Trial Of Monsters And Summons

Today is finally Saturday, the day of the auction, and not just any auction, but the international auction that occurs once a month. This auction is huge and has far more stringent requirements to enter, not to mention the higher price tags on items, I'm afraid that if this was my first auction I might not have been able to afford anything worth buying.

I hurriedly put on my best clothes and check for any stray dirt or stains on them, luckily keeping my clothes in storage prevents anything happening to them as soon as they are stored. Putting on my best clothes is to give as good of an impression as I can, social standing may not play a super important role in today's society, but there is no point in looking like a bum and closing off potential avenues to yourself.

To finish off the outfit I take out my old wolf coat and wear it over my shirt, luckily it didn't get damaged during the few times I used it and looks fairly respectable, plus I was looking for any excuse to wear it again.

Kissing Mira on the cheek and saying goodbye to her as I rush out the door, I begin heading towards the city center in order to secure a seat before the masses begin pouring in even if it means waiting longer.

The auction house can only hold so many people, and once the seats are full no others are admitted unless they have a special invitation, which only the wealthiest or strongest summoners receive. They try to combat the number of people entering the auction house by setting the admittance price at 500 credits rather than the usual 100, at this point I have no trouble paying that amount with much more leftover in my account.

Crossing down the street I see a middle-aged and balding vendor selling wonderful smelling croissants and go to buy two of them for myself, both of mine are chocolate filled and I enjoy the indulgently sweet and flaky pastry as I continue on my way.

By the time I get to the auction around 10 AM with two hours to go till the auction officially begins, there is already a line formed of people eagerly waiting to enter the special auction.

Most people are let through, but there is the occasional unlucky person who seems to not have known about the price hike of the admission, they are left to walk away ashamed at getting turned away at such a public venue full of prominent people.

I don't really pay much mind to all of this going around me and after getting in line I begin to daydream about all of the possible things that will be for sale or I could buy. From what I've heard tier 3 items are the cheapest things sold and the auction focuses on selling either extremely rare, powerful, or useful items, bodies, cores, weapons, and accessories.

The things I had given to the auction to be sold off wouldn't be sold until the next normal auction as they weren't quite valuable enough to warrant selling during an international auction.

I get to my seat and begin to wait for the auction to start rather than mingling with strangers that I don't know nor do I care to know most of them. I'm surprised to learn that rather than having the physical items present for the auction, since it is, after all, an international auction full of rarities from across the continent, the items are shown as a hologram on stage for people from all over to bid on.

They begin the auction with lower-tier cores and after finding nothing that particularly interests me or that I'm willing to spend money on, I tune out the announcer until he moves on to the armor. What really catches my attention after a seemingly endless supply of tier 3 armor that was of decent quality but nothing special, is the sale of a fire-wyrm hide set.

Wyrms are around the top of the tier 3 monster food chain, so its armor would be exceptional especially with the fire-resistant effect as a result of its elemental alignment. I decide to upgrade my current tier 2 armor with a far better top of the tier 3 category set that has an elemental resistance effect as well.

I begin to bid fervently as soon as the announcer starts the bidding at 500 credits, not caring for the price I continue to raise it despite the disgruntled looks from a few of my competitors. Eventually, I manage to win it after placing a bid of 1,820 credits for the extravagant armor, the only reason I was able to win this set at this type of auction was that it was of a lower-tier than most of the richer people attending would want to buy.

It seemed they were going by item type rather than tier like normal, as increasingly extravagant armors were being shown off and bought for extravagant prices, there was even at the end of the armor auction a few sets of tier 5 dragonhide armor made from the same dragon for around 100,000 credits.

There seemed to be something special about the dragon they were made from, but it was so out of reach for me that I didn't bother to pay attention to it any further than staring at the extravagant looking scaled armor and the giant price tag underneath it.

After those pricy pieces were sold off through vigorous bidding wars for each one, it was time for the weapons to be rolled out.

I was especially excited for this as I felt that Jareth was growing strong enough to handle more than one weapon and with the four-armed hobgoblin core I fed him, my hope was that he would be able to handle even more or at least swing each with the full force of a two-armed being.

Like usual, the beginning weapons were brought out and aside from them being tier 3, there wasn't anything terribly special about them. Only when it continued to progress further and pseudo tier 4 weapons were brought out did I being to pay attention.

A few gimmicky type weapons like a taser sword made from the tail of a socket lizard, and an exploding boomerang of all things made from a charge beetle that acted like an IED and would suicide bomb anything threatening their queen.

These seemed cool, but not worth spending money on as they didn't suit me at all, one thing I've taken away from summoner school was our old weapons teacher telling us that the best weapon wasn't necessarily the most powerful, but the one that suited us most.

Anyways, I wasn't buying a weapon for myself, but for Jareth and he was the type to use heavy weapons. What eventually caught my eye was a special Warhammer that had the added feature of increasing or lowering gravity for a second at a time, which was plenty enough to do some serious damage by activating right before impact.

It was made from a fusion of platinum veins running through a large grey bone from a density mammoth, the platinum came to a point at the top of the hammer with little spikes studded out from the largest and heaviest part of each face of the hammer.

It seems I wasn't the only one to sense the potential of the weapon, as I got into a fierce bidding war with a 40-year-old man who looked like he had enough muscles in his arms to crush a steel ingot with his b.a.r.e hands.

Eventually, I won the bidding war by paying 3,050 credits, the older man seemed especially heartbroken at losing out on such a wonderful weapon, but it seemed like he was saving his money for something even better since he gave up despite probably having more funds judging by his apparent strength.

After that intense weapons sale, things calmed down up until the potions and other alchemy related items were brought in to be auctioned off.

Alchemic items were rare enough to mostly be sold in auctions, but the items being sold today were of good or amazing quality with no question as to their effectiveness. The auction would never tarnish its' reputation just to foist off counterfeit or defective goods.

Because potions and like were typically sold during these auctions nearly exclusively, there was usually a decent stock of all but the rarest of potions. Each type from lowest to highest grade was rolled out and sold until all stocks were cleared.

I happened to be able to snatch a potion of rage, it would cause the consumer to enter a berserker like rage for an hour, all attacks will be 30% less effective on wearer at the cost of some stamina and they would deal 1.5 times the damage they would normally.

It sold for 1000 credits even, it was one of the more rare potions and had a great effect that lasted for quite a while which is why the price was so high.

I had it in mind for the coming monster break and figured it would be perfect for the lumbering hobgoblin of mine along with his new Warhammer. With this potion, I should be able to greatly increase my contribution points during the break as well as be able to select from a larger variety of monsters to potentially bond with.

The next alchemical item I bought was a healing salve for moderate cuts and wounds, the jar I bought cost 2,600 credits due to its efficacy as a potentially life-saving salve that can be reused. People were chomping at the bit to get a single jar of healing salve, as a result of the high demand I was only able to afford one of the lower end salves.

It helps preserve strength and allows you and your summons to recover quicker so as to not be caught by an enemy while you are weakened. It's by no means a cure-all, but the effectiveness of the jar makes it worth keeping on you for any potential emergencies.

Once the potions and other medicinal items were sold off the next things to hypothetically roll out were supplemental items for evolution. This was of interest for everyone, because having a summon evolve not only increased the summons' strength, but their own as well.

The only problem is that these supplements are for very specific types of summons or for directing a summons towards a specific evolution. The thing I bought ended up in the latter category, I ended up buying a humanoid effigy that if assimilated with a summon would direct its growth towards a humanoid form on its' next evolution.

This was meant for Emit and only sold for 500 credits due to the comparatively weak effect of the item that was only useful to a select few summoners. Luckily this item was very useful for me even if others didn't necessarily see it that way, and its' lack of demand allowed me to save on credits.

Even though I had a fair amount of money at this point in time, it didn't mean that my habit of saving where I could, would automatically go away. I was so used to living off of next to no money that the amount I had now seemed surreal, which in some respects made it easier to spend as it never really felt like mine despite me and my summons having risked life and limb for it.

The reason for these international auctions to be held is to allow summoners to receive unique or powerful items to boost their strength in order to further chances of surviving the coming monster break.

Monster breaks had become a unique opportunity for wealth, power, and fame, but on the other side of the coin, they are an event full of death and peril that could claim anyone's life at a moment's notice if they aren't strong enough.

Summoners like me who are just starting out or are relatively weak are usually the most vulnerable, those too weak to survive would be culled, and those that remained would become strong as a result of their experience.

Summoners aren't just mercenaries hunting monsters in the wild, they are also soldiers fighting to preserve humanity from extinction, they serve as the only thing between civilians and the monsters bent on exterminating them. This is why they get preferential treatment and are revered in society, on the flip side most of them don't act purely out of altruism, but the result is the same nonetheless.

After having bought the effigy, which looked like a voodoo doll made from husks of some kind of special plant, I decided that I've spent enough money and have likely seen everything that I'm either interested in or could afford.

So, I move from my comfortable seat in the back and head over to the transaction counter in the front foyer to pay for the items I bid for and won. In total I spent 8,970 credits, leaving me completely shocked at what I had just spent, my account was now down to just 177 credits.

I was glad I had been keeping track of how much I was spending throughout the auction, otherwise, I might have not been able to afford what I had just bid on and been left in a difficult situation.

It was frankly amazing what I had come to be able to afford in such a small amount of time, considering just a few weeks ago I was living off of 20 credits a week, but now I could make far more than that amount in just one day of hunting.

I left the auction with some rather powerful and unique items in my storage and couldn't wait to try some of them out. I felt far better about my odds of survival during the monster break now that I was more prepared than ever with items that would increase my strength or potentially preserve my life.

It was around dinner time when I left the auction house, and after picking up some stir fry for dinner I went to see Mira and eat with her. We enjoyed a nice meal while I talked about what I had seen at the auction and m.o.a.n.e.d about how much I had spent and how empty my account was compared to what it used to be.

She only laughed at me whining about "only" having 177 credits when I had never even gotten close to having that amount of money before I had become a summoner.

It seems becoming a summoner has affected my sense of money and the value of a credit, after paying thousands at an auction only having almost 200 credits left really seemed like too little, when in reality it was more than enough to live off of for weeks for a normal family.