For my next show the auction house advertise that my new weapons all possess a second permanent buff when held. I walked into my booth and pulled out a favorite drinking chair from my ring. With my divine sense I lift the standard auction chair and push it back and put my own chair in it's place and sat down. I pulled out my breaching crystals and select the one that makes me look like a winged humanoid I saw few months ago. My elongate face which my nose simulates a tiny beak, and my six inch long pointed ears merge nicely with the pale white and black striped feathers for my hair. I have smaller tuff of feathers coming from the jaw line to completely outline my face in black and white. My face is covered with tiny deep dark brown feathers. I have slited yellow eyes inside red eyeballs. Then I activate privacy barrier ready for viewing restriction and I make my appearance known to all the guests.

As soon as I appear publicly in my vip booth, all the guest around me stop what they were doing as one called out politely "young sage!" and cup their hand and gives a formal bow to me. Being able to put in second permanent buff has really made my show attract a whole new level of clientele. These late and peak stage eight experts in lava suits all politely greet me, appearently they been informed of my ability to breach the appearance formation and put in a custom look so they have amused rocky grins instead of the surprise look the last time I was here.

Being able to add a second permanent buff is an extremely rare ability for humans, and have not been seen since the last era. Grandmasters of artificing this era have learned arrays late in their life when they have already spent their available potential on leveling up artificing. As such they find it extremely difficulty advance past the early basic array tiers so their artificing arrays never made it past tier five.

Kibari of the Red Mountain sect and Ruwafen of the Thunderclash sect are the current Sect leaders of these sect, both men are direct decendants of their founding ancestor. Both founding ancestors recieved their apprenticeship years in the last era and even recieved lessons from the some of grandmasters from that era. They survived the aftermath of the ending of the last era because they were still only stage six cultivators and didn't participate in the War to End all Things. Both created their own sects and pass their ancient knowledge to their decendants.

The secrets that their founding ancestors gave them made their sects become the two of the most powerful sects the world has ever seen in the world of artificing. These two sects have tier eight artificers among their younger generation, elders, hidden elders and ancestors. They have adapted this mentality to the cultivation world 'Don't worry we got your future needs in artificing covered!' and showcase that by advertising their tier eight artificers in the younger generation.

Tonight I join these two famous sects by producing a second buff for artifacts. I'm pretty sure the human supremacy activists are going to have convulsions when they get wind of me. I sigh, they are going to start advertising me whether or not I want them too. I wonder what I am going to do if they get out of hand with their foolish pride.

The mid stage eight experts I normally see around me have been displaced and now sitting in the row of booths below me. I see Walking Tall in his Lionman appearance, I had notice him while I was hacking into my vip booth restrictions. His booth was crowded with his friends asking him how he acquired the change in appearance and how much it cost him.

While the Drisksnapper's squid headed humanoid and Coralweaver Eldar Sea Serpent form has their booths filled with seafolk doing the interrogations as well. All three look extremely pleased by the fawning that I had to laugh at the sight, and realize I need to make a ton of breaching jade blanks to house the new product that going to be in high demand soon. With that in mind I fill a message jade with a list the required raw materials I need to make one hundred of them and then requested the serving girl to deliver it to management. She gives a cute bow and a crispy sing song voice rings out "at once young sage!" and takes off like a scared deer.

I cup my hand and give a slight bow to return the greetings to everyone and wonder how everyone now calls me young sage. Appearantly the news of my diverse crafting skills became public and the title young master no longer seem appropiate. After all that title is given to anyone who has locked down their young appearance by reaching stage six in cultivation, however for auction houses that title is also given to a stage six cultivator who also has master a crafting skill to at least tier five.

I had enter the auction house late because I didn't want to bother with the common auctions, so I arrived before my auctions would start. This way I could avoid the overly polite greetings everyone tends to give me when I appear in my vip booth. So I wave a last greeting and call out "my fellow cultivators, my auctions are about to begin" then I turn my attention to the stage's illusionary fireworks used to attract the audience attention that the main event is about to start.

I watch Mara sways up the ramp into view in a stunning purple and red dress, there are shear areas and many designed cut outs to resemble a rather naughty attire. It's a dress that stimulate a wicked look but still in a clean package as all the correct areas are properly covered over, as if a princess's dress been overhaul by a touch of naughtiness of darker passions. She walks the strip between the two ramps as the only hostess for my show and announces "good evening honored guests to my master's auctions!"

The audience go wild since this is the first time seeing her and all the vip guests look my way for conformation, so I smile and nod and provide "fairy Dancing Stream is my only disciple." This of course shocks the audience, but many quickly start collecting fawning points by greeting Mara properly with "fairy Dancing Stream, welcome to Karvallus!"

It's the name she given to herself when she broke through to stage seven at our home city as her dao name. So I don't hesitate to spread her dao name in public, I feel from our spiritual link she is smiling at me in appreciation. So I send over a qi pat that make her give me that face I so love, she happily enjoys me petting her and her face shows it with a great big grin of a smile.

That smile for me lights up the audience completely misunderstanding it for as smile for them and see another path to lavious to get me to make a weapon for them. All I can say it that Mara is going to have a lot of fun here with all the attention those stage eight experts are willing to go though just to get her attention. She plays a mean game of hard to get, I feel sorry for all those guys out there. She gonna grind them up for their treasures and in the end still say no for me.

The only thing I have to worry about is if Mara gets along with another female cultivator and then I have some custom work to do.

Mara laughs as she dances across the stage to give everyone a good view, and at the end of her impromtu dance she casually summons up a normal spear and quickly performs to the best of her mid stage seven cultivation can offer. She flawless performs several popular spear techniques for the audience's pleasure, but not exactly what the vips wanted to see.

But then she puts away the normal spear and pull out Wave Piercer and performs the exact same techniques. However, this time it peaks all the vip's interest as I watch them lean forward in both surprise and growing greed.

Wavepiercer emits spear hymms and goes into a flurry of spear moves that makes the attending males drool at it's wielder. With her mid tier seven cultivation, she expertly handles the complicated spear techniques to impress the spear users in the audience. While satisfying the perverts in us as she gives a glimpse of her black and red innerwear during her spins and jumps.

However the vip experts see something that the audience misses, her every move has a extra layer of attacks. But most importantly she possess an additional exchange despite spending the same amount of time displaying her spear forms. This improvement is more than enough for her to match an early stage eight expert in melee battle.

She completes her display with a resounding thud as she thumps the spear against the stage and offers "this mid tier eight water affinity war spear is called Wave Piercer! In my hands I am granted an extra exchange in battle and my water mastery is boosted to a whole new level. This is the first weapon my master offers tonight with two permanent buffs. It has also been given a mid tier eight battle skill called Water Dragon." She then points the spear away from me and initiates the battle technique.

We watch a snake of water shoot forth and begin spiral around the spear at increasing speeds, with each revolution the water snake doubles in size. In a moment of time it reaching maturity as it's ten foot maw roars out a challenge and Mara unleashes the Water Dragon that soar forwards into the sky and explodes into a deluge of rain that barely misses the edge of the crowd.

The terrifying mid tier eight water and spear qi that was unleashed was more than enough to peak all the experts interest. A quick scan with my divine sense tells me only a few of the experts in the lower booths seem confident to defend against that Water Dragon, the rest show a pale face of unconscious fear of the qi fallout that would have meant their doom if it was aimed at them.

Then she begins moving along the stage while thrusting the spear at imaginary targets causing delightful spear hymm to ring out with each thrust and informs "as you can hear, this spear is strong enough to emit spear hymms. As you all know weapons that produce hymms is consider the next stage of evolution for weapons. They produce and store vast amounts of weapon qi so their owner don't need to supply their own qi for conversion into weapon qi."

Of course all the experts already know this, but it's obvious that Mara is talking to the general audience so they bare with it. Other than to look up to give a humoring smile to the vip guests now and then to prove she has not forgotten them. But she dances around the stage displaying the spear is all it's glory is simply pure entertainment and no one complains as she teaches the audience. Her mid stage seven cultivation enhances her looks far more than the tier five and six hostesses that everyone is used to seeing. So tonight she the rarest eye candy to the starved eyes of this auction house.

As Mara continues her nimble footwork she then goes on with "Wavepiercer has been given a mid tier eight defense skill called Whirling Waters." Spinning the spear overhead a few times before smacking the butt of the spear on to the stage causes a flash of water erupts into a vortex of water and spear qi that forms a whirling sphere of watery annihilation around Mara.

I hear the experts discuss it's defense properties and are quite impressed despite being powered by a mid stage seven cultivator. The appraisal quickly turns to the spear hymm must store a significant amount of spear qi to allow a stage seven expert to use the spear to it's full potential.

Mara cancels the defense skill and as it dispates, Mara glides across to the other side of the stage and provides "Wavepiercer also has a wide area attack skill called Tsunami and is also a water escape technique called Undertow." There is no need to demonstrate because both water skills are well known popular choices for water artifacts.

I already notice the seafolk experts have their eyes glued on the spear and know it's going to turn into heavy bidding as soon as Mara finish the spear's introduction. Adding that water affinity mastery boost has made these seafolk expert drool in anticipation. Mara expertly read the vips emotions and ends her introduction smoothly with a swipe of her left hand to muffle the general audience and does a slow spin to make eye contact with many of the vip guests and announces "which honored guest would like to make the first bid for Wave Piercer?"

The vip booths exploded into action with bid including stage nine resources supplimented by rare medinical herbs and raw materials to sweeten the bid as much as possible. I've accepted bids just to acquire the rare items before, so now I pay attention to the rare items offers instead of gaining the most value for an auction. I've already given the auction house a great list of items I wanted when I first arrived, so it seems that info was leaked out for the right price.

The auction house sends gifts of materials to me every now and then with appreciation that my continued presense in the north workshop is making them a ton of profit. In fact they even went ahead and told me all information about me is current the number one seller as every stage eight expert has purchase various tid bits of info they have slowly disclosed. The gifts they have given me this past month is enough for me to produce three more weapons.

On the third auction someone adds a Light of the Divine to the current bid that makes my heart jump and send a telepathic message to Mara 'I'll take that offer!' and Mara smiles at me and hands out "congradulations on obtaining one of my master's weapons tonight senior! The auction for Wave Slicer is now over."

A lava suit cups his hands and utter "young sage, your too kind!"

Then I had notice another vip guest across from me seem disappointed, so out of curiosity I sent a telepathic message 'do you have a Light of the Divine as well?'

The lava dude snaps his face towards me and nods and I recieved 'yes I do!'

So I went with 'bid on any of the remaining auctions and I will accept your offer.'

My auctions are being won by these new faces who have far too many treasures to trade with, these late and peak stage eight experts must be collecting treasures and unable to trade them until now. This of course made me happier than I could be as I am gaining quite a number of resources for tier eight crafting. I just need one more material and I can craft my first armor set.

Most importantly I got another Light of the Divine for my third auction and a third one for Mara sooner than expected. So I couldn't wait to get back to my workshop and brew me a hellfire bath. Not really looking forward in being cooked alive all night long, but for every advantage gain in cultivation must be paid in one way or a failure that mars your cultivation and it's future potential. Cultivating has always been an all or nothing affair with the stakes growing with each stage of advancement.

So in the end I came away with two Light of the Divine and I cheerfully made my way back to my workshop with Mara hanging on to my left arm while babbling about how fun the auction was. She is so excited, I can't catch everything she says because she talks too fast when she is this excited. I'll have to back trace later to see what she's talking about after she is asleep. But I don't mind, seeing her so happy now just makes me smile. But I don't hesitate to play the game, and promptly interjects a few choice comments until leading to my trump card about allowing the pervs to see her innerwear.

But she fights back with a cute pose and stare at me with innocent doe like eyes "I was just showing you master! Not my problem if a bunch of pervs you surrounding yourself these days are around" then finalize that with a raise of a smirk.

I blink at her deciding I can't win against that pose and draw her in close to clamp down on her mouth to begin our nightly ritual of who is on top to end current game.

She pinches me lightly at my blocking her winning game and goes for enjoying the kiss instead for my win.