"So good that you could join us in such a timely manner," Azael commented with a slight edge of sarcasm in his voice.

"Senior Azael, we're sorry," the leading woman said with a bow. "We were just, uh, a little excited."

"I see," Azael said calmly, taking another sip of his tea. He let them fidget for another moment before putting his tea down and saying, "These are valued Emerald customers of ours and, as you can clearly see, they have brought in quite a few items for us to evaluate."

"But, the monthly auction just happened…" the second woman said quietly, glancing at Beth and Blood before looking at the table and then looking to Azael.

"None of these are auction worthy," Beth said with a snort, waving at the table.

"She's correct," Azael said calmly. "Not to impinge upon Emerald customers, but these items don't rise to the quality of a monthly auction. Instead, they would like to sell these items to us at cost to clean out their storage powers and make some money to help prepare for the yearly auction. I called you two up here as I thought this would be some valuable experience in analyzing a large lot of customer acquired goods."

"Right. Where do we start?" the first woman asked.

"An introduction would be nice," Azael said archly, giving them both a look.

"Oh, my apologies! I'm Angeline and this is Jennifer," the first woman said, bowing and gesturing to her companion.

"Good to meet you," Beth said. "I'm Beth and this is Blood."

"Greetings," the two women said in sync before bowing again.

"Well, now that the pleasantries are completed, why don't we get to work," Azael said in a slightly amused tone before sipping his tea again.

"Yes, right, sorry!" Angeline exclaimed before approaching the table.

Beth and Blood had tried to be neat in stacking everything up, but there was still some overlap, with potions in random places and a few minerals and gems scattered about. The first thing the two women did was carefully restack a handful of items, efficiently moving things around to clear themselves a small space to work. After they had done that, they quickly starting cataloguing and organizing items, all under Azael's watchful eye. He didn't make any comments, just observed what they were doing as they sorted and analyzed everything on the table. Beth was slightly surprised, especially considering they were junior members of the firm, at just how quickly they moved through everything. Even working as a two-person team, it was still fascinating to see just how quickly they were able to analyze every item they put their hands on and how efficiently they grouped things together. The table was still stacked high a half-hour later as the two young women finished, but there was some actual clear space where the table could be seen.

"It's not a race, but the speed was impressive," Azael commented idly. "I will say that you did rather well, though you will find you miss-categorized several of the pills."

The two immediately scrambled as if they'd been burned, Beth again hiding a smile behind a hand as they quickly went through not just the pills but every consumable on the table. They re-sorted all the pills and moved several of them to two different piles before taking a minute to go back through everything. They didn't change anything else, and both glanced at Azael a few times, likely trying to be surreptitious, but appearing quite obvious to the other three in the room.

"Yes, you are largely correct in everything else," Azael said calmly. "More importantly, do you have your valuations?"

"Yes, sir," Angeline said. "We'll pass them to you now."

Azael took another sip of tea before putting his cup away and scanning over what the two women sent. With his stats and skills, it only took him a few moments to scan and understand everything, nodding slightly as he finished reviewing the information. He then made a few annotations, Beth noting he had a minute tick of gesturing with the fingers of his right hand while he made changes on screens only he could see before finalizing the reports.

"Your estimates are good," he said, which got smiles from both the assistants. "They are not, however, perfect. I have made annotations where I have assessed slight errors. You two should review them while I finish this discussion."

"Yes, sir," they said in unison, bowing and sitting on chairs behind Azael.

"I have here an itemized list," Azael started before Beth interrupted.

"I trust the firm, just give us a number," she said with a wave of her hand.

"Everything you have on the table we value at forty-one diamond coins," he said calmly.

"Cool. Deal," Beth said with a shrug, laughing at the open-mouthed gaping from the two young women. Azael was much more used to dealing with wealthy, powerful, capricious members of the firm and didn't even bat an eye. He made a small gesture with his right hand and the diamond coins appeared in front of Beth, neatly stacked and floating in the air. She made them disappear with a flick of her wrist and Azael mimicked the gesture, making the entirety of what was on the table disappear with a small gesture of one hand.

"What else can we do for you?" Azael asked.

"Nothing, unless you have some information on where something valuable for the auction might be?" Beth asked in a leading tone.

"We do trade in information," Azael said. "But, I'm afraid we don't have exactly what you're looking for. Anything we know about locally of that level of value has already been collected or is being farmed for its products. You can try to join in, but I wouldn't recommend jostling for a position in the rotation at this point."

"Well, that's disappointing, but I'm sure we can find something," Beth said with a nod. "Other than that, we're good."

"Let me escort you out," Azael said, standing and gesturing to the door. The two young women stood a moment later and bowed, caught a bit off guard at the sudden end of the negotiations. Azael took them down to the lobby before seeing them off for the day.

After they left, he moved back into the building with the two woman trailing before sitting down with them to review the results. "There were a number of errors in your estimates on the armor."

"Yes, sir," Angeline said. "I still can't believe they sold so much at once."

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"You have to become accustomed to working with the VIP customers," Azael said calmly. "They will often transact in diamonds or multiple mithril coins for general sales and purchasing. Those two young ladies bought a mithril coin of goods from us just a short time ago."

"Unbelieveable," Jennifer breathed quietly.

"I can't imagine spending years fighting to acquire so much and then not even negotiating over the price," Angeline said with a small shake of her head.

"Years? Unlikely. I would guess that table full of materials was six months or less of effort for them," Azael said calmly as he sorted the things from Beth and placed several on shelves in the room.

"That can't be possible," Angeline argued.

"Entirely possible," said Azael calmly. "The two of them are currently collecting the materials to complete their third rebirth as a True Rebirth, and I have no doubt it is not their first True Rebirth."

"Even still," Angeline protested weakly.

"You still have a number of preconceived notions of what it means to be a Wayfarer," Azael lectured calmly. "Dismiss them. Our customers rarely follow even the conventional paths of Wayfarers, which are far broader than you know."

"Yes, sir," they both responded calmly.

Meanwhile, Beth and Blood had returned to their room at the CRA. Once they were on the couch in the room, Beth said, "So, here's the plan."

"Hm?" Blood asked cogently.

"We're gonna farm your essence for the next four weeks," Beth started.

"Not my essence; that'd be exhausting," Blood interjected with a smirk.

"Shut up. I meant the devil essence and you know it," Beth said with a sigh as she rolled her eyes. "We're gonna farm for four weeks, which means around twenty-eight days. If we can get even one essence a day, that will mean we can get another twenty-five to thirty essences by the time four weeks is out. Once we're a week out from the auction we stop, do a rebirth, and then farm levels for five or six days objective time. That should get us back past level fifty, maybe even up to level one hundred by the time the auction rolls around. Thoughts?"

"Tedious," Blood grumbled and Beth just shrugged. "No other thoughts. Head empty."

"Fine, let's rest and then start with the devils," Beth said, going to start cooking some food. They ate first before resting for an hour, after which Beth couldn't waste time any longer and opened the gate, cajoling Blood through to start their hunting.

They did almost exactly as Beth had said, though she was pretty surprised with their luck with the array plates. The grind was quite tedious, but they were not only finishing preparing for a rebirth, Beth was preparing to make quite a bit of money. Blood wanted to stop when they had twenty-five essences and do a rebirth, but Beth shot that down and had them continue to kill devils for quite a while before they stopped. She had wanted to go through all the rest of the plates they had, but that aforementioned luck had seen them get three or four essences out of quite a few of the plates, with only two plates breaking while giving two essences. Beth wasn't sure if the quality of the plates was better than advertised or if they really were just on a crazy hot streak, but she didn't really question it. The plates had yielded them thirty-four essences over the four weeks, which meant they had thirty-eight in total when counting the ones that they had gotten before buying more plates. They had also use eleven plates for that, meaning they still had four of the expensive things stashed in Beth's necklace, which just looked like further future income.

They took a full twelve hours to rest after they had finished their farming of the essence. Beth was eager to get on with the rebirth, but they really needed to make sure they were in a good headspace for the event. They bathed, ate, and slept for a little before relaxing for two hours. They then headed to one of the training rooms, booking the large, heavily shielded room for an hour to get their next rebirth done.

This one wasn't any different than the previous one, and Beth was quite happy to see their stats were growing quite nicely. With what they had now at level one, she didn't foresee any problem in them getting to level one hundred before the auction. In fact, they would likely get some way into the low hundreds and still have a day off before the auction to turn in their items and rest. She checked their stats after the rebirth was finished, eager to see where they were at.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Crushing Hierophant

Level

1[3]

Strength

793

Dexterity

410

Endurance

500

Intelligence

148

Wisdom

147

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress' Inheritor

Skills

Acid Resistance Copper[9]

Ancient World Gate[3]

Beastly Tyrant Platinum[2]

Blacksmithing Journeyman[0]

Celestial Annihilation Silver[9]

Crush Gold[2]

Earth Resistance Copper[8]

Flame Resistance Copper[9]

Focused Meditation Silver[4]

FrostFlame Eye Silver[9]

Ice Resistance Silver[8]

Indomitable Heart Silver[9]

Lightning Resistance Silver[2]

Lordly Reconstruction Silver[9]

Monstrous Blow Silver[9]

Pain Tolerance Gold[2]

Spatial Mana Detection Silver[7]

Spatial Resistance Copper[6]

Spatial Step Gold[5]

Swift Silver[9]

Swords Expert[1]

Toxic Resistance Silver[3]

Unarmed Expert[2]

Wealth

2o 3m 49d 3p 11g 54s 8c

Emblems

CRA Silver Badge (150CP)

Bonds

Blood

Name

Blood

Race

Red Wolf Queen

Level

1[3]

Strength

476

Dexterity

739

Endurance

398

Intelligence

88

Wisdom

88

Free Points

0

Titles

-

Skills

Acid Resistance Copper[3]

Blood Queen's Claws Gold[4]

Earth Resistance Copper[6]

Eyes of Hallowed Truth Gold[2]

Flame Resistance Copper[8]

Ice Resistance Silver[6]

Leatherworking Apprentice[7]

Lightning Resistance Copper[8]

Meditation Silver[3]

Pain Tolerance Gold[0]

Regeneration Silver[4]

Rending Bite Silver[4]

Spatial Step Silver[6]

Stealth Copper[8]

Swift Gold[5]

Toxic Resistance Silver[1]

Unarmed Expert[1]

Wealth

18m 81d 41p 5g 22s 44c

Emblem

CRA Silver Badge (150CP)

The last few months of fighting and farming devils hadn't gotten them any experience for levels, obviously, as they were at max level. They did, however, get a few small skill improvements here and there, with Blood getting one or two levels in a number of her skills that were in Silver. Beth had, surprisingly, jumped another level in Spatial Step, which she was developing a real knack for over time. Otherwise, they were mostly at the same place, just now back to level one, though their stats were insane. The first time Beth had hit level two hundred to prep for her first rebirth, she had had five hundred fifty strength, three hundred dexterity, and four hundred endurance. Now, at level one, after her third True Rebirth, she had nearly eight hundred strength alone, putting her on such a high level that it was mind-boggling to think about.

She was strong enough that she could tear apart level one hundred enemies with her bare hands and so tough that they would have trouble doing any more than lightly injuring her even if she was fighting them naked. She had to do small bit of math in her head to revise her estimates upwards; five days in the gate now would be fifty days of fighting and, assuming she set the starting level to one hundred, if they fought so far up-level for fifty days straight, they would likely hit the one-fifty mark before the fifty days were up.

They took a couple hours to rest and recover from the rebirth process, which could be slightly tiring, especially as it expanded their mana reservoirs and didn't fill them right away. A couple hours of laying on the couch in the suite and lightly meditating and they were ready to start the grind, with Beth opening a gate and setting it to level one hundred goblins. The goblins would be a bit harder than something like ants or a similar opponent with their weapons and armor, but they were foes that Beth and Blood were well used to fighting and killing. It was to a point that they almost had an easier time dealing with the more complex and challenging fights with the armed opponents versus 'regular' beasts. It was also really great to get back to a place where their kills were getting them levels; not just levels, but they got more than one level per kill for the first two kills, and then a level per kill for a couple kills after that. The experience difference was just so huge that they were able to level up like absolutely crazy.

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