Chapter 97 - Phoenix Race Bradley
[Binding your soul with his, he won’t betray you or argue with whatever order you give even if it was to take his life with his own hands]
[In return for his devoted services, he has to eat fixed number of souls you provide to him]
[The current number of souls needed for him to survive is five souls per day]
[The current number of souls needed for him to be in his prime is fifty souls per day]
[Failing to deliver the minimum souls required, your soul will be paid and the souler will be released from this contract]
[Do you want to pay now?]
“Pay the highest number!”
I said in a firm tone, but I didn’t have the luxury to take my new warrior out and check the changes that happened after consuming fifty souls.
[Fifty souls are deducted]
[The souler returned to his prime]
[Souler favorability grew over seventy percent]
What was that about? I didn’t know. It was my first time hearing such a thing called favorability.
“The next is another souler,” the voice coming from the stage attracted my attention at once.
“I’ll buy him out!” without the need for even the souler to come on the stage or the nymph lady to continue her words, I loudly claimed him.
“Are you sure?” The nymph lady frowned, but I nodded firmly. Come on lady, give me what I wanted! Give me my dreadful warrior!
“It’s yours,” as before the warrior appeared in my inventory and I spent fifty souls to keep him in his prime state.
Damn! I just couldn’t wait to go back and check that prime stage what it looked like.
“Next is a souler warrior…”
“Give him to me!”
“I want this one as well!”
“Send him here!”
“That one as well!”
“Bring them all… Give me all of them, hahaha!”
After getting the twenty-five warrior, everyone seemed to grow numb from my voice as the new friend next to me said in loud laugh:
“Just bring the rest on the stage, we have a crazy dude here who will get them all.”
“Yes, give me all,” I laughed as well. At this moment I couldn’t keep my excitement anymore. I wanted to get all of them.
I had around ninety statues inside my inventory and I doubted I’d get anything else from this auction. Nothing was better than those hellish strong soulers, not to mention they were in their weakened state.
“We have fifty remaining,” the nymph said in obvious hesitation, “do you want them all?”
I knew at this point she was puzzled not because I bought them all but for the amount of statues I had. I was supposed to have only fifteen, but at this moment I spent twenty-five and showed no signs of stopping.
“I’ll buy them all,” I said while taking out my statutes and throwing them as usual towards her direction, “bring them all.”
“Alright,” seeing the fifty statues in front of her eyes made her not doubt herself anymore. Yet I still felt her gazes fixed on me.
Now I have seventy-five souler… Oh my gosh! If not for that bet still remaining I’d have asked to leave by now and return to my world.
This trip… this trip was really worthy of my time!
But that came at the cost of spending three thousand, seven hundred and fifty souls. I still have plenty enough to test my bones after the end of the second quest, not to mention the upcoming battle in Jersey city.
I knew that battle would be a hell on earth, something I was doing all my best to prepare for.
But to keep them living per day, I needed to store away a lot of souls. It might hinder my plans for a bit, but they were worth every penny soul I paid.
The rest of the auction wasn’t something worthy to mention. It lasted for two more hours, and during them many useless warriors and gears appeared on the stage.
I had more statues to spare, but I wouldn’t waste them on anything I didn’t need.
“And now our auction comes to the last part,” after two hours, the nymph said in an excited tone. I noticed that after selling the soulers to me, she seemed more happy than before.
I didn’t know soulers were such a burden over her and the impact. A single souler worth more than Bulltors and even were on the same calibre as my dragons.
And I planned to treat them like I treated my dragons, raising up their levels to level two hundred, giving them bones, and even equipping them with good gears.
I’d buy all the gears I lacked from the market using coins. Gradually I saw that in the big wide universe, coins had little if no value at all.
So it was better to waste my coins now instead of the statues. The statues would hold their value later on, if not increased by time and the growth of my power and my needs.
“The bet result is about to be announced,” she paused before a large ball of black smoke appeared before adding, “but first let me say that the odds for betting were really leaning over the dragon archlord here.”
She said that and two smaller balls appeared, one green and one red. The red one shone in bright light all of sudden as if it turned into a burning star. As for my green ball, it paled in comparison.
“Just tell us the winner,” one voice demanded. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“Just say the dragon archlord won,” another said and laughed, making most of the audience here laugh with him.
They were the ones who betted against me. Screw them, I wanted to see their faces after losing despite that would be impossible thanks to that smoke screen.
“Alright alright, calm down first…” the nymph lady knew the result from the start, yet she tried to calm the others first before raising her arm high towards the big black ball: “Let’s see who won the bet, shall we?”
The next moment many fireworks cracked and exploded all around the ball before it slowly turned into my green light.
And under that light, I could feel the atmosphere change.
Those excited and having fun people who betted against me went into dead silence. They emitted dark gloomy air that made me feel a little suffocated.
“Yes, yes, yes, I won, yes, hahaha! I won, hahaha!”
Just as the silence prevailed for a long moment, the one friend I gained by my side exploded in cheerful laughter before he jumped in an unexpected move and hugged me.
“Thanks brother, I won’t forget this gesture of kindness today,” he whispered in my ears, in a voice only the two of us could hear.
“Hahaha, unravelled across the universe? Hahaha! You dragons never cease to entertain me,” another voice came
“That’s not real!” the dragon race shouted out of his bitter loss, “I ask you to revise the results and tell me the details!”
“You don’t have the authority to ask for that,” this time another one standing on the stage spoke in a heavy tone. I didn’t know who he was, but the sudden change of the atmosphere around people shouting in support of the dragon race’s claim and their sudden silence told me a lot about his status.
“All you need to know is that the result is fair and just. As if you don’t accept it, you know you have to pay for that if you want to know more details about it.”
I frowned before the new friend next to me said in a tone that he made sure to be audible:
“He has to put his current dark gold grade in the impact on the line. If the result was really just, as it should be, then he will be punished and be degraded by two ranks.”
“Two ranks? Damn! That’s cool!” I also didn’t hold back my voice and even added a tinge of sarcasm in it. Dude, you did many dirty things back when the bet was going, and it was just just to return some favour back.
“Humph,” the dragon race snorted in dissatisfaction before vanishing while adding, “I won’t forget this humiliation today, not from any of you.”
In a flash he vanished while many others followed. At the same time, I noticed that the two smaller balls merged into the big green one, making it turn all bright like a green star.
[Your stay here is about to end]
All of sudden this weird message came to startle me. I looked at the stage in a hurry before another message came to calm me down.
[You still have ten minutes here]
[Congratulations! You won the Bringold impact official bet against the dragon archlord called Soerth]
[The items you betted and the items you won will be added to your inventory once leaving here]
[A subsidiary bet was done on the honour of your bet]
[As the one who won the bet, you gained two percent share of the total sum of items offered in that subsidiary bet]
[The items will be selected randomly, but its total value will be assessed compared to the whole lot of items in that bet]
“Hahaha! I struck it rich this time, hahaha!” Before I could absorb all these messages, the one next to me jumped in the air, laughing out loud, acting all happy.
“Come, give me your hand,” he expanded his and I only stayed still without following his demands. I didn’t know what he wanted to do here.
“Don’t worry,” he was fast to grasp my hesitation, “it’s the standard way to make friends here in the impact.”
I got what he wanted and shook his extended hand. Then a message popped up next in front of my eyes.
[Phoenix race Bradley from apocalypse world number 256544 wants to add you as a friend. Do you agree?]
Phoenix race? And a male to begin with? Or wait, was he a girl in disguise or what?
All I knew about that legendary race was that all of them were hot sexy girls. Never heard before of a male phoenix.
“Accept,” I simply said as he did the same. But at this moment, I couldn’t hold back my curiosity to ask, and it seemed he also got the same type of curiosity as well.
“Are you a man or a woman?”
“Are you the one who started all this?!!”
His voice came filled with astonishment before he broke out in laughter. “Indeed, that explained everything indeed,” he looked at my silver smoke and I noticed him shaking off his head.
“Brother, I’m a man. Don’t listen to those silly lies the dirty dragons worked their as*it’s too hard to spread about us. We are like all the other races, having males and females. Or else how come we reproduce in your opinion? Putting that aside… I have to give it to you… You are really worthy of my admiration…”
He paused and even sighed before adding, “it took me almost fifty f*cking years to climb from the white grade up to the silver grade. And you? Damn! Even if I returned to the clan and told them about that, I bet no one will ever believe me!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just show them the rewards you got back and they will.”
“Hahaha, yeah, riches never lie, hahaha!”
Compared to the dragons, phoenixes were more friendly and easy going. But they also loved treasured, not lesser than the dragons.
Just look at this phoenix dude, he was literally jumping out of his excitement every other second! He only lacked music and he would even dance!
“Let’s meet later,” Bradley said before adding, “if you want to leave, just go to the impact interface and you’ll find a red button to return home. Damn! I’m too excited to wait here anymore, hahaha!”
“Go and I’ll catch up with you later on,” I said before I did the same as he told me.