Raelyn stood up and hugged Kevin, who hugged her back.
She ruffled his hair a bit.
"And who do we have here?" Raelyn looked past Kevin and saw Elena, Eva, and Ria.
"Long time no see," Elena said as she hugged Raelyn.
"Well, it's been a long time since we met in person," Raelyn joked.
Raelyn turned and hugged Eva and Ria, as she knew them because they were Kevin's friends.
The rest of the people in the room looked at them as Kevin walked towards the sofa.
He saw Tyrone, who was bigger than him, sitting on one of the sofas.
"Hello, I am Kevin Whiteheart," Kevin said as he looked at them all.
"I am Tyrone Martell, Vice President of the Student Council," Tyrone shook his hand, and the rest of them nodded as well.
They greeted each other as Zoie, who was the management head, got busy talking to the girls.
"Okay, calm down. The auction is about to start," Raelyn sat in her seat in the middle as they all took a seat.
They looked at the center of the stage, where a man appeared. The lights dimmed as all of them concentrated on the man standing in the middle.
"Welcome to the first auction of this year," the man announced as the clapping sounds reverberated in the stadium.
"I am Gazil, your auctioneer for today," Gazil said,
"You might remember me from the Representative Tournament, and I am here to announce the items for today," he said with a wide smile on his face.
The excitement grew bigger in the auction as many were ready to finally see the artifacts.
"First of all, inside your ID bracelet, we have installed the function to bid on the auctions," Gazil instructed as many touched their ID bracelets.
"You will find the function to bid, and nobody can bid more than the amount they have in their account currently," Gazil said.
It ensured fake bids were not made, and people could not add their GP at the last moment to buy something.
"I hope everyone knows the rules for the auction," Gazil said.
"There is a function installed in all the VIP rooms, and those who wish to buy one single item may contact each other through hologram calls and discuss with each other," he spoke.
"This auction is divided into two sections: first are the artificial artifacts, and the second one is the real deal," he explained.
"SO LET'S START THE NIGHT," Gazil said as the crowd cheered loudly.
The security was decent, and they didn't need much security either. The auction was happening inside World Academy, which was completely safe. Only a few security teams and staff were managing everything.
Almost all the professors were either busy preparing for their classes or trying to fill the gap that the recent expulsion of many professors had led to.
"We will first start with the batch of 500 E Rank Swords, and the highest 500 bids among all the bids will be taken," Gazil said as a few first-years got excited.
"Remember, all artificial artifacts are of the highest quality, so they might even be better than some artifacts." He mentioned.
"We will bid for 15 seconds, and at the end, those in the top 500 will win," Gazil said.
"Now let's start with the bidding," he said as his voice could be heard all over the stadium.
In Rank 1 Asher's VIP Room,
"What the hell? Who are these idiots that are paying 50 GP for this?" Damian spoke.
"Don't they know how much those points are worth?" Damian facepalmed.
"Let them bleed their GP. It's better for us," Amelia said.
"Time's up," Gazil spoke.
Damian looked at the prices of the last person among the Top 500 who had paid 31 GP for these swords.
"Idiots," he couldn't help but say that people who bought those swords at such high prices either had too much GP or were simply dumb.
"We will send these swords to your dorm room after this auction," Gazil announced.
"Now for the next item, we have 500 E Rank Spears..." Gazil started putting more weapons.
As more and more weapons came up, the prices dropped a lot from the first item, so the price right now was quite reasonable.
"And we come to the D Rank Weapons," Gazil said as the first years got serious.
Most of them wanted D Rank Weapons, as the second years would take C Rank weapons.
Asher was not concerned with this, as he didn't need them anyway.
None of the VIP rooms had bid on a single item, and they were not interested in them either way. Therefore, the auction was the cheapest way to buy these weapons, as they were four times the price outside of this auction.
The unspoken rule of World Academy was that those in VIP Rooms would not bid on these weapons so that not-so-rich students could also afford these weapons without spending all their GPs.
But some students outside of VIP Rooms still had enough money to buy GP but still bought weapons from the auction. As there was a rule that a person could bid on one weapon, they could not entirely hoard them.
Gazil kept selling as the weapons came up to B Ranks, and this was the point where the VIP Rooms were ready to bid.
Each B Rank Weapon cost around 10,000 GP, so many were looking to get at least one for cheap.
"We have 500 B Rank Swords," Gazil announced, and the bidding went wild.
They were moving quickly, and the highest bid was already at 4,900 GP.
"And time's up," Gazil said as Damian looked at the 500th position, and that person bid a total of 4,400 GP.
"You didn't buy one?" Damian asked Asher.
"Nope," Asher said, as he wasn't interested in these weapons.
Even in case, he wanted to, he wouldn't come to the auction just for that.
Gazil finished the A Rank weapons as well, and it concluded the first part of the auction, which had artificial artifacts.
"Now, onto the main event - We will start from E Rank Artifacts," Gazil said.
"We have 100 E Rank Artifacts, and all their lists and possible usages are given in your ID Bracelet," Gazil said.
"Starting from D Rank Artifacts, we will start manual bids instead of the current ones, so make sure you use this chance to have random E Rank Artifacts," Gazil said.
And as he said, the artifacts given were random. Even today, Runemasters had difficulty identifying the artifact; even if they did, they couldn't tell a detailed description like the system did.
This was why nobody realized the actual use of the A Rank artifact Alyssa was using. But unfortunately, some artifacts were like that, and even the Runemasters failed to identify them correctly.
"I will bid 400 GP on this," Damian said as he clicked on his ID Bracelet.
Asher was not interested, so he didn't do anything and kept to himself. The real show hadn't even started yet.
The bid ended in 15 seconds, as Damian saw he got a weird artifact since he was in the Top 30 bidders.
"The description says this will produce an E level water spell," Damian said with a disappointed look on his face.
"I will put this on the Trade Center," Damian said as he looked at the stage.
"Now it is time we put out manual bids, and for this, you can enter your bid, and it will appear on the screen here," Gazil said, looking at the VIP Rooms.
"If you want to make an alliance, you can contact other VIP Rooms with the device present in your room," Gazil said as many people approached the stage.
"Apart from the Rankers and Student Council, the rest of the students will be called by the three-digit number next to their name," Gazil informed them.
It was done to create a bidding war between those sitting in VIP rooms.
Asher's eyes were focused on the stage as he looked at the various artifacts present there.
They were holding big plates covered with a cloth, and the items were underneath them.
"For the first D Rank Artifact, we have a shield," Gazil said as a medium-sized shield was revealed.
"It decreases the damage of D Rank and below attacks by one-third of the original attack," Gazil said.
"Do you want me to buy you this shield?" Amelia offered Damian, who was looking at the shield with wide eyes.
"Ah, not really. I already have one, so use it on yours," Damian denied Amelia's offer.
As much as he wanted to buy that shield, he was sure he could also get decent ones from the Trade Center.
"1st Bid is from Asher Greville with 500 GP," Gazil announced, and Damian turned towards Asher, who was touching the hologram that came out from his ID Bracelet.
