The crisp crack of the gavel was a signal that set hearts racing.
In a sense, an auction was a carefully designed psychological game.
Strangers were gathered in an enclosed theater, where a unique bidding system gradually magnified the possessiveness, vanity, and fear of scarce resources buried deep within them.
An ordinary item could be driven to a high price amid raised paddles and competing bids. What the winner bought was no longer merely the item itself, but the thrill of victory attached to it.
Naturally, a fine auction house knew how to stir up that thrill.
Soft, non-glaring magical lighting; decorations interwoven with golden reliefs and dark red silk; faint incense; and well-dressed attendants.
Such outward luxury gave every customer who stepped into the hall an instinctive feeling that spending Saturday night here would be the most wonderful and elegant evening of the week.
Of course, cultivating the atmosphere was merely a technical measure.
What made customers willingly empty their pockets and return again and again were unique, irreplaceable goods.
Long-lost special scrolls, rare materials one could seek yet never obtain, even unimaginable wondrous items—only when the curtains were lifted from the display stage time after time and all eyes were captured did Cross Auction House's golden sign of "Never Empty-Handed" have the foundation to hang enduringly at the end of Amber Avenue.
At that moment, the hall was extremely noisy.
"Hey, quit looking all over the place. Wipe that idiotic, country-bumpkin look off your face."
A middle-aged adventurer in worn leather armor held back his companion beside him.
"But... Boss, why are those attendants constantly running up and down the stairs carrying trays?" The young swordsman lowered his voice, but his gaze could not help drifting toward the curved staircase covered in red carpet.
"The Lords in the