Walking passed the local stores dressed in a large body obscuring robe with the appearance of an elf, I approached the auction house. The auction house was a collection of seven buildings, consisting of a large five-story central stone colosseum shielded from the elements by a magically controllable stained glass roof. This central structure surrounded by six three-story-tall satellite domes, each dealing with a specific function. It was prominently located in the centre of the market and using its functions would complete two of my objectives at the same time, namely selling the escape beads and trading my non-counterfeit dracon coins for white coins.

After entering one of the small satellite domes, listed as 'coin exchange & item deposit', I approached an elven woman sitting an a desk in an alcove. Waiting for the cashier to notice my presence, I studied the board to her left listing the trade values for white coins. Each countries currency had a different trade value in a similar manner to my worlds stock market. The lowest trade rate was that of the wind spirit kingdom's gold coins at '22 to 1' while the holy dragon kingdom's coins were listed '10 to 1'.

The isle of mages currency was probably used as a standard of international currency trade due to scarcity and since the coins were produced from the dungeon at an average rate of one per day it was a predictable resource. After operating the dungeon for around eight hundred years and limiting the removal of the white coins from the isle under punishment of death, there were about 292000 fragments in circulation. Given it takes a hundred fragments to make a complete skill stone and a regular individual is only able to use five skill stones This stockpile is enough to max-skill 584 rankers and more than enough to cause an intergalactic sect war.

After gaining the recognition of the teller I approached. “I have some holy dragon gold coins I would like to trade and some Items I would like to sell to the auction house.”

Despite how suspiciously I was dressed, she acted normally, replying with a happy yet disinterested voice. “Could I please view both the currency and the auction item?”

I handed over 110 of my 116 gold coins and after waving a glass half-orb over them, confirming they were real, she collected them and handed me 11 white coins. Placing these coins into a space enchanted wallet earned me a look of respect and withdrawing an escape bead from my space enchanted belt gained her interest.

Placing the small bead on the table I explained, “This is an 'escape bead'. It's a high-level space magic enchanted protection device. You first have someone supply a steady stream of mana, and the bead will record the spatial coordinates. Then when either receiving a pulse of mana or the bead is destroyed, it will activate, teleporting the target to the saved location.” If the look she was giving me before was respect then her current stare was worship and I knew the reason why. These cashiers earned a commission on any object they entered into the auction and I appeared to be a walking goldmine.

With a flirty tone, she replied, “I will have to call someone over to appraise the item, would you please follow me to one of the VIP rooms?” Before grabbing my had and leading the way.

A hot elf in a maid uniform sexily swaying her hips as she led me to a secluded room. She was doing everything she could to show she was available from offering a tempting smile to drawing circles on the palm of my hand... And there was NOTHING I could do about it! The pheonixian remnant is like the ultimate reverse wingman.

Playing ignorant of the obvious, I ended up waiting alone in the VIP room for half an hour before an old dracon woman arrived. Being introduced by the now somewhat grumpy cashier as their auction house's best appraiser, the old woman began inspecting the item. Watching her spend an hour pointlessly trying to appraise an item well out of her pay grade, I grew bored and told her that since I had a hundred such beads, I was willing to let her use one as a test.

After waiting for yet another hour, the old woman returned informing me that the test was successful. They had determined that the starting price for the auction would be five white coins with a twenty percent commission for the house and a five percent commission going to the cashier. Accepting the price I placed the remaining 99 escape beads, still in the cheap spatial pouch onto the table before handing over my contact information and leaving the VIP room.

I almost wanted to cry as I overheard the cashier telling the old woman to provide me with a male butler upon my return as she believed me to be gay due to my inaction.

Leaving the exchange area I entered into another of the side domes. This venue was for selling displayed items whose value did not meet the requirements of the main auction and contained a selection of unidentified items. I started attempting to abusing identify, buying anything that was undervalued so as to resell it later. It only took about an hour to realise the problem, with so many high-level people around it was hard to find any bargains. While regular methods of Identification like the one used by the old dracon woman might no be able to tell what an item can do, it is very accurate at gauging the equivalent value of two inspected items. The main advantage of pheonixian identify was explaining exactly what an item was, how it can be used and why it has value. I did find some sealed items and a few hidden gems but they were more beneficial to me then the currency I could make reselling them.

Deciding to change my tactics I got some directions to the pleasure district and entered into a gambling hall. While not as large as the auction hall it equalled its grandeur with polished marble and fake gold inlays. Keeping my luck advantage in mind I perused the games offered and in the end I decided on a local game called Dishon.

This particular entertainment used eight small blind fish. these fish would be placed in one end of a maze-like tank and food would be placed at the goal. People would bet on the fish, when the betting finished the gate would open and the fish would swim to the food. First fish to the food wins and everyone who bet on that fish shares the kitty. All the fish are then returned to the main tank containing thousands of others before an ice mage changes the maze and another eight are scooped up and the cycle begins again.

The reason I chose this contest was that the blind fish use a system based echolocation ability to find their path to the food. Recently I had been practising using my luck generated system resources to change the outcome of system effects. Effectively going from it just passively weighting things in my favour to actively changing an outcome. Using it in this manner required immense concentration, making impossible during combat or while stressed and seemed to expend the 'luck', requiring it to recharge before I could do it again.

The fish for the round were collected and I decided to invest. Specifically choosing a fish that barely moved around the starting area and that no one else had picked, I placed half my white stones on it to win. The bookies laughed at my selection due to it being the most listless fish in the tank but still chose to match the coins in the kitty. After everyone was finished, the kitty sat at 60 white coins.

The race began and my fish leisurely swam in the opposite direction from the others. I had an almost guaranteed victory since the others were falling into a dead-end path that stopped just short of the food while my fish had selected the correct direction. This was not a coincidence as I had purposely distorted the information the system provided the other seven fish. Even this slight change seemed to drain a third of my 'luck' and would require about fifteen minutes of recovery. After watching another few games, I acted again, pocketing another 80 coins before leaving the venue as a 'lucky winner', not willing to risk the attention any more victories would bring.

After meeting up with the princess, whose haul had been less successful than mine, we headed to collect any profits from the auction before travelling back to the gambling hall. My last trip was not only to win some chump change but to scout out a major jackpot. All the time I wasn't manipulating Dishon I was experimenting with using my luck to change the results of their grand lottery located in the room opposite. Having worked out that I could at most force the selection of seven of the ten numbers, I had the princess select seven numbers unaware of what I was doing.

I placed our entire combined total of 420 white coins as collateral and the princess almost fainted. Looking at her I smiled and jokingly laughed “We've got this.”

The lottery was simple and consisted of a board containing two hundred numbers from which ten numbers would be magically selected and illuminated. Given that the magical sequence which selected the numbers was governed by the system it was a prime target for manipulation. The gamblers would choose between one and ten numbers before placing their bet. The more numbers selected the greater the return but a single incorrect number invalidated it all, making larger number combos nearly impossible. The returns started at five-time the bet for a single number doubling for each additional number to a total possible multiple of 2560.

As the board lit up and our numbers appeared the princess cheered while the staff looked over with both shock and worry. The whole reason I told the princess nothing was to make the emotions as real as possible. The gambling hall had an empath stationed to detect cheating, people with the empath class could not read minds but they could see real emotions as colour. Someone with a dull white glow but acting ecstatically happy was an easy way to find a cheat, but the princess would have probably been a bright neon pink and I had changed mine to match with Ki.

Since this place was backed by the isle itself, the payout was guaranteed. The staff, however, looked a little depressed since they had just seen their monthly bonuses go up in smoke. With 13440 white coins in hand, we bet and lost a few more times, with values ranging from twenty to two hundred slowly losing everyone attention and appearing to be just a random lucky win. Walking out of the hall with a total of just over 12000 we returned to our room.

Using a simple ritual we merged the fragments into skill stones destroying all bar six hundred in the process. Looking over the 114 smooth white orbs I realised we had just destroyed around four percent of the economy. Seeing how tightly the isle controlled the coins, I wondered how long it would take for this to be noticed.

Passing ten stones over to the princess, five for her and five for her familiar, we began absorbing them. The white orb would liquefy in the presence of mana or Ki and be absorbed into the skin of the creature with the matching signature. If no such being could be found or the person had reached the absorption limit, the stones would slowly congeal back into a solid. It was common practice in the higher layers to keep these stones in their liquid form contained within a bottle to prevent people from using them prior to purchase.

Absorbing the stones produced a sensation akin to being briefly dunked in ice-cold water and while not dangerous or painful, it was unpleasant. Unbeknownst to the princess, I was using a technique that would give me a chance of absorbing two instead of one, thus allowing extra skill chances. This technique succeeded twice bringing my total to seven.

The results were mixed for everyone involved. The princess's familiar gained the water breathing skill that was useless to a plant and four skill points that monsters can not use. The dumb turtle gained the mana star skill allowing it to generate its own mana, three pointless skill points and a mutation allowing the Sensory Shroud to mutate into the vastly superior Void Shroud.

The princess originally believed she had won the skill jackpot after earning the 'Gluttony' skill, believing it to be the legendary skill of the seven deadly demons tribe which allowed the demons to gain a portion of the strength from whatever they consumed. Unfortunately, it was only the Gluttony skill from the giant sloth that allowed one's stomach to digest food twice as fast. She also picked up Piercing Spell, a skill mutation turning it into Offensive Casting and two skill points.

My results were brilliant. Gaining a new skill, a skill fusion, a skill mutation and eight skill points.

The skill mutation was mundane, turning Energy Syphon into Energy Drain and allowing me to double my recovery at the cost or remaining stationary, while the new skill and skill fusion was incredible. The skill fusion was one normally only available on the 3rd layer or as the pompous jackasses living there call themselves 'the third tier'. It fused all three Blessing of Growth skills into the Origin of Potential.

This new skill traded the '1.3 point stat gain each level' with a '2 point stat gain each level AND doubled skill point gain'. Normally anyone who has the option to gain this skill has almost reached the peak of the universe, spending at least two layers building the foundation for this skill and hoping their gains across the last three layers are enough of a reward for their effort. Acquiring it normally involves spending three skill slots to gain the three blessings and then fifteen skill points to max them before compleating a Quest that requires one to meditate in seclusion for a hundred years focusing on nothing but their future goals and plans. Gaining this on the seventh layer means that by the time I reach the first tier I will have gained 60 free skill points and that’s without using the doubling rings. Luckily I also gained this skill from my first stone allowing me to double my skill point gains from the remaining stones as a bonus.

The new skill was False Life. This was a monster skill from the serpent of deception, normally unattainable for a human or elf. The snake that naturally has this skill lives in the higher layers and acts as a reverse predator. By using 'False Life' it can trick predators with 'Life Sense' into believing it is injured by trading its health for overhealth. When they attack this seemingly injured creature, they are attacked in kind and by using it's paralysing venom in combination with illusions and mind magic, it almost always wins.

Overhealth is a strange concept. Some advanced healing spells could go beyond healing a person's wounds and restoring their health barrier, actually providing a second barrier around the first. This additional barrier is called overhealth and has a few benefits normal health shielding does not, such as resistance to barrier piercing magic like space and being invisible to mid-level detection skills like life sense. It, however, is not perfect and pales when compared to normal health shielding when dealing with physical forces.

False life was strange in that it traded one for the other allowing a person to have one point of regular health but a maximum strength overhealth shield. Effectively allowing a person to switch between the two types as both a form of deception and an active form of defence. It immediately became apparent to me how to abuse this monster ability, I just needed to find the right familiar.