Oh... Okay Then

Maddox had been going from a few of the stalls around the marketplace but tend to stick to the ones that had very few customers since he did not like being near these creatures, especially since more often than not all they wore was a loincloth or nothing at all and letting their junk swing freely. Still, a few things were learned that was interesting to know about since once they found out he had recently 'turned' these infected were more often than not willing to share some basic information about some things and got some answers about a few things in regards to his miasma or mana as they called it.

The first would be how could he increase his miasma capacity and it turns out there is no orthodox way that infected can increase their miasma, however, it does not apply to him.

There have been a few instances where some infected had their miasma or mana be so affected by essence during a fight that once they got out of it they found that their reserves had grown due to the encounter. It seemed to be a sort of natural response where miasma would grow to have a bigger amount of essence so that it could have a higher chance of taking out any essence that it could not before.

Still, though there would be no way for anyone in the Coalition who would be stupid enough to power up their enemy, actually scratch that there might be a few who might be doing that for the higher tiered infected.

Still, Maddox would be able to do this easily since he had both essence and miasma within his body which meant that if he could increase his essence then his miasma would grow more to suppress it. Now the only problem was that Maddox could not come up with any way to create an orb since the essence harmed him and all it did was stand there looking pretty and not doing anything.

'If only I could utilize miasma to create an essence orb...'

God Maddox felt like an idiot as he realizes that he may have had the answer to his problems staring him in the face ever since he found that essence could change miasma and miasma could change essence.

So wanting to test it out immediately Maddox finds a quiet empty alley between the fake buildings and sits down to enter into his mind space.

Once he enters he immediately gets to work with manipulating the miasma surrounding him to gather within his hands so he can create his type of miasma orb. A few minutes of recalling what was in the pdf file and trying to create a compact sphere of miasma brings forth a complete miasma sphere about the size of his palm that was being held together by itself.

Essence orbs were something special because they were held together by their energy and power which allowed them to change into a higher form of essence which would happen almost instantaneously. As a result of the orb creation if its power were drained it would replenish itself faster depending on how pure the result was and it regenerated faster than miasma which meant someone could potentially have an unlimited amount of essence if enough orbs were created and they had a high enough purity.

Unfortunately, the theory of unlimited essence was a sort of myth since no one had been able to reach that level of essence quality and orbs.

Now the reason that the infected did not make orbs out of their miasma was due to the fact their miasma would not change its property or purity if they were turned into an orb and they would be nothing but just an orb of regular miasma with no benefits.

Miasma was the same while essence could change leading to why someone with a small amount of essence but a higher quality of it could easily overpower most infected reserves.

Maddox's reserves of miasma were about ten times more than that of a regular middle-tier infected because he had a high quality of essence it grew to become what it was today. So why was Maddox always running low on miasma? Simply because illusions are the hardest thing to create with miasma and their quality correlates to both miasma input and the user's imagination being contributing factors.

Getting back on track Maddox approaches his essence river in the mind space with his miasma orb within his grasp.

A bit nervous as he does not want to feel the pain from the last time Maddox stays back a bit before he takes a sort of pitcher stance and then throws the miasma orb into the river to see what happens. As soon as the orb gets close enough to the river the essence comes alive and reacts as a tendril reaches out from the depths of the essence and latches onto the miasma orb and begins to change it.

The change is almost instantaneous as the miasma changes into essence.

Soon enough the tendril from the river lets go and retracts back to whence it came from and leaves behind a transparent orb floating near the essence river.

This confused Maddox as from what he had gathered it seemed that the color scale of essence went from white to various shades of gold which correlated to purity. Maddox kind of assumed that he had the highest purity of essence and that his orbs would become the same gold as the river but it seemed that was not the case.

It was strange to look at this newly created essence orb since it looked completely transparent and it seemed to glow a little allowing Maddox to see it in this sea of darkness that surrounded him.

"Wait a minute..." Maddox says as he sees something happening within the essence orb

It seemed as if the orb was glowing more and more kind of like a star in the night sky glowing brighter and brighter.

However, soon it became apparent that Maddox had created some sort of abomination of an essence orb as it began to affect the miasma surrounding it and turning it into essence just because it was existing. This scarred Maddox since he was unsure how much this one orb would change its surroundings and while he was unsure about the amount he could assume that it would not change all of it.

Still, though the change advanced more and more as it affected more of the surrounding miasma that Maddox had to move away for fear of being changed as well by its advances.

Soon though it stopped and Maddox realized that he needed to be careful now since just that one orb had caused about 10% of his miasma-filled mind space to change into essence and that was just from one orb. Thankfully he had not decided to just throw more into the essence river cause he might not have been able to combat the advances of the changes of the essence.

Another change had happened this one being with the essence river as it began to change as it seemed to lose its luster a bit in that its dark golden color seemed to have become lighter which makes Maddox sacred at this since he begins to connect dots.

His essence river was all of the essence within his body which due to the miasma around it forced it to become a sort of weirdly shaped essence orb since it could not advance further to convert everything into essence due to the miasma in Maddox's body keeping it at bay. So by creating more room for the essence it was able to stretch out and thus not be forced together since it was not being held together by itself but by the miasma around it.

So it lost a bit of its luster which was bad for Maddox since he wanted to utilize the unique purity of the essence of the river to his benefit. So moving forward Maddox would only be able to do this if he had spare miasma batteries around him so that he could fight the changes brought by creating more orbs.

So Maddox seeing that he would need more miasma to reclaim the stollen territory within his mind-space leaves it to search for a place selling those... holes as that orc had said before.

Getting up Maddox checks his illusion to make sure that everything is alright with it before deciding to change it a bit make it so that he was wearing his t-shirt instead of being topless since it was just more miasma being used and he wanted as much miasma back in his body so that he would not lose any more to the essence orb he made.

So Maddox after altering his look leaves the alley and enters out to find someplace selling what he is looking for.

Eventually, he finds that the only place he can buy them is at a sort of auction house-type building where they are selling better goods than the ones that were being sold from the infected out here in the streets.

Finding the auction building was easy as it was had a sign posted on it and there were infected standing guard outside it as different species walked in. It seemed as if an auction was going to start soon which was good for Maddox as all he needed to do was follow the flow of infected traffic to get inside the building.

An orc receptionist was handing out signs with numbers on them for people who wanted to bid to use since some people only came to watch the bidding process happen as it could be entertaining to see others clash and flex their wealth.

Maddox got the number 102 for his sign number and was going to see if there was anything that piques his interest as well as some miasma-filled holes that he could drain for his reserves.

Taking a seat in the third row closest to the stage, he looked around and is a bit surprised at the setup of this place since the seating arrangement was a bit odd in his opinion. Since it seemed that all of the regular auctioneers were grouped up together in the front while those who wanted to watch were placed in the rear where they instead purchased snacks.

The reason that Maddox said regular auctioneers was because there were a small number of high-tier infected who were going to partake in the auction and there was no way they were going to do it with the middle-tiered infected.

So there were booths on the second floor of this building that allowed the high-tiered infected to bid as well as enjoy a few other 'services' from the auction house.

The stage in front of Maddox was nothing but a regular wooden stage that had some curtains blocking the view to the backstage but Maddox believed that it had another purpose as with most things he had seen here, the curtains had a high amount of miasma come out from it. It was a substantial amount and it seemed to be almost as big as Maddox's reserves of miasma.

Still though as the lights of the auction house begin to dim everyone begins to quiet down as a goblin infected walks out onto the stage.

Seeing the little goblin walk out onto the stage wearing a fancy little suit caused a few of the infected to chuckle a bit since it was commonly known that the goblin species tend to only have low-tiered infected.

However, as the little fella stares into the crowd and snaps his fingers every one of the infected individuals in the crowd who laughed is crushed into a bloody pulp with the only thing remaining to be a pile of flesh where they once were.

It happened so suddenly that none of them had time to react before they were killed so easily in this manner that Maddox broke into a cold sweat seeing that one of the infected seated in the row in front of him held the same fate as a few of them. His bloody remains stained his seat as some inky black blood flew in every direction with a little falling onto Maddox who wipes it off but stares at the goblin on stage with fear and intrigue.

"Now that we have gotten rid of the useless members here I welcome you all to the mystic auction house. I am Gremi the overseer of this establishment and a subordinate of the apostle Barbossa" Gremi states in a loud voice that carries throughout the place and lets his statement settle in since no one wanted to mess with any apostles unless they had a death wish

"Now let us get started with a few rules before today's auction official begins shall we?"