Stygian Mage

Soren exclaimed in surprise as he saw the huge hall that was shaped like an amphitheater. This was the place where the auction was supposed to happen. He marveled in the grandness of the hall which was slowly being replaced by the increasing chatter of the people. He had his ticket in hand and knew that he had to find his seat accordingly. The number written on his ticket was G18. After confirming that the alphabet corresponded to the row number, Soren went towards his seat number—18.

The hall had become a little crowded by now so it took him some time and effort to finally reach his seat. The seat was quite different than what he had imagined. It was not a simple place to just sit. It was built like a sofa with a high back, and enough space for two people to fit in easily. The whole thing was covered in gray fur and looked very comfortable to sit on. The right and the left side of the armrest actually had a screen panel attached in, which seemingly was used to control the bids; they also had a slot under them for the purpose of inserting a card. The number ‘G18’ was painted on the high back support in dark black color for people to easily spot it. It was also in a higher position so people could see it even with someone sitting there.

…

The center of the hall had a round platform with big screens installed in a circle, just above it; there were multiple screens, one for each direction it seemed. Right now, there were some people on that platform performing a last check of everything before the auction started.

After taking a good look around, Soren sat down on the comfortable sofa with his head resting on the soft back, and his eyes closed. There were still a few minutes left before the auction started and Soren wanted to just relax his mind before that. He knew it wasn’t going to be that easy taking the stuff that he wanted from all these people. Before coming to his seat, he had seen the V.I.P rooms on top which had black glasses covering it for the sake of privacy. He knew that whoever had rented those rooms would not be someone that he could go against—economically and physically. But these things didn’t mean he was going to give up. Although at this point, only having more Mana Crystals could work in his favor, he still had some plans up his sleeve to achieve his purpose.

It was nothing grand as there was no place for such plans in an auction. It was a simple trick that could work on just one basis—information. Actually, Soren had not come to the auction hall directly after selling his stuff. He had gone to look for the shopkeeper that had dealt with him before. Of course, the shopkeeper didn’t recognize him but he did ‘recognize’ the Mana Crystals. It cost Soren 100 Low-Grade Mana Crystals, almost all the Crystals he was left with, to get the information about the wealthy people and the Families taking part in today’s auction; though, the shopkeeper kept refusing to reveal any information about some specific Families and Organizations, much to Soren’s confusion.

It was not that other people could not think of this, rather they didn’t do it out of choice. Based on one fact—if you could get information about someone else, they could also get information about you. So, they were simply unwilling to take the risk. But Soren knew that many people were like him and had actually bought information from some source. These people had one thing in common though; none of them had any establishment in this place.

Basically, they didn’t care if some Family got pissed and decided to come after them, they just had to run away fast. And the reason Soren had taken the risk to become like them was that he had already decided that he was not going to stay in this place anymore. Buying the Frozen Crystal would give him the chance to break the Blood Contract and that would remove his link with the Liston Family. The Curse Spell that Smiley told him about could only work if he was linked to them in some way. Removing the shackles of Blood Contract would destroy that link, giving him his freedom back.

As for the revenge against the Liston Family, he had decided not to act against them for the time being. From the information he got from Smiley, he knew that the Liston Family had four Rank 1 Initiators. According to what he knew, even after he became Rank 1, he would have a hard time surviving against four Rank 1 Initiators at once; let alone beat them. Sure, he could make plans and try to take them on one by one, but taking the risk without any payoff was not the smart move. He was not forgiving them or forgetting what they did, he was just putting his life and safety above fulfilling his revenge for now. Of course, he had to repeat the sentence ‘it’s not worth the risk’ at least a thousand times in his mind just in order to adjust to that fact.

As Soren thought up to this point, his mind drifted off to the time that he had killed those girls in the jungle. He remembered how he had felt at that time and what was going on in his mind. But there was something that confused him. He didn’t know then but he knew now that his instinctive reaction at that time and the words going off in his mind had entirely different reasons behind them; it was like an outburst of a closed bottle. Because when he thought about it carefully, what Liston Family had done to him was not enough for him to have that change. Yes, he hated them for what they did and if given a chance, he would exterminate them to their last bloodline. But their actions were not influential enough to bring such a drastic change in him. Their actions wouldn’t cause him to burst out like he was being held down for years. The small amount of blood on his hands was also not enough to trigger such a psychological reform.

He felt like there was something else that influenced that change in his mindset. He wasn’t sure about this but he had a gut feeling that he was right. There was something else, something that had happened to him at some point in his life that brought about that change, but he didn’t know what that was. He had no recollection of such stuff.

Of course, as he didn’t know any of this at that point, so, his brain, acting on instinct, had created a reason for whatever was happening. And the burden of that reason fell upon the Liston Family, which Soren hated the most at that moment.

……

Soren felt a little sleepy as the soft fur of the sofa was truly comfortable. But he quickly shook it off and also removed all the unrelated thoughts from his mind as it was already time for the auction to start. He looked around and noticed that the hall was completely filled now. The seats around him had already been occupied and there was almost no seat left empty. There was a sense of anxiety in his heart as this auction was truly important for him and his freedom. Although he had some confidence in the depth of his own pocket, there was still a sliver of uneasiness that was slowly crawling up to him. Regardless, he had done what he could, and now it was time for the main thing.

…

“*Cough*…*Cough*…Ahem, Ladies and gentlemen. May I have your attention, please? We are going to start the auction in a few minutes so I would like to take this time and explain a few simple rules for you.”

Soren’s attention was grabbed by a loud resonating voice coming from the person who was now standing on the round stage in the center of the hall. It was a fair-skinned middle-aged man with short black hair and average height. He was wearing a black suit like-dress and a pair of black shiny shoes. He was holding a screen panel in his hands while looking around the hall with a faint smile on his face. The smile combined with the clear brown-rimmed glasses that he was wearing created an amiable and friendly image of his in people’s mind.

His voice, which was amplified with the use of Mana, had a very professional feel to it. It was neither too high nor too low. His voice didn’t contain any excitement, and neither did it contain any force; yet, if one didn’t pay attention, they would feel like this person was directly addressing them.

Of course, it was just a feeling and not some magic that was used in the background.

Soren tried to scan this person in a casual manner but he received no result. Although he had guessed it, the result, or no result for that matter, cemented the fact that he was a high ranked Initiator.

…

“As you might have noticed, there is a screen panel attached to your seat’s armrests. You can use this screen panel to view any information about the items being sold in our auction today; you can also use this screen panel to get the information about the bid and also make your own bid.”

His flat voice resounded in the hall once again as people started focusing on their screen panel following his words. Soren also looked at his right screen panel and checked it out by tapping some of the options. He could see that there was a tab that gave all the information about the items being sold today. He also noticed another tab which actually listed out the items in the order which they were going to be auctioned.

Seeing this tab, Soren very quickly checked out the whole list and found what he was looking for. The Frozen Crystal was the third item to be sold in the auction. The result did surprise him a little bit, but he had kind of expected this. Although it was not a rule, generally, the item that was supposed to bring more Mana Crystals was positioned towards the bottom of the list. The position of the item contributed a lot to the amount they could be sold for in the end. After all, people would definitely want to save some Mana Crystals to try their hand at some of the rare stuff that was going to be sold towards the end of the auction; especially when the list of the items was already revealed and nothing was a secret anymore. So, after seeing the list and confirming that his hypothesis had been correct; Soren took a breath of relief. He had some thoughts of his own on this matter. From all the information he had gathered, he knew that although Frozen Crystal was something that many Initiators crazed after, they were all, in the end, Rank 0 Initiators. No matter the backing they had or how much rich they were, it could never compare to a higher-ranked Initiator. So, even if the item was rare, it would still not bring that many Mana Crystals as compared to many other, more useful, rare items.

Soren glared intently at the Frozen Crystal’s image in the list as he got lost in his thoughts. He had gathered all that Mana Crystals just to be on the safe side. This matter was not something that he could take a risk on, after all. While he had some confidence in his own hypothesis, he was still worried about being wrong, and that resulted in him gathering a huge amount of Mana Crystals. In the end, having more Mana Crystal was never a bad thing; of course, excluding the situation where someone found out that you had that many Mana Crystals.

…

“That concludes all the rules we have for today’s auction. Now, we will be starting the auction of the first item. It should be displayed on all your screens by now and you can check out its details. The starting price of this item is set to be at 100 Low-Grade Mana Crystals, while the minimum increment amount is set at 10 Low-Grade Mana Crystals. So, my dear audience, let’s start the bidding now.”

The host’s voice resounded in the hall once again and grabbed Soren’s wandered attention. The host was currently looking at his screen and was tapping something on it. The big screen on top of the stage was currently displaying the status of the bidding war that was going on. It had an image of the item on the left and the details of the bid were displayed on the right.

After waking up from his thoughts and seeing what was happening, Soren was slightly stunned. He looked left and right, trying to gather what he had missed while he was off in his imaginative world. He was currently feeling like a student in a class who was left far behind the others when the teacher was dictating something. But he couldn’t do anything about it right now, so he decided to just focus on his screen. He already knew that there were no strict rules for this auction, so even if he missed everything, it would not affect him much.

…

The first item that was being auctioned was actually a hammer. Of course, from the fact that it was being auctioned here meant that it was not a common hammer. But Soren was not interested in this item at all. As he looked at the screen where the bidding war was going off, he had another thought come to his mind. This thought almost made him curse out loud. The fact that the Frozen Crystal was going to be sold at the third position meant that he didn’t have to play all the tricks that he had planned before; he could get this item easily based on how much Mana Crystals he had. And that, in turn, meant that he had wasted his 100 Mana Crystals by getting all that information.

Of course, the information itself was not useless as he could still use that for the items placed near the bottom of the list. This thought alone consoled Soren and brought solace to his slightly depressed mind.

…….

The bidding war for the first item was already over by now and the final price was 230 Mana Crystals. Obviously, no information about the final buyer was displayed or revealed in any way; this was the ‘Myriad Items’ shop’s way of protecting their customer’s privacy. Of course, the word ‘protection’ here just meant that one had to pay higher than usual for that information; the shop had a reputation to maintain, after all; they couldn’t just sell their customer’s information for pocket change.

“Congratulations to the one who won the last bid. As I had mentioned in the rules before, you can choose to pay right now by using our card, or you can wait till the end of the auction to pay by any other means. Using our card gives you certain advantages, which I am sure you all must have been told before getting the card.” The host looked all-around at the audience and then said with a meaningful smile.

Soren was already informed about all the advantages he could get by using the shop’s card, and that’s why he opted for it even if it meant registering his details. The advantage that he was aware of included ‘not having to pay taxes’, and getting discounts on purchases above a certain price. What he was not aware of, though, was that the ‘Myriad Items’ actually took the ‘protection of privacy’ policy very seriously for the customers who had registered with them; they never sold their information, no matter the price. Although there were cases in which low-level employees sold their registered customer’s information in secret, they were very rare, and each and every such action was met with strict and harsh punishment; in most cases, those employees were permanently silenced to please the customers.

‘Myriad Items’ was a shop that survived due to its customers, after all. If they started betraying even those customers that did transactions with them on a regular basis, they would go out of business very soon. Essentially, those people that had registered at their shop and took their card were already a valued customer for them. Betraying them for some Mana Crystals would be meaningless as they would lose far more than they would gain from this.

Soren, being unaware of the fact that his small act of registering for the card had brought such a huge advantage for him, had already made some plans to deal with any future problems that would arise after this auction. He was fully prepared for his information to be sold off and was ready to deal with it.

If he knew what he had gained from just registering and taking the card before, he would have kissed that girl, Elisa, right then and there; not that he wouldn’t kiss her without this fact, of course.

…

“Our next item on the list is this… The starting price is set at 250 Low-Grade Mana Crystals and the minimum increment amount is set at 20 Mana Crystals.”

The host continued the auction without any wait and tapped his screen panel to display the item’s details on the big screen. The next item to be auctioned was a long spear. Once again, Soren had no interest in bidding for this item. But still, he looked at its details to get a clear idea about the relation between the item quality and its price. From what he could see, this spear was a weapon imbued with a spell. He couldn’t tell what spell it was exactly but it was mentioned in the details that it was a Rank 0 Water Element spell.

After some time, the second bidding war also came to an end with the final winning bid ending at 410 Low-Grade Mana Crystals.

And finally, it was time for the third item. An item much desired by the Rank 0 Initiators, including Soren. Of course, Soren’s freedom depended on this item so it meant much more to him, but under all that external logic and reasoning, an innate desire had long been born in his heart. It was a very primal desire; a desire to see a higher world; a desire to reach a higher life level; it was something that he himself was not aware of, but what he desired now was more power.

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