The Path of Ascension Chapter 485

Chapter 485

The venue, or rather Meadow, given the control auctioneers normally had over their auctions, deeply understood there were few things that could stand shoulder to shoulder with a set of gear made by Madam Renaissance. As such, they didn’t even try to compare, instead resetting.

“To get things started, let’s do a few quickfire auctions. In this bag I have ten potions ranging from Tier 20 to Tier 40. As with all items today, these items are considered Tier 35, allowing anyone to bid without additional fees, so don’t miss this chance to pick up a bargain. Each potion will start its bidding at one Tier 1 mana stone and no reserves will be accepted. One bid at a time everyone! Good luck! Because first up is a Tier 26 Berserker’s Strength potion.”

With such a bidding system being basically random, everyone in their room joined in cheering for the brief moment one of their bids made it onto the podium.

Vinnie even won a Tier 26 healing potion, inadvertently offending Melinda with his excitement, leading to her waxing quietly about the fate of healers being replaced. He in turn then managed to apologize in the worst way possible, to everyone else’s amusement.

The antics only quieted down as Meadow’s next introduction distracted the rest of the room.

“These next few items will be of interest to the leaders here today, nobles and business alike. Our first lot are a thousand sets of Tier 1 seedlings, though that might be something of a trend for these next few lots. In this case the seeds are the very same key ingredients needed to make Jaqui’s Clarity of the Stars potions. A few drops will give hours of mental clarity, allowing for increased learning ability without any side effects, like mental fog, afterward. On the Capital there is a waiting list of six months for each potion, with families fighting over each and every one to help their scions excel, and it can all be yours today. Bidding starts at one Tier 35 mana stone!”

Matt looked to Liz but Aster covered his eyes. “Nope! I need a new commodity so you can’t fight me for it.”

Pulling her hand off his face, Matt helped start mischief by plopping the deliberately frigid appendage on the distracted Melinda’s back, earning a squeal.

“Fine, you can have this one but you need to sell some in our lands.”

“Obvously!” Then under her breath she added, “Can’t saturate my markets too fast.”

“Secure the win before bragging.”

Taking his words to heart, Aster entered the bidding, pushing the reserve from two hundred and fifteen Tier 41 mana stones all the way to two Tier 42 mana stones.

As others repeatedly tried to unseat her bid, causing it to increment, the attempts slowed down as they failed to change the top bidder with each new bid.

It was only when the bid climbed past Tier 42 without unseating her that everyone else gave up, securing Aster and her duchy a new export.

The following lots were equally interesting, though Matt didn’t feel the need to buy a duchy’s worth of alchemy furnaces, even if it was a relative bargain.

Allie ended up buying the licences to a line of armor. Though she intended to allow one or two of her nobles to specialize their industries, rather than keeping it for herself or specializing her entity duchy.

Matt happily chatted with her about how much support to give the lucky nobles for optimal results when Liz grabbed his attention by excitedly shaking his knee.

“I think we should get this one. I’ve wanted to play with the recipe for a while but independent licences are far too expensive to make it worthwhile.”

Reviewing his [AI], Matt watched Meadow introduce the item.

“Same as our first lot, we are also selling the core seeds needed to craft Valstora’s Body Cleansing potions, along with the distribution rights to sell the potions. This only marks the third time Valstora has sold the rights, so don’t miss this chance to buy one of the best general detoxifying potions. Poisons, toxins, venoms, these potions can handle a lot of harmful effects that target the body. And for those that it can’t fix outright, its secondary effect of suppression has proven to be a life saver. Bidding starts at fifty Tier 40 mana stones.”

The price didn’t aggressively rise, but it did steadily do so. By the time Matt had looked into the potions, they’d reached fifty Tier 42 mana stones.

“What do you think?”

Seeing the price and looking at their duchy’s account, Matt shrugged. “I can’t see why we shouldn’t try. Even if they make the potions recipe and seeds available for free tomorrow, we’d still have a market with how useful they are. And, well… that seems unlikely.”

Punching the air, Liz continued to bid, eventually securing it for just under a Tier 43 mana stone.

The following auctions were aimed at crafters with rare and excotic metals being sold in fast lots.

After that, however, Meadow’s attitude signaled a change in the pacing and an item was once more brought out with great fanfare.

It was a light gray rock with not a single discernible or distinguishing feature. A Tier 33 Natural Treasure, but its energy signature set it apart from uncountable other riverside stones on countless worlds.

“Ladies and gentleman, I only need three words to describe this, so I won’t bother with more. Beyond that, the bidding starts at one Tier 40 mana stone.” After waiting a moment she whispered to the room, “Universal upgrade material.”

Even in their room there was an audible intake of air as everyone processed what had been said.

The unremarkable stone could be used to fulfill the Tier up requirements of any growth item, up to the stone’s Tier. A boon for anyone with a growth item they hadn’t been able to find the Tier up requirement for, the stone represented the end of eons of suffering for one person. At least in theory, given the stones’ relatively low Tier. It was possible some Tier 45 had a Tier 33 or lower weapon they hadn’t been able to Tier up to survive ascension, but Matt didn’t believe it would be too many.

Where the stone differed from its lesser cousins was its ‘universal’ description. Most Natural Treasures that allowed someone to circumvent a growth item’s otherwise tedious upgrade requirement typically came with restrictions of their own. Most of the time they were on what the Natural Treasures could be applied to, what type of material they could be used in place of, or more frequently, both. The restrictions, and the resulting items it could be used with, were more often than not the deciding factor in such Natural Treasures’ evaluations.

Matt had been on the look out for an upgrade bypass treasure thanks to one of the side effects of the Talent that could merge his neutronium ingot to his sword. It scrambled the next required upgrade material, but the real problem was that it made it a lot harder for Seekers to identify said material remotely. That was what they normally did when they needed to Tier up their growth items, and not being able to do so could be risky.

It wasn’t an insurmountable problem, especially with their level of resources. It would be a hassle and potentially somewhat of a timesink depending on how lucky or unlucky he got.

A universal upgrade material that could bypass all of those hassles tempted Matt deeply. The closest he’d found so far during the auctions was a Tier 32 petrified mouse paw that could only be used on metallic items. It had seemed perfect until he checked and found it relied on the item having a specific composition within a range that his sword wouldn’t fall into after its modifications, rendering it useless to him.

This stone offered him the chance to completely circumvent any potential issues.

The issue was cost.

While they had a massive discretionary budget between their various identities, Matt couldn’t spend as endlessly as his Talent would allow for. There were too many other items they wanted to buy in the auction, and the Minkalla auctions wouldn’t be using the Empire’s economic system. Anything he wanted there would require hard currencies such as mana or essence stones, so he wasn’t willing to spend everything on something he might not get.

As the price of the stone crept past fifteen Tier 45 mana stones Matt had given up, but to everyone’s shock, the other bidders must have agreed the price had risen too high and backed out as the counter ticked down to zero, securing him an unexpected win.

With a small worry taken off his plate, he relaxed further. If he ended up not needing it he could resell it to one of the other bidders. Their needs were unlikely to be resolved in the short term if they were willing to bid so much for a Tier 33 item.

A dozen items later, Matt was only half listening as Meadow described it. “Wood cultivators beware! This item is special. A remedy that tastes just a little bitter knowing what could have been!”

The tip of a once gigantic tentacle of gnarled wood, the Tier 32 Natural Treasure lightly glowed due to the sheer amount of energy packed inside.

“This beauty here has three abilities. It’s something of an oddity with the lucky buyer only able to choose one of the following effects. First, and the one nearest and dearest to my heart: the ability to draw nutrients from nearby plants to rapidly heal. Second! The ability to petrify one’s wooden form, thereby increasing one’s resistance to both fire and sharp weapons greatly. Next time a pesky fire mage starts throwing fireballs for fun, you can give them a good show.”

At that point, Matt had nearly lost all interest, but her following dismissing words ripped him out of his conversation with Aster and Kyle.

“Finally, if you need to move a lot of mana around your tree form, the third effect is perfect for you with a ludicrously strong mana throughput effect. Bidding starts at one Tier 40 mana stone!”

Matt jumped to the privacy bubble, taking a good look at the unremarkable looking Natural Treasure. Looking into the provided information, he found it was far better than anything else he’d found. Finding one of the two pieces he needed took a weight off his shoulders.

Unable to see most bidders’ identities, the few he could see were all related to the factions involved in the Knightly Order revival. That was interesting, and made him contemplate possible larger uses for the vine. But when it came to his own armor, he couldn’t afford to be nice and step aside.

It was an auction, and so they’d bid.

When the bidding reached one hundred and fifty Tier 44 mana stones and the timer was finally able to start running down, Matt made his first and only bid setting his reserve at one Tier 45 mana stone. He was prepared for the price to rise further, but it was unnecessary. The final price only reached three hundred and twenty Tier 44 mana stones, taking a massive weight off his shoulders.

Falling back into the couch bonelessly, Matt enjoyed the moment before opening his eyes and rejoining the room.

Finding a calm moment while Susanne was bidding on a monocle that improved eye based skills, he used the Ascender chat he once more asked them to see if anyone in their Great Powers was known to have Tassal of Lament. Even if someone hadn’t found one in the current Breach, he was sure at least one group between all seven Great Powers had in a vault.

Or he hoped. The Tassal of Lament was all he needed to make his armor a reality and he could almost taste it.

Unable to rush things, he returned his attention to the auction and waited to see if his fishing would catch something. When the tentacle arrived at his room, he carefully inspected the energy. It would more than fulfill JR’s requirements, with enough room the raven might be able to do something interesting.

Instead he allowed himself to relax.

Amusingly, as the auction went on, the fewer items their room bought. They ultimately weren’t the target audience for most of the highest Tier items, but that let them turn the event into a show, which Matt enjoyed thoroughly. Or so he thought, as the final item caught their and everyone else’s attention when a small orchard of four trees were brought out all at once.

Making a production of it, Meadow smirked as she stood on her tip toes and covered her eyes with a hand. “I think I see a cousin or two in there. Hmm, maybe not now that I’m questioning it. If they start waving suddenly when I turn my back, I’ll be relying on you all to catch the pranksters and let me know. Everyone underestimates how playful young dryads can be, but I know because I was the worst of them.”

When the chuckles died down, she sighed, “A pity they aren’t dryads, but pseudo Natural Treasures, so it isn’t impossible. But it’s so rare as to not exist today, so let us not lament what can not be. Besides, even without becoming a dryad, I doubt anyone will be disappointed in these lovely trees. Dukes and Duchess I will give you a warning now, start gathering your resources, if you thought the Dobrescu family spent a lot, find something to brace yourself. These can secure a ducal line’s prosperity… forever, and as such will come at a corresponding price.”

After the hubbub around her died down, she continued, “As per our agreements with the sellers, each tree will be sold as individual in ascending order of Tier. Though, as everyone has no doubt already realized, the trees are heavily warded to obscure their Tier, leaving much to speculation. So while I can’t tell you what Tier the trees are, I can give a showcase of the fruits. Alexander, if you would.”

As the trees plotted in spatial containers came to a rest behind her, Matt and everyone else watched a Tier 21 man hobble his way across the stage.

Once he arrived next to Meadow, his haggard appearance stood in sharp contrast to her vibrance. Without preamble, he launched into an explanation while dropping his spiritual protections. “Two weeks ago in a delve I was struck by a spiritual attack which caused moderate damage that has since bled into my physical body.”

Smiling, Meadow withdrew an ornate preservation container from a slit in reality, opening it to reveal two vibrant pears.

The first was Tier 22 and slightly smaller, but that didn’t stop everyone’s interest as they scanned it and the Tier 7 fruit beside it, trying to gleam what made the pseudo natural Treasure so valuable as to be sold as the final item on the final day.

Meadow didn’t keep them waiting. “As per the inter-Great Power exploration treaties relating to unique resources, only ten percent of the stable specimens were harvested, which is why there are only four available for auction today out of seven they brought back. However, all of the ripe fruit was harvested by the team who stayed at the location and observed enough to give us a clear picture of the tree’s properties. Alexander you may begin whenever you are ready.”

Finally given permission, the injured man grabbed the pear and tore into it while looking at the ceiling, careful not to let any of the juice go to waste. He even went as far as to eat the core and seeds, to the lower crowd’s audible distress.

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Mid-observation, Matt had to duck as he nearly caught a foot to the head as Melinda jumped over the couch to get a better view of Alexander as the energy in the pear started repairing the physical damage his body had suffered.

With most healing methods, such as spells, that relief would have been temporary thanks to the underlying spiritual damage remaining untreated and requiring repeated applications.

That was, in fact, the main way to heal spiritual damage in most cases: relying on the spirit slowly matching the flesh. Directly healing spiritual damage was far too rare of an effect to be widespread. In Alexander’s relatively light case, that would have meant hourly healing spells unless he could self-sustain a strong healing spell for the five or so years Matt estimated it would take his spiritual wounds to recover. The third option was resorting to waiting in agony for a few centuries to allow his spirit’s natural healing process to take its course, but few could handle that level of pain.

Except, contrary to his expectations, the spiritual damage was being healed right along with Alexander’s body. If he wasn’t wrong, the fruit was using his body as a method to affect his spirit, making each pear a supremely valuable healing treasure. And that was before any refinement, which might find untapped potential of immense value.

As Liz excitedly slapped his thigh, he knew they’d be doing their best to buy one of the trees and started tabulating the total amount of money they had in all of their accounts.

However, the pear wasn’t done expending its energies.

In Alexander’s case, the energy in the Tier 22 pear was exactly enough to fully repair his body and spirit in large part thanks to how recent the injuries were. That explained why he’d been chosen out of the other random people suffering from spiritual damage just within the Capital. The shock value of the demonstration alone had been worth the cost of a single pear, and Meadow hadn’t tried to hide the team’s harvest of fruit. They probably had two or three dozen pears at the lower bound, with the upper limits reaching into the hundreds ready to be sold the moment the auction ended.

Though, Matt doubted that the trees had such an abundant harvest, given the normal trends among pseudo Natural Treasures. They were famously infertile, slow to breed, and the fact they’d only harvested seven trees out of an entire planet reinforced that idea.

Meadow let the wash of comments from the various attendees wash over her until she raised the second pear. “Our next applicant was a random civilian from the Capital but their identity is being protected. Please respect it.”

As she said her final words two Tier 46 aura’s rippled out threateningly, guards from the venue, but they were almost instantly dwarfed by the Tier 50 presence that loomed over everyone. Then, as if the invisible pressure had never existed in the first place, it vanished, allowing everyone to breathe again.

Clearly surprised by the additional backup, Meadow recovered well and waved forward a Tier 5 woman wearing thin cloth clothes and a high Tier mask with a smile. “A lower Tier pear would have a similar effect, but the effect takes much longer and seconds matter on this stage more than most.”

Not that anyone rushed the Tier 5 as she sat down directly on the stage, though many surely wanted to. Clearly prepared beforehand, she ate the entire pear in a near identical display to what Alexander seed’s and all.

Without an injury for the pear’s energy to be spent on, Matt didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t seeing her body’s ‘impurities’ being expelled in a fleshy goop. It was a very familiar sight and one he didn’t need his spiritual sense to tell him smelled foul.

No, Aster did that for everyone as she excitedly described their run in with the Tree of Perfection and its triplicate effects.

While she retold the story to their friends who were only observers at that point, Matt and everyone else in the audience who were interested in buying a tree tried to put the two displays together. Where it was possible that the pears had two powers it was incredibly unlikely.

Having used the original, Matt realized the differences faster than most of the others, though Melinda was a close second with her medical background.

The Root of Perfection had given Matt a body similar to what a peak Tier 14 could achieve, locking him into a state of peak physicality and granting an increase in physical capabilities. The pear hadn’t done that to the girl, despite repairing a lifetime’s worth of wear and tear her body had accumulated; its effect was a one and done thing, with no shield from future injuries and damage that life would bring.

Despite that, the effects of the pear put her well ahead of her peers who would only begin to start the process after Tier 10. Where they would need to dig away at a fully compacted pipe of sludge, she would only need a quick spring cleaning before going into ‘maintenance mode’.

If the pears were true Natural Treasures, such a limitation would have killed their value. As a pseudo Natural Treasures, something whose production could be expanded, that limitation became its saving grace.

With a flick of a finger, Meadow cleaned the girl, though Matt knew from experience she’d feel dirty for days, even after showers, until she got used to her new bodily sensitivity. “As everyone saw, the lower Tier pears have a side effect of purging the body of impurities. While that effect isn’t too applicable for the higher Tier variants, there is one more effect— the true effect if you will. This is the primary effect with everything else being a ‘side effect’.”