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1597 Words
The bid quickly shot up to 920 points before the item was sold. Matt wanted to buy it for Melinda, but he would have burned through all of his points while also doing exactly what he decided not to; give them another crutch. He did send her a message with the item and its purported abilities, so she at least knew that it existed.
The next item was one that Matt recognized from the batch of items they sold to Samuel at the auction house. “This is a Tier 5 rift made sword that increases swing speed and damage massively when mana is run through it. The sword is rated to Tier 7 strength. Bidding starts at 50 war contribution points.”
Matt looked at Liz, and they smiled at each other, seeing where this was going. A lot of the items they pulled were like that one. They were useful, but not what they wanted, so they sold them in bulk to the auction house. It was slightly painful, as they had gotten mana stones out of it, which were much less valuable than the war contribution points they were selling for now.
More items flew by, with nearly a quarter of them being ones that they had sold. Matt reaffirmed his intention to only sell through the Empire Market to avoid something like this. It twisted the knife to see his items go for so much higher than they had sold them for.
They watched in disinterest until their first mana cultivation potion went up for sale.
“This pretty little thing is a potion that our alchemist confirmed will increase each of the consumer’s three mana cultivation aspects. It’s balanced to give a slight increase to both Mana Regeneration and Maximum Mana. That’s not all, it uses most of the potion’s effect to give a Mana Concentration of 0.1. This is the first batch up for auction, and it contains 10 potions. Like all of the following ones, they are for Tier 5. Fighters, if you want to firm up your base, these little beauties are the way to do it. Starting price of 100 war contribution points.”
There was a buzz that ran through the audience.
Someone called out, “Are you selling any singles?”
Javier pointed into the standing crowd and answered the question. “Yes. The final and best ten will be sold in single lots at the end. If you don’t get one here, I believe the war market will have some of them for sale as well, but their price will be set according to the final bidding price”
Matt leaned forward in his chair in anticipation. They would be getting these points, so he crossed his fingers and hoped their price rose to the sky.
“125.”
“150.”
“180.”
“210.”
“250.”
“300.” The final price was called out by the prince, and Princess Sara immediately snapped out a counter.
“350.”
Matt wiggled in his seat.
Finally, after a long moment of deliberation, the prince called out, “400.”
“500!” the princess didn’t hesitate in the slightest when she raised the bid again.
Matt didn’t think 50 points apiece was bad for the worst potions that Liz had made. While the others’ attention was all on the unfolding drama, he smiled at Liz, who looked to be on cloud nine.
He was proud of his partner and all of her accomplishments.
Looking across the stage, he saw Sara smiling and getting a pat on her arm by her mother.
Sara was nearly out of her seat, while the prince was more collected and calmer, as if none of this bothered him in the slightest.
Their third batch of potions, with a Mana Concentration of 0.12, had just sold for 600 war points, when a skill shard was brought out.
Javier stroked the case holding the skill and called out in his sonorous voice, “This beauty is [Cracked Mana Bolt].” At the murmur, Javier laughed and spoke over the crowd. “This is a marvelous cracked skill. Unlike most mana bolt skills that are neutral in their attack, this one randomly changes its aspect to anything. Shoot it enough times, and you punch through any armor type.”
Emily was out of her seat and had her face pressed against the privacy formation.
“The starting bid is 200 is points.”
She immediately shouted, “1,000!”
Matt was shocked by her spending nearly all her points, but he was blown away by someone else immediately bidding higher.
In just a moment, the price was at 2,500 points, with smaller and smaller bids being placed.
Emily looked at them, and after a brief internal struggle, said, “I need to get this skill. I’ll pay you back with interest, but please.”
Seeing their hesitation, she blurted, “Look, long story short, my Talent basically lets me repeatedly double the effect of any skill, as long as it’s a different aspect than one I used in the same chain of spells. Once I repeat anything, it resets. This is perfect for me. I need it.”
Matt looked at Liz, and they nodded.
At nearly the same time as Conor, he said, “We have 3,000 you can use. No interest needed.”
“I have 1,000.”
Annie looked at her crush with doe eyes, and Emily turned and shouted, “3,000.”
Someone else called out when the countdown was at one, “4,000.”
“f*****g fucker. I need this. You brain-dead idiot.”
“5,000!” Her voice was overly controlled when she spoke through the screen.
Matt leaned forward with anticipation as the countdown reached two, then one. It felt like an eternity when it finally clicked to zero, and Emily was the winner of the auction.
She dropped to her butt at the edge of their box. “I think I’m going to vomit.”
Matt patted the woman’s arm and pulled her up to her chair, where she bonelessly sat.
“Thanks, guys. I really owe you for that one.”
Matt was interested in her Talent but didn’t want to press. He carefully asked, “Don’t answer this if you don’t want to, but if you can double the effect of a skill if it’s a different element, why don’t you have something common like [Fireball]?”
She stretched and sighed. “We grew up on a water world, and it didn’t have a lot of fire skills. It’s why I have two water skills and a lightning skill that we were able to trade for. I intended to buy a [Fireball] here with some points, but that’s kinda shot for now. Thankfully, it’s pretty common, so I should be able to get it in a few weeks. Well, after I pay you all back, of course. I really appreciate it guys.”
Matt looked at Liz and raised an eyebrow. He was leery of giving more help after seeing what happened to Melinda’s team, but he had an extra [Fireball] that wasn’t reserved for himself.
Liz shrugged, putting the ball back in his court, but nodded slightly as well.
He thought over her suggestion. She was okay with it, and the more he thought, the more he had to agree it was different from Melinda’s party. Annie and Emily were strong in their own right. They held their own in their fight. And one extra skill would, if he understood her Talent right, take her from a four times multiplier to an eight times multiplier. That was massive, if paired with her [Bolt] skill as a finisher.
Hoping he wasn’t making a mistake, he withdrew and tossed the still boneless Emily a [Fireball] skill. “Here’s a [Fireball]. No reason to wait. Just giving us the standard value in mana stones or points is fine. Better to have it now if I understand your Talent right. An eight times stronger [Bolt] would be devastating in a fight, and it’ll help our team build up points faster.”
She looked up from the skill shard that she scrambled for, and with a hard look in her eyes, said, “I won’t take it if you wanted to sell or trade it. Even if it would help me, I won’t slow you down to do it.”
Matt debated taking out his bucket of skills to shock her, but only brought out his other [Fireball]. “I have my own. We were going to sell it, but we’d rather sell it to you instead of someone else. In the end, we get the same payment, just a little later.”
Emily didn’t protest further, simply nodding to him and then to Liz and Aster. “Thank you. This really does help, and your math was right. With the [Cracked Mana Bolt], as long as I don’t get fire, water, or lightning, I can pretty much get an eight times damage bonus; possibly more if my luck is good.”
Matt shuddered at that thought. It would undoubtedly rip right through [Cracked Phantom Armor] at that high of an increase in power. He looked at Annie and Conor and said, “If either of you are looking for specific skills, let us know. We can help you try and get it.”
Conor raised his drink and said, “To new friends and growing stronger.”
They all drank to that.
- Writer
