Unwilling to Leave

With the Beetle Claw greatsword submitted for repair and time to spare, Lu Yuan continued browsing the Gene Armament shop.

The wares on display were impressive. Beyond the staffs, he noticed elite-rank battle armor and longswords — gleaming, immaculate, and priced without exception at staggering figures.

Several Gene Warriors had gathered in front of these elite-rank displays. They stood there in silence, gazing upward, and more than a few had tears on their faces.

It wasn't hard to understand why.

A Gene Warrior carrying a common-rank gene inscription would fight tooth and nail for an entire day and manage perhaps thirty monster kills at most. Between Spirit Crystal drops and whatever materials the corpses yielded, that amounted to maybe a hundred or two hundred Spirit Crystals in daily income — less than a hundred if they were hunting pushovers like Gray Rock Beetles. For elite-rank warriors, the ceiling was higher: someone who really pushed themselves could clear over a hundred kills in a day and pull in a few hundred Spirit Crystals — but they still faced a very real chance of not coming back. Death was a routine occupational hazard, and survival was never guaranteed.

On top of that, elite warriors' spirit power ran dry eventually, and when it did, their combat effectiveness fell sharply. Gene Armaments took damage in every fight and needed regular repairs — no small expense. After accounting for the cost of basic healing serums, anything like a strength-enhancing potion had to be treated as a luxury. For the average Gene Warrior, ten thousand Spirit Crystals represented a substantial fortune. Only a rare handful of the truly powerful ever accumulated enough to purchase elite-rank Gene Armaments outright.

For most, it stayed a dream. The kind you could smile about for days.

Lu Yuan stood in front of a suit of battle armor tagged at 11,800 Spirit Crystals and fell into thought.

*Hmm. Should I pick up an elite-rank armor too?*

On paper, it was doable. He had a few thousand Spirit Crystals set aside and needed a few thousand more — less than a day's work at his current pace.

But his body couldn't take on another armament. He was already running a boss-tier Moonstone Gene Armament and an elite-rank greatsword simultaneously; equipping a suit of elite-rank armor on top of that would push his load beyond what his body could handle. Inadequate defense left you vulnerable to ambush — that much was true — but there were hard physiological limits to how much a warrior could carry.

*Common rank is fine for now.*

He thought it over, shook his head, and left without buying a thing.

He wandered Sandy Rock City at a leisurely pace. Before long he ducked into a general store and picked up a city map along with a basic guidebook.

Sandy Rock City was divided into four districts — north, south, east, and west — surrounding a central plaza. The plaza was the arrival point for newcomers; every Gene Warrior who came to Sandy Rock City for the first time materialized there. Each district held a collection of residential zones and the usual assortment of commercial shops. The city's overall footprint wasn't enormous, but with Gene Warriors from four races flowing through at any given time — easily tens of millions of them — demand for accommodation and services was massive.

Beyond the standard offerings, a few specialized facilities stood out: the dueling arena, favored by stronger warriors looking for real combat practice; the Entertainment City, which the vast majority of Gene Warriors frequented in their downtime; and the auction house, where rare and high-value items went under the hammer.

His current area was the south district, which happened to house the auction house. Though it technically fell within the south district, it was positioned close enough to the central plaza to feel like the heart of the city.

He followed the signs and found it without difficulty.

The auction house looked like a colossal stadium. All black, roughly two to three hundred meters across, a solid square structure rising from the ground. Because no auction was currently scheduled, the main gates stood shut. A side entrance, however, was open.

According to the map's notes, this side door was the entry point for Gene Warriors who wished to consign items.

Lu Yuan stepped inside. He couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer scale of the interior.

Just then, he caught sight of a strikingly handsome male elf Gene Warrior stepping away from the consignment counter.

He walked over with a friendly smile. "Hello, friend — mind if I ask you something?"

The elf glanced at him, an elegant smile crossing his face. "A human? You're the most handsome human I've ever seen. Are you quite sure you're not part elf?"

Everyone knew that elves were extreme beauty obsessives — it was practically their defining characteristic. Which was also precisely why the elf-gnoll relationship was even more contentious than the already strained human-gnoll dynamic.

Lu Yuan managed an expression that walked the exact line between awkward and polite. "I'm human."

The elf looked faintly regretful. "All right, then. What did you want to ask?"

"I was wondering when the last auction was held."

"Are you looking to attend?"

"Yes."

The elf gave him a brief appraising look. "Easy enough. The last auction was two months ago, so the next one won't be held for another ten months. One thing to keep in mind — those ten months are Land of Origin time. In real-world terms, that's roughly one month. If you're planning to attend, calculate your timing carefully or you'll miss it."

"Understood," Lu Yuan said, nodding. "I appreciate the heads-up."

The elf smiled once more and took his leave.

Lu Yuan reflected that while elves did carry a certain hauteur, they were perfectly easy to deal with if you spoke to them respectfully. He suspected his own appearance hadn't been irrelevant, either.

He turned his attention back to his situation. He had nothing to consign right now.

Oh — he suddenly remembered the pile of unsold materials sitting in his battle-mark space. But the consignment threshold was high; the minimum bar was an elite-rank Gene Armament, at the very least. The sort of thing people typically brought here was a lucky windfall — a Transcendent Gene obtained from a monster drop, for instance.

He thought about what he actually had to offer.

Honestly, not much.

The Black Steel Force technique, the Moonstone, and his greatsword could all theoretically command prices — but he needed every single one of them. His Moonstone Spirit Essence was certainly of auction-caliber quality, but he needed all of it for his own cultivation. Beyond those items, the only area where he genuinely exceeded the average Gene Warrior was in raw Spirit Crystal count.

Which he also couldn't spend freely, since the Evolution Cube needed to be recharged.

*I'll hope something good turns up later. Save it for the auction when it comes.*

And if he didn't manage to acquire a new Transcendent Gene through his own efforts, maybe the auction itself would have one available — worth keeping in mind when the time came. Either way, there was nearly a full real-world month before the next one. No urgency.

After leaving the auction house and wandering a while longer, fatigue caught up with him. The injuries from the trial had healed, but his body was still in the middle of recovery, and the sustained pressure of operating through Sandy Rock Palace's inner circle had taken something out of him as well.

He decided it was time to find lodging.

From the map, he could see that Sandy Rock City was densely supplied with residential zones — unsurprising, given the volume of Gene Warriors passing through. He found a C-rank zone quickly enough, exchanged a few words with the Construct at the entrance, and rented a single studio suite: high-tech bathroom fittings, luxurious furnishings, and a large, soft bed.

Forty-five Spirit Crystals a night.

That was on the higher end for C-rank zones, which ranged from 25 to 45 depending on floor space and interior finish — a bit more expensive than what Gelin had rented before. But if he could sleep comfortably, he wasn't going to be tight-fisted about it.

He located his room in the corridor — *C29122... this must be it* — swiped his key card against the jet-black lock, and heard a soft beep as the door swung open.

A proper studio suite: living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and a balcony. Over a hundred square meters in total. The living room had a jet-black leather sofa, a crystal chandelier blazing overhead, and decorations that looked expensive from every angle.

For someone who had spent a long stretch crammed into a shared apartment in the slums, it was genuinely moving.

He walked into the bedroom, looked at the wide bed dressed in white linens, and threw himself onto it in a full spread-eagle.

"This bed is *enormous*. And it's *incredibly* soft. And so *comfortable*... forty-five Spirit Crystals really isn't much at all."

He sank slowly into the mattress and let out a long, deeply satisfied sigh.

He slept well. The next morning, he returned to the Gene Armament shop and retrieved his Beetle Claw greatsword.

It came back looking brand new — not the faintest trace of damage remained. He couldn't help but reflect that the five hundred Spirit Crystals had been money very well spent.

With the sword in hand, he had no intention of leaving Sandy Rock City just yet.

For one thing, Hunters outside were already circling Gene Warriors who had visited the ruins, and he had built enough of a profile by now to be confident he was on someone's radar. The last thing he needed was to walk back into Sandy Rock Palace and find himself surrounded.

For another, his cultivation had surged dramatically since the trial. Fighting at full strength — in the dueling arena or anywhere else — would make it hard to conceal how much he had gained from the ruins. But holding back would make the training almost worthless.

*No point showing off now.*

He also reflected, not for the first time, that stumbling onto a chest during his very first run into the Gray Rock Forest and pulling out an elite-rank greatsword had been remarkable luck. More than he'd fully appreciated at the time.

This haul had been more than enough. There was no need to keep pushing in the short term. The right move was to wait for his body to recover, then work through all of his remaining Moonstone Spirit Essence — push his tempering toward ninety percent, break through to first-rank Warrior.

*About a month,* he estimated.

*Play it safe. Grow in the shadows. Dominate later.*

His routine took shape: study the force-application mechanics of Black Steel Force when he had free time; take walks around the city when he felt restless.

He had been planning to stop by the bar that evening.

Not — and this was important — because Zhuo Ming had mentioned he'd probably be popular there. That had nothing whatsoever to do with it. He was going purely as a discerning observer, to verify for himself whether the bar was really as full of attractive company as everyone claimed.

He was, after all, a man who had transcended base desires.

Even just dreaming about such things was enough to keep a man cheerful for days.

As it turned out, dusk arrived, and his allotted time in the Land of Origin came to an end.

He had no choice but to leave — somewhat reluctantly.