" Man, I love you " Sebastian said as he sat in the luxurious VIP booth number 7 and sipped the expensive wine that was complementarity served by a beautiful human girl.
The human girl was very flirty with Sebastian since he responded well to her charms, while her friend tried her luck with Max, he was too cold and soon the woman got the signal that this guy was unapproachable and respectfully backed off.
There was still time till the auction started and sitting there with Max seeing all the money and the women and the catalogue of items, Sebastian felt like a degenerate gambler excited for a gambling session as he felt like he could try his hand at buying some items off his own in this auction, until he realised that while he and Max were VIP and sitting in one of the best boxes of the auction house, there were still better and bigger boxes in the VIP+ row above them, reminding Sebastian that there was always a bigger fish.
" Oof, I almost became courageous here today and wanted to show off, life is treacherous" Sebastian said as Max nodded and raised his glass of wine towards Sebastian and said " May the cowardice be with you "
" May the cowardice be with you " Sebastian replied and drank the whole glass of wine down as the human girl who was previously admiring Sebastian now gave him odd looks.
" You be out, you devil spawn, with you around I'll try act like a hero, I'm a damn proud coward and will not be swayed by your charms " Sebastian said as he dismissed the human girl serving him, much to the amusement of Max who giggled his bum off looking at the scene.
" These women, I tell you, are always looking for my big dwarf D. Sometimes I don't understand why God made me so handsome, it's a hassle. " Sebastian said as Max nodded grimly and indulged his narcissism as the two men goofed around for a while before the auction began.
Soon, the auction house became nearly full with all lower rows being seated to capacity when a crippling aura covered the entire building, suffocating everyone as a Monarch made his way to the VIP+ room.
Max caught a glimpse of the man from the corner of his eye, the Emperor Cervantez, one of the two monarchs in attendance of the auction today, while the other one was going to be the mercenary king Avans.
The entire arena erupted in hushed conversation once Cervantez entered the building, and even Sebastian was greatly impressed as he pointed towards Cervantez's VIP+ box with his mouth agape.
Max found it funny as to how everyone treated this man like he was the biggest bosses in the universe, yet, not long back his brother and Cervantez would sit on a table and discuss business like equals.
It just reminded Max of the status and charm his brother had in this universe and how big of a hole his death had brought to the family.
If his brother was around he could probably chill with him in one of those VIP+ boxes up there and be assured that even if his brother bid 1 gold coin on his Agni Astra, nobody in the auction house would have the balls to bid 2 gold coins.
A while after Cervantez was seated, another crippling pressure covered the arena as Avans brazenly made his way to his box, not even trying to conceal his aura as if threatening the entire arena to not mess with the items he had his eyes on before settling into one of the other VIP+ boxes.
In total only 4 VIP+ customers were in attendance for the auction, while 1070 VIP customers were there amongst a total tally of around 400,000.
The auction was primarily divided into 4 phases, with phase one being open for all, phase 2 being reserved for platinum customers and above, phase 3 for VIP customers and above and the 7 items in phase 4 reserved for VIP+ bidders only.
Off those 7 items, one was Max's soul treasure and the other was the orb that Cervantez and Avans had a bidding war over in his past life.
While there were many items in phase one and two that Max wanted to get his hands on, Max knew that he needed every last penny that he owned for the Agni-Astra and could take no risks before that.
Hence when the auction finally started and the bidding began in the lower houses for the low quality items, Max just watched amusedly while waiting patiently for his turn.
Phase one was going to last for 2 hours and phase two was going to last for 3, meaning that there was going to be at least 5 hours before the interesting stuff happened and hence to keep the important guests entertained the auction house had prepared special shows in the VIP and VIP+ boxes such as magic performances, dance shows etc.
Max and Sebastian chilled as they enjoyed these shows and tipped the performers a years worth of their salary until in a blink of an eye the round2 ended and the announcer announced the start of round3.
Max signalled for the performers to leave as he took a seat near the glass window to have a look at the upcoming proceedings seriously.
Max had been informed that his common items had all been sold for a net income of 1.06 billion gold coins after the 5% auction fee was deducted, and Max was pretty happy about it as he had expected around that figure himself.
" Ladies and gentlemen, the first item for the third phase is an item you won't see again in your lifetimes.
The bone marrow of a tier 7 white dragon, which is essential in crafting many semi-divine level pills and can be used to create the priceless divine constitution enhancement pill.
Bidding starts at 2 billion gold coins, each increment must be 50 million gold coins or more.
Let the bidding start ". The auctioneer announced as Max had his eyes pinned at his item which was cleaned, transferred into a new container and presented on a crystal mount as if it was the most exquisite piece of ingredient, and the bidding became intense quite fast for the item.
" 2.2 billion " said VIP2
" 2.5 billion " said VIP3
And before the others could get in on the action a mega bid of 3.5 billion came from VIP+ 1 box where Emperor Cervantez was seated, and the other bidders quickly went cold.
" Booyah! " Max said out loud as even after the auction fee of 5% which came to be a whopping 175 million gold coins, Max was going to net 3.325 billion gold coins from this transaction.
The night was off to a good start!
Sebastian, who recognised the item, silently clapped for Max as he remembered how Kremeth asked both of them to extract the vials and hand them over to Kremeth for safekeeping.
While Sebastian the obedient student handed over all the vials, it seemed like Max had kept a few for himself and made a hefty sum off it.
It was a good business decision and one that Sebastian could learn from.
