Risen World

Chapter 546: Dealing with two new Recruits Part 1

It was the day after Joshua had gone to the Universe Auction House with his friends and he was still reeling from a lot of the things he had seen being put up for auction. Although Joshua was surprised by the powerful sword that could tip the balance in any fight that was only the beginning of the ridiculous stuff he had seen at the auction house. Next came the giant Star Ship that was half the size of the moon and was equipped to change the climate and atmosphere of entire planets. Not to mention it came with several smaller and giant piloted robots that could be used as either weapons or construction workers apparently. Selene had explained to him that ships of that size needed giant robotic structures to even hope to carry new parts or to fix damaged areas.

After the auction Joshua had looked up the star ship that had been sold off in the auction through the Universe shop and could see the inside of it might as well have been multiple cities worth of areas created specifically for people to reside in. This star ship might as well have been a country in itself that could move through space. Hell that was probably underselling it just based off of the size of it. Even though the ship was a surprise to Joshua and his friends it was one that was much smaller than what came next.

The biggest surprise of the auction ended up being the fact that literal planets were being sold off. Joshua was comforted in the knowledge that these planets were not filled with intelligent life and in most cases were considered fossil planets. Fossil Planets were planets that either hadn't developed life yet or the life that had developed had long since gone instinct. The system never sold planets with life that had a chance of evolving on its own. Tera forming these planets gave them a chance to be artificially evolved at a much faster rate so that they became beneficial for their new owners.

As the auction had gone on there were a couple of other planets that were sold as well. The first planet that was put up for auction was sold for fifty billion universe coins. That seemed like a lot in Joshua's opinion, but according to Selene the buyer had gotten it for a good price. 'In the end an entire planet would more than make up for the price over hundreds of years let alone thousands.' Was the words she had told Joshua. He could somewhat understand that since the raw materials that could come from a planet along with what would be an entirely new environment that could create newly evolved beast would all eventually pay off the ridiculously high price.

When Joshua asked for a comparison in size of the planet that was sold to earth he found out that it was smaller in size, but was still more than big enough for people to live on if it was terraformed to having an atmosphere that they could sustain themselves in. It was about the size of mars which was surprising and got Joshua wondering how the system would handle such planets in their own solar system. The next two planets were both more expensive with the next one costing a hundred billion UC and being similar in size to earth along with already having a climate that looked like it could support all sorts of life. It was mostly a planet full of water with islands being the main source of land.

The last planet that was sold off to end the auction was one that was the size of Jupiter. Such a massive planet was valuable, but it didn't have any signs of life like the previous planet. Even so it was extremely valuable for its size and the freakish amount of raw materials that could be gained from it would be worthwhile alone. It still could be terraformed into something more valuable overtime as well. It ended up being sold for two hundred and fifty billion UC. In between such massive items being sold off their were skills and weapons along with smaller space ships, but it all just seemed small in comparison.

After such an ordeal Joshua decided to spend his last day before the meeting between the guilds getting to know his two latest recruits to the main portion of his guilds explorer party. He decided to have the little meeting at the dungeon turned garden that his guild was in control of since he hadn't checked up on the place in a while. There were also two tag alongs to this meeting for two completely different reasons. The first tag along was Grace who was going to be going to the garden to check up on it like usual. Joshua also wanted to test her to see just how far along she had come with the training she had been put through so that she could join the main group. She was getting the crash course, but she could only be leveled so fast without wasting away her potential.

The second tag along for this test was Lily. Joshua mainly asked her to come along since she would be perfect for observing Thomas and seeing how well he worked together with his own two beast companions. The two people that Joshua had decided might have a chance to join the main force of the alliance at this point were both from the tournament and were both people that Joshua had fought against. The first and most obvious recruit was Thomas. Joshua already knew that he had Thomas hooked to the idea of joining the guild before he even finished his match against him in the tournament. Thomas was already excited to work alongside another beast tamer and since Lily was the only other one in the hub city at the moment it came as no surprise that Thomas would want to come to their guild.

Thomas was an interesting recruit to have on board and he was already close to the point where he could be helpful on explorations. He was currently level sixty-seven which wasn't too far away from seventy. Once he passed that threshold he would be able to help out in their current level expeditions and Joshua was certain that he would be able to level up quickly with a little help. While coming to the garden and talking to Thomas, Joshua learned that his soul beast ability was what allowed him to suddenly empower his fox beast companion. The only issue with the ability at the moment was that it took a lot of concentration and basically left Thomas as a sitting duck that only had one beast companion around to defend him.

Another thing that Joshua learned about Thomas was that he currently only truly had two beast companions that were useful in combat. The fox and the squirrel both had their clear capabilities with the fox being more close combat oriented outside of its powerful flames while the squirrel was more of the support type. He hadn't really gained any other useful beast companions since he was a solo explorer that had trouble trying to tame beast on his own. He didn't have a soul beast that made it significantly easier for him to tame beast like Lily, so they were going to have to help him get some new beast companions along the way.

The other new recruit was a woman by the name of Celia. She was the knight that Joshua had fought in the preliminaries that gave him a decent fight and had the ability to form a concentrated shield that could block more powerful attacks that weren't wide scale. During the tournament she was only level sixty-two, but now she had already gained two levels and reached level sixty-four. She had apparently avoided sitting around and watching the tournament after being eliminated and instead went out to train with the free time she had waiting around for the tournament to end.

During his fight against Celia, Joshua had taken notice of her skill with a blade along with her well-honed instincts. She was to low level to put up a real fight against Joshua, but she reacted well to all of his tactics even if she wasn't able to overcome him in the end. Now that Joshua could see her with her helmet off he was able to see a rather homely beauty with large brown eyes and a more tanned skin tone to go along with her long wavy brown hair. She looked somewhat like a wonder woman type body wise with her taller stature standing at a couple inches over six feet and having a rather toned body.

Although all of these things made her an interesting recruit to bring into the guild it still wouldn't have been enough for her to be considered for the main exploration group. A good skill and a solid foundation would only have gotten her a shot at growing in one of the smaller guild exploration groups for a while until she proved herself, but her soul beast abilities were the main reason that Joshua wanted to bring her into the fold. Her soul beast was an odd form of a raccoon type beast. This soul beast gave her two important abilities that were both incredibly useful. One was the ability to increase any of her senses into a heightened state for a period of time. She could increase her hearing to stay alert for incoming hidden attacks, she could increase her sight to see long distances or increased detail, or she could increase her sense of smell to pin point dangerous fumes or poisons ahead of time.

This ability was extremely useful, but her other ability was the main reason Joshua figured she'd fit right in with the main group. Her soul beast granted her the ability to sense danger. It was one of the reasons she had such good instincts when fighting. She could sense the difference between a feint and an attack that was dangerous to her. In a group she would be helpful in all sorts of different situations with that ability and the group needed another knight type tank with Jayce being the only one at the moment.

After arriving at the garden Joshua brought everyone over to an open clearing and prepared to begin the testing process..