Finally the auction timer finished and he quickly started scanning the gear section, starting with the highest quality stuff. The only thing in it were items that others had found or made so the highest rarity was rare and there were only about a hundred or so of them. This meant that the items were mostly just things that people had found which meant that they all had weird effects. This was fascinating to Eli so he started going through each one, reading their description and trying to think of how they could be used. Half of the items were general use type, like a chain chest armor that would entirely stop one attack a day.

  The strange thing was a lot of the items had a bit in parentheses at the end that said ‘unreliable against transcendent magic’. He wondered if others could see that bit so he called Bethany over to ask her, she had been fighting James with one hand behind her back and no weapon. She came over and told him that she checked with others and only him and her could see it that she knew of. This was probably because they had access to that kind of magic. He sent her back to sparing and went back to looking at the items.

  The other types of items were very niche, like water breathing, enhancing one kind of magic, or even some that only enhance a specific kind of spell. For example, there were gloves that increased the effectiveness of spells that buffed weapons. He kept scrolling just enjoying the new information about what kind of things were out there until he came to a necklace. He almost bought it right away since it wasn’t terribly expensive, but he hesitated. The necklace would increase health regeneration, but it did it by digging itself into your body. It was a pendant, like a 4 inch circle with needle like tendrils that would borrow into your skin, directly causing a buff of increased regeneration into the body.

  He liked the effect but after thinking about it, he doubted his body would benefit much from it. After scrolling through all of the rare items, the lower rarity items were just boring, so he went through some of his favorites in the rare section again and found a pair of earrings that improved perception. They were simple studs with black and white gems attached, he thought they would be useful, but not for himself, they would be for Bethany. He bought them for 22 million in system money and they appeared in his inventory. He was so happy with his purchase that he forgot about the auction timer and after ten or so minutes the time ran out.

  Standing and walking over to James, he watched Stacy’s exhausted, barely standing fight against a no armed Bethany.

  “How long has she been fighting?” he asked James.

  “About fifteen minutes. She isn’t really a fighter, or at least I haven’t seen her fight much.” James responded.

  Bethany saw Eli talking to James and stopped the fight, “That’s enough, I’ve seen what I need to see.”

  Stacy collapsed to the ground and just lay in the dirt panting and sweaty. “Ok, I’m just gonna lay here for a minute and catch my breath.” She said in between pants.

  James stayed where he was and Eli walked out to meet Bethany, this way they could talk in private, or at least seem to since they could easily be overheard. “How did they do?” Eli asked, then paused and pulled out the earrings. “Oh, and before I forget, I got you these.” He held them out for her to take.

  “Oh, not bad,” Bethany said, taking them and looking at them closely, “Perception, nice. Thank you. Did you find anything for yourself?”

  “No, anything lower than rare rarity will just break when I equip it so there wasn’t much to choose from. So how did our prospective recruits do, are they worth our time?” Eli asked.

  Bethany took off a bracelet and was putting on the earrings and answered, “Yes and no, James has potential, would need a weapon with a longer reach, but I could train him a bit. Once he gets into his own fighting style he would give Cody and Beau a run for their money. His biggest advantage is flow and adaptation. I kept doing things to throw off the flow of the fight but he adjusted very quickly.”

  “Great, we just have to see if we made a good enough impression so that he will want to join. What about Stacy?” Eli said, seemingly more curious about her.

  “She seems like more of an all-around kind of fighter, mixing magic and melee together. She is definitely using the wrong weapon, but her reflexes and foot work are really solid.” Bethany explained.

  “Ok, so what’s the problem?” Eli asked.

  “Well, out of everyone, you would really be the only one who could train her properly.” Bethany said and quickly continued to cut him off. “I know you would say it's not a problem, but it is. You aren’t just some guy, your direct apprentice would be someone with an incredible advantage and access. It shouldn’t be just some girl we found.”

  “Look, let's start off by demonstrating what we can do, then see if they want to join. If they want to, then we can talk about if she is worthy or not.”

  Bethany tapped her chin in thought, “Fine, but I still don’t think it will matter.”

  “We will see,” Eli motioned for James to join them, and Bethany went and helped Stacy up and they joined.

  “First,” Bethany said, “Me and Ash will show you a glimpse of what you would be getting yourself into, then you can tell me how amazing I am and beg me to join us.”

  Eli rolled his eyes but was smirking happily at her antics, she always did have a way of being a total pain while making him smile at the same time. Bethany walked away a bit holding her spear, once she was far enough away she faced one of the cliffs near the lake, took a stance, then vanished. A split second later the cliff exploded and showered the whole lake and stony ramp in debris, with some boulders as large as a car falling. Bethany walked out from where the explosion had happened without so much as a mote of dust on her new black armor. Stacy and James looked like their brains had short-circuited, with blank stares and jaws open in surprise. The entire place was no longer recognizable and as Bethany turned around, she seemed to nod to herself in satisfaction.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The lake had been bigger than a football field with cliffs on all four sides except the stone and gravel ramp about 50 feet wide that led down to it on one corner. Now the ramp was half filled with boulders, the shallow part of the lake near the ramp was almost filled in and there was a crater the size of a mansion to the side of the ramp where it met the water. Eli waited for all the dust to settle and for the two potential recruits to come back to reality, he wanted them to understand the scale of what he dealt with so that they could be fully informed on who and what they were joining. If they didn’t grasp it it would be far more likely that they quit or die and he didn’t want that, he was still a little upset at losing Audrey, so he didn’t want to bring anyone in unless they knew what the deal was going to be.

  “Ok,” Eli said in an exaggerated stage voice. “Our next display will be one of raw magic power. As I keep growing in strength this will be the kinds of things my followers,” he paused to correct himself. “I mean my friends will be able to achieve.”

  Bethany shook her head, “It kind of ruins the mysticism of the whole thing if you introduce yourself like a carnival barker.”

  “Don’t mind her, she has no sense of showmanship.” Eli retorted. He didn’t know anything about showmanship either but he figured if he was going to be a god, he might as well start acting like it's a big deal to see him do things.

  Eli walked away in the opposite direction that Bethany had walked but was still on the ramp so he wasn’t even with the ground level outside of the sink-hole lake. Not wanting to have to wait days to recover his magic he tempered his transcendent skill, ‘Singularity Annihilation’ down to only about 60% of his magic reserves. With the world's current ambient magic in the wilderness, he could go from empty to full in about 4 to 5 hours. His regeneration was higher but the ambient magic played a role in how fast he could absorb it. Eli released any pretense of hiding his nature or his power and began focusing on the magic, the air around him became hazy and arcs of purple lightning popped as they jumped from him to the ground or just random points in the air.

  In reality, if this was an emergency or an intense fight, he could fire the skill in just a few moments, but it wouldn’t have the control he was forcing on it now. After about 6 or 7 seconds, he fired the skill, there was a blinding light, then nothing. No sound, no extra magic flying around, and no more matter in front of him, or for as far as he could see in a direct straight line. The cylinder of nothingness was about 4 feet wide and at the direct center of that cylinder for its whole length was a thread sized line of black. It would dissipate but it was a wound in reality leftover from the use of his magic. The absolute silence of it, like it absorbed all noise for a second was uncanny and the off-putting feeling you got from looking at the thread in the middle of the aftermath just made it worse.

  Eli walked back to the group and Bethany started talking, mostly to ease the tension. “What was that, like 80% of your magic?”

  “60, it takes a long time to set it up in a controlled way so it doesn't empty me out for days. But I think with a bit more practice, I could fire something like that off in under 3 seconds.” As Eli was talking he was pulling his presence and power back into himself with his will, just another thing that took active attention just so he could appear normal. He even pulled his eyes back in since he wanted the practice.

  Eli and Bethany just kind of stared at the two, waiting to see if they were going to run, scream, pass-out, or anything like that. Bethany was a bit shaken by it and she was three times their strength and had seen it before. She found her balance again after about thirty seconds or so, but the two were just kind of blankly staring into the distance.

  “I think you broke them,” Bethany said. “Maybe don’t show the next new people that.”

  “Smart thinking, beauty and brains, no wonder I keep you around.” Eli said as he pulled her in for a kiss. He was trying to be distracting since both of them were worried that they had broken the newcomers' brains.

  “Well I certainly don’t cook or clean for you so that has to be it,” She responded and kissed him some more.

  Just as their hands were starting to wonder at each other, forgetting that they had an audience, James spoke up first. “So, we could get that strong?”

  “Maybe,” Bethany said, she had stopped kissing Eli but wasn’t about to let him go so she kept her arms around him. “It would depend on effort, training, potential, and surviving all the crazy we deal with.”

  “What kind of crazy?” Stacy asked, seemingly only snapping out of it after Bethany said crazy.

  “Well, Ash here is a Demi-God, and the system seems to pay him very focused attention. It makes monster hordes harder, dungeons harder, random stuff in between. We don’t have it all figured out yet, but basically, he doesn't like it when he sits still too long so he has to keep pushing for more power or insanity to find him, and all of us.”

  “I’ll have you know that I stay very busy.” Eli said in an attempt to defend himself.

  “Like those five days after you became a god were we just had sex in a hot spring the whole time.” Bethany fired back at him.

  “I needed my rest, becoming a god can really wear you out, but then again, you know all about wearing me out don’t you.” Eli said with a cheeky grim and they started kissing again.

  “Excuse me,” Stacy said to interrupt them, “as hot as it is to watch you too grope each other, could we get back on topic.”

  The two separated and got the conversation going again. “So, nothing final yet, but are you two interested?”

  They looked at each other and hesitated, then Stacy spoke up, “Tentatively, yes, but I want to know more about expectations and rules that your followers are expected to, um, follow.”

  “We have three rules,” Eli said, fading back into his showmanship style of talking.

  “No we don’t,” Bethany said.

  “The first rule is, no killing without my or Bethany's permission.” Eli stated.

  “Who have you told these rules to?” Bethany asked.

  “The second rule is, do not act in such a way that brings shame to the group.”

  “You're just making these up right now aren’t you.” Bethany asked, putting her hands over her face and shaking her head.

  “The third rule is,” Eli said, he was doing his very best to ignore Bethany, but she was doing well matching his timing for the whole bit they had going on. He was really in love with her. Suddenly, he was startled by his own thoughts, but he quickly recovered and continued. “Before anything else, the most important thing is, no matter how strong we become, we keep our humanity.” He said punctuating the last few words.

  “That last rule is really just for you,” Bethany said, with a bit of an attitude.

  “Well, I’m at the top, where rules are needed most.” Eli said as if he had just come up with the most profound thing ever.

  “The top of what…” She was about to make another flippant remark, but stopped when she saw that he was looking at her, and for the first time ever, he didn’t have a friendly expression.

  “Those of us at the top of the power scale need the most restrictions. I intend to see to it personally!” Eli said with a biting edge in his words that became a physical feeling aimed at Bethany. Her whole body shook as if she was naked in a snow storm, but the sensation passed after only a second. She looked at the newbies and they seemed to have not noticed anything, like that whole exchange between them hadn’t just happened.