Mia told Matthews about some of the magic she had learned recently. Matthews asked curiously, "What magic have you learned lately?"
"Our teacher taught us the incantation for the beginner spell, Whirlwind."
Matthews was just as excited. "Cast it for your big brother to see."
Mia began her demonstration in earnest. "Free spirits of the wind, in the name of the Sovereign of Wind, heed my call. Whirlwind, be everywhere! Whirlwind!"
A tiny whirlwind formed on the ground, barely strong enough to blow up a few leaves.
"Oh, that's it?"
Mia nodded. She was considered a prodigy in her class. In just two months, she had quickly mastered meditation, absorbed the elements and refined them into her own magic power. Now she had even gained control over the beginner spell Whirlwind.
"My magic power is only enough to cast a whirlwind of this level for now. Your little sister's a genius, you know. I was the first one in my class to master this spell!"
Looking at Mia's proud face, Matthews smiled and patted her head, giving her an encouraging head rub. Mia narrowed her eyes. Having received her big brother's praise, she was like an adorable kitten.
Matthews wondered to himself how she could be so different from him. The first time he cast Thunderball Spell, it had been much more powerful than her spell. But none of that mattered.
Mia stayed home for two days before leaving. Besides practicing magic, Matthews now had another goal: glass products made from Pearls of Beginning.
When Mia came home the following month, her brother asked her, "Next time you come back, remember to invite Winter over."
"Ah, no way."
Matthews saw the obvious refusal in his little sister Mia's eyes and patiently asked, "Why not?"
"Hmph! You two do stupid things whenever you're together. I don't want to hang out with him!"
Matthews understood. Girls were generally more mature than boys their age. To girls, Winter's attempts to act like a grown-up might seem rather silly, so Mia was probably instinctively avoiding getting involved with him.
"Come on, I promise I won't do anything stupid this time. I really do have something important to discuss with him."
"Oh, is this another attempt to trick him out of his money?"
Matthews tapped Mia on the forehead and pouted. "How can you think that about your big brother? Doesn't he spend all the money he earns on buying you pretty dresses?"
"Yeah, right. Do you think I believe you?"
"Come on, I really do have something to discuss."
Mia replied, "All right, I'll see if I can invite him next time."
Glass was easy enough to make, but getting it pure was much harder. A month later, Matthews looked at the two bowls in front of him, which had relatively few impurities, and felt fairly satisfied.
"Big Brother, you wanted to see me?"
Mia had brought Winter home after all, and Matthews warmly invited him inside.
Winter knew that Matthews was a nobleman, but he hadn't expected him to be a blacksmith. Still, he didn't think much of it and asked, "What did you want to see me about, Big Brother?"
"I didn't want to trouble you, but my little sister and I were born into a noble family. Unfortunately, something happened, and the elders of our family have left."
"Ah, I see..."
Winter might have been young, but as a child of a noble family, he instinctively knew that this big brother wanted something from him. That put him in an awkward position.
"Don't worry, it's nothing major."
Matthews took out the two glass objects he had wrapped up beforehand and said, "My little sister needs to study in the capital, but we're short on money. I was hoping you could help us sell these two family treasures!"
As he spoke, Matthews watched Winter's expression and saw that the two treasures had caught his attention.
Winter exclaimed in shock, "Big Brother, you actually have something like this?"
"They were found by one of our ancestors, quite by chance. Have you seen anything like them, my friend?"
"Yeah. My grandfather has a pair of little wine cups in his collection. He loves them and can hardly bear to part with them."
"Hahaha, then I'll leave it to you to find a buyer for these, my friend."
Winter thought for a moment, then said, "There's an auction next week. I'll submit them under the name of the Utteridge Clan."
"Really? That's wonderful! We'll split the proceeds fifty-fifty!"
Winter considered that these items might stir up greed in a lot of people, so he said, "All right."
"Then I'm much obliged, my friend!"
A week later, Matthews, Mia, and Winter sat in the third room on the second floor of the Imperial Capital Auction House. Standing beside Winter was the warrior named Lodi, whom Matthews had seen at the entrance to the Imperial Capital Magic Academy.
To be honest, it was Matthews's first time attending an auction like this. Before now, he had only seen this distinctive style of auction on TV shows.
"Big Brother, it's starting."
Winter gave Matthews a brief introduction to the auction house's background. It seemed to have complicated ties to many powerful factions, and even the Utteridge Clan couldn't afford to offend it.
"The first item up for auction: a piece of unusual ore."
The auctioneer began describing the unusual ore, a stone about a meter across. Any iron objects nearby were drawn to it and stuck to its surface.
Matthews looked at it in amazement. Wasn't this just natural magnetite? He hadn't expected a magical world to have natural magnets, too.
Mia was curious about it. "That's pretty interesting."
Seeing this, Winter explained, "It's brittle. All it can do is attract iron, so it can't be used to make magical equipment. It's no use!"
Matthews asked, puzzled, "Shouldn't the auction's first item be something special to get things off to a good start? Why would they put up something like this?"
Winter replied, "There are always people who don't know what they're looking at. Besides, even if nobody bids, the auction house will have a plant bid on it. They won't let the first item go unsold."
"That's true."
Just as Matthews and Mia nodded, the auctioneer announced the starting price.
"The starting bid for this item is twenty gold coins. Each bid must be raised by no more than five gold coins."
Matthews had originally thought that if the natural magnetite cost just a few silver coins, he might buy it and test out his theory.
"What? That's so expensive!"
Winter saw Matthews looking as if he'd seen a ghost and calmly replied, "That's the starting price at an auction in the Imperial Capital. It's not that expensive."
Matthews thought that the thing was just a natural magnet, worth at most a few bucks in his world. Of course, one this size would probably cost more, but not by much.
Then he remembered that he had only about a dozen gold coins to his name. He looked at Winter, who thought this was perfectly normal. It seemed he just couldn't understand how the rich lived.
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