Beastforged Bond

I stared at the Appraiser for a while, unable to control myself. Was she really the descendant of a Spirit? I didn’t even know that was possible.

“Greetings, young sir,” the Appraiser greeted with a sonorous voice, her eyes the epitome of life. “How may I help you?”

No words escaped my lips, no matter how hard I tried. Instead, I retrieved an ornate Grandmaster-ranked bow from the onyx ring. It was the only weapon in Kazriel’s extensive collection, and it was completely useless to me.

“Are you fine, sir?” she asked, her eyes lingering on the enchanted bow only for a moment before drifting back to me.

“Adam,” I mouthed, feeling stupid. Heat rose to my cheeks.

What is going on here? No matter how often I’d been in front of Spirits, it was the first time I felt like that. It… didn’t make any sense.

“Adam, then.” The Appraiser’s lips curled into a beautiful smile.

“What are you?” I blurted out before I knew it. Recognizing the words rolling off my tongue, I quickly shook my head. “Sorry, that was not what I meant. Well, it is, but I didn’t mean to be rude.”

A light, sonorous laugh filled the room. It swirled around the space and embraced me tightly, taking away some of the tension weighing on my shoulders.

“Do not worry, Adam. You are not the first to be confused about my presence.” The Appraiser waved dismissively. “But I am curious. What do you think I am?”

“The descendant of a Spirit? You emit a cocktail of presences, one of which feels like Thyria. You look a lot like her as well, but I don’t think you are related to her.” I shuddered at the mere thought. The human-devouring World Tree was nowhere near as pleasant as the Appraiser.

One of her eyebrows rose slightly before it went down again. “I understand now. Unfortunately, you are wrong. I am not a Spirit’s descendant. However, I do wield the power of one. A fraction of her power, to be precise, granted for centuries of loyalty to our lord and master.” Our eyes met, glowing vibrantly as she added, “I am a fae, though, lucky enough to receive a small portion of a Spirit’s true power.”

‘Lord and master’ caught my attention, but the fact that she was several centuries old distracted me much more.

“I hope the answer satiated your curiosity.” The Appraiser smiled with her eyes. “If you are ready now, I would like to continue with the appraisal.”

Pointing at the enchanted bow lying on the table separating us, she added, “Is that all you wish to sell?”

“I have more goods I plan to sell,” I responded, feeling like I should tell her more and that I planned to sell a few Ruler-ranked items and a bunch of –hopefully –unique books and techniques. However, I kept my mouth shut and waited until the Appraiser reached for the enchanted bow.

She appraised the weapon, her expression unmoving for the following minutes.

When she placed the enchanted bow back down on the table, her eyes were narrowed ever so slightly.

“Do you own the bow?” she asked in a voice that bordered on coldness, yet the kindness in her eyes never faded. “Do you know where this comes from?”

More questions followed shortly after, confusing me further.

“Why do you need to know all that?” I asked, only to see her narrow her eyes even further.

Letting out a sigh, I complied. “I do own them. The bow and everything else stored in this ring either belong to me or are part of my inheritance, if you will.”

Her eyes flashed once, and the coldness in her voice and demeanor faded instantaneously. “Perfect. I was worried for a moment.”

Worried about what? That I stole the bow?

Did she think I was lying? If so, why did she trust me now? Her words and actions were unique, to put it kindly, yet the Appraiser didn’t seem to take note, or she simply didn’t care.

“We can add the Runic Bow to this week’s auction. It will be held in two days and would easily garner enough attention to fetch you a good price. Or, if you are not in dire need of coins, we could add the Runic Bow to the biannual auction that will be held next week.” The Appraiser’s eyes glowed once more as her attention returned to the enchanted bow. “However, in the biannual auction, the Runic Bow would be one of the less valuable items. The craftsmanship is great, the ether circuits used in the process are near perfect and possess great synergy, but we do not have many high-ranking archers attending the auction, especially with such specific enchantments like Elemental Crystallization and Gravity Diversion. Both require the wielder to possess a certain affinity toward one of the basic elements, preferably all of them, as well as a lesser affinity toward gravity.”

That… did make sense. I honestly didn’t know too much about enchantments, so I left the details to the experts. Then again, elemental affinities shouldn’t be too rare. Worst case, they could use elemental-attuned etherstones to imbue enchantments with attuned ether.

That would be a little troublesome, though. I held back from sighing out loud before turning back to the Appraiser. “I think it would be best to add the Runic Bow to the weekly auction.”

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Maybe doing so wasn’t the best decision, but I could only hope that the Runic Bow would attract more attention at the weekly auction as the most unique item than it would have in the biannual auction event.

“You are not only the Appraiser in this establishment, are you?” I asked when the fae woman gestured to the side. Another young woman, presumably also a fae, stepped into the room to store the Runic Bow. She placed a small metal chip on the table and left without another word.

“I don’t usually appraise goods,” she said lightly. “But our in-house Appraiser is currently sick, so here I am.”

As many questions as I had, I pushed them aside and retrieved the Ruler-ranked weapons. All of them, because none of them were useful to me.

A pitch-black scythe, a pole with a crystallized lamp hanging from one end, a nunchaku, and a mask. The scythe was likely the only weapon I could somehow understand. The pole made little to no sense to me, and I couldn’t quite fathom how anyone would use the nunchaku to beat the living shit out of a dragon or the like. As for the mask… it felt powerful, much more so than the other Ruler weapons, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it. There was something sinister about the mask, making me wonder why Ruler Kazriel had it.

I honestly didn’t want to know what he used the mask for.

Following the Ruler-ranked items, I retrieved several books, most of which were techniques I’d deemed valuable enough for high-ranking Blessed. Sure, they were mostly for humans, but there were tens of thousands of humans in Dracos as far as I could tell. Surely a few of them had deep pockets.

“That… is interesting.” The Appraiser leaned closer to the table. “Four items made for Rankers. A scythe imbued with intent, a soul-binding lamppole, nunchaku engraved with enchantments that reach and affect the target’s mind, and a mask with chaos marks.”

She looked back at me for a moment, but I could only shrug. “I don’t know where any of this is from. All this belongs to the inheritance.”

“I see.” The Appraiser nodded. “I think I will need some help with some of those items.”

With a wave of her hand, the woman from before stepped into the room once more. Her neutral expression cracked at the power flowing from the Ruler weapons, but she quickly regained her composure.

“Ask for Serviath. I think he wants to be here for this,” the Appraiser ordered before focusing back on me.

“What do you need, Adam?” she asked, her lip twitching ever so slightly.

“I need money. As much as possible.” I decided to be truthful. “I also need to figure out a way to purchase Essence or World Mending Elixirs. My World is damaged.”

“That is an understatement.” The Appraiser grimaced, pain flickering in her glowing eyes.

So she knows? Can she see my World, just like that? That was worrisome, or would have been if someone like the Ruler of Fire had the same means. Fortunately, the fae woman was not after my World or the Soulkins inside it.

“Anyway, I would like to add these items to the biannual auction if possible. If you think some of the techniques will be more worthwhile in the weekly auction, that’s fine for me as well. I don’t mind either way.”

As far as I was concerned, I could trust the auction house and its staff. They wanted to make money with their transactions, so they’d do their utmost to sell the items for the highest possible price.

The Appraiser nodded absentmindedly. She mentioned something about World Mending Elixirs being auctioned but focused on the ‘Ranker’ armaments. Her interest in the techniques was fairly high as well, yet her attention lingered on the mask and the lamp pole.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed, but at some point the doors slid open again and a young man stepped inside. Then again, young was relative. He could be several centuries old for all I knew.

He had short brown hair, vibrant amber-colored eyes, and a relatively lanky physique. He was somewhat short for a human, but that didn’t mean he was weak. If anything, he was incredibly powerful, because I couldn’t feel a speck of power from him. His presence was perfectly concealed, which was something I’d never seen or felt before. It was almost like the man approaching the table was not even a Blessed. And that was impressive, considering he was human and all.

Is he at the Emperor Rank? I wondered right before his jovial voice reverberated through the room.

“Oh my!” The young man, probably Serviath, exclaimed. “Those beauties look delicious! To think I’ll be graced with the presence of a sentient Artifact in this century! And here I thought this was going to be yet another boring week.”

He let out a light chuckle, which did sound a little bit crazy, honestly. He spun around on his heels. Then, one moment the mask was on the table, and in the next it appeared in his hands.

“How beautiful. I thought the Spirits destroyed them all.” Serviath marveled.

Destroyed? That didn’t sound great at all. Was I running around with something dangerous or illegal?

Illegal was a broad term, honestly. And, if I was to be honest, anything the Spirits wanted to destroy was either a threat to their existence or it was directly related to the Destroyer or its Spawns.

Serviath must have noticed my expression because he waved dismissively. “Don’t you worry, kiddo. The Spirits won’t kill you for owning such a weapon. Not anymore, at least.” He giggled and turned to the Appraiser. “This will be the crowned prize at the biannual auction –if we auction it. The auction fee alone would be a small fortuna already, Zenovia!”

“We’d earn a fortune, sure.” The Appraiser, Zenovia, said with a frown. “And the Spirits’ ire.”

“True enough.” Serviath glanced back at me without looking particularly worried about the Spirits and their anger. “Looks like we won’t be able to auction it, kiddo. Selling the mask would tarnish our reputation. But I can buy it from you if you’re adamant about getting rid of it.”

“Serviath!” Zenovia exclaimed, but he just shrugged. “I won’t use it.”

She stared intently at him, forcing Serviath to speak the truth. “Okay, okay. I might get a little taste of it, but that’s all. Promise!”

I didn’t want the mask in the first place. It gave me the creeps. Selling it was more than fine, though I guess it’d be best to sell it to someone I could trust.

“Can I trust him? Or will he go out of his way to hunt the Spirits?” I tried making a joke, but it fell flat.

The smile was wiped from their lips, and even Serviath’s jovial presence faded.

“I just want money. Or Essence and World Mending Elixirs,” I quickly said when the others kept staring.

“You’d need high-grade Essence to avoid destroying your World,” Zenovia muttered, which earned Serviath’s attention. “I can give you a World Mending Elixir with high efficacy for the mask. I kept it aside for a few decades, wondering when my World would shatter again, but I was kind of lucky.”

He chuckled again, which was weird. There was no reason to chuckle and giggle so much.

How come I always come across weird people? I couldn’t tell if I was lucky or unlucky. Regardless, it looked like I’d soon be able to resolve my World’s problems.