Chapter 121: Method One and Two

Jaxir stared at the pair of underwear in his hand for several seconds before putting it away. Whatever patience he’d had for the Velorian Merchant Group was disappearing quickly, and if there really was a way to game this selection process, he was going to find it and fleece them for everything they were worth.

The lights returned around him almost immediately, and this time the timer reset to a full minute. That was the good news, while the bad news was that his head still felt heavy and focusing on the hundreds of motes was becoming harder by the second.

Jaxir forced himself to sit straight and started thinking through what he actually had available. Looking for the faint difference he’d noticed before had worked once, but he couldn’t even explain what he’d sensed, so he needed something more reliable before the timer ran out again.

His thoughts went to Sparkle Mana.

He’d already learned that its relationships could tell him about weight, force and how different things pulled against one another. If the lights represented real objects, then there had to be some difference in the weight of those objects, or at least in the Mana connecting the selection mote to whatever was hidden behind it.

Jaxir spread his Mana carefully and felt for those relationships instead of relying on his eyes. The difference appeared almost immediately, with thin strings of Mana stretching away from the floating lights, some carrying almost nothing while others had far more weight behind them.

His eyes sharpened despite the fatigue.

That was much better.

Jaxir moved his attention across the room, comparing one string after another while the timer continued falling. He could already feel his concentration slipping again, so he stopped trying to understand everything and focused on finding the heaviest connection he could sense.

There.

One of the strings pulled harder than all the others.

Jaxir selected the mote before his thoughts could slow any further, and the surrounding lights immediately vanished as his choice floated toward him. He waited for whatever was attached to it to appear, already wondering just how expensive an item needed to be before its weight stood out that much.

The light faded.

Nothing appeared.

Jaxir stared at his empty hands while fury rose through his chest. He had chosen the heaviest connection in the entire room, and somehow the result was absolutely nothing.

"Fuck you."

The lights started appearing again while a new 60-second timer formed in front of him. Jaxir wanted to tear the entire selection room apart at that point, but even getting angry was making the pressure in his head worse instead of waking him up.

His eyes kept trying to close.

He had still walked away from the eating challenge with more than 1,000,000 silver, free food for life and whatever that pair of underwear actually were, so he hadn’t exactly lost. But none of that mattered to him right now, because he had earned 3 treasure selections and these people were making him feel like they were cheating him out of them.

Every second counted.

Jaxir had spent years doing nothing while his life collapsed around him, and he had already decided that version of himself was finished. He wasn’t going to start quitting again just because he was tired, especially when his body hadn’t actually given out on him yet.

He forced his eyes open wider and looked through the lights one more time. His Sparkle Mana spread through the room again, finding the different strings while he tried to remember what had separated the underwear from everything else during the first selection.

Something had caught his eye.

Jaxir hadn’t understood it at the time, but the first mote hadn’t simply looked different. There had been a faint feeling attached to it, something his exhausted mind had noticed before he had any idea what he was supposed to be searching for.

He went back through the weighted strings while holding onto that memory.

The timer passed 20 seconds.

Jaxir’s head dipped for a moment before he caught himself, and when he looked up again, one of the lights near the edge of his vision pulled his attention toward it. He recognized that same faint difference from before, but this time his Sparkle Mana was already wrapped around the room.

His eyes flashed.

That mote had weight too.

Jaxir compared it against the others and realized it was the fourth heaviest string in the room, one he’d already passed over during his last search because 3 others had felt stronger. The heaviest had given him nothing, though, while the only selection that had actually produced an item was the one he’d chosen after noticing that other strange feeling.

Maybe neither method was supposed to work alone.

The timer dropped under 10 seconds while Jaxir tried to keep his focus on the mote. His thoughts were dragging now, but the connection made too much sense to ignore when the alternatives were choosing randomly or trusting weight after it had already failed him.

His first method had worked if it managed to get him an item at all, while the second method had failed miserably. But logically speaking, it should have had some merit to it. His logic was sound, so why didn’t it work?

The only explanation was that the merchant group had purposely used dummies to fool him, expecting most people to use the weight of mana to decide which items to choose.

But... what if he used both method one and two?

The timer nearly touched zero as his fingers closed around it, and the room went dark before he could tell whether he’d been right. A moment later, something solid dropped into his palm.

Jaxir barely registered the weight.

His mind had reached its limit, and the only thought he managed was to pull the item into his inventory before his eyes closed. His body slumped back into the chair as consciousness disappeared.

What Jaxir didn’t notice was the building shaking the moment the item entered his inventory.