Stygian Mage

“Congratulations to the one who won the last bid. Now, we will be moving on to the next item on the list.” The host tapped on his screen panel once again and brought the item’s details on the big screen. The bidding details side was empty right now since it hadn’t started yet.

Now, the details of the fruit were up on the display for everyone to see. Of course, anyone that desired to buy the fruit already knew all about it. But after seeing all the familiar information, a weird and a useless thought came into Soren’s mind. Although Soren knew most of the things about the fruit, he didn’t know its size. From the screen panels, the big one and the one on his armrest, the only thing that one could determine was its shape and color. Looking at the picture, it looked like a perfectly round ball with a small dent on its top. It was also completely transparent and looked clear crystal. But because the screen did not have anything else in it for the sake of comparison, there was no way for Soren to determine its size.

It would be fine if its size was something that he could hide easily but if it was something big….

Soren immediately shook that useless thought off as he could do nothing about it right now. He then focused his mind on the important matter as the bidding was going to start any time.

“The starting price of this item is set at 1000 Low-Grade Mana Crystals and the minimum increment amount is set at 50 Mana Crystals.” The host said, and with his words, the third bidding war began.

From the starting amount set, it was clear that while the shop had put the Frozen Crystal at the third position, they were expecting it to sell for a good amount.

…

The first bid went on the screen—1200 Mana Crystals.

It was a common strategy to knock down opponents by increasing the bid by a large amount, but this bid was definitely not enough. A 200 Crystals increment was not something that could knock down someone that wanted to buy this item desperately.

Immediately after the first bid, the next one went up on the screen—1300 Mana Crystals.

A couple of seconds passed and the next bid went up—1450 Mana Crystals.

And then the next bid—1550 Mana Crystals.

After every bid, the countdown was reset back to 10 seconds. This was one of the rules that the host had mentioned in the beginning. Of course, even without listening to the rules, Soren knew what the countdown was for.

Next bid went up on the screen one second after the previous one—1650 Mana Crystals.

This price was already reaching many Rank 0 Initiators limit. But still, many amongst them were quite wealthy, and most of all, many of them were backed by some Family. Although a higher-ranked Initiator wouldn’t use all their wealth for someone else, even if that someone else was their child or a relative, they would still help them with the price by quite a bit.

And that fact pulled the bid to an even higher amount—2200 Mana Crystals.

It was clear that someone was trying to knock down all the bidders with this big increment. And it did work, as the countdown started going down and no new bid came up on the screen.

But as the timer went down to 5 seconds, much to the annoyance of the previous bidder, a new bid suddenly came up on the screen.

New bid—3000 Mana Crystals.

This new increment surpassed even the last one, surprising everyone that had intended to strive for this item. Combined with the previous increment, this new bid had managed to knock down most, if not all, of the contenders for this item. Even the people who had a strong and wealthy background had to rethink if they wanted to buy this item at this price. It was, after all, not that rare and this auction was not the only place that would ever sell it. Of course, they would have to look for it again to see if someone was selling it, but that was still better than buying it at an inflated price.

But although the price had become quite inflated, it was still not enough to buy the item, as the new bid went up just after a few seconds—3050 Mana Crystals.

It was clear that the price had reached that level where no one was willing to increase it by a huge amount anymore. They intended to fight it out with minimum increments, or so they had hoped for.

The bidder of 3000 Mana Crystals, Soren, smiled as he saw a weak increase in the bids. He knew it was time to finish it off. And so, he used the screen panel on his right and entered a new bid.

And it went up on the big screen soon after he typed it—3500 Mana Crystals.

The timer started going down once again—10, 9, 8….

The new bid seemed to have destroyed all its opponents as no new bid came up even after the timer went down to 5 seconds. Soren’s heartbeat was actually rising in sync with the timer going down right now. He was excited, anxious, nervous, and happy, all at the same time. He wished for the countdown to move fast but the more he wished for that, the more he felt that it became slower. A 10 seconds countdown felt like an hour for him. He was trying his best not to exhibit any signs on his face. So, his made-up expression right now was that of someone who had just lost a bid, much like many people around him. But his tightly clenched fists betrayed his fake expression and truly displayed what he was feeling in his heart.

The timer went down, one by one—3, 2, 1…

But without any drama, Soren ended up becoming the winner of the item: Frozen Crystal.

As he saw the final result, his heart released all the tension at once as he lay back on the sofa, releasing the breath that he had been holding till now. That was the same for many people as they lay back in a depressing manner, lamenting the fact that they had lost the item.

“Congratulations to the one who won this bid. As I had mentioned before, you can pay for the item with our card, or wait till the end of the auction to pay for it by any other means.” The host repeated his sentences once again but this time, his words held slight excitement in them. After all, the more the price was inflated, the more profit he would gain after this; in his case though, the profit was not Mana Crystals but something else.

Soren, after hearing those words, didn’t act immediately. As the auction proceeded and attracted everyone’s attention on the bids, he took out the ‘Myriad Items’ card and secretly inserted in the slot under the screen panel. Details of his balance showed up on the screen—22,660. There was also an option under it that was for the payment of his recently bought item. He swiftly tapped on it and paid 3500 points for the Frozen Crystal. This was the price without any taxes included; advantage brought by having the shop’s card.

.…….

The auction went on as Soren fell into deep thought. He was mulling over the decision to continue with what he had planned before or not. He had made that plan to increase his chances of buying Frozen Crystal, but that was already done now. The other items that he wanted to buy were somewhat important to him, yet, they were not something that he would risk offending other Families for.

Of course, he didn’t know that because he had already registered for the shop’s card, the ‘Myriad Items’ was going to protect his privacy at any cost.

This policy of ‘Myriad Items’ actually applied to only single customers. Otherwise, the Families and Organizations could just have registered any one of their members and would have received the shop’s policy protection. For them to receive the same benefits of this policy, they had to pay a handsome amount of Crystals, or items worth the same, to ‘Myriad Items’ on a yearly basis.

Though this left them indignant, they knew they couldn’t act against the shop in any manner. It was because they were aware of how huge the shop’s background was. But regardless, that handsome amount was something that many Families and Organizations refused to pay or could not pay, and such, their privacy received no protection from the ‘Myriad Items’ policy.

…

“Congratulations to the one who won this bid. Now, let’s move on to the next item on the list.” The host repeated his words once again. But strangely, some people could feel that there was slight annoyance mixed in his tone this time.

The reason behind that annoyance was that he was actually not supposed to be hosting this auction. He was a high ranking member of the ‘Myriad Items’ hierarchy tree and was never supposed to come to this backwater area. But he got into a mess that had no connection with him and somehow ended up pissing off a powerful person; or more like he pissed off someone related to that powerful person. Now, to appease that person, he had to gather a certain amount of profit from this auction. So, the more the shop earned from this auction, the better his future would be.

But the fact that he was hosting an auction in this backwater place made it really hard for him to make a good amount of profit. This was simply because apart from some Families and Organizations in this area, everyone was pretty much ignorant about many items and their proper usage. Even the details in the list didn’t help them much; many times, it was simply not possible to know the value of an item just from a picture and a few words. This fact resulted in less and less competition for the items and, in the end, getting sold for fewer Crystals. Of course, some items were very famous like the Frozen Crystal and those sold for a nice price, placating the host’s irritated mind.

The next item on the list was one of those that many amongst the audience had no idea about. And those who knew about it already had it. It was a very basic thing that wasn’t meant to be in an auction, and yet, here it was like a bad joke from some kid.

…

Soren looked at the list to check out the next item’s details. He had finally thought everything through and decided to take a risk; he was going to go with the plan from before. From what he knew, those Families could also buy the information about anyone who took part in a bidding war. So, the moment he would bid against them for any item, it would put him in their hit-list; especially when he was going to try and spike the item’s price deliberately. This was a method to reduce the chances of them fighting against him for the items that he wanted by making them overpay for the things that they wanted.

The next item seemed to be a Spell Vessel but seemed very different. Its name was ‘Space Snatcher’ and was apparently a ‘Support Spell’. From the details, one could not tell anything about it, like what it did or what effect it had. Because the list only had one line written about it—‘The spell allows a person to remove a Storage Pearl’.

The host was also having a headache just because of this reason.

“The starting price of this item is set at 100 Mana Crystals and the minimum increment is set at 20 Mana Crystals.” He said in an annoying tone that could not be any more obvious. His actions resulted in small giggles and a few laughs up in the V.I.P section. The black glass blocked the sound so no one heard it but the host seemingly had good ears as he visibly became a little embarrassed. He continuously cursed that person in mind who put this item in the auction list.

Though the host didn’t have much hope for this item, there were still some people in the hall that seemingly wanted to buy it; evident by the bid that went up on the screen in about 6 seconds.

First bid—120 Mana Crystals.

Immediately after the first bid went up, Soren tapped his screen panel and made a bid for 140 Mana Crystals. His decision to bid on this item was actually not based on a whim. He had thought deeply about it and then made a decision. He clearly remembered seeing Wood take things out of her Soul Form like there was a separate space in there. At that time, he had thought that it was a spell or skill of some kind. But after hearing the host’s ‘annoyed’ words and seeing the item’s details in the list, he connected all the dots almost immediately and made a bid for the item.

If I am not wrong, that ability of Wood was not a spell. It was this Storage Pearl.

Although Soren didn’t know what exactly a Storage Pearl was, he could tell that it probably was a spatial artifact that was meant to be added to the Soul Form. And from the details of this ‘Space Snatcher’ in the auction list, it was clear that this spell was meant to remove or snatch that thing called Storage Pearl from someone else; after all, there was no meaning in ‘snatching’ something from oneself.

Based on this deduction, Soren quickly decided to try his luck for this item. As for his guess on why the host seemed annoyed, it was very simple; given the fact that even Wood, a Rank 0 Initiator, had that Storage Pearl in her Soul Form, Soren easily determined that this artifact and the spell must be very common in other developed areas. And as such, selling such a common spell in an auction must be quite annoying for the host. These types of items were the hardest to sell, after all.

Of course, Soren was not alone in knowing all this as it was proven by the next bid.

Next bid—185 Mana Crystals.

Soren visibly frowned as he saw the new bid coming up on the screen. He truly wanted this item but he also didn’t want to spend too much on it. After all, from his deduction, this item should be very common in other places and shouldn’t cost that much.

But if it was so, then why did that Draco guy not have a Storage Pearl? This additional question followed that thought in Soren’s mind, but soon, its possible answers also made its way through. Either that guy was a local, who was recruited because of the Vestige, or he did have the Storage Pearl but Smiley didn’t take it as he thought of it as not valuable enough. Out of these two, the first answer made more sense as even if Smiley didn’t want Draco’s Storage Pearl, he could have given it to Soren as the gift. As for the girls that Soren killed, it was easy for Soren to figure out that they were from around this area, same as most Rogue Initiators who came for the Vestige; after all, Eastwood was not the only town in this backwater area.

…

As the timer went down to 5 seconds, Soren decided to take it a little further and see if he could win with that; if not, he would then give up at that point.

And so, his next bid went up—220 Mana Crystals.

After a few seconds, the next bid went up.

Next bid—240 Mana Crystals.

This bid showed a hint of hesitation which Soren easily noticed. A smile formed on his face as he put up the next bid.

Next bid—260 Mana Crystals.

And as Soren thought, this bid made everyone give up on this item. The countdown went down and finally, his bid became the winner.

“Congratulations to the one who won this bid. Let’s move on to the next item on the list.”

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