I was woken by the bids.
Not by Zeus — by the numbers themselves, which appeared in my field of vision with the insistence of a notification the system had decided I needed to see regardless of what I was doing. I was sleeping. The system disagreed.
Astronomical.
Far above what I had calculated when I put the stone up for auction with a one-day deadline and the expectation of receiving enough to rebuild the territory. This was more than enough. It was more than I had seen in a single figure since arriving at the Oasis.
It made sense, when I stopped to think about it. Nectars of exceptional or superior quality inherently carried a significant increase in status related to the creature of origin — it was the system's logic, simple and uncomplicated. An adult Chimera wasn't just strong. It was intelligent, with the specific intelligence of a strategic predator that had developed cognition over an existence long enough for cognition to become an evolutionary advantage. Its stone would carry that. Real intelligence was exceedingly rare in the Oasis — the kind of attribute that Lords paid any price to access, because money bought all other statuses with relative ease. Cognition was another category entirely.
"Even so… isn't this value too high?"
I stared at the numbers a while longer.
"Morgana, let's go to the market to collect the payment."
Unfortunately, despite having access to the numbers in real time via Zeus, the physical collection still required presence at the Counter — it was a system variable I couldn't work around. It didn't bother me. The market had its uses beyond the transaction itself.
As I made my way to the Counter, I pulled up the territory summary without breaking stride.
The screen appeared before my eyes before I finished the thought.
[ TERRITORY — SPARTA | QUADRANT 24B ]
CONSTRUCTIONS
Castle — level 2 | radius ~2km
Wall — level 4
Defense towers — 10 units | level 2 | automatic attack active
Houses — 10 units | level 3
Stable — level 1
Barracks — level 1
Hero's Temple — level 1
Mine — operational | within wall radius
CIVILIAN STRENGTH
Workers — 21 | level 3
Tamer — 1 | level 1
MILITARY STRENGTH
Heavy armor knights — 2 | level 2
Lancers — 3 | level 2
CREATURES
Urskra — 4 units | bond 99%
Adult male — level 5
Adult male — level 3
Adult female — level 2
Male cub — level 1
Cockatrice cub — level 2
HEROES
Morgana Briarwyn — Legendary | level 3
I closed the screen.
It was more than I had at any point since arriving at the Oasis. And it was less than I would need.
As I collected the payment at the counter, I was already calculating.
With that amount, medium-term objectives became the next few weeks. Walls at levels that would make conventional siege useless. Towers maximized to the system's limit. A permanent army instead of soldiers hastily built on the eve of battle.
But there was something missing.
Not supplies. Not defense. Not production.
Real power. The kind that can't be bought at a market or built in barracks — even at level 10. The kind that only comes from having someone at your side capable of changing the outcome of battles that money doesn't solve.
Morgana spoke before I finished the thought.
"Lord… why not evolve the Hero's Temple?"
I stopped.
It was simple. And it was brilliant in the way the best ideas are — not because nobody had thought of it before, but because I had been looking at the wrong problem.
Evolved temples significantly increased the probability that the second summoning would be the same level as the first — or higher. I had never considered it because most Lords summoned common or rare heroes, where temple evolution made marginal difference. But Morgana was legendary. The probability played in my favor in a way I had simply ignored by not stopping to calculate it.
"Morgana… do you have any idea who might come from your race?"
Summonings followed a proximity pattern — rarely the same race as the Lord, but frequently close to the already summoned hero. Dozens of theories existed for this. The most popular involved alignment of residual energy between souls of the same cycle. The most elaborate, dimensional affinity fields that I had never fully understood since no mathematics were involved.
For me, it had always made sense for a simpler reason: it would be very difficult to control heroes of enemy races, even with Lord power. Loyalty forced by system rarely applied to internal problems — and always focused on overall wellbeing, not obedience between peers, only to the Lord.
Cultural proximity reduced friction.
"I can't say, Lord. My race was never known for power."
She was right. Very few humanoid races were truly relevant in the Oasis — most existed in the records as footnotes, not protagonists.
"Speaking of which…" — she continued, with the tone of someone who had found something interesting and was eager to mention it. — "It seems there was a change in the Rankings this week."
A Rankings change was an exceptionally rare event. Races that had always been strong didn't stop being strong overnight — power accumulated over cycles didn't evaporate by accident. The problem wasn't the change itself, but what it signaled: influences shifting, the threads governing the strongest reverting to the edges. A Rankings change meant disruption. Disruption normally involved wars. Wars normally involved deaths — and deaths on a scale sufficient to move the Rankings didn't stay contained to a single quadrant.
I had consulted it a few times, but avoided spending too much time on it. Even being considered a cataclysmic event, it was extremely rare — rare enough that preventive concern cost more than it yielded.
I understood why Morgana had mentioned it. Something like this would affect us in the short or medium term, which only added one more reason to accelerate what needed to be accelerated. While I was still processing the implications, she added:
"Honestly, I don't understand half the races listed." — she said. — "The names are in the original languages. It's almost illegible."
I looked at the table.
"The third place are the Infernals. The former first place were the Aquamarines." — I paused at the last entry. — "The new first place… that writing is Stone Giant. Probably a colony — the structure is a short branch."
Morgana stared at me.
"You can read that?"
I scratched the back of my neck.
"In my world I was a language enthusiast. I always needed to compare versions of ancient texts… ended up studying languages that most consider dead. Nothing remarkable."
"Holy shit."
The voice wasn't hers.
✦
A man practically threw himself to my side with the specific energy of someone who had heard something they hadn't expected and decided that politeness was an unnecessary cost.
"Did I hear that right? You know what's written there without paying?"
The market was the only place with real life — conversation, chaos, the kind of interaction that the isolated territory didn't offer. I wasn't irritated.
"Would you mind telling me who is in eighth place?"
"Of course. Those are the Birmans."
The man's eyes widened. The smile disappeared.
"Want to make a deal that will help us both?"
I followed him to a more secluded area with the caution of someone who had learned that deals proposed by strangers in the market were rarely balanced for both sides. Then I noticed what accompanied him.
It wasn't an insect. It was a humanoid miniature — winged, luminous, with the presence of something that had chosen that form for a reason that wasn't decorative.
"A Feywild."
He broke into a wide smile.
"Impressive. Most people think she's just a useless little bug."
Feywild. Anyone who knew magic knew — they weren't weak. They were absurdly talented, with an affinity for pure magic that most races spent generations trying to develop and never reached. Rare. Perhaps epic depending on individual status.
The man in front of me was no simple curious passerby.
"Farrir."
"Leonidas." — I kept it short. In the market, names were currency, and I had no interest in spending more than necessary.
He smiled — like someone who had just confirmed something — inclined slightly, and pulled out a scroll.
"I intercepted a report. But I don't know what it says. How about we find out together?"
Interesting. But clearly he would gain more than I would — if the report was relevant to his territory, I would merely do the translation work and he would keep the real value of the information.
"One medium Nectar Stone."
He didn't even hesitate.
"Done."
I blinked. That was expensive — ridiculously expensive for a translation, the kind of price you charge when you know the other side will pay without negotiating. That he had accepted without blinking meant the scroll was worth more than a medium stone. It meant he knew that.
He handed over the parchment.
I was ready to say days. Perhaps a week.
The moment I unrolled the parchment, I froze.
Thick strokes. Aggressive lines. No pauses, no breathing — the writing itself was structured like an attack, each symbol occupying space with the assertiveness of a language that had been created by people who hadn't developed the concept of negotiation before developing the concept of war.
"Hey… what's that look? Can't you read it?" — Farrir frowned.
I raised my eyes slowly.
"No… I know exactly what's written here."
My stomach dropped.
Because that writing belonged to the only race I had hoped never to see in this region. A language made for war. For conquest. That had no business being here.
✦
"Zhur'kai."
Farrir froze.
"What? What about them… wait… you mean…"
"Yes. This text is from the Zhur'kai."
As I read aloud, the weight of what was written accumulated with the specific progression of bad news that gets worse as you understand the full context.
The Zhur'kai. Physically similar to Orcs as in human literature — giants, muscular, with the constitution of something that had evolved in an environment where strength was the only criterion that mattered. But reducing them to that was dangerous naivety. They were a plague in the most literal sense — they lived only for war, reproduced twice as fast as humans, had three or four times more children per cycle. If humans were already called a virus by some races, the Zhur'kai were the version that had developed none of the attributes that made humans tolerable.
Fortunately, they were disorganized. Brutal. Undisciplined. In the Oasis they rarely formed solid blocks of power — scattered, disconnected, without central leadership capable of turning numbers into coordinated force.
That was why they weren't taken very seriously.
Until now.
"The Zhur'kai have chosen a Lord-King." — my voice came out heavier than I expected. — "And they are advancing against human territory."
Silence.
Farrir went pale.
"Holy shit… but how? They never do that. They never respect authority enough to unite."
He was right. That had always been their fundamental weakness — absurd individual strength, zero collective strength. But the parchment was clear. Ancient orthography. Ritualistic structure. Formal war language with the specific formalism of a document that had been written to last, not to be read once and discarded.
It wasn't false.
I rolled the parchment slowly.
"How did you get this?"
That information was too valuable to be circulating freely. It was the kind of thing used to flee and leave others as a meat shield while you reorganized territory into a defensive position at a safe distance.
Farrir looked away for an instant. Then smiled — with the smile of someone who had decided that the answer to that question wasn't part of the deal.
"So that's what that old man was hiding… anyway, how I got it is beside the point."
He took something from his pocket.
An exceptional Chimera Nectar Stone. I recognized it immediately — the specific glow, the density, the weight that communicated its origin before any analysis confirmed it.
"It was you."
"I was coming to thank you personally and meet the star newcomer." — he smiled with the familiarity of someone who had decided we already knew each other. — "Who would have thought that besides being strong you'd also be useful."
"How did you find out?"
"Just had to wait for someone to collect a high amount at the counter and take a gamble." — he paused. — "I played a hunch and hit the jackpot."
He handed over the stone and took the parchment, rolling it slowly before putting it away.
"Here's your payment. And a piece of advice: prepare yourself."
His projection began to disappear.
"Farrir, wait—"
Too late. Gone.
Morgana remained at my side.
"Lord… do you believe this is true?"
"The writing is authentic. Ancient Zhur'kai language — the orthography is consistent with documents from the expansion period, not with contemporary forgery. Forging this would make no sense for anyone without access to records that most Lords never bothered with."
I breathed deeply.
"If it's a lie, we'll only lose time. If it's true… what we invest now will be the difference between living and dying."
The silence grew heavy with the specific weight of decisions that have no wrong and right option — only options with different consequences.