The Primal Hunter

The entire rest of the epic item auction went pretty uneventfully. Jake sat on his ass and kept watching the bracers the whole time, even though barely anyone bid on them. Well, he did also spend a majority of his time playing with Sylphie – his arcane conjurations clearly better boxers than Sylphie’s.

The cursed bracers ended up only costing him a bit below two hundred thousand Credits, which honestly wasn’t that bad. A difference between the rare auction and the epic auction was that everything was available until the very end. Jake did feel like it was a bit unfair, as some items were only up for around an hour, while others were up for several hours, but, hey, what can you do about it?

The moment the auction ended, he just had the bracers directly deposited into his inventory without any fanfare, and at the same time, he also saw his total Credits jump more than two hundred million as every single item he had put up was sold off.

Credits Available: 498,870,214

With around forty items for sale total, he quickly calculated they had sold for about five million each on average. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but it sure as hell was a lot better than the rare items by a huge margin. Jake also truly began to realize he had wasted his money-making potential before this event. While he had earned a lot of money by selling, he had also bought a lot, but if he just sold off things like materials or elixirs or potions at a steady pace, he could have probably made a few hundred million.

Then again, what would the fun in that be? Jake didn’t really like just grinding out the same mass-produced potions over and over.

Looking at the prices, he saw that the cheapest epic rarity item had gone for only thirty thousand and was some nugget of metal apparently super hard to work with. The most expensive was that god damn Focusing Iris from earlier, which went for over fifty million.

If this entire auction event had taught Jake one thing so far, it was that rarity really wasn’t everything. Equipment with many potential users had a somewhat predictable price of between two and eight million for epic items, but those specialty items could go for either insanely high prices or barely anything.

He had also been told that epic rarity equipment was kind of in a weird spot currently on Earth. On the one hand, they were rare and powerful, but on the other hand, not rare or powerful enough to not give out and actively use. This meant that most epic-rarity items were actively used by their factions, leading to fewer on the market. According to Sultan, they would still see a way better ratio of epic to ancient items, despite the incredibly low rare-to-epic item ratio.

System Announce-

Jake quickly skimmed it and saw it was pretty much the same as last time, telling him of a one-hour intermission between this phase and the next. Jake considered having some fun with his new bracers but decided not to. Instead, he should probably go talk to Casper to figure out future plans with that entire Root of Eternal Resentment business.

Sylphie communicated with him she was going to chat with Carmen, and Miranda passed by and said she had a meeting with some independent cities about something. Others also quickly left, with Sultan only spending a bit of time putting the altars and coffins up for sale.

With no reason to stay, Jake quickly teleported out of his booth and appeared on the ground below it. He scouted the chamber and spotted the booth housing the undead faction, with Casper and Priscilla both appearing below it.

On a side note, Jake came to learn that not all of the booths were actually being used. Reika and the Sword Saint had both earned a booth as an example, but they used the same, leaving one empty. The undead faction might have been the same as Casper for sure had earned one, and maybe Priscilla too. Either way, it was good they were together as that made things simple.

With a few steps, Jake appeared close to them. It was easy enough to find and approach them, especially with how humans still tended to avoid the Risen. Jake honestly didn’t get it, but then again, he wasn’t racist.

Casper spotted him when he got close and just waved for him to come over. Jake walked over and greeted them both, and after exchanging pleasantries, they began walking towards a side chamber to discuss things.

Once inside, the door shut behind them. The ones who had gone were Jake, Priscilla, Casper, and four other people. Two whom Jake recognized as members of Priscilla’s party, and two that looked and felt more like administrative personnel or traders.

“So, gotten anything good?” Jake asked Casper first thing.

“Eh, a few things here and there, but nothing massive. Saving my Credits for the ancient rarity auction coming up. How about you?” his undead pal asked.

epic bracers but haven’t bought anything else, though

Casper said, smiling. “Isn’t that why we are here? You still

present perk up. “Now, what is this Root?

that-“ one of

mist within Yalsten and was a natural treasure of immense

their slightly annoyed looks directed at Casper,

clean as she explained. “The Root of Eternal Resentment has all of the curse energy from within Yalsten and is naturally a treasure of immense value. Yalsten had unique energy, improving and sometimes even creating items and natural treasures due to it,

combine it with the Root, we may be able to create a world similar to it. We Risen are inherently in a risky position, and it will allow us to potentially flee or relocate off the planet entirely in a worst-case scenario. In a best-case scenario, we can make a land especially suited for our kind and even transform the natural environment to be more suitable for us and the treasures we need. We need far more

Casper, who nodded in confirmation. “Not to come off as a dick, but I had honestly assumed something far

Yalsten is gone for good. The resentment of the curse has no clear-cut target and is thus aimless and undirected. It is only under rare circumstances where directionless curse energy does not simply

and not just the properties of the Root itself. From what I can assume, the World Core holds all the required energy to create the world itself and is one part of the puzzle, so isn’t the Root just a source that will allow for the mist-like energy to be

at him, a bit surprised. “What? I know stuff! This

obvious jab. “But yeah, you’re right. The curse energy itself is not

“For real?”

properly use it. If we go by pure energy, the divine item left by Sanguine could turn our entire solar system to dust if extracted and turned into a weapon. It is a bit of a moot point, though, as anyone actually capable of doing that would be able to

Casper shift a bit as they no doubt didn’t like Casper and Priscilla

is precisely what we plan on doing. For it to work, we actually need to purge the Root of curse energy first, but as I mentioned, there are several ways to do that. All we need the Root and tree itself for is the properties that allowed it to contain the curse

along. “Won’t it take a long time to suck out all the curse energy? As

existing curse weapons, or maybe I will use it to

more nodded as he got an idea: “Speaking of which, got any idea what exactly

of Cursed Hunger. He had been wondering about the blade for a while, especially the fact that it kept getting stronger. Growth items were damn rare as far as he knew, and to him, it seemed like the damn

Jake’s hand. “Sure,

due to Jake using his arcane affinity and Touch to bind it, so it

also cursed,”

“Yep.”

the requirements when you got it

vital energy. Casper seemed very interested throughout as he asked some follow-up questions like if it wanted

as Jake answered, especially when he said he had used it from the time he was mid-tier E-grade to now. He also explained that not once had he repaired it. However, it was when he explained

the description says it was made of steel soaked in blood… indicating some ritual… and then you destroyed the souls it had absorbed… yet the curse remained and is

Even if the goal of the resentment is impossible to reach, then the curse won’t get stronger. The Records and curse energy are constant unless it absorbs curse energy, an exact replica of itself. That is how curse-users like myself function. We are the source of the curse. However, what your scimitar does is different… it doesn’t have a goal nor a

Jake asked, confused at the

say that it is a weapon created based on a concept rather than a cursed weapon created to fulfill a specific goal. In your case, it

words as he tried to summarize them. “So, I got a growth

which it is stored, and if the medium breaks, the curse itself will merely disperse as it is part of a larger concept. Well, that or you can transfer it to a new medium. And to call it a growth curse should kind of set off some red flags… Sin weapons are fucking dangerous. One does not normally use Sin curses in weapons due to it having a user but rather infused in items like altars or other ritualistic items. Sometimes maybe sacrificial daggers… but

bad?” Jake asked, and this time