Chapter 5 - The Auction

'ID Create!' Micro thought. 'ID Escape!'

He had been at this for about an hour now. After talking about their levels and dividing up the money received from the Legion Zombie, his two friend went to bed and were currently in bed (In Spike's case) and on one of the roll out sleep mats (Sugar). Micro decided to stay up grinding his abilities until he felt tired. It was only after a while he realized...he wasn't getting tired. Made sense. Most game characters don't need to. So it left him with plenty of time to grind and think.

When they got back he had Sugar and Spike look at their stats. The actually did have bonus points, but only for the levels gained when partied up. Micro assumed that any points they would've had were auto assigned when not in the party.

After viewing the stats they were best at as well as some flaws he saw during the fight, Micro figured out the best things for his friends to do. Since Sugar was probably going to avoid fighting, he should focus on DEX while increasing VIT a bit to be able to take hits a bit more. Their other friend was more complicated.

Spike was pretty high in strength already, but seemed to run out of his magic relatively fast. His fire breath was a powerful weapon though, and Spike said that if he focused on only boosting that, if they met someone it didn't work so well against, such as other Draco Kin or worse, a true dragon, he would be screwed.

In the end, they agreed he should try to be a mixed attacker. Additionally, they agreed increasing LUK, while not a priority, was something they should add at least some points to. One point per level.

After they took care of their points, Micro disbanded the party and pulled out the book he got and cast Observe on it.

Skill Book: Life Drain

A book that grants the ability Life Drain

Would you like to learn Life Drain?

Yes/No

After getting over the shock of being able to gain abilities like that (it wasn't hard after realizing how games do this sort of thing to) he decided to hit yes. The book vanished in a burst of light as Micro felt knowledge enter his head as a screen popped up.

Skill Learned!

Life Drain (Lv1)

Active (MP Cost: 1 Per Second)

Absorbs the health of a target and adds it to the user's own life force.

Life Drain Rate: 1HP Per Second

He was happy to have a skill that could heal him rather than just use food and those potions the Legion Zombie dropped. Though that eventually lead to the thought that was mainly keeping him awake.

'What should I do with my stats…' since gaining his ability, he went up 10 levels. He already noticed it took longer to go up each time, so he wouldn't be able to just spend all his time grinding and be all powerful. After they decided to put a point to luck for each level, he dropped 10 points into LUK. Subtract the three he threw into VIT and he had 37 points left.

'STR would be nice,' Micro thought as the image of him punching something and it turning to dust played through his head. 'But I may be able to get that through normal actions very easily. My INT is already high, but if I want to be a long ranged attacker I could boost that or WIS to give me more regeneration.'

He quickly dismissed INT after that, deciding regeneration was more important than just having high amounts of MP. And since they were starting school soon his INT would probably increase naturally.

"Why can't I decide!" He shouted after entering an ID. One of the screens he had gotten used to seeing popped up appeared and he was happy to see it.

ID Create has Leveled Up!

ID Create (Lv 3)

Create your own space for training or just relaxing.

Current Dungeon List

-Empty

-Zombie

He was pleasantly surprised when he saw another message attached to the screen.

By unlocking your first enemy filled dungeon, you have gained a new feature!

Memory Dungeoneering!

This ability lets you pull from memories of previous fights, or even shows you've seen and create dungeons filled with those types of enemies.

Note: The level of difficulty of these dungeons scales with your knowledge of the enemies as well as your own level and desire for challenge. Be careful when using this feature to prevent summoning something too powerful.

"So in other words don't get myself killed," he muttered with a dark chuckle.

"Indeed," a voice said behind him. Micro spun while pulling the bat out of his inventory at the same time, readying himself for battle.

A man stood their in a ridiculous hodge podge of an outfit. He world a rainbow striped suit coat with what looked to be a tie dye shirt underneath. A pair of khaki shorts over a pair of ripped up jeans covered his legs while on one foot he had a sandal with a polka dotted sock and on his other foot was a bright red converse. The man himself was tall and gaunt with heterochromia eyes. One was yellow, the other bright red. His hair was black and gray and was done in a wild style. Micro looked above his head.

Discord

(Chaos Auctioneer)

Lv?

"Easy there slugger," the man chuckled. "I'm not here to fight. I actually came here to give you this."

With that the man snapped his fingers and a laptop appeared in his hand. Micro looked at it for a second before eyeing the man cautiously. Someone so powerful he couldn't see the level of?

"Thanks, but I already have a laptop." The man chuckled.

"True, but this laptop is special. It has one specific feature you won't find on any normal laptop. This one is specifically made to connect to the Chaos Auction." Micro raised an eyebrow at that and the man saw he had to explain, which he took to with glee. "You see, the Chaos Auction is a special multiversal store of sorts where you can purchase multiple different items that you could never find in this reality."

"Wait, multiverse?" Micro questioned. "Like the theory that every choice leads to another timeline being created where that choice was made, or that all realms of fiction are actual realities where what we see on the show or in a book actually is happening?"

"Both actually!" The man said excitedly. "There's one where you were born a girl."

A snap of the fingers and suddenly Micro felt his hair grow longer and looked down to see his chest was now an ample C-cup. He went crimson when he reached down and discovered a very important part of him was missing.

"Or one where superheroes and mutants run around."

Another snap and Micro found himself encased in a red and gold robotic suit while the man before him looked like the Joker.

"Oops," he said. "Mixing universes here. There's even one where people can live in pineapples under the sea!"

Now the man appeared to be made of sponge while Micro was looking down at two tentacles in place of his hands. Finally the man snapped one last time and they were back to normal, Micro panting as Gamer's Mind worked overtime to calm him down. He looked up and saw Discord was handing him the laptop again. Seeing as how this guy is clearly powerful enough to end him without any theatrics… what was wrong with trusting him with this.

"How did you know to bring this to me?" He asked as he took it. It was a chaotic swirl of color. Reds, blue, etc. He would ask how he got in the ID but it was probably something similar to how he entered Spike's when he confronted Garble and Fume.

….that buzz was almost as annoying as the basic pop up screen. Also was it just him or was it taking more of these deductions to get that.

"We at the Auction have our ways," Discord said with a chuckle. "Well. I shall take my leave."

The weird man walked over to the ID version of the closet, opened it, and walked on in. Micro stare for a moment before just shaking his head. After what he already saw, he wasn't shocked anymore.

One last ID Escape and he was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room and opened up the laptop. He checked his money and still couldn't believe what he was seeing.

$513

And that was just from killing the zombies. Granted a bit over half that was from the Legion Zombie, but considering how once they figured out how to beat it they took it down easily (and he figured he could probably take it down solo if he had to), that was still a lot. If he factored in not splitting the money on any solo dungeons...

"Let's see what this Auction has to offer…"

Morning

Spike woke up just in time to see Micro appear in a flash of light.

"Training up your Create ID?" Spike asked as he pulled himself up. "Have you been up all night?"

"Don't actually need sleep anymore apparently," Micro said. "And I finished training ID Create for now since I got the Zombie ID, as well as an interesting custom one. I'll explain later."

"Sounds interesting," Spike muttered groggily. "So what were you doing this whole time?"

"Oh, I was fighting Zombies."

It took a second for Spike to register that.

"What!?"

"Yeah. I gained two levels to. My restoration rate is now 4% even without my boost from the title I received."

"Could you guys be quiet?" Sugar groaned. "I wanted to sleep in on my last day before school starts."

Micro nodded and walked out basically forcing Spike to follow him. When they shut the door, Spike turned to him.

"What the heck were you thinking?!" He demanded. "We nearly got killed when we were together facing that thing and you went in solo?!"

"Correction," Micro said calmly. "That happened when we fought the Legion Zombie, and that was only when we were distracted. I actually figured out a trick until I get stronger and can take it down solo." He wisely left out the fact that he thought he could probably do that already.

Spike sighed and motioned for Micro to continue.

"Well you remember how the Legion only showed up after I defeated well over 50 zombies. Well I just left the dungeon a bit before that just re entered it. Kept grinding and collecting money until now so I have about…" checked his screen. "A little below $2000."

"$2000," Spike gasped. Then something occurred to him. "Why the sudden desire to get money?"

"Well while you were asleep I received a visit from this one guy from something called the Chaos Auction and he gave me this laptop…"

"Did you say Chaos Auction?" Spike was suddenly serious. When Micro nodded, shocked at the change in his friend's attitude. "Trust me Micro, they are dangerous people. You don't want to get involved with them."

"Not like I tried to," the Gamer shrugged. "But they have some pretty impressive resources and I need as many advantages as I can. If I can purchase good items from them, I will use it."

He saw his friend try to come up with an argument but he gave up.

"Just...be careful. There are some extremely powerful people out there even outside the Auction. They wouldn't hesitate to try and capture you for your skills. Some might even feel threatened by you and try to remove you from being a threat."

"I'll keep that in mind," Micro said, his mind going to the Dragon Fangs. "So...breakfast?"

His friend couldn't help but smile at that.

"Yeah. Breakfast sounds good."

{Written by Twistedphoenix1}

{Edited by SpedaHooves/KenKanekiTheCat/Me}