Chapter 82 - - 82: Three Surprise Lots

Chapter 82: Chapter - 82: Three Surprise Lots

"The opening price for the Flame Crown Lion magic core is Ten Thousand Gold."

The auctioneer announced the price while raising one hand toward the audience, his gesture serving as an invitation for the bidders to begin.

For a moment, the hall remained quiet, although it was not because anyone had suddenly lost interest in the magic core. Most people were probably deciding how aggressively they wanted to enter the bidding, especially since ten thousand gold was already the highest opening price we had seen today.

That hesitation did not last long.

"Eleven thousand Gold!"

"Twelve thousand Gold!"

"Fifteen thousand!"

"Seventeen thousand!"

The bids began appearing one after another, and the price climbed far more quickly than it had for any previous lot.

We remained seated in Balcony Number Five, watching in awe the display above the stage change with every new bid.

**18,000 Gold.**

Then—

**20,000 Gold.**

At that point, most of the people in the ordinary seats had stopped participating.

That was not particularly surprising.

Twenty thousand gold was already an enormous amount for someone who did not have the financial backing of a major noble household, and unlike some of the earlier items, there was little reason to keep bidding simply because the object was interesting.

A Savage Beast magic core had a very specific group of buyers, and once the price became too high, anyone without a genuine reason to acquire it would naturally withdraw.

The serious competition was now coming from the upper balconies. In particular, Balconies Number Two, Three, and Six were continuing to raise their bids.

"Twenty-one thousand."

"Twenty-two thousand."

"Twenty-three thousand."

The auctioneer barely had time to repeat each new price before another bid appeared.

I just kept watching as there was no need for me to participate.

The Flame Crown Lion’s magic core was valuable, without question, but it is not compatible with me nor with Elena.

There was also the matter of my remaining credits.

We had forty thousand gold. I have already spent twelve thousand on the Night Condensing Bracelet, which left twenty-eight thousand.

Spending twenty or thirty thousand on something I could not use would have been foolish, especially when the auction was not even halfway through.

I suspect that people here have similar thoughts.

The price eventually reached twenty-five thousand gold.

"Twenty-five thousand from Balcony Number Three!" The auctioneer announced while looking upward.

A few seconds later, another bid appeared.

"Twenty-five thousand five hundred."

The display changed.

**Balcony Number Six — 25,500 Gold.**

Elena, who had been following the bidding alongside me, quietly remarked, "It is already more than twice the price of the Night Condensing Bracelet."

"Indeed. There is also the fact that the kingdom has more fire type grand mages and dark attribute mages."

The bid went up again.

"Twenty-six thousand!"

Balcony Number Three had responded.

The display changed.

**Balcony Number Three — 26,000 Gold.**

By then, Balcony Number Two had already stopped participating.

I had noticed their absence over the last few rounds, and apparently they had decided that the price had gone beyond what they were willing to pay.

That left only two serious competitors, balcony Three and Balcony Six.

The bidding between them continued.

"Twenty-six thousand five hundred."

"Twenty-seven thousand."

"Twenty-seven thousand five hundred."

"Twenty-eight thousand."

The increments have not increased because they did not want to spend unnecessary money, but neither side appeared willing to give up.

The people in the normal seats watched silently.

At this point, they were no longer realistically participating, but that did not mean they were not interested in seeing how high the price would go.

For many of them, this was probably the sort of auction they had come specifically to witness.

The price eventually reached twenty-nine thousand gold.

"Twenty-nine thousand from Balcony Number Three." The auctioneer looked toward Balcony Six.

The person there remained silent.

The auctioneer waited "Twenty-nine thousand once."

No response.

"Twenty-nine thousand twice."

When he still did not get any response, he finally raised his hammer "Twenty-nine thousand gold, sold to Balcony Number Three!"

The ordinary seating area erupted into quiet conversation almost immediately.

Twenty-nine thousand gold.

That single number was enough to leave many of the people below visibly stunned.

It was an enormous amount of money.

But I suspected that the people who occupied the highest balconies viewed the situation somewhat differently.

For someone wealthy enough, particularly nobles at the Grand Mage or Grand Knight realm, the question probably was not whether twenty-nine thousand gold was expensive.

It was whether the magic core was worth twenty-nine thousand gold.

If the answer was yes, then the amount itself became less important.

There were probably people in this building who could spend that amount without putting any real strain on their household finances.

There might even be high level adventurers among them.

The masks made it impossible to identify most of the bidders, and there was no reason for anyone to reveal themselves.

The auctioneer, however, clearly had no intention of allowing the excitement generated by the Savage Beast magic core to disappear.

He waited until the conversations had settled somewhat before smiling and announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it is time to move on to something that makes today’s Grand Auction somewhat different from our usual events."

That immediately caught everyone’s attention.

The auctioneer continued, "Our next lot is one of the three surprise lots prepared for today’s auction."

I had heard about these before.

They were one of the things that made the Friday Grand Auction different from the auctions held throughout the rest of the week.

The Royal Auction House prepared three special lots for every Friday.

Unlike the ordinary lots, the details of these three items were deliberately kept secret from the general public and even from most potential bidders before the auction began.

That secrecy was part of the attraction.

The auction house did not simply announce three particularly valuable items in advance and allow everyone to calculate how much money they needed.

Instead, these three lots were kept hidden until they were brought onto the stage.

Most bidders don’t know exactly what they would be.

The only thing people could reasonably assume was that the auction house considered them rare enough to deserve special treatment.

In most cases, the surprise lots were significantly harder to find than the items normally offered throughout the week.

That was why the Friday auction always attracted so many people.

The rare items were one reason and the uncertainty surrounding the surprise lots was another.

And because there were three of them, the order was impossible to predict.

Sometimes one appeared near the beginning while the other two were saved for much later.

Sometimes the first one appears somewhere in the middle.

There had even been times when all three surprise lots were presented one after another.

There was no fixed sequence.

I had read enough about the Royal Auction House before coming here to know that.

I glanced toward the balcony number 1 and 2.

Perhaps some of the people on that balcony knew something about the upcoming surprise lots.

Maybe they had decided that spending twenty-nine thousand gold on the Flame Crown Lion core was not worthwhile when there were still three treasures waiting to appear.

I had also deliberately avoided spending more than twelve thousand because I wanted to preserve as much of our money as possible.

We had twenty-eight thousand gold remaining.

Depending on what appeared next, that could be enough to buy something considerably more useful. And if the item is good enough, I can also add my savings on that.

The auctioneer began explaining that the first surprise lot had been kept completely confidential and that even the usual catalogue contained no information about it.

"I hope it is something suitable for you." Elena said as we wait for the lot to appear.

I looked at her "The chance of that is not very high."

"I know." She paused before continuing, "But I can still hope."

I could not argue with that.

Before coming here, we had spent quite some time going through the catalogue.

There were many good items listed, some of which were genuinely valuable.

Some were rare enough that I could understand why people would spend thousands of gold on them.

But almost none of them were particularly suitable for me.

In the end, I had marked only two items in the catalogue as things I might consider buying if nothing more interesting appeared.

Neither was something I particularly wanted.

They were simply useful enough that spending some money on them would not be a complete waste.

Elena, however, had not been satisfied with that. She wanted me to find something that I would actually like.

I looked at her for a moment. "You don’t need to worry about it that much."

She smiled "I know but I want you to get something you actually like."

I can’t help but want to smile at her words.

"It is not particularly easy to find suitable artifacts for mages in these auctions." Dalas, who had been sitting on my other side, suddenly added.

"Most artifacts are designed in the form of weapons, armor, or physical equipment. That’s understandable because warriors and magic knights can directly use them in combat, while pure mages generally rely more on their spells."

He was right.

There were exceptions, of course. Staffs, rings, bracelets, necklaces, robes, books, and various magical tools existed. But weapons dominated the artifact market simply because they had a broader range of applications for combat-oriented people.

Although I had learned some swordsmanship because there were situations where knowing how to defend myself physically was useful, but I still preferred magic.

My water magic was far more natural to me, and there was little reason to abandon something I was already good at in favor of a weapon-based fighting style.

Especially in this world, where people are capable of strengthening their bodies to absurd levels through mana, a mage trying to compete against a magic knight in physical strength is practically stupidly.

A powerful magic knight could move faster than an ordinary person could follow and could strike with enough force to shatter stone. Against someone like that, carrying a sword did not automatically make me a better fighter.

If I wanted to compete with people who specialized in physical combat, I would rather strengthen my magic than pretend that I was one of them.

"I will find something eventually," I said.

Elena looked at me "if we can’t find anything suitable then let’s buy something valuable that we can later exchange for a suitable artifact."

"That is a really good idea."

"Of course it is" She replied proudly.

Now I don’t want to spoil her mood by revealing that I was already planning to do that.