Stygian Mage

Soren walked towards the ‘Myriad Items’ building after finishing his talk with Claude. Although what Claude said was something that concerned him too, he decided not to pay attention to it right now. The auction was about to start soon, and he didn’t want to miss it. So, removing all the extra thoughts, he went towards the ‘Myriad Items’.

The number of people walking on the streets kept increasing as Soren approached the building. It was obvious that most of them were there for the auction. Soren was a little surprised after seeing this as he hadn’t thought that the auction would be this big a deal. At the same time, he also became slightly anxious; the higher the number of people attending the auction would be, the lower his chances of getting what he wanted would become. He knew he couldn’t do anything about this anxiety at this moment, so he just decided to focus on the items that he wanted to buy.

The one thing that he absolutely had to buy was the ‘Frozen Crystal’ fruit. It was something that was vital for him, and so, he couldn’t afford to not buy it. Fortunately for him, it was going to be auctioned somewhat early. So, if he saved any crystals after buying it, he could focus on the next few things that he wanted to buy.

During his journey through these thoughts, he arrived at the ‘Myriad Items’ building. There was quite a crowd outside right now. After seeing this scene, Soren became even worried about his chances of buying anything. But keeping that thought out of his mind, for now, he just went inside the building. There was one thing that he wanted to do before the auction started. It was to convert all the Beast Cores he had into Mana Crystals.

Of course, he was not the only one that had this idea. There were many people inside the building too, selling their stuff for Mana Crystals. Some were selling old weapons; some were selling Beast materials; some were selling herbs; while some were selling different rare items. But most of them were there to sell Beast Cores. This was the item that was the easiest to get, easiest to carry, and easiest to sell.

…

As Soren told the unfamiliar shopkeeper that he wanted to sell Beast Cores, he was led to a different room through a corridor. As they were walking, the shopkeeper politely and patiently explained to Soren what the current situation was like.

Obviously, the ‘Myriad Items’ got a huge influx of these kinds of items whenever they organized an auction. So, they were quite prepared to deal with everything and had increased the number of people working there. There were also training sessions held to teach new employees about what to do and what not do while working. They were strictly taught about how to properly deal with the customers, and how to handle different situations that could arise during this time.

Right now, the number of people selling the Beast Cores was quite overwhelming so they were led to a different room to conduct their transactions.

Soren soon saw a crowded room full of people just trying to sell the Beast Cores. He then realized how many people had the same idea as him for earning Mana Crystals. But it was not a surprise either as it was the most efficient way to do so. Currently, anyone who wanted to sell Beast Cores was assigned to a different shopkeeper to speed up the transactions. Of course, there couldn’t be that many shopkeepers so each shopkeeper handled around 5 to 6 customers at once.

As Soren was getting familiar with the view inside the room, the shopkeeper that bought him in went towards another shopkeeper and then assigned her to Soren. She was only dealing with three customers currently so she was one of the free ones; comparatively.

…..

“How many Cores would you like to sell, Sir?” The female shopkeeper asked Soren after she was done with the other three customers.

Soren already knew the number of Cores he had so he answered without any wait, “85 Cores. Some are sealed but most of them are not. Give me an estimate.”

“Please wait a few moments while I calculate the price.” The female shopkeeper took the bag filled with Cores from Soren and then started checking them one by one. Of course, she was just checking their levels and if they were sealed or not, so it didn’t take much time.

While she was counting and checking the Cores, Soren waited there patiently. He sometimes looked around, just to see other people doing the same. These guys were very soon going to be his competitors. Although almost everyone here was a stranger to each other and had come alone, to Soren, they all felt like a single enemy. For him, they all combined into a single entity that he had to face alone; a fact that gave him a huge mental pressure. But he was unaware, or more like he knew it but couldn’t realize, that this was true for everyone present there. For them too, Soren was a part of the huge single entity that they had to face alone.

That became the reason that silence currently pervaded the room. The whole room was extremely quiet right now; except for the noises made during the conversation with the shopkeepers. All the customers were on edge, and it clearly showed in their attitude.

…..

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Sir. I have calculated the cost of these Cores and an approximate value comes to be around 10000 Low-Grade Mana Crystals.” The shopkeeper told Soren as she kept all the Cores back in the bag.

Soren had also made an estimate before and had arrived at the same number, so he had no complaints about it. He simply nodded and then gave the shopkeeper permission to continue with the transaction.

“How would you like to receive the Crystals, Sir?” The shopkeeper said the sentence that she had repeated at least a million times by now.

“Card, please.” Soren simply said. He asked for the crystals to be put into Card simply to make it more convenient for him. He was already aware that big shops like these or places where huge transactions occurred regularly had their own equipment to add the Crystals into the Mana Card. This feature was not unique to the Hunter’s Association.

“Would you like to take our Card instead, Sir? It has certain benefits that I could explain to you if you would allow me.” The female shopkeeper asked Soren the question that she had, once again, repeated a million times.

Soren was obviously not aware of the nightmares that she had during the training period. The situation had become so bad for her that she had even started keeping counts on how many times she had said these things in her dreams.

But regardless of her own nightmares and troubles, she repeated all the benefits like a pre-programmed robot after getting Soren’s permission. She could not make a mistake in these things even if she wanted to; these words were thoroughly engraved into them during the training, after all.

…

Basically, the benefits of using the ‘Myriad Items’ Card was about taxes and discounts. Soren was actually not aware that this world had the concept of taxes. But once he thought about the topic, it became obvious that if this world had Kingdoms and Empires, then taxes would automatically follow that.

Of course, the taxes on regular stuff were very low and generally, the customers didn’t even know that they were paying any taxes. This was because of the fact that the items and services already had the taxes calculated into the final price; the price that was told to the customers. Soren also found from the shopkeeper that this was because of the rule that their Kingdom had set in place. This rule dictated that shopkeepers were not allowed, under any circumstances, to reveal the amount of taxes to any customers.

This rule could be seen in both the good way and the bad way. The ‘good’ reason could be that it made the public happy and content that they were not paying any extra Crystals for the items or services they had bought, and in turn, they would be satisfied with their King and the Officials.

But at the same time, the ‘bad’ reason could be that it was done so that the Kingdom could increase the taxes anytime they wanted and wouldn’t have to worry about receiving the ire of the public. The public’s anger about the increase in the prices would all be released on the ones selling their stuff. Of course, people were not all that stupid, and most of them already knew about this. But since they were ‘supposed’ to be unaware of the taxes, they just followed that rule; as long as the prices didn’t spike to an uncomfortable level, at least.

…

Soren was slightly confused as to why the shopkeeper had started explaining all that stuff to him. How could he know, that it was because she was so frustrated, and just wanted to say something else; anything else. Even if it was about some of the boring stuff, she just wanted to change her words.

But moving on to the benefits, it was because the taxes on things like auction was quite different. No Kingdom could resist the number of Crystals an auction could bring them from taxes. And such, the taxes on any of the stuff bought in an auction was set to be about 10%. Here came the benefit that the female shopkeeper was talking about; it was that if the purchase was done by the Card provided by the ‘Myriad Items’ itself, then the tax on that item was not applicable.

This small move actually benefited all the three parties involved. This was because to get this privilege of having ‘No Taxes’, the ‘Myriad Items’ and many other such companies had paid the Kingdom a handsome amount of Crystals. This was to the benefit of the Kingdom as they got all the Crystals regardless of whether the stuff was bought or not and how much it was bought for.

By getting this privilege, such companies set up the system of having their own cards. But this Card was not the Mana Card and could only be used in their shop. This was to the benefit of the companies as the customers had to come back to their shop if they wanted to use that Card to buy anything.

But the customers also could not complain as they were obviously glad to not pay up the extra taxes that they had to pay normally. And this fact became their benefit.

The kingdom got all the Crystals, the Companies increased their regular customers, and the customers became happy by not having to pay the taxes; a win-win situation for all three.

On top of this, by using their Card, the customers also got a discount when the price went above a certain range. Soren wasn’t told the specifics about that discount but he got the gist of it. The benefits also included the fact that even if they lost the Card somehow, they could still issue another one with the exact amount of Crystals that was left on it; of course, this would make the previous Card obsolete.

This became possible only because they had to register their identity in the shop’s system when taking the Card for the first time. This was done for the customer’s convenience, or so the shopkeeper said.

…….

Soren was getting a little muddleheaded by listening to the shopkeeper yapping her mouth. It could have been done and over with a simple—“Would you like our Card, Sir? It will bring you benefits” said with a sly smile, but she still went on to explain all that stuff which was mostly useless for Soren.

Soren was not angry though; instead, he was slightly glad. This was because, without him realizing, his anxieties and worries he had about the auction had all been dissipated. Maybe it was because he saw how much stressed out that female shopkeeper was, and seeing a person in even more stress than he was, made him relaxed instead.

Regardless, Soren accepted the offer of the Card and registered himself in a matter of moments. The female shopkeeper was also happy to get a successful regular customer; he wasn’t now, but he would be because of the Card. Then she went on to explain some of the trivial stuff to Soren. This included the fact that this Card could be used at any branch of ‘Myriad Items’, regardless of the place.

Soren acknowledged all that and then bought a regular seat for the auction. There were V.I.P seats available with separate rooms but they were very expensive and not something that a Rank 0 Initiator could afford to buy. After paying for the seat and taking the ticket, Soren went on to add almost all his present Crystals to the shop’s Card. He would save a lot of Crystals by paying everything from the shop’s Card so he did that without any hesitation. He just kept a small number of Crystals with him to use it outside the shop and added the rest to that Card. The shopkeeper was also really happy to oblige and finished all the process extremely fast; in minutes if not seconds.

She finally handed a blue-colored glazed marble, the size of an adult’s palm, to Soren. He received it gladly and then kept it inside his jacket pocket.

As he was done with his business here, he decided to go to the venue of the auction. It was ‘Myriad Items’ auction so they were holding it in their own building; above the main shop.

Soren turned around and started walking back but then stopped and asked, “Can you tell me your name?”

The female shopkeeper was at first startled but then politely bowed and replied, “My name is Elisa. Nice to meet you, Sir”

Soren nodded and then walked away towards the place where the auction was to be held.

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