Demonic Auction

Much to his surprised, Deon didn't sleep through the whole night like he expected to, but awoke just five hours later. For a while, he stared up at the ceiling, feeling a surge of joy when he realised that he was still alive.

He didn't die from his injuries.

He had not been tracked down and captured by the Spirit Pavilion.

For now, he had gotten away…

How exciting!

Deon did not regret his actions, not even by a little bit. In fact, this sort of exciting life, this high-risk high-reward way of living, was exactly why Deon enjoyed the demonic path so thoroughly!

He battled his way through the risk, getting away with the rewards. By living his life like this, his journey as a shaman would always be moving forwards, never hindered…never boring.

Of course, Deon was all too aware that this matter might not be over, but for now, he pushed this thought from his mind.

When he saw Terros and Shi leaning over him, he quickly understood how it was that he was able to recover so rapidly.

"Thanks." He sat up and nodded towards the pair, thanking them for doing their best to treat his wounds.

"What happened?!" They both exclaimed at the same time. Deon chuckled dryly, their worry was only natural…he returned home heavily injured, the natural assumption was that he had been injured by someone powerful and barely managed to escape alive.

They didn't actually care about him, they were worried that his opponent would follow him back, implicating the both of them in his conflict. Since they looked so anxious, Deon thought it best to quell their unease.

"Don't worry, I didn't get into a fight. I was injured after jumping from the 12th floor of a building."

"…And you did that why, exactly?" Terros asked.

"To avoid a fight."

"…"

"I think I managed to deceive them in the end, after all, they clearly didn't search the surrounding gardens for me." After saying this, Deon frowned and muttered under his breath: "Ah, but those two disciples saw my figure, and I left a blood trail…hmm…"

Shi took a deep breath whilst Terros stood there silently, before holding up a spirit in Deon's face. This spirit looked like a brown sack, its shape was constantly changing, it was the 3-Star storage type spirit.

"And it was all for this I assume?"

Deon glanced up and quickly grabbed at the spirit, but Terros pulled his hand back, not willing to hand it over until Deon gave an explanation. With a sigh, Deon vaguely explained what it was.

"That's a storage spirit, it was the resources inside that I traded for. Nothing in that spirit is of any use to you two."

"You're saying that a 3-Star storage spirit was given to you without you asking for it?" Shi asked sharply, cutting in before Terros.

Deon remained silent, frowning when he saw Shi's greedy expression. If he wasn't still in such a terrible state, he would have already jumped up and taken the spirit back, but he was in no condition to do such a thing right now.

"Then the contents must be quite valuable." Shi's eyes shone brightly.

"Only to me, you two can't do a thing with these resources. Try to sell them and you might be tracked down by the Spirit Pavilion, so go-"

"You robbed the Spirit Pavilion?!" Terros almost screamed. Deon took his moment of shock to grab the storage spirit from his hands, but Terros no longer wanted anything to do with it anyway.

"I didn't rob them." Deon stood up and rolled his eyes, stretching his now relaxed feeling body and enjoying the feeling of not being on his deathbed. "I just engaged in a normal exchange…but how am I supposed to open a 3-Star storage spirit?"

If he destroyed this spirit, the contents would likely be destroyed. Maybe some of the materials would explode outwards and return to the world undamaged, but it was unlikely that everything within would remain intact.

When Deon claimed that he only conducted normal business with the Spirit Pavilion, neither Shi nor Terros believed him. Unfortunately for them, he refused to explain any further.

"What about the 2-Star higher activation spirit?" Shi suddenly suggested after thinking of this spirit which could potentially allow him to open this 3-Star storage spirit.

"What's that?" He actually hadn't heard of this before, which was quite surprising given its use.

"The 1-Star and 2-Star higher activation spirits let you activate a higher ranked spirit a single time. It doesn't work for continual activation spirits, only expendable type and instantaneous activation spirits. You still need to bind the higher ranked spirit before activating it, though."

Deon's eyes shone, but he still had some doubts.

"Will that work for a storage spirit?"

"Mm, it can work if you're fast enough when retrieving everything. You'll have about half a second I should think."

That sounded perfect! Deon immediately wanted to obtain this spirit!

"Where can I get this spirit, is there one in the city right now? I assume it's expensive, but how much so?"

"It's a 2-Star platinum class spirit. Such spirits are rare, even in this city, but…" Terros spoke slowly, covering for what Shi didn't know. "At least one of these spirits appears in the main auction every year, it's one of the few spirits that shows up repeatedly. Last year, I remember it selling for around ten 3-Star drop spirits…"

"Haha, expensive, but well worth it!" Deon laughed happily, feeling his struggle slipping away. It wasn't guaranteed that the spirit would appear, but at least it sounded likely!

This spirit was far from perfect of course. Deon knew that he was likely to sustain injuries after binding the 3-Star storage spirit. He would need to be fast if he wanted to avoid receiving serious injury to his soul space and origin soul…but so long as he prepared properly, it should not be too serious. Compared to the wealth contained within the storage spirit, this small risk was definitely worth it!

Of course, he was unable to even bind a 3-Star storage spirit with his current abilities, his origin energy would be drained instantly and his soul would collapse. He would likely need to improve his rank to the mid or late stage first, and then use some other methods to boost his energy further…

But Deon was even willing to risk being stalked by the Spirit Pavilion for these resources, how could a little backlash scare him off? Forcefully activating a 3-Star spirit would leave him half-dead in the best case scenario, but merely binding this spirit wouldn't be quite so extreme.

Ignoring Terros's continued questions and his anxious pacing, Deon began making his preparations for the main auction.

Eventually, Terros was forced to give up on hounding Deon for answers, since he also needed to prepare for the main auction. They were going to sell three cloud mule spirits in the coming auction, this would definitely be a profitable sale, assuming that everything went according to plan.

But before the main auction in two days, they were first going to attend a different, seemingly mysterious auction first. Terros refused to explain anything about this underground auction until the very last moment.

"A demonic path auction?" Deon blinked as they headed towards a seemingly innocuous looking store.

"Indeed. I have attended this auction for the past three years, it is held annually, prior to the city's main auction. It's difficult to even receive an invite to this event, it's an exclusive club where few people are permitted entry."

Deon felt intrigued as he listened to Terros's explanation. As Terros went on, he began to feel some anticipation towards this 'demonic auction'.

"The only items you will find for sale in this auction are things that cannot be sold in the city's main auction…such as those demon type spirits you seem to love so much. This is also an excellent place to buy human enslavement spirits though."

"Enslavement type spirits! I was starting to think they didn't exist in this region." Deon's eyes lit up.

"Oh, so you've heard of them?" Terros raised and eyebrow, but he didn't say anything about Deon's dubious knowledge. He continued to talk, now in a hushed voice as they entered the store.

"Demonic and righteous path shamans coexist within this city, but the righteous path is much more powerful and suppresses the demonic shamans from selling spirits like this, so these sorts of things can only be sold in secret. Plus, enslavement type spirits are fairly rare, so they only ever appear in this one annual auction. Of course, the auction isn't limited to spirits…information regarding demonic inheritance sites also appears, along with other interesting things that I'm sure will be to your liking."

They entered the ordinary looking shop and were greeted by normal looking shamans. They both mulled around the shop for a while, until Terros casually asked for a certain resource in a very specific quantity from the attendant. The attendant's eyes flashed and he told Deon and Terros to follow behind him.

Terros had clearly used some sort of secret code to inform the shop attendant that they were looking to enter the secret auction. You couldn't enter this auction with merely wealth or status, you needed to be someone personally approved by the head of the city's demonic faction, a mysterious individual belonging to an unknown organisation.

And somehow, Deon managed to get in as a plus one, making him feel that Terros had probably attended this auction quite a few times.

They were led into the store's backroom, away from the prying eyes of the other oblivious customers. The pair followed the attendant until he stopped, then lifted up a wooden hatch attached to the floor, revealing a long spiralling set of stones stairs, leading down into the darkness below.

The attendant didn't follow after them, simply watching as Deon and Terros made their way down. Once they were out of sight, the shop attendant closed and locked the hatch behind them, returning to his position in the store.