That set the course for quite a while, as they had an awful, awful lot of devils to kill. Even considering all their advantages; their high stats, their high skill levels, their experience in fighting, it still took time and effort just to kill one devil. Tenacious bastards.

Beth soon saw that Azael hadn't at all been incorrect; in fact, he had likely been a little kind with his estimations. Beth and Blood just kept killing, and killing, and killing, the devils piling up like old cord wood, and at every kill or group of kills, Beth would pull out the array and use it on each body. Each time, the runes would light up, the array would hum for a moment, then the runes would flicker and the light would fade. Nothing would appear above the array or by the body, and Beth would sigh, put the array plate back in her necklace, and they would get back to the killing.

They went on like that for days and, even with the time compression, the rest of the day had gone by outside the gate. It had been almost five days of them killing devils, and they still didn't have a single essence. Even if they could access infinite devils in Beth's gate, and they could take advantage of the time compression to farm for a few weeks in just a couple days, this would still be a long process. There was also something to be said, despite Beth's single-minded focus on tasks, for doing the same thing over and over for weeks or months at a time to get one or two items, even if they were really valuable. They certainly had a huge advantage over others that had to hunt for devils in the wider universe, at least if it worked the way Beth hoped, but the amount of time they invested, even considering the slow passage of objective time, could very likely be spent better on other tasks. All-in-all, Beth was already calculating whether it would ever actually be worth it to farm for devil essence, even if they became really desperate for money.

More than fourteen days of hunting and thousands of devils got them one essence, though that happened somewhere around day eight or nine. That meant they would likely be due another one in a day or two, but Blood wanted to take a bit of a longer rest, so they camped for a full twelve hours inside the gate. They could have exited into their CRA room, but they still wanted to take advantage of the time compression. The only other bad thing was Beth couldn't switch gates when one was active, meaning she couldn't switch to the residence she had gained access to without them leaving the gate, closing it, and then re-opening it to the living quarters. They just had to rough it and sleep in the plain, though they had quite a huge clear area to choose from with all the monsters they had killed. They also both had quite good furniture stored in their necklaces, which they could set up directly under the stars.

Beth had thought about that a little bit as well, as it seemed time passed in a generally normal manner within the gate as well. The plains biome she could make appear always started in the middle of the day, but some time as she continued to level the gate skill, it gained a complete day and night cycle. She had already done the obvious and taken pictures and video of the stars and tried to research them, but she had found no known matches throughout the entire universe. Either the gate opened to a special place that was entirely its own, or perhaps…

She didn't finish that thought before falling asleep, loving the fact that the temperature in the plain biome was mild with only a very slight breeze. Combine that with the fact that there were no insects or bugs, it made sleeping out under the stars a rather appealing prospect. It was another thing she had all but confirmed about the gates at this point, as they never found any sign of any kind of life, beast or animal or otherwise, apart from what she had selected as the enemy type.

One long rest, and one rousing of a lazy wolf later, they were back on the grind, spending another two days slaughtering before they got the next essence. It seemed they did have a slight bit of good luck in one case, at least, as the first of the two plates didn't break after extracting the second essence. It had now been more than a day and a half objective time since they started trying for devil essences and they had two, which would overall be a remarkable rate. Then again, they were taking advantage of Beth's powers to be able to get such a rare resource so quickly, and they still had to spend days or weeks fighting to get each essence. If they could just buy the essence and rebirth, they could use the same amount of time to work through tens of levels after going back down to level one.

They took another short break, but that was to leave the gate and get some fresh food as well as check their messages. It was a good thing they did, as well, as they had several messages waiting for them, including one from Azael updating them on the status of the items they needed. He informed them that he had found all the hearts for them, though he wanted their confirmation on purchasing them first. He had already been able to source all the gems as he had mentioned before; they weren't that rare that he couldn't find them with only a bit of effort. The hearts were the harder things, apart from the devil essence, and he regretted to inform them that he had only been able to find five, and they were at a premium. Even being used to handling so much money and dealing with rare goods, Beth still gasped out loud when she got to the price. Azael said each devil essence would be ninety diamonds if he bought them directly from his sources, meaning four mithril and fifty diamond coins just for a fifth of what Blood needed.

"These are so fucking expensive!" Blood swore when she saw the price.

"Well, you have to decide," Beth said with a shrug, "if you want them or not. They're your rebirth materials, and while I'm happy to pay, I'm just as happy to grind for a few months to get another twenty-three."

"I can't believe I got such a shit deal," Blood growled as she paced around their living room. "Why does it have to be my stuff that's such a pain? Why couldn't it be one of your resources that was the first pain in the ass?"

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"Who knows, but it's up to you. We can buy the five and save a bunch of time, or we can just grind it out," Beth said, brushing off Blood's agitation.

"Nah, fuck it, let's fight," Blood rumbled. "I'm not paying some asshole a billion dollars for something we can get ourselves with a little bit of effort."

"We'll have to stop by to get some more array plates. I'll tell him we want the gems and hearts and that we'll stop by soon," Beth said before replying to Azael's message.

"What's the damage?" Blood asked.

"Seventy diamonds, including the five weapons I need," Beth replied with a sigh. "We can pick them up the day after tomorrow, so we'll grab the array plates then."

"Two whole days," Blood sighed wistfully.

"Don't even think about it," Beth said. "Get some food and rest a minute. I want to use up the first plate and start on the second before we go over."

"Fine, fine," Blood grumbled as she made her way into the small kitchen.

They did just that, eating food and resting for an hour in the suite before opening the gate back up and diving back in. Their luck had been decent for the first array plate and continued to hold, as it only took them five days of fighting to get the third essence. It wasn't all totally good news, as they broke the plate on that essence, proving Azael's words to be accurate in warning them about the low number of uses. That just meant Beth had to pull out the second array plate and start harvest attempts with that, which got them one more essence ten days later. It had been a day and a half in objective time, so they left the gate, had some fresh food, and showered and slept in comfort that night.

They were up early the next day and heading for the Seven Lights firm, ready to pick up the last of what they needed. They would still need to farm the devil essences, but they already had four of the twenty-five and would just buy some plates to get the remaining twenty-one. Speaking of the plates, she asked to buy fifteen of them, a lot more than they would likely need, but it wouldn't be bad to have extras. The storage spaces in their necklaces essentially froze time, meaning the plates wouldn't go bad or deteriorate as long as the necklaces remained undamaged.

One pleasant conversation, and one mithril coin, later, they made their way back to the CRA Hall and settled in for a few months of grinding. That would be a couple weeks objective time, but they had nothing else to do, other than attend the Seven Lights auction. That auction wasn't for another two weeks or so, as they had missed the last one by over a week when they were doing their previous big grind to achieve their current max level. Based on their current pace of getting an essence every objective day or so, roughly, they would get another thirteen or fourteen essences before the auction.

They set to work after another short break, Beth always happy to make use of advanced kitchen facilities to cook something fresh. She could buy a bunch of cooked meals and stash them in her necklace, which was on her to-do list, but she also didn't really mind the ration bars or camping food. She knew Blood, and some of the others they had done things with, had a lower tolerance for the different camping rations, but she sort of liked them. She thought about where she could order from and what she would stock up on while they fought. She didn't want to get too much, even though she did have a good bit of space, as she personally had to store the airship, as well as often keep a bunch of the junk they weren't sure had too much value.

Days passed, which turned into weeks, even Beth getting a little bored of the monotony. It was one thing to fight for weeks or months on end if they were making even small spurts of progress, a level here, a skill upgrade there, but when everything was remaining static, it did kill motivation a little. Then again, they had a couple months of this and then they could do a rebirth, which would really start that sweet adrenaline hit of numbers flying up all over again. Their general boredom was another reason Beth didn't really fight when Blood was ready to cut out a little early, with them only having a total of sixteen essences including the four they had gotten from their testing before they got the rest of the resources.

They took a longer break before the auction was set to begin, having some time to just relax and hang out. They went on a brief shopping excursion, Beth thinking and ordering ahead so she only had to stop by a catering company and sweep two hundred insulated food boxes into her necklace and pay them ten platinum coins, which put each box at five golds. It was an enormous amount to pay for food, but Beth wanted something luxurious, and ten platinum was barely a rounding error to their current wealth, so she only winced a tiny bit in handing over the ten coins.

Blood had picked up several large pouches that Beth later learned were leaf for her pipe, as well as a bit of food herself. She didn't go nearly as crazy as Beth, ordering a bunch of what amounted to fast food, which made Beth wrinkle her nose, and some street food, which Beth also joined in on. They got something like a pancake stuffed with a kind of blue jam, some fried meats, some little, disposable dishes of soup, and a handful of other grilled or roasted treats. The best thing Beth found was a thing like an eggplant, only sweeter, stuffed with meat that had been roasted and pulled apart before the plant was grilled. The vendor assured her it was totally safe for 'normal' humans to consume, so she bought half his stock for the day, the vendor laughing as she just kept buying the plants when they were grilled and making them disappear.

After their trip, a little rest, and a day working on their slightly neglected professions, they were ready for the auction. They were met in the lobby by Azael, who did his appearing trick once again before leading them up to the auction venue and to a third-floor booth. It was a bit different not having anybody else in there with them this time, but Beth didn't think too much of it, only looking out over the floor and the balconies to see if she could spot anyone interesting.

They had been just a bit early and, after a short bit of people-watching, a man appeared on stage and got the crowd's attention. He was impeccably dressed in something that resembled a formal suit, though the jacket was different, and he didn't wear a tie or neckpiece. He gave a short, sharp clap as the audience settled, getting silence and the participant's attention before welcoming everyone to the monthly auction in a booming voice. Before going any further, he reminded everyone that the yearly auction would be held in five weeks, taking the place of the next monthly auction, and that they should all prepare heavy purses for the event.

With the opening preamble out of the way, he introduced himself, saying, "Now that the introductory business is out of the way, we can get to the real fun. As many of you may know, I am Peirce Silvers, your host for all auction business on Tellahm. We've got a fun auction for you today, with quite a few rare pieces up for sale, as well as a little surprise at the end. Ah, but I shouldn't ruin anything that the branch manager has been scheming, so let us get right into it!"

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