Walking into the auction house for the third time they were greeted by a different scenery than during the first 2: There was a different butler greeting them, moreover, he also seemed to currently be in an argument with someone who appeared to be a member of the usual staff. Neither seemed to notice them at first.

"Good afternoon," Irwyn tried to gather their attention. The butler turned to face Irwyn and his red face immediately became pale.

"I sorry to show such a disgraceful display," the new butler immediately performed an elegant deep bow as he apologized "should I also call for Desir to show you to your booth?"

"Yes, that would be…" Irwyn was about to agree when a loud bang suddenly shot through the lobby as someone slammed the front door open.

"I have arrived!" yelled an unfamiliar youth as he swaggered into the lobby. The man was at most around 20, his clothes were luxurious and he was followed by two maids in tight leather pants and jackets which highly implied noble origins, yet Irwyn did not recognise him. That meant that he was definitely neither royalty nor Brightbeak, because Irwyn made sure to remember the faces of all their direct members.

"Lord Barbarossa," the butler bowed to the newcomer "I will be right with you," he turned back to Irwyn, and managed to act as though the rude interaction didn't happen, "As I was saying Desir will arrive momentarily, of you would..."

"I am not one for waiting, old man!" the new arrival interrupted the butler again with an even ruder shout. The butler was clearly at a loss about what to do: He couldn't afford to offend neither Irwyn nor the newcomer. However, Irwyn waved his hand as though to dismiss the man's worries and spoke: "Elevated to nobility recently, I assume?"

"What did you just say?!" the man seemed far too easily engaged.

"You lack the manners of a proper noble," Irwyn just grinned with a taunt "so you couldn't have been at it for too long."

"I will let you know my father is a marquess," he scoffed, "My family's tradition is likely far longer than yours!"

"I highly doubt that," Irwyn just chuckled. Pride was considered important to a nobleman of the North. In a public occasion like this he couldn’t afford to show he lacked it. At that very moment that Desir walked into the room and with a deep bow and a smile greeted Irwyn, "My lord," he avoided saying his name, probably on purpose "if you would follow me," after their first meeting Desir was very careful to not let any of his unnatural charm leak towards Irwyn.

"How about you lead me first?" Barbarossa apparently didn't have enough and decided to be petty. The line between pride and arrogance was thin, but the man was definitely far gone to the latter.

"Barbarossa, was it?" Irwyn looked at him with a smile, then he looked to the side where there was no one in particular "a hand will suffice," he commanded as he used a finger do draw a line between his armpit and shoulder. The next moment a dull this sounded in the hallway, followed by a scream of pain: "Aaargh."

It were respectively Barbarossa's hand hitting the floor, and Barbarossa's body realizing his hand was just cut off and starting to overwhelm his sensory system with pain feedback.

"I will be expecting an apology letter by tomorrow," Irwyn's smile did not falter as he stared at the bloody mess.

"Sorry for making such a mess," he politely apologized to the butler.

"No need to worry yourself with such things, lord Irwyn," the butler gave one more elegant bow.

"Let's go," Irwyn motioned to the girls and Desir. Their expressions were a sight to behold: Alice was deathly pale, slightly shaken and looked like she was about to puke; Elizabeth was much better off, but her face was still significantly more pale than usual; meanwhile, Desir did not appear to be shaken at all, if fact, his eyes were actually beaming from witnessing all the oozing blood.

As soon as they were out of earshot Alice hesitantly spoke: "Wasn't that a bit… excessive. You made another enemy."

"Not quite," Irwyn had a rare slight frown on his face "I have a reputation to maintain. Even if he was unaware who I was I couldn't let what he said slide. After all the auction house makes a pretty significant profit selling information about scuffles like that. Isn't that right, Desir?"

"You are right. We are getting paid mostly to gather information so that it can then be sold by the auction house. In fact, information broking earns about as much as the auctions,” Desir explained, more to Alice and Elizabeth than Irwyn.

“How about we skip the middleman?” Irwyn smiled and tossed Desir a gold coin.

“What do you want to know?” the boy skillfully caught it and seemed to have no qualms about being bribed. From what Irwyn knew it was not uncommon for servants in these sorts of businesses to earn about 10+ times their monthly salary in bribes. In fact, it was so common that it became another service, and instead of punishing their employees for taking bribes they made them pay a sort of a tax from that income.

“The fool in the lobby, who was he?” Irwyn asked.

“Wait!” Alice immediately seemed to enter outrage, “You don’t even know who it was, yet you got his hand cut off?!”

“He was no one particularly important,” Irwyn just shrugged “I remembered the faces of all truly important people in the entire North. His was not among them.”

“All things considered, I doubt he will cause any further trouble,” Desir chimed in “from what I heard his father, Marquess Bearhide, is paying us a hefty monthly sum to keep him informed on whenever his son causes a scene. When he hears what happened this time around he will tear him a new one,” Desir added a bit more information than Irwyn bribed him for, and even joked. He was using increasingly casual terms with Irwyn, a decent tactic for making someone more amicable towards you, Irwyn had to admit, but he didn’t mind creating connections with this boy.

“I see,” Irwyn nodded as he thought about the irony of the whole situation. Meanwhile, Alice suddenly stopped moving and seemed to be visibly shaking. Not a surprising reaction considering it was marquess Bearhide who ordered the slaughter of everyone she ever cared for. Desir also stopped and inspected her reaction.

“Here,” Irwyn tossed Desir another golden coin “for keeping her reaction off the records.”

“Naturally,” Desir smiled, quite content with the deal. Considering that the boy was trying very hard to create a connection with Irwyn, it was unlikely he would risk sharing the information for some extra money. Irwyn stepped towards the still shaking Alice and put one hand on her shoulder, “Let’s go,” he whispered into her ear, making her snap back to herself. Alice’s expression flared with red immediately when she realised her previous loss of composure.

“We are here,” Desir announced as he was already opening the door to Irwyn’s booth.

“Come in with us for now,” Irwyn beckoned him as he was about to enter “we still have some things to discuss.”

“Of course,” Desir’s eyes shone. He was like a spy allowed to enter the archives without restriction. And whenever Irwyn, or rather one of the girls, let anything slip he would either get paid for not spreading the information or get paid for selling the information.

“So,” Irwyn began as soon as they were all seated, including Desir after he was specifically asked to do so, “Do you believe that the Bearhide brat will be still attending the auction?”

“It’s quite possible,” Desir ignored the irony of an 8 years old calling someone a brat “there is a healer good enough to reattach a freshly severed arm available. He might come to relieve stress.”

“And in what booth would he be staying?” Irwyn inquired further.

“Difficult to say, there are so many after all,” Desire acted as though he couldn’t recall until another gold coin landed in his hands. Thankfully Irwyn had plenty to spare since he was usually saving up his already high stipend, “It’s the booth over there,” Desir pointed towards a specific booth.

“I see,” Irwyn smiled “how about we give him a hard time, girls?”

“Definitely,” Elizabeth immediately agreed. She seemed to dislike people who looked down on Irwyn. Alice, in the end, didn’t squeeze out any words, but she did hesitantly nod, and her eyes clearly attempted to relay her honest gratitude to Irwyn.

“It’s actually here!” Elizabeth suddenly shouted just moments before the auction itself was about to begin. She had the catalogue of auctioned items, “A first-rate Time and space catalyst for the first trial, look,” and she pointed to one of the last items on the list. From then on they mostly passed the time by idle chatter.

During the auction itself Irwyn did not have much interest in the appearing items, however, he would bid whenever Barbarossa did, either winning the item Barbarossa wanted or forcing him to pay ridiculously inflated prices for the items he did end up obtaining. Alice still did not speak while all this happened, but Irwyn could clearly see that she relished in the moments when the Bearhide had to take significant losses. By the time the catalyst appeared Irwyn had spent about 500 gold coins. It was an astronomical sum for any commoners, enough to last a lifetime, but to house Blackburg it was just a drop in the ocean, and Irwyn was not too bad off either. 500 coins were more than worth it to make Alice feel better and perhaps trust him a bit more.

When the catalyst appeared on stage a barrage of prices was quickly called out: “50!” “90!” “150!” … “500”. Yet Irwyn had no intention of letting the items slip away.

“5000,” with a resolute voice he multiplied the current bid by 10. It was a clear declaration: He would have the item no matter what. After a few moments of silence it became the undisputed winning bid. Perhaps it appeared like an overkill, but that was not the point. Getting across the idea that when he really wanted something he was willing to sacrifice anything to get it was worth more than a few hundred coins he could have saved by slowly bidding. Money had only a limited use after all, influence and power were far more crucial.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” a presenter walked onto the stage, a moving pedestal in tow, “Today’s spectacle is almost over, but let us introduce our last item. I present to you a truly great rarity to collectors of all kind!” he announced and took off the lid of a box placed upon a pedestal. It revealed a long and thin black crystal, “This is nothing less than the highest quality empty power crystal! It is said that it could contain the entirety of an awakened being’s power if there was a siphon powerful enough to extract it. Unfortunately, its usefulness is similar to a lower grade power crystal, as the requirements to use its full potential are basically impossible to fulfill, but I am certain that there are many passionate collectors of all things awakened which will gladly take this item.”

The bids immediately began: “100!” “200!” “250!”... “1000!” the prices were higher than the catalyst for a simple reason: People at the peak of the 4th tier were always looking for clues about a possible breakthrough, and anything even remotely related to awakened could gift them that enlightenment.

However, Irwyn’s eyes were shining. It was not a reflection of light, nor an illusion, but Irwyn was genuinely visibly excited. Without any further hesitation and even a surge of mana infused into his voice he declared his price: “10,000!”