System Announcement:The initial phase of the Auction has concluded.A brief intermission of fifteen minutes will be held before the true Auction begins, starting with all rare-rarity items. The central hall will now unlock, and anyone present during an ongoing auction will be able to participate and bid through a provided interface.Based on performance, certain individuals will have private booths available.Time remaining: 14:59As Jake, Miranda, Sultan, and Sylphie left the side room, the message appeared. They were soon joined by the others from Haven, who had also split up to enter other rooms. Together, they walked straight across the hallway and into the central chamber.Most of them didn’t have any items to put up for sale, as Jake came to learn. Not because they didn’t have anything, but because during the week Jake had spent traveling and with family, Sultan had meticulously sought out every D-grade in Haven he considered worth approaching to act as a middleman.Entering th

Jake left the chamber with the Sword Saint enlightened as to the path of a true swordsman. He even learned that Reika also knew and could feel her blade, just like her great-grandfather. Jake had to admit it made him feel a bit inadequate.Once he was out, the rabble was still there, but Jake just ignored them and walked past. He had stayed in there for a good forty-five minutes, and while the start was serious, it eventually divulged into something far more casual, and Jake quickly got a feeling that the political arena of the Noboru clan was quite an annoying one.He was glad he avoided all that shit by just having Miranda handle everything. At worst, she could tell him if someone needed a good smacking, and if she really needed him to do something, she would at least tell him how to do it.Making his way back to the booth, he found everyone besides Sultan, Miranda, and Sylphie already back, with some likely not having left. One such person was the man standing at what looked like a

The undead and Jake talked for a while longer, just chatting and discussing things related to Earth and the struggles of the Risen. Casper didn’t say much, mainly letting Priscilla outline their difficulties, as quite frankly, he himself barely had any issues these days. He didn’t have any family, to begin with, so he didn’t go through the struggle of convincing one’s parents or a former lover that they were still the same person despite now being undead. Overall, it was pleasant, but soon Jake had to return.Casper sat back as he watched Jake leave, the ancient-rarity auction beginning shortly. He was a bit miffed he had not gained the Root, but he believed Jake would stay true to his promise and trade it with them soon enough."Why tell him what to do?" Priscilla asked him once Jake was out of the hall and unable to hear them, her mood departing from the welcoming and kind persona she put on in front of others. "If he becomes consumed by a curse, much less one of Hunger, the consequ

Jake alternated between meditating and diving into knowledge from Sagacity of the Malefic Viper and reading the book on the Pollendust Bees. He found the knowledge in the books severely lacking compared to Sagacity, and in some places, just wrong.First of all, it explained how to awaken the egg and birth the Pollendust Bee Queen, and the method was just horrible. Insects differed from many other races because they didn’t really have a natural growth period as, for example, humans had. Instead, the Queen would be born at level 100 and hold the power of a D-grade from the moment it hatched.According to the book, one just had to infuse enough mana into the container to awaken the Queen, as all the necessary materials to do so were already included. While that was technically true, it was also a shit method. Why the hell would Jake just be happy with a normal Pollendust Bee Queen? No, he would do a nice, big ritual first. It would be similar to what he’d done with Sylphie, though he ser

Unique items had always had a somewhat special status in the multiverse. It was as much a rarity as it was a categorization of items. Unique didn’t simply mean it was a wholly unique item—even if it very often was—but also that it couldn’t be slotted into any of the other rarities.Jake’s Mask of the Fallen King was no doubt a unique item. Only one could exist in the multiverse due to its relation with the King of the Forest, a Unique Lifeform. Unique, in that case, truly meant "there exists only one such thing," but Unique Lifeforms also had the commonality of being freakishly strong for their level.Another trait unique items often also had. Jake’s own Root of Eternal Resentment was an example of this. If it had an actual rarity, Jake had no idea what it would be… When he’d first gotten it, probably ancient rarity, but it had absorbed so much curse energy, so was it legendary now? Above legendary? In some ways, it was pointless to try and give it a rarity at all due to how it worked