The Augment Auction was the specialty of King James Lycor. Nort had spent hundreds of years enslaving and breeding various monster and humanoid species. Archibald Schroder Lvl 50 Shade had come to the King with his ancestors notes, perfecting a way to implant monster parts onto humans. His ancestor perfected the method of animating the dead, whereas he was more interested in the animation of the living.

The trouble was, when the man had performed his soul transference into his phalactary he didnt have the manablood ingredient. He had used dragon bone dust to help complete the ritual, but his emotions didn't return on completion, giving him a problem with determining the morality of a situation. He didn't torture people on purpose, he just didn't care whether or not they were in pain. He understood that he was an extremist, but the ends justified the means. Bodies were just machines to him anymore. Patching different parts together made interesting creatures. Monster pets were all the rage about a decade prior. The fad died down when some of the nobles beloved pets didn't survive the procedures. He was still creating new hiddeous creatures as pets or familiars but they were sold in the Specialist Augment Auction, only available to the elite of the augmented, once yearly.

When the transference of monster parts took, the subject would often develop the magical capabilities of the animal they recieved powers. Most of the augments at the auction were mainly cosmetic. The most augmented of royalty were called the specialized. They were often incredibly powerful and versitile. The King himself had troll skin grafted over his unexposed body, his neckline turning from peach to grey under his neckline. Visably you could see he either had the Eagle Eye skill, or had Eagle eyes implanted. All of his augments were subtle. Instead of replacing his earlobes, he replaced his cochlea. He amassed power throughout his youth by secretly by funding Archibalds experiments and providing him with a steady flow of slaves. When he became an adult his augments became visable. His father became angry and had a little tumble out of his bedroom window.

The beastkin King Regent Gerard Drabish traveled with his court to visit the auctions bimonthly with the chosen members of his court. These augments were a gift to thier court members as awards for great feats. They were also a way of identifying important members of the court. But in Talah, these augments weren't persued for cosmetic means. The King would often gift his Arena champions with the more monstrous augments, with or against their will. Battles to the death were a way of life in Talah. Sometimes augments were what saved a persons life in the arena, and were a great boon. Sometimes they became quite the opposite. Stinger, a spearman champion had lost his legs to the jaws of a griffin. He went home after one auction with the lower body of a Scorpion. He became the deadliest Arena champion in the following months. As revered the man was, he was also feared and women were disgusted. Once he realized he would never have a love interest, he took his own life.

"Wasteful" was all the King could say as he sneered at the news. Then he looked up, hopeful.

"Have the body recycled on a new arena slave!" he said excitedly. Maybe this would be the time the beastkin figured out the transference procedure! But his specialists would soon botch the operation again, as usual.

"We can only try the operation to study how the procedure worked. The body we attach to the scorpion will most likely die." explained the rabbitkin alchemist blandly.

"Sometimes sacrifices are neccessary for the greater good of magic, of course." he nodded at him, waving him off, already thinking on a new pet he could mold.

Each augment presented was given a grade A through E. A being a top quality augment product with magical awakening possible, and E being a mild augment with little to no chance of magical awakening. Wings were an A class augment, and various other B through E augments had been prepared and readied for display. The auction always started with the lower augments and ended with the cherry on top, the A class augment, for the elites only to see. The invited were awarded a bidding fan with a letter on it, noting which augments they were allotted. There were various augments placed in each category, but only one A class augment would ever be presented per auction. And this auction was closed to the invited with the wrong letter bidding fan. As the bidding was happening on the 20th floor, spies were sneaking about the place to see what the elites had paid for if they could. It was the usual practice, and as it was harmless and provided decent hype and bidding wars, with enough of a bribe to the guards the hour before the presentation they would be persuaded to take a small "break" so the spies could evaluate the product ahead of time.

At the end of each augment auction there would be a hunt. Each of the previously augmented slaves would have their bonded parts removed and transferred to their new hosts, healed and dumped in the forest behind the castle. 50 other slaves would be chosen and set free to be chased along with them. Occasionally one would slip into a neighboring town, only to be recaptured and resold. Beastkin knew their own townsfolk, and didn't like visitors. Often when a town fell, the survivors would have trouble finding a new home unless they founded their own, which meant clearing monsters and having the guts to do so. Often in these new towns the beastkin would begin digging up and hiding stores of old monster bones. Their most lucrative products came from the Talah plains, the former battlegrounds of the Dragon Wars. Wolf packs settled in towns surrounding the plains, digging bones and crafting magical weapons and gear with them. Little did the beastkin know, the dragon bones their country harvested and sold to Nort was a key ingredient in the alchemy behind the augments.

Earlier before she had been rescued Jenny had been full of drugs laying face down on a surgical table. It was cold but she was so numb. Her back blazed in pain as it adjusted to the muscles of her new limbs. They flopped arounded in her deadened state as she shivered, strapped to the bed. The man who had been prodding and testing her all week came in for a final assessment.

"A grade, hmmm. And power. I can see the mana from here. Interesting. HEY A GRADE, FLEX YOUR WINGS" ordered her sour faced torturer. He never even bothered with her name. She was just flesh that talked. If she didn't respond, he would cut her flesh over and over only to heal it when she finally did. The first day she was there, before they made her a monster, she had almost bled out completely for refusing to speak. Her pride had broken easily under the torture, and the cutting began in earnest.

She tried to flex her wings but they just kinda slumped around her like she was carrying a weight far too heavy to lift. "Hmm" said Archibald as he shoved a metal tube in her arm and pushed some kind of swirling blue liquid in her veins. Jenny screamed in horror as her whole body felt every single cut that had happened throughout the week. "Yes. Yes. Very good. Now A Grade, Flex your wings." directed Archibald visably irritated with her screaming in pain. She flexed her wings wincing, her muscles invigorated, but the drug effect was dulled. "Excellent." he said as he recorded notes, while stabbing her wings with a scalpel to check their density and maleability. "Alright. Wash A grade and march it into Auction. It's time" he instructed his assistants. Unbeknownst to the other auction attendants, the auction for this A Grade was specialized this year, for the royal houses to view only. The future augments of royal family members were trying to be obscured from the public knowledge, to protect their defenses from being known.

Jenny was stripped and led naked shivering down a long damp hallway and into a dark room. Then the guards threw buckets of cold water on her until she was blue and sputtering for breath. They laughed as she choked on water rushing up her nose.

"She's like a stick figure. Her titties are small." jeered the fat slimy guard on the left.

"Maybe the boss will let us have her anyway before the hunt" the man with the pockmarked face said with a smarmy smile, as he began to grab at her breasts.

"Aye man, lay off her now we have to bucket her again. You got handprints on her and she's about to go on stage. Are you trying to get me killed!" the fatty said as he sloshed another bucket in her direction, making pockmark back off quickly to avoid getting wet.

"Alright, Alright." the fat pedophile conceded. "Maybe I'll catch her in the hunt this year. I can wait." he said leering at her. Jenny puked all over the ground between her and her captors, as the fat man laughed at her reaction to pockmarks advances. After another bucket of freezing water, pockmark toweled her off in a way that she didn't want to remember, and they led her onto the stage. As she was led on stage, she glimpsed a boy being led off the stage with dragonscales covering most of his body. She froze staring at the back of his head as he was led out of the room. He looked just like her Peter. Maybe he had survived? Maybe she should have looked harder. Maybe it wasn't his blood. What did it matter? If he even was here like her, they were both just helpless. She failed him. Failed him. She was a failure. failure. Maybe she deserved this? Maybe she needed to survive to make sure. Her story couldn't be over yet. Would a life as an enslaved monster be a life worth living?

After ten minutes of bidding the grasp on her circumstances was quite changed. Panicking, she realized that the new monstrous appendages that were now a part of her would be ripped off. Then they would placed onto the winning bidder, the Princess of Lycor, who was heavily congratulated at the end of the bid. Having her wings would be a boon for the country, they had said. After that she found out that her beautiful foxears would be clipped off and attached to a grand duchess of Talah. And as much as everyone sensed mana in her blood now, she was blocked from using it, as long as they kept pumping stuff into her blood. Weak. Weak. weak.

"I do have my own foxears, but how glamorous it will be to trade for exotic colors and a chance at new magics" the woman had gushed, right in front of Jenny. Jenny finally had enough and sneered at the woman.

The duchess laughed at her, "Oh you stupid fox. Don't you know? The final auction is for the rights to hunt you. They'll dump you in the labyrinth behind the castle. Nothing you can do will save you." She said, winking, enjoying explaining the foxgirl childs demise. Jennys face went white and she staggered back, only to bump into one of the magical surgeons who plunged another drug into her system. Her body went limp as her hands dropped from trying to preserve her modesty.

As Jenny was being carried back to her table to be rescued by Robert, King Lycor pulled King Regent Drabish to the corner to discuss a pressing matter.

"We have another matter to discuss as the leaders of our countries, and the leaders of magical acquisitions for our people, King Drabish. Everyone not of import to the development of our nations, please leave the room." King Lycor addressed the room with a wave, as if he was sweeping them away. Most of the women of the room exited.

"You certainly have my attention King Lycor, but is this so pressing of a matter?" speculated the Regent.

"Does a Manablood emergence sound like a pressing matter?" said King Lycor, raising his eyebrows.

"Manabloods, manabloods. They've been legends for centuries." he said shrugging the man off.

"Yes, but when 200 of our slaves collars fell off when a woman bled on them, while proclaiming herself a manablood."

"I'm sure it was just a stunt from the Elf King. He's just trying to stir things up again since we threw him out of the auction and sold his people." hedged the King Regent.

"Yes, but I had some of the blood from the collars tested and collected. It's the real thing." deadpanned King Lycor. King Drabish stared at the man.

"Can I see it?" he asked, like a kid asking for candy. King Lycor smiled. These men had been stragely friends for their whole lives, both taking over their countries. One by killing his father, the other by wrestling power from the stupid brat who was too young for the crown. They had supported each other on their hunt for more magic and organized their countries to futher their exploits. King Lycor grinned and tossed him the vial.

"Holy shit." he said, flabbergasted. "How long until the manablood hunt?" the foxkin King inquired, smiling a toothly smile while using his manasense to see the richness of the collected fluid inside.