to reunite with his kinsmen.
Percy didn’t necessarily agree that the Gallimians owed him a favour, since he had honestly benefitted just as much from his time on their planet as Duwa, if not more. Obatala’s Approval might not be as valuable as the Moirais’ Decree in anyone else’s hands, but it had completely revolutionized Percy’s abilities.
Without it, he might have never managed to merge the Carnival and a handful of other Masterful spells into the Symphony, nor would his mutated eyes have evolved to their current state. In fact, if anyone went through Percy’s Status with a fine-tooth comb, they would quickly realize that the powerful domain he had awakened ahead of time had directly or indirectly touched more than half of the entries on the page.
Sure, Percy had saved Duwa’s life, but Obatala’s Decree had also saved his own a dozen times over. That said, he needed these people to help his current host, so he wasn’t going to reject their kindness.
‘We should stay in Tiberius’ body until he arrives on Gallimus,’ Micky suggested.
‘I was thinking the same,’ Percy agreed.
It wasn’t like he didn’t trust Duwa’s people to treat the Violet well, but this was an excellent opportunity to leave a mark on Gallimus, so that he could revisit it at will. That way, Percy would keep in touch with not only his former host, but also one of the most developed lesser springs he had ever stepped foot on.
He felt that the Gallimians would make for reliable allies – which Remior was going to need, sooner or later. On a personal level, Percy didn’t know if there was anything of value to be gained on Gallimus, but he hoped that they would at least let him tag along in future auctions. He was going to have plenty of tokens left after today’s event, and he would gladly welcome every opportunity to spend them.
Percy had already left a mark on the space station, but he doubted that he would ever find a dying mortal to possess. For one, every single Attendant that he had seen so far had been a deity, and the Colour mages from other factions had all been kept safe within the internal worlds of their gods. Gallimus would probably be Percy’s only way to return to this branch of the Sapphire Pavilion in the foreseeable future.
Despite her kind stance toward Percy, Aje hadn’t shied away from voicing her displeasure about his reckless actions, clearly not appreciating the pot of trouble he was about to stir while sharing a room with her people. This was one of the reasons why Percy had insisted on sharing the secret of the cyan powder with the Gallimians – it was the least that he could do after involving them in his mess.
“You know… there aren’t that many gods out there who would actively resist the opportunity to turn their world into a greater spring,” Percy said with a chuckle.
Judging by the angry look Aje gave him, it took a lot of restraint on her part to hold back from slapping him. Fortunately, she never got the chance, as the octagonal platform outside the window suddenly lit up, indicating that the auction was finally about to begin.
Percy and Aje each held an enchanted tablet logged into a different account, ready to spend their hard-earned – or in the former’s case, not-so-hard-earned – tokens, while the other mortals would merely spectate the event.
An Attendant walked onto the stage, dressed in an elegant dark suit that contrasted nicely with his pale skin. All the three-handed deities that Percy had seen today had worn fancy clothes, but this one took that to the next level. The creature’s cuffs were dotted with tiny sapphires, arranged in the shape of sparkling runes that spewed out dancing azure motes of water mana with every step the god took.
“Ladies and gentlemen, mortals and deities, and of course, esteemed patrons of other or no genders, welcome to the Sapphire Pavilion’s four hundred and thirty-eighth branch’s annual auction!” the Attendant said, their voice amplified by seemingly every enchantment in the building.
The octagonal stage rapidly enlarged before Tiberius’ stunned eyes, until it occupied every cubic centimetre of space outside the window, with the god turning into a giant humanoid hundreds of metres tall. Percy didn’t think that the Attendant had actually grown bigger – it had to be an illusion.
“It is always with great pleasure that I preside over these events, but today’s auction promises to be a truly special one. I’m sure that many of you are still struggling to believe that an invitation to Mithril is going to be sold in our humble branch. I assure you that the rumours are true, though I’ll say more on that topic closer to the end of the auction, since the invitation is going to be one of the last items to be sold. What none of you is aware of, however, is that we have just received a last-minute submission that is even more lucrative than the elusive opportunity to acquire a Focus! Had we known a few days ago, we would have certainly spread the news to draw even more attention to today’s event, but there is no point in spoiling the surprise so close to the auction. What I will say, is that I hope all the representatives from lesser springs have exchanged for a lot of tokens, as I promise that you are going to need them!” the colossal deity said right before the pearly-white fangs in all three of the creature’s mouths flashed the audience a series of radiant grins. “Without further ado, let the auction begin!”
An octagonal hole opened on the floor in front of the Attendant, a same-shaped column carrying a spherical object rising until it reached the god’s chest. The item couldn’t have been larger than an apple, though the illusion had magnified it like everything else on the platform, giving everyone present a good look at it.
It was a red, semi-transparent orb, with a green metallic needle suspended smack in the middle of the crystal. One end of the needle was pointy enough for someone to prick their finger on, while the other was flat and about half as wide as an adult human’s finger.
Picking the undoubtedly-magical sphere up, the Attendant rolled it a couple of times between his left and right hands, showing the audience that the pin inside the object could rotate freely, and that it always pointed at a certain spot near the right edge of the ceiling, regardless of the orb’s orientation.
Percy was obviously curious about the object itself, but he also couldn’t help but notice that a thick eyelid and a pair of lips closed over the Attendant’s eyeballs and mouths whenever he held something with the corresponding hand, probably to protect the sensitive organs. Not that simple contact with a light object could possibly harm a god’s eyeball, but this was clearly an instinct that the divine Attendants retained from their mortal days.
“The first item to be auctioned is a karmic compass pointing at a barren world confirmed to possess a reliable source of stable beast mana,” the Attendant said. “The primitive natives of the planet have yet to realize that they can use the resource to cleanse their cores, so it’s completely undefended. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your perspective – the lesser spring that discovered this untapped treasure is located too far away from the planet to take advantage of it, so they have chosen to auction its location off. Bidding starts at a hundred tokens.”
A chill rolled down Percy’s borrowed spine as he realized that the spherical object being auctioned in front of him was going to determine the fate of an entire race of people. The poor creatures had probably never even imagined that there were other intelligent people out there among the stars, let alone the fact that the richest among them would one day fight over the right to colonize them.
“How common are these karmic compasses?” he asked Aje, trying not to think too hard about the unfortunate mortals that were about to receive a rather nasty surprise in the coming months.
“Very,” the goddess said. “They’re among the most popular ways to trade the location of foreign planets, since they’re more convenient than coordinates.”
“How do they work?” Percy asked. “I’ve been tracked by a Green with a karma affinity before, but I’m pretty sure that he was only able to perceive connections between objects that had come into physical contact.”
The Gallimian shrugged. “That’s the most basic form of karmic tracking. I wouldn’t expect a young mortal still in the lower half of the Colour realm to achieve much more than that. However, deities with that affinity can peer into deeper layers of reality, isolating much fainter connections. Even thinking of someone’s name or appearance can technically form a trackable thread, though I’m not sure if there’s any god who can perceive a connection quite that fleeting. The connections also stretch thin with distance, and the karmic deities still have to filter out an almost-infinite number of other connections before they can isolate the one they want, so karmic tracking is a skill with an extremely high ceiling that nobody has ever even approached.”
“And the compass specifically?” Percy asked again.
“Well… the hardest part is isolating and amplifying the correct thread. Once a god has a proper grasp on that, affixing the connection on an object that even mortals without the affinity can use is trivial,” Aje explained. “Don’t be surprised if over seventy percent of the auctioned items are karmic compasses. Not everyone has – or is willing to sell – valuable treasures or Decrees. The resource most commonly traded within the Sapphire Pavilion is information about planets that are interesting for one reason or another.”
Percy nodded. He’d suspected some of that information before, though he once again hoped that locating his main body based solely on the clone’s decision to sell the secret of the cyan powder wouldn’t be easy.
The karmic compass eventually got sold for two hundred and fifty tokens. According to the Attendant that had chatted with Percy earlier, that was approximately the value of eleven or twelve deities. A dozen gods weren’t that many in the grand scheme of things, but it was more than this unfortunate barren world would ever get the chance to produce…