"Did…did that auctioneer just speak in [Chaos]?" Zhen Xing asked with a wide-eyed expression of worry.

"Yes, yes, he did," Alicia confirmed through her shared senses with Sprocket.

"Okay… but what the heck is entropy? I never heard of these terms before," Zhen Tai commented.

None of the mortals in the auction house, not even those affiliated with the [Library of Nowhere], had ever heard of the term "entropy" before.

The only people in Valresta who may have tangentially heard of this term would be Otherlanders, but (un)fortunately, there were none in this current audience.

Regardless, once the crowd had heard the name of this strange meteoric ore, a potent feeling of greed began to bubble in their bellies.

If they could create a metal from this ore, a metal that could negate aether to the point of reversing it's very existence, then they could create either the most powerful weapon in the world that could break through any aether-based defense; or a piece of armor so amazing that it could block the attacks of even a Universe-grade aether art.

Alas, these ambitions went to the grave as soon as they heard one last important detail.

"Now, I know what you artisans are thinking," the auctioneer began to say. "You believe that once you get it to your workshops that you'll be able to figure out the method necessary to smelt this ore and replicate it's strange and wondrous properties, yes? That there must be at least some type of aether flame, some obscure technique that could be used to melt it down without reducing it to unusable slag? Well, I hate to break it to you lot...we haven't figured it out either. In fact, we have a list of things that didn't work."

Using some aether and snapping his fingers as a sign he was performing a trick, the auctioneer summoned a scroll that unfurled itself and listed off the hundreds of way they had attempted to process the ore before hand.

Needless to say, once the artisans with any form of interest saw this list, their hearts began to sink.

Especially when they saw that their specific method for forging metals was on that list.

"Godsdammit!"

"Seriously?!"

"That is quite literally my life's work..."

Upon the list, though, several of the artisans noticed that several entries had a question mark next to them, as if to indicate that these methods weren't completely ruled out.

Although, anyone with enough know-how who saw these methods would immediately recognize that there was one particularly fascinating thing to note: they all made use of dragon force.

"Now, I'm sure some of the sharper-eyed fellows out here have noticed that the list marks dragon force as being questionably viable. The reason for this special marking is because in the process of handling this ore, we discovered that dragon force made it possible to extract samples from it and process it to an extent. However, overexposure led to the ore being reduced to dust."

"Interesting…"

This news caused some artisans who only had tangential mastery over dragon force to become crestfallen, as they feared that being unable to control themselves could lead to them wasting time, money, and resources over a boondoggle.

As for those who had a touch more mastery… the reactions were rather mixed.

Those with a more martial inclination understood that this meant that whatever product was produced by this meteor would probably fall to pieces the moment dragon force was used against it in an aggressive manner, while those who had crafting at the forefront of their minds understood anyone would still be thrilled to own such an item due to dragon force being relatively rare.

Either way, this [Entropy] ore was going to be a rather…unusual auction.

"Due to the unusual nature of this material, we're going to be starting the bid at fifty thousand gold—"

"Three hundred thousand!"

"What the fuck?!"

"Already?!"

Well, it was going to be until Alicia decided to employ tactic three on how to win an auction.

There are precisely three ways to win an auction, regardless of the items in question.

The first is to be the only one interested in a particular item. If nobody else wants it, you might as well take it.

The second was to simply endure and hope your wallet doesn't break. Everyone had their limit; I simply prayed that yours wasn't too high in comparison.

And the last method, and the method that tended to work the best, was to simply make a bid so absurdly large in comparison to the initial bid, before anyone could make one, to force everyone to back off out of sheer shock.

Going for six times above the initial asking price was a very good way of doing so.

"Three hundred thousand gold pieces going once, going twice…sold! To the girl in the ponytail."

As the shock of the sale finally settled down, Axer turned a shocked gaze in her direction.

"Okay…why? I thought there was a plan!"

"Trust me on this," Alicia assured her bladesmithing friend. "Let's just say that we some people who can make this ore way more than what its worth."

… Oh boy...

'Status report. Are there any incidents at the other sites that require intervention from any of the other parties? Yes or no?'

[The materials auction is going fine, more or less. I mean, other than that weird chunk of ore that caused all of our senses to go on the fritz,] Razorstella reported. [Seriously, what the hell was that stuff?]

[A chunk of pure Chaos?]

[I say it's a trap.]

[Either way, we're going to have to tail Alicia and the others before things go sideways.]

'Be alert then. Hurricroak how about you? Any issues?'

[I'm...not entirely sure...]

'Elaborate?'

[Well...the good news is that not only does your girl Lyona have new threads, but so does Zhen Tai's girl, Taurna. They look very cute in their new outfits; I'm pretty sure you two are going to like them.]

'I...okay...'

[Also, I think we found an entrance to the underground portion of Rainbowden in the general market street.]

'Thats goo—wait a minute...what's the bad news?'

[The bad news is that we only found it when a riot broke out, a bunch of booths flipped over and a certain fragmented asshole exited from it in order to suppress said riot by sheer coincidence.]

'Were you guys caught up in the riot?'

[No, but Alice, Olstenna, and Antonio were.]

'FUCK!'

...Turning back the clock a bit…

"Any idea on how much longer the girls are going to take with their outfits? They've been in there for hours," Antonio complained to Alice. "This is why I don't use tailors, man; they look good, but they take forever."

At this statement, both Olstenna and Alice looked at Antonio with clear looks of concern and confusion.

"Then how the hell do you get your clothes?"

"Donation boxes and general stores," Antonio explained. "I buy oversized clothes and shrink them down until they fit. It's cheaper than trying to expand small clothes."

"That—"

*BANG!*

"Oh, hello!"

"Something interesting?!"

Before the duo could chide Antonio for his questionable life choices, the sound of trouble brought their attention back to their surroundings instead.

A stone's throw away from their location, the trio saw what appeared to be the start of a brewing riot.

One of the merchant booths was tossed over, which in turn caused scavengers, beggars, and other would-be bastards to suddenly swarm in an attempt to pocket items that clearly didn't belong to them.

However, that was only the start of the problems.

"Hey stop! Put that down!"

While the merchants who had their booth knocked over were doing their best to get their goods back from the crowds, another group of fellows were using them as a distraction to rob not only the panicking merchant but also the ones that were simply watching without interfering.

This was a classic case of using misdirection to obfuscate the true goal.

Now, if this trick was done on any other day, with witnesses that didn't give a shit about the misfortune of others, this little trick would've worked wonders.

However, that wasn't the case this time around.

At this moment, a trio of very bored, very battle-hungry aether warriors were at the very limit of their patience and wanted nothing more than to throw a couple of punches in order to get their blood pumping again.

And right now, they had a group of people that were practically begging for a beating.

"What do you think? Should we intervene now or wait until someone tries to do something bloody and stupid?" Alice asked her native compatriots.

"Small-time groups like this are unlikely to bring a knife to a situation like this," Antonio observed. "Way too many cases of someone accidentally pissing off the wrong bastards because they stabbed the child of some bigwig."

"That's not wrong, but… wait a minute, where did Miss Alice go?"