Final Auction Preparations

Deon re-read all 12 of the intuitive language books from front to back. After doing this within a short few hours, Deon's eyes shone. He put away all but two of the books, these two were 'Guidance for Better Refining Technique' and 'Advice, Musings and Notes'. After a while, he slowly looked up with a gleam in his eyes.

"When I read through this book of notes before, it felt like an unorganised collection of random scattered ideas, but I can now see that all of these notes have great significance…some of the ideas jotted down on those three pages about spirit refining actually make perfect sense now!"

Deon spoke to himself, feeling amazed at how much more he could comprehend with his enhanced intelligence.

"This is an interesting line…'the shaman path can be seen in its purest form during spirit refinement'. So in truth, by improving my capabilities in refining spirits, I am actually improving my understanding of spirits themselves!"

As Deon's understanding of spirit refinement improved, he finally came to understand the importance of the 'supplementary spirits' which assisted in spirit refinement itself. For example, the powder flame spirit lineage.

Most spirit refiners heated their cauldron with a special powder which ignited upon contact with their origin energy. There were many different colours of this powder, all burning at different temperatures. After learning how to mix the various powders to control the temperature of the flame, it was quite an effective method.

That being said, true expert spirit refiners used the series of powder flame spirits, spirits which mimicked the flames produced by the special powders.

Unfortunately, at Deon's current level of refinement, he would need to use the 2-Star powdered flame spirits. As an initial stage 2-Star shaman, Deon could not bind a 2-Star spirit without exhausting his origin energy rapidly.

In the end, instead of the powder flame spirits, Deon instead refined the soft air spirit. It was a simple silver class 1-Star spirit, but using this gave him better control over the ingredients as they were dropped into the cauldron. Compared to using his origin energy to control the materials, this was a much more refined method.

After Deon experimented with the soft air spirit, Deon moved his attention towards the 12 books written in the ancestral language.

He began to properly study the ancestral language. His progress in this language was shocking; by making use of the ancestral language dictionary found in his spatial ring, he was soon able to begin reading a very interesting book, 'Demon Spirit Recipes: 1-Star'.

The 12 intuitive language books provided great general assistance, with some focus on spirit refinement. The 12 ancestral language books provided methods to improve battle strength, which of course included many spirit recipes.

This demon spirit recipe book caused Deon to realise that demon type spirits were extremely unconventional!

"All demon spirits are at least gold class?"

"Demon spirit refinement always involves harming others in one way or another?"

"The very first recipe in this book is actually a mythril class 1-Star demon spirit, and it's even a summoning type spirit?!"

Deon was stunned. Why was the very first spirit listed in this recipe book so extreme?

"I understand. Blood God probably evaluated that this spirit would be useful to me early on, so he made it easy to find. Hmm…this spirit can be evolved all the way to 3-Star, it's extremely formidable at every rank. Demon hound spirit, interesting. But this refinement…"

Deon forced a smile as he read through the refinement.

"The first step requires 50 mortal human hearts and 50 mortal wolf hearts to be melted down into a puddle. The second step takes this puddle and infuses the liquid into the heart of a peak 1-Star demonic wolf. The third step requires that you continue to refine for another three days straight, adding in the complete fur coat from a 1-Star demonic wolf every 3 hours, along with a 1-Star human shaman heart every 15 minutes. This is…different."

Shaking his head, Deon put this out of mind for now.

He had two objectives that he wanted to complete before heading to the city in four days time. Firstly, he wanted to increase his strength. Whilst the city was supposedly orderly and safe, who's to say what would happen once you left?

It was entirely possible that others might follow him after he left the city, looking to rob the loaded auction goers.

Secondly, he wanted to refine a spirit. Yes, just one spirit.

There were countless spirits around him, Deon had also given many to Terros. He had refined way, way too many spirits to take with them. Spirits needed to be fed, some even needed a continual supply of nourishment.

He began to refine the 2-Star platinum class spirit which would solve this issue.

Failures, explosions, wasting countless resources and precursor spirits…

A day later, finally, success! It was a fairly long refinement with many steps, he failed 26 times before succeeding.

Deon brought this spirit to Terros. It had the appearance of a silver-lined cloud. It was larger than most 2-Star spirits at four feet in length, but its size could be shrunk at will when bound.

"This…what is this?" Terros asked doubtfully. Sure, a 2-Star platinum class spirit was impressive, but was it worth the cost? He honestly didn't know, because he had no idea what this spirit did!

"It's called the cloud mule spirit." Deon bound the 2-Star spirit, then immediately activated it. His origin energy was rapidly depleted, he would not be able to maintain this for long.

Whoosh!

A cloud quickly materialised as Deon stuck out his finger. This cloud was not the cloud mule spirit itself, but was a product of the cloud mule spirit. Terros's eyes widened in intrigue and he quickly took two steps back. However the cloud just kept on growing. When Deon's origin energy dropped below half, he used a 2-Star drop spirit to replenish his reserves.

"Wasteful…" Terros muttered

"It's necessary for the demonstration." Deon said this, but he soon stopped the cloud's growth. It detached from his finger and drifted upwards and slightly behind him. If you looked closely, you would notice that the connection between Deon and the cloud was actually still present, it just became extremely faint and moved to the top of his head.

"This is the solution to our spirit transportation problem." Deon smiled lightly, quite pleased with his success this time.

The cloud was not the spirit, it was simply a creation of the spirit. This produced cloud was inflated by the shaman's own origin energy during its creation, it could be grown until it contained nine times more origin energy than a peak stage 2-Star shaman's maximum reserves. Most importantly, this cloud was like a temporary soul space, it was able to bind spirits, sustaining them with its origin energy!

Terros felt excited at first, but his expression dropped when he realised something. He frowned and shook his head.

"It's useless. Even if it can store so much origin energy, it's useless if the energy can't recover. A single 2-Star spirit would fully deplete its energy in less than a single day."

Indeed, the downside to these clouds was that they were unable to recover their origin energy.

Deon was unfazed by Terros's criticism. How could he not have thought of this? He had a solution…to place the origin fountain spirit within the cloud!

The cloud acted similarly to a shaman's soul space. If it bound any passively acting spirits, the spirits would exert an effect on the cloud.

"The origin fountain spirit improves recovery rate by 25%, but there won't be any boost since this cloud has no natural recovery ability, right?" Terros asked, but he now felt certain that Deon would have considered this.

Indeed. Without saying anything, Deon removed an ordinary looking spirit from a jar. It was a smooth grey ball with a few lines symmetrically carved across its surface. Although it looked ordinary, it was also a 2-Star spirit.

This was the one hundred enhancement spirit. When bound, it had the passive effect of refining the spiritual energy in the atmosphere at the same rate as an peak stage 2-Star shaman's natural recovery. This lasted for 100 days, but after that period was over, it caused the soul space to collapse!

For a shaman, this was a completely useless spirit…but for this cloud, it was perfect! With this spirit, the cloud would develop its own origin energy recovery ability. Then, combined with the origin fountain spirit, the recovery rate could be boosted further!

This cloud was created by the cloud mule spirit, it was entirely replaceable. It did not matter even if it was destined to die after 100 days, since the cloud mule spirit could just create another one!

Naturally, the cloud mule spirit could bind multiple copies of the one hundred enhancement spirit. There was a limitation on this though; just like peak stage 2-Star shamans, this cloud could bind at most 20 spirits.

Whilst peak stage shamans were said to have 'ten slots' for spirits of their rank, that was only in relation to their origin energy's ability to sustain the spirits. In truth, their soul space could tolerate twice this number, 20 spirits. Anymore than this and the soul space would collapse. Of course, trying to bind so many spirits would result in instant origin energy depletion, so it was not feasible in reality.

As for the origin fountain spirits, only one could be used. Trying to use more than one origin fountain spirit was not effective, since the spirits interacted with one another and did not provide any additional effect.

After he continued to stare silently at the cloud, Terros slowly turned to Deon with an unexpectedly serious expression.

"Deon, can you make more of these?"

It seemed that of everything Deon had produced, this cloud, when combined with the origin fountain and the one hundred enhancement spirit, was easily the most valuable in Terros's opinion.

"Of course." Deon nodded. "Do you think it will sell for a good price?"

"Definitely! You have no idea how high the demand is for new approaches to transporting spirits!" Terros explained. "Especially to those travelling shamans who will be attending the auction. Right, we need to sell this combined transportation method at the main auction!"

The majority of their spirit products would be sold outside of the main auction, to various shops and connections that Terros trusted. However, they planned to sell one incredible thing at the auction.

If they sold too many shocking things, they would definitely be targeted by others. However, if they just sold one type of valuable spirit at the auction, they could just casually say that it was found in a 3-Star inheritance, nobody would bat an eye.

They agreed to sell three cloud mule spirits at the auction.

As for the accompanying spirits, these things were common enough that selling them wouldn't raise any suspicion. The transportation method required all three spirits, so they intended to sell them as a bundle.

In the end, Terros and Shi also wanted to purchase the cloud mule spirit from Deon. Since they paid him well enough, he refined another five copies of the spirit, leaving three for the auction and one for himself.

The more Deon refined, the further his abilities improved. His success rate actually increased from 1 in 26, up to 1 in 4!

Deon's last ambition before leaving was to refine the mythril class body tempering spirits.

Terros was hesitant to supply Deon with the kingdom's mythril supply. Even though this supply could be replenished in the city, he was starting to get worried that Deon now had too many incredible spirits, and that he would lose his desire towards continuing on with the mountain war.

Deon reassured Terros, saying that he wanted to search for the 2-Star spirits in the highest region of Jing Mountain, so he wouldn't abandon the war just yet.

Whilst this was somewhat true, his real reason for wanting to continue this war was because of the chaos and killing. He clearly needed human materials to refine these demon spirits, whilst his business deal with Shi required a supply of origin souls.

Terros agreed to give Deon half of the kingdom's current stock of mythril, on the condition that he repaid this as soon as he was able to do so.

Deon procured 182 pounds of mythril.

Before wasting this supply, he practised by refining the cheap mythril class brain worm time and time again. After resting well, Deon was ready to begin with his refinement of the mythril class body tempering spirits!

Deon had now long since refined the silver, gold and platinum class suffering compression spirits to complete his usage of the organs spirits up to platinum class.

At this point, he had used all five body tempering spirits up to the platinum class, now, only mythril class remained!

To begin with, Deon chose the mythril muscle spirit. This spirit was the easiest of the five to refine, whilst the effect was also the most useful and noticeable. Mythril bones and tendons were useful, but they wouldn't really show their full use until he had developed mythril muscles.

Failure, failure, failure…

Despite his shocking abilities that allow him to almost immediately succeed with any 1-Star spirit below mythril class, mythril class spirit refinements were simply too difficult. Even with the easiest mythril muscle spirit, Deon still took 14 attempts to achieve success.

Unfortunately, he did not yet possess the mythril class suffering for time spirit. Mythril class was too far beyond platinum class, only the mythril suffering for time spirit could accelerate the usage of the mythril class body tempering spirits.

Regardless, he continued.

Mythril tendons spirit, 13 attempts.

Mythril bones spirit, 10 attempts.

Mythril skin spirit, 8 attempts.

Mythril organs spirit, 7 attempts.

From his steadily improving success rate, it was obvious that succeeding in one body tempering spirit massively improved his understanding of the other refinements.

Deon used the mythril skin spirit, then successfully created another with merely four attempts!

He then attempted the tremendously difficult mythril suffering for time spirit refinement…and failed, losing many spirits in the process. He re-refined those spirits and continued with his efforts, until he realised that refining the mythril suffering for time spirit would definitely be impossible with this pitiful amount of mythril.

Even so, he continued to practise, refining more mythril body tempering spirits. He believed that these should sell for a good price in the city, and it was an excellent way to temper his skills.

When Terros saw that Deon had refined the mythril class body tempering spirits, he broke out in cold sweat.

"Monster, you're a monster…" He muttered as his body trembled.

"Stop being dramatic." Deon rolled his eyes.

"Dramatic? I once saw a complete set of 1-Star body tempering spirits for sale at an auction in a much larger city. Even 3-Star powerhouses started going crazy in the bidding!"

"What, they're just 1-Star spirits though…" Deon looked doubtful.

"Look, these spirits are too rare, too coveted, there's no way we can sell these without attracting a calamity!" Terros insisted.

"Oh…" Deon sighed with some disappointment. "In that case, I'll just use them myself and keep them a secret from the world."

"Yes, absolutely do that!" Terros was relieved that Deon understood.

And so, Deon immediately went to Shi and showed her the six mythril class spirits.

"So, can you sell them?" He asked directly.

"You're saying you refined these?" Shi looked at him with shock, but Deon just nodded.

"So, can you sell them? With your assassins alliance connections, it should be fine, right?" He asked hopefully.

"Well…" She hesitated for a moment, but she couldn't hide the greed from her eyes as she glanced at the spirits once again.

She was feeling so avaricious that she nearly started drooling…

"I can, but there will be some risk for me, so I want half." Shi tried to act calm as she negotiated.

"You can have one third." Deon replied firmly.

He didn't mind giving up on some of the profits if it meant shifting the danger onto someone else, but one half was too much.

"Ugh…fine then. Anyway, whilst the shaman assassins alliance does indeed promise its members anonymity and safety, no matter what they want to sell, this system is after all run by humans…after I sell these, we'll need to immediately leave the city."

"Mm, I understand." Deon agreed. Though, he wasn't taking the risk here, so he didn't really care.

In the final days before setting out, Deon devoted his time towards learning the ancestral language, so that he could read through more of the 1-Star demon type spirit refinement recipes. Demon type spirits had truly peaked his interest like no other type of battle oriented spirit.

Two days later, on the agreed date and time, Deon, Shi, and Terros, set out towards Flat Mount City.