The Auction

Night fell. Having successfully bluffed Bert, the chief steward, and the other two, Donald brought Code, Clinton, and the others to a VIP room at the Gold Sol Auction House, prepared for consignors and mysterious guests who preferred to keep their identities hidden. They enjoyed the exquisite food and fine wine reserved for VIPs while watching the special auction that had begun in the hall below.

The auction had been specially arranged by Bert, the chief steward, for Donald's ancestral treasure. He had also sent out invitations at short notice to the nobles and important figures temporarily staying in the city.

Most of the nobles already in the city had accepted the invitation, and some who had heard that a mysterious treasure would be auctioned had come especially to attend.

When Donald had first introduced his ancestral treasure, he had already embellished its history with plenty of made-up details. To his surprise, Orchi, the chief appraiser, had agreed with Donald's account and even praised the sword to the skies, raising its value without noticing Bert's face darkening like the bottom of a pot beside him.

Bert had originally planned to downplay the treasure and buy it at a reasonable price. Then, once the money and goods had changed hands, the auction house would organize a grand auction and pocket the enormous difference. No matter how high the bidding went, the original owner would have no claim to the extra. Bert could also take a substantial commission for himself.

But Orchi had immediately praised the Knight Greatsword as though it were a divine weapon. With the owner present, Bert could hardly offer a low price, so he had to abandon his original plan and agree to have the item consigned to the auction house for a five-percent commission.

Of course, besides Donald's fabricated ancestral treasure, the auction house had prepared plenty of other lots as well. Merchants valued profit, after all. If they could use the opportunity to make a little more, why not?

Giant Stone City was only a second-rate, remote city in Celt, nowhere near as grand as the Royal Capital. So the auctions held here by the Gold Sol Auction House were usually not especially elaborate.

After several works of art and luxury goods coveted by nobles and wealthy merchants had appeared in succession, the auction soon reached its grand finale: the mysterious treasure.

Two strong auction-house guards carried the splendid Knight Greatsword together onto the stage. Under the bright lights, it shimmered with dazzling brilliance.

The greatsword, five feet long—that was, 1.524 meters—drew gasps from every guest the moment it appeared.

"What a beautiful sword! Could it be a ceremonial sword for decoration?"

"Be quiet. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't say anything. That's a real weapon made for killing!"

"What kind of sword haven't I seen? A sword that huge must weigh almost as much as a knight's lance. Who could swing a weapon like that? Is it meant for a giant?"

"Foolish! It's a rare Knight Greatsword, a weapon for heavily armored high-ranking knights to use on the battlefield. They swing it with the force of a charging warhorse. People with so little experience probably haven't even heard of one!"

Only after the high-status guests had quieted down did the auctioneer get a chance to explain the item's origins.

"This Knight Greatsword is called Wind of Glory. It was wielded by an ancestor of a knightly family who fought alongside the great first king of our Kingdom of Selt during its founding campaigns. It is an heirloom that the family has preserved for nearly a thousand years. Forged entirely from the hardest steel and enhanced with mysterious materials, the blade is exceptionally sturdy and hard to break. Though a thousand years have passed, it has neither rusted nor deteriorated, and it remains astonishingly sharp."

Next, they brought out wood, stone, and other materials to test the lot's true quality. As expected of something produced by the Book of Truth, it was a masterpiece. The blade easily cut through the test materials without suffering the slightest damage. Its performance drew another round of gasps from the guests below.

The auctioneer's introduction made even Donald, the mastermind behind the whole scheme, want to laugh.

He had never expected the Knight Greatsword's history to grow grander and grander with every boast. According to the history books he had once read, the Kingdom of Selt had been founded over five hundred years ago, and the original Celt Royal Family had been nobles under the Bannai Empire, which had once united the continent.

A thousand years ago, during the years of demonic calamity when demons invaded on a massive scale, the gods' punishment and the rampaging Abyss demons had shattered even the mighty Ancient Magic Empire of Bannai, which had once been as powerful as the sun. Countless great champions had fallen like shooting stars.

At the time, the Celt family had been forced to migrate to the northern reaches of the continent, a place people considered a barren wasteland. Yet that also took them away from the chaos of war, allowing them to survive the cataclysmic disaster.

From then on, the Celt family claimed the vast lands of the Northern Lands as their own. With no rival powers to challenge them, they gradually grew from a village into a town, and eventually into the kingdom they were now.

More than five hundred years ago, the wars across the continent had largely died down, and its lands had been divided among the various powers. No one was willing to abandon the rich, fertile heartland and the southeastern regions to fight the Celt family and the Orcs for the desolate Western Wasteland and Northern Woodlands. This allowed the Orcs to recover, while the Celt family was able to establish the Kingdom of Selt without hindrance.

It was only after the kingdom was founded that the Kingdom of Selt, isolated from the continent's powerful forces for centuries, gradually became known to the outside world.

Though the climate was harsh, the kingdom's vast territory, abundant resources, and magical beasts in its forests and mountains made it tempting to many nations. They all wanted a share, even when their own lands were more fertile and prosperous than Selt. As a result, one power after another turned its attention to this kingdom, whose borders touched the Orcs' territory.

But aside from a handful of foreign merchant houses and the ever-modest, benevolent Church of the Goddess of Agriculture, no other powers could gain a foothold in this remote, insular, and united kingdom.

An ancestor of House Merlinar had indeed fought in the Northern Lands alongside Selt I, but he had been nothing more than a cavalryman in the army—not even a knight. It was only after his death that the royal family had posthumously bestowed an honorary knighthood on him as a token gesture. Only then could House Merlinar barely be called a knightly family, and even so, they had no fief and no hereditary title.

At the time, more than five hundred cavalrymen from his unit—later known as the cavalry regiment—had been knighted alongside their ancestor. Most had died on the battlefield. Of those whose descendants survived to become nobles and enjoy prosperity to this day, there were probably only a handful. It was a testament to the brutality of war and the difficulty of gaining power and status in this world.

House Merlinar had only received its hereditary knighthood and a fief the size of two villages on the border after earning distinction in a war against the Orcs three hundred years ago. Over the course of three centuries and more than ten generations, the family had steadily expanded its holdings until they rivaled a baron's estate. Their fief had grown prosperous and powerful.

Then, in just a few decades, they had lost most of their land and wealth, until they had nothing left but a manor.

It certainly proved an old saying from Donald's previous life: "Starting a business is easy; keeping it going is hard!"

The terrifying Knight Greatsword, nearly as tall as a person, might be awkward to wield alone in a melee, but it was undoubtedly a formidable weapon on the battlefield.

The sword was Donald's clever idea for making money. Compared to an excellent but plain-looking standardized infantry sword, the greatsword carried by the human race's fourth-tier unit—the knight—was a powerful weapon that combined beauty and might. It had no magical properties, but forged entirely from refined steel, the Knight Greatsword was not only magnificent to behold; its elegant design had a cold edge to it. It was a genuine weapon of war.

Even without an auction, Donald estimated the Knight Greatsword could fetch at least three thousand Gold Sol. That was already equivalent to the value of a wealthy noble's manor. The annual tax revenue of Giant Stone City was only around five thousand Gold Sol.

But if he was going to make money, he might as well make a lot. Donald figured that an auction could push the price up by at least another two thousand. That was why he had arranged this whole business with the auction house.

The Knight Greatsword, directly brought into existence by the Book of Truth, was better than one carefully crafted by a master blacksmith. Every one of its attributes had reached the utmost perfection possible for an item of its kind.

The noblemen who were knights by birth were especially covetous of such a divine weapon.

And as a treasure passed down through a family for centuries, it would make a prized heirloom to show off, even if its buyer could never carry it into battle.

The wealthy merchants and nobles were also quite interested in the Knight Greatsword.

Seeing that everyone's desire to own the Knight Greatsword had been thoroughly stirred, the auctioneer decided the time was right and hurriedly announced:

"According to our auction house's research, Wind of Glory appears to be the work of an unknown Dwarf craftsman. The starting bid is five hundred Gold Sol. The auction begins now!"

Five hundred Gold Sol was far below the Knight Greatsword's true value. The low starting price prompted even many guests who had thought they could never afford the treasure to start raising their bids.

The price quickly rose from five hundred Gold Sol to the three thousand Donald had set as his minimum, and it continued climbing by at least two hundred Gold Sol a minute.

In the private room, Donald, the mastermind behind it all, grinned like a little fox that had stolen a fat chicken. He could barely keep his mouth closed. Watching the price climb step by step, Code felt tense but also couldn't help a strange thought: Had his kind young master suddenly become so cunning and underhanded?

In the end, a wealthy shopkeeper from the Royal Capital bought the "thousand-year-old heirloom" Knight Greatsword for the lofty price of seven thousand three hundred Gold Sol. Laughing heartily, he ordered the two guards beside him to carry it over. He said he planned to take it back to the Royal Capital and present it to His Majesty the King.

Donald was just as pleased to receive a chest containing more than seven thousand one hundred Gold Sol.

Only the people involved knew who had gained and who had lost.

Donald did feel a little guilty about deceiving the natives of this world with the auction. But when he saw all those glittering gold coins, his guilt soon vanished without a trace.

Both his mage training and his summons required money. There were so many wealthy nobles in this little Giant Stone City alone. If he didn't fleece them, who would? Plenty of poor people outside couldn't even afford a meal!

Once he had the Gold Sol in hand, Donald immediately had the auction-house staff count out two thousand and exchange it at the market rate for ten units of medium-grade Elemental Crystals and two hundred units of Low-grade Elemental Crystals. The purchase nearly emptied the auction house's stock.

Elemental Crystal deposits were scarce to begin with. Medium-grade crystals usually contained more than ten times the energy of low-grade ones, and their properties were purer as well. Low-grade crystals could only advance to medium or high grade after accumulating to a certain concentration in an energy-rich environment. Otherwise, they would remain low-grade even after millions of years. That was why medium-grade Elemental Crystals were always expensive. Most were bought up by various powers, and only a small quantity ever reached the open market.

As for high-grade crystals, it wasn't that Donald didn't want to trade for a couple. The auction house simply didn't have any, and they were hard to find in the shops as well. There was no telling whether they could even find a few in a small place like Giant Stone City.

Every country stockpiled Elemental Crystals as strategic resources. They circulated widely only among mages. The Gold Sol Auction House had already done well to gather what it had, and its willingness to sell them all to Donald at once was due to the potential of this noble-born Apprentice Mage.

Why wait until he had become an apprentice to make connections with him? If not now, when? This world might not have the saying "helping someone in their hour of need is better than adding flowers to brocade," but clever people understood the idea. Besides, Donald's auction had brought the auction house at least several hundred Gold Sol in profit—returns they normally saw only at a major auction held once every six months!

Two thousand Gold Sol had bought only a small box of ten glittering stones. Donald couldn't help feeling that money came and went awfully fast.

Once the guests had dispersed and nearly everyone had left, Donald finally said goodbye to Bert, the chief steward. He wanted to avoid drawing the attention of jealous troublemakers. Though he had no reason to fear them, it was better to avoid trouble when he could!

The three Clintons carried the large and small wooden chests onto the carriage. Donald tucked the ten units of medium-grade Elemental Crystals into his own clothes. At his command, with Bert and the other auction-house staff seeing them off, they left the auction house.

The city gates had already closed for the night. Since Donald couldn't get back to his home in Red Maple Town, he waved a hand and headed straight for the finest inn in the city. He had just made over seven thousand Gold Sol—at least a third more than Giant Stone City's annual tax revenue—and was in high spirits. Ignoring the pain in his steward Code's expression, Donald rented an entire courtyard at two Gold Sol a day, a place only wealthy nobles and rich merchants could afford.

In a room more splendid than an ordinary country noble's residence, Donald had the attendants carry the two chests into his master bedroom, then sent them to the servants' quarters to rest.

With Code watching, Donald opened the Book of Truth and summoned the storage item he had always longed for: a Space Mark. As a divine artifact, the Book of Truth's manifestations could not be seen by anyone else.

In the Warcraft series, there were no spatial items like storage rings, but every hero had a Space Mark. Combining it with the spatial laws of this world, the Book of Truth granted a Space Mark that was a tiny spatial rift bound to its user's spirit. It was a small, stable space formed from divine power, located in the spatial gap between the main world and other planes. At the user's request, it could summon any stored item at any time.

There was also the Space Package, which could be given to basic units such as peasants and acolytes so they could carry items too. But it could open only two spaces at most, each just one cubic meter in size. And carrying around a book-sized backpack was inconvenient, so Donald had rejected the idea.

The lowest-grade Space Mark opened a private space of one cubic meter and required thirty units of Low-grade Elemental Crystals to summon. It had once been beyond Donald's reach, but now, after just one day, he could pay for it without any trouble.

In theory, Space Marks could be stacked without limit, as long as you could pay the energy cost. But considering the need to keep the spatial structure stable, it was impossible to expand a private space to the size of an entire country. Otherwise, the main world's structure might not be able to contain such an alternate space. And if it were opened frequently in the spatial gap between the main world and other planes, it might even cause spatial forces to run wild.

But he didn't need such a large space for now. Spending thirty units of Low-grade Elemental Crystals for a one-cubic-meter Space Mark was more than enough.

One cubic meter sounded small, but it could hold a lot more than he had expected. He removed all but twenty coins from a chest of Gold Sol and left those with his steward. Then he put the rest of the coins and the chest of crystals into his private space. They occupied only part of it, leaving enough room for several more chests of the same size.

Before long, the inn's attendants brought dinner for all five of them. As their host, Donald's meal was naturally the most sumptuous. It was more plentiful and delicious than anything he had eaten in this world—a fitting spread for an inn that charged two Gold Sol a night.

After dinner, Donald still couldn't feel at ease with so much money on him. He simply spent one level-one Magic Core to summon an Owl belonging to the Night Elf Huntress and set it flying to a tree in the courtyard to keep watch. Then, still uneasy, he spent one unit of Low-grade Elemental Crystals to acquire a Sentry Ward and planted it in a concealed spot in the courtyard.

With these two layers of protection, even a powerful assassin of Bronze rank or higher would probably have trouble sneaking into the courtyard. Even if they evaded the Owl on the perimeter, the moment they entered the Sentry Ward's observation range, it would detect them in time.

Unlike its short-lived effect in the game, the Sentry Ward Donald had acquired could monitor all activity within a one-kilometer radius and detect every invisible unit that entered its hundred-meter range. It lasted for three days. If any unidentified creature or object moved into its monitored area, an image would form in Donald's mind, showing him its location and warning him.

That was the effect the Book of Truth had created by combining the game's settings with the rules of this world. It was more than enough to guard against any ill-intentioned enemy.

Donald slept soundly through the night, unaware that not long after he had driven away from the Gold Sol Auction House with his spoils, a report had been placed at the bedside of every major power in Giant Stone City.

The Gold Sol Auction House, which had received the news first, sent the intelligence to its owner as quickly as possible.

Bert, the chief steward, stood respectfully in the study, waiting for the person reading the report behind the desk to give his orders.

In an expensive leather armchair, an elderly noble studied the paper in his hand and smiled faintly.

"Interesting! A mage apprentice, of all things. Who would have thought a place like Giant Stone City could produce someone like him?"

"Keep watching him. Report anything you learn to me at once!"

Bert repeatedly agreed, then bowed and withdrew.

After Bert left, the old man clenched his hand. The paper crumbled into fine powder, and a barely audible voice came from within the study.

"I've managed the business in Giant Stone City for that person for decades. My days are numbered now. It's time the old man made plans for himself!"

Donald naturally knew nothing about the various powers investigating him. Even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared. He had long realized that once he made a move, it would be difficult to keep outsiders from finding out. At the very least, the lord of Red Maple Town and the Viscount of Giant Stone City—the two greatest powers within a hundred miles—would learn about it right away.

After all, he was an heir to a hereditary knighthood and lived on the territory of one of them.

Donald knew that if he grew strong quickly, then by the time those powers decided to make a move, they wouldn't be able to threaten him. So he didn't dwell on it. He ate and slept in peace. Better to enjoy life and quietly grow rich than spend every day worrying needlessly!