Chapter 349: Rosenblum, The Great City Of Tomorrow

After letting the driver know where he was going, the cab pulled away from the curb and merged into the elegant flow of Rosenblum traffic.

Lancet relaxed on the comfortable leather seat, the Grand Auction invitation resting casually against his thigh. He looked out the window to see the city eagerly showed off its immense wealth.

The towering trade spires, glowing holographic advertisements projecting high-end merchandise, and sealed cargo platforms gliding smoothly on overhead tracks above the civilian roads.

All of this was proof of Rosenblum’s other title: the City of Tomorrow.

Lancet was awed. He felt like a kid in Disneyland for the first time.

The driver caught his eye in the rearview mirror with a knowing smirk. "First time in Rosenblum?"

Lancet pulled his gaze from the window. "I guess it’s that obvious, huh?" he asked.

The man chuckled warmly. "A little. People who live here stop looking up after a while. Best city in the world if you have money. Worst city in the world if you don’t."

"That sounds like most cities," Lancet noted dryly, then smiled smally. "At least the bastion cities."

The driver, a lean man in his forties with a trimmed beard and a cap pulled low over his eyes, had the easy cadence of someone who had spent his life ferrying strangers and knew quite a lot about this place.

Sensing an opening, Lancet shifted the conversation. "What’s the rarest thing you’ve ever seen or heard sold here? Something you wouldn’t find anywhere else."

The driver whistled low, turning the wheel to navigate a busy intersection. "That depends on what you consider rare, but I saw a fragment of an Elder Wyrm heart auctioned through a private house six years ago.

"That thing was a Mythic Grade I heard. It was still beating, too. I heard it actively reacted whenever anyone with Dragon blood got close to the glass. Rumor said it went for more than twenty million Notes."

That astronomical figure finally caught Lancet’s undivided attention, prompting the driver to smirk again.

"Too rich for you? Good answer. But you see it all here. I mean dead Summoner catalysts are sold with the Summons still inside, beast eggs people swear belong to extinct species, and ancient weapons dug out of ruined kingdoms."

The driver chuckled. *I once saw a woman sell a mirror that supposedly showed the buyer the person most likely to kill them, and some paranoid noble bought it immediately."

Lancet looked out the window again, turning the driver’s words over in his mind. The only thing he cared about was the dead Summoner catalysts.

That was exactly why this opulent city mattered so much to his plans. But the world didn’t know back then that Spectra’s necklace was her catalyst. Summoners were still a rare Class Group in the Era of Rebirth.

It would definitely be sold as a possession of Spectra Hexerra, the Mother of Demons. As a catalyst? He would have to find out.

’I’ll also have to stop the sale as fast as I can. Whoever buys that is literally purchasing a Demon Lord.’

The driver’s eyes flicked back to the rearview mirror, dropping deliberately to the thick card resting on Lancet’s leg.

"So, the Grand Auction, huh? Everybody in Rosenblum knows it." He slowed the cab as they rounded a sweeping bend. "You don’t just walk into that place. Do you know an invitation like the one you’re holding can sell for thousands of Notes if the right person wants inside badly enough."

Lancet looked at the driver’s face in the mirror.

"That auction is the real deal," the man went on. "It’s where artifact brokers, relic traders, and black-market fences build connections worth millions. Half the city wants one of those cards."

Lancet’s eyes narrowed slightly. Out of nowhere, the casual atmosphere in the cab suddenly felt suffocating. The driver seemed way too interested in a card that he’d just learnt about a minute ago.

Glancing back outside, Lancet finally realized that the scenery had drastically changed. The extravagant commercial storefronts were completely gone, and all he saw now were shuttered warehouses and decaying, narrow side streets.

The bustling traffic had vanished entirely.

Lancet sat up straighter, rapidly replaying the route in his head. Renan’s invitation clearly listed Calamere Road as where the Grand Auction Dome was, and he distinctly remembered seeing that street sign several minutes ago.

"We’ve been driving for a while now," Lancet stated, trying not to sound hostile as it was possible the man had made an honest mistake. "The Grand Auction was supposed to be on Calamere Road, and we’ve already passed that, haven’t we?"

The driver’s eyes met his through the mirror, the friendly facade vanishing to reveal a cold, hardened glare.

Without a word of warning, the man slammed both feet onto the brakes. Lancet’s body jerked violently forward, the seatbelt locking tight across his chest as the vehicle screeched to a halt in the middle of the desolate street.

Heavy silence instantly filled the cab before the driver slowly turned his head to look over the seat.

"You’re not going to any Grand Auction, kid," he snarled. "That invitation is ours."

Lancet’s brows rose in confusion. "Ours?"

Before he could process the word usage, the door beside him was ripped violently open. A massive hand the size of a shovel seized his collar, yanking him sideways with bone-jarring force.

Lancet flew entirely out of the cab, his shoulder striking the unforgiving asphalt first. Pain flared through his arm as momentum carried him forward, forcing him to roll twice across the gritty street before slamming hard against the concrete curb.

Through the disorientation, Lancet realized his fingers were still locked in a death grip around the invitation. Grunting against the pain, he pushed himself up onto one elbow just as heavy footsteps closed the distance.

He looked up to find three men looming over him.

The giant who had thrown him from the vehicle easily stood over two meters tall, his thick neck and bulging arms wrapped in studded leather guards. The second man was shorter but possessed a barrel chest and a belt heavily laden with throwing knives. The driver casually rounded the front of the cab to join them, completely dropping his cabbie persona.

They looked like professional thieves. Bandits!

Lancet looked down at himself, sprawled in the dirt with a valuable letter clutched in his hand, surrounded by three opportunistic thugs.

He couldn’t help but sigh. "Three guys ganging up on me while I’m on the ground with a letter in my hand." He shook his head. " This is oddly nostalgic."

The driver laughed loudly, the giant chuckled, and the knife-wielder cracked his neck with a cruel grin.

"Sorry kid, but this is just going to be your welcome to Rosenblum, the great city of tomorrow," the shorter man sneered.

Ignoring the jest, Lancet steadily pushed himself to his feet and casually brushed the street dust from his shirt.

The driver’s smile vanished. "Hand over the invitation and everything valuable you’ve got. I don’t know where a kid like you got one of those, but that card is a key into the magic market business. We can steal many more artifacts using that."

The towering giant flexed his massive fingers threateningly. "You make this hard, you’re going to get hurt."

Lancet looked between the three confident bandits, entirely unimpressed. "So that’s the grand plan? You steal my invitation, waltz into a heavily guarded auction full of wealthy Awakeners and lethal nobles, and then simply steal more magical artifacts?"

The driver’s eyes hardened with annoyance. "You talk too much."

Lancet opened his empty hand. "No, I’m just making sure I fully understand how stupid this is."

The driver grinned. "You have no idea how powerful the Band of Bandits are."

Lancet rolled his eyes. "Eh, well I don’t really care."

In a flash, brilliant blue-white electricity snapped aggressively between Lancet’s fingers, crawling over his palm before instantly coalescing into a violently crackling ball of lightning.

The thugs froze. The giant took an involuntary step back, and the knife-wielder’s eyes bulged in shock. The driver stared at the volatile magic for a long moment before exhaling.

"Ah. An Awakener," he observed smoothly, shaking his head with a returning smirk. "Don’t worry. We have one of those."

At the driver’s signal, the shorter man confidently stepped forward. Lancet’s triumphant smile vanished as the thug’s body began a grotesque transformation.

First, his fists swelled rapidly out of proportion, the skin softening and expanding until his hands grew to nearly three times their normal size.

The flesh shifted into a translucent, gelatinous blue matter that quickly spread up his forearms.

Then his legs underwent the same horrifying change.

One foot split, followed quickly by the other, as the entire lower half of his body melted and stretched outward. Several gooey, viscous limbs spread wide beneath him, gripping the asphalt like the suckers of a massive octopus.

Lancet’s eyes widened as he instantly recognized what was in front of him.

That guy was a Beast Tamer utilizing the powers of his summon. A Slime!