Starlight Life Of The Sage

Zeitgar, Kane, and Dixon; representatives from three of the Four Families started to filter into the Auction House. Their march looked well coordinated, as if they were heading off to battle. They were ordered by the strength of their families, with the weakest walking in first.

The Zeitgars and their teal robes drew numerous eyes to them as they entered, but their flashy outfits could only hold interest for so long. Most people in the Auction House looked at them like Paper Tigers. The Zeitgars seemed intimidating on the surface and, to those without any backing, they could be, but to anyone with a little meat on their bones and a few ties to some merchant groups, the Zeitgars were nothing but hot air. Their familial strength ended with a single Half Soul Elder, nothing to write home about.

The Kane Family, with their signature blond hair and tall statures, entered next. The eyes that looked at them were filled with far more respect. They were considered equals to the Stonelight family in terms of money, but everyone in the Tin City knew the Kane family had far more firepower. Possessing a small cabal of Half Soul Knights as elders, the Kane family could take on a Tier 8 country alone and come out the winner. A few people thought they could even invade a Tier 7 country with their power, but those people were fools.

Finally, at the end of the line, entered the Dixons. Most had bright red hair and pale skin, but the energy flowing underneath the surface, the raw mana, dwarfed everyone from the previous two Families.

The Dixons were mostly Mages, having had a legacy passed down in their family line for generations, a legacy that never leaked even once. Their bodies tended to look weaker than others, but their looks often belied their real strength. There was a common phrase in the Tin City, "Never look down on a Dixon."

Even their weakest children, under the power of the Family Mage Technique, could explode with unexpected strength.

The Auction House, previously loud and boisterous due to the antics of Zara, turned silent. Very few people were willing to say anything aloud, and those that could started to rely on Voice Transmission Techniques instead. Good voice transmission techniques were valuable things, but the sheer overall status of the people in the Auction House on this day made any worries of using them inconsequential. In the face of a Perfect Soul Knight technique, what value was there in a mere voice transmission technique?

The last man to enter the Auction House was a gray haired elder with enough muscle definition to put a bodybuilder to shame. He stood taller than the crowd and his skin didn't seem to match the rest of his family, with it being several shades darker and more tanned. He was the Dixon Head.

Voice Transmissions filled the air in the Auction House, letting out only the quiet hum of mana. The room was silent. Even the auctioneer didn't say a word. She just brought out the next item, a girl's parasol.

Immediately, the silence shattered as a woman's voice roared.

"Fifteen million!"

Zara waved her paddle in the air with her yell, and almost everyone in the entire venue looked at her, some with incredulous stares.

A few people though, those in the know, looked at the green-haired woman with wariness and caution. The higher ups knew she was a woman from the Northlands, someone as strong (or stronger) than the City Lord himself…

"What an idiot"

"Can you believe that woman?"

"Have your men keep an eye on her in case she makes a move."

Voice transmissions with varying thoughts rocketed through the Auction House, most with Zara as the subject matter.

The game of 'telephone' started to distort the news, though, as more and more people talked among each other. Without any words being said aloud, and all communications being one on one, small slips in the provided information ended up causing drastically different stories to spread.

Like a rumor that snowballed out of control, words about the 'idiot green-haired woman' began to paint her in a different light…

As the world's most fearsome Knight.

Strange as it sounded, the rumor mill hammered away and, for the first time ever in all the history of the Tin City, it came to a true conclusion.

Most people in the Auction House hearing those rumors thought them to be bullshit. Several people dismissed them entirely… But when those rumors made their way back to the Zeitgar, Kane, and Dixon Families, they knew them to be very, very real.

-

Mana was a thing that could be sensed with enough practice, and very few people could match a Mage's ability to sense and gather information.

The Head of the Dixons knew better than anyone else alive just how good his own abilities were in that regard… And he couldn't get a read on the green-haired woman at all. He assumed, when he first saw her during Cara's match against the knight, that he hadn't been focusing well enough, that the fight had distracted him, but at this exact moment he knew those were just bullshit excuses.

At this moment he knew just how f.u.c.k.e.d everything was if *that* woman got angry.

He couldn't see her stats with his 'Identify' spell. He couldn't see her job, her level, or the strength of her Knight Technique. His spell didn't work at all...

But the Dixon head had another spell, a spell far more crude than 'Identify.' It was a less specific spell, but it was far more useful when dealing with someone outside of his own power level.

The spells name was: 'Death Detect.'

A spell that, in layman's terms, told the Dixon Head the general outcome if he were to fight someone to the death, no-holds-barred. The spell itself took into account a person's total powers as seen by the Patron Gods. Thus, it could scout out strengths the caster himself couldn't see through, and it returned a 'success rate' percentage. The spell didn't have a failure rate because it didn't fail.

Against most people stronger than him, the Dixon Head would get back numbers between 20 to 50 percent. That implied he would win between one in five fights and one out of every two fights, if they were fought to the death, without either party holding anything back. Against the City Lord it often turned back around 35%, depending on the day.

The Dixon head shivered. His spell cast in silence and returned to him. A number appeared, a number he hadn't ever seen before when using this skill, a number that didn't even appear the very first day he learned how to use the spell and had cast it on a passing Earth Knight Dignitary from the Northlands…

[0.000001%]

The lowest possible return value. The spell couldn't return a Zero, because nothing was ever truly impossible… But for it to return one millionth of a percent?

The Dixon Head's blood ran cold. He cast the spell again to be sure. The number came back the same. A slow-burning terror formed in his heart, a fear so profound it made him actively send out messages to other people around him. He needed to make sure no one stepped on the Green-haired woman's toes...

He was the one who started the rumor.

-

Cara continued to forge her weapon in peace, completely out of the loop of the current event taking place. She knew there would be a show once her and Zara's goods came up in the auction, but she didn't particularly care about the stirring storm.

Zara could handle any mistakes or problems that arose.

Cara knew that in her heart and it gave her peace of mind. She relaxed and her skills at the Forge seemed to improve. Her ability to weave arrays into the materials increased, and her weapon's starting level increased by an entire Tier.

Cara's boisterous laughter echoed inside the tent.

-

More and more goods appeared in the auction house. Oddly, more and more goods designed to accessorize young girls appeared too, much to Zara's p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e.

This was no coincidence. Seeing what the Green-haired woman bid on earlier, the elders working behind the scene procured more and more goods of that nature. They wanted to keep the 'Strongest Knight' happy, and they feared any reprisal that would come if they didn't.

The Auction continued on and some of the better items started to appear.

Finally, after a long wait, a small bottle with a single pill was brought on stage. Zara looked down on it with gentle eyes. It was her latest masterpiece, the latest magnum opus of her alchemical works. She felt genuine pride at that moment.

It was the pill that would instantly make someone into a knight.

And it was the first of three items that would spark the strangest conflict in the entire history of the Tin City.