Second World

Could they be like Dylan? Getting into the auction through special means via a faction? Jack thought as his gaze stayed on the two figures. Coincidentally, the two holograms also wore concealment coats, which prevented Jack from reading their info. If it was not for the color from his radar, he would not be able to tell if they were players or NPCs.

While Jack was staring at them, one of them turned their hooded head towards him as well.

Uh, should I wave to express goodwill? Jack thought.

They ended up just sat there staring at each other for a good whole while. Before the other side lost interest and returned his or her attention back to the center stage of the auditorium.

Jack's thought didn't linger too long at the two mysterious players as well. If he and Dylan could get access to this auction, why other players could not? What fascinated him was the two players were hologram images, which meant that they were from another city of the kingdom. He wondered if he could get to know them so as to get information about the other cities.

Peniel was a good source of info but she probably only knew about the geographical locations of the other cities. Of what particular contents and benefits these cities provided for players, he doubted the fairy would know the details. Not to mention, this guide of him tended to be moody and bequeathed information only when she thought that he needed it.

While Jack was still in thought, a voice boomed from the center of the auditorium stage, "ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to our special royal auction. There will be many exotic items on offer throughout this auction. Either you are physically here, or attending from our sister facilities from other cities, all of you have the same chance to get the auction items here! All you have to do of course is having enough coins."

Jack looked at the source of the voice and saw a well-attired bearded aged male at the center of the auditorium stage. He was smiling mischievously upon his last remark.

"For those that were your first time here, welcome! You can rest assured that each of our exhibits has been appraised by top experts. So every piece will be a genuine article exactly as detailed in their explanations. You can check the detail data of each article by tapping at the red gem beside your seat when the article was being auctioned."

Jack looked at the armrest of his seat, there was a peculiar red color gem there. He at first thought it was just a decoration of the seat. He tried tapping at it. A holographic text 'empty' appeared and floated above the red gem. Guessed he had to wait till an auctioned item was brought out before it could serve its function.

The auctioneer continued with his introduction. He introduced a bit about the history of this auction event. How it started by the member of the royal family. It was just limited member participation at the time, before it grew bigger and a special venue was built to host the auction, which was the building they were in now. This event grew even more popular that its branch facilities were constructed in other cities, allowing nobles and rich people from the other cities to be able to conveniently join the auction.

After a while, he finally closed his lengthy introduction, "without further ado, let us begin what we have all been waiting for!"

The aged auctioneer motioned to his beautiful female assistant, who stood beside a veiled large object. She pulled the veil and revealed a plain-looking monolith. While Jack was wondering if the monolith was amongst the thing being auctioned, its plain-looking surfaces suddenly flared with bright runes. Several words of power floated out of the runes and formed a circular pattern, which then converged and created an image of heavy chest armor.

"Our first item of the auction is the Armor of Crest Fang, a level 45 super rare chest armor!" The auctioneer paused for a while before saying, "for those of you who had attended our auction, you shouldn't find this weird, but I will explain for the sake of our newest attendees. As you can see, the item we display is not the real item, but rest assured under the reputation of the royal family that we have the real thing. This is a safety precaution implemented due to an incident in the past. You can check on the data of this rare armor by tapping the red gem beside your seat."

When the auctioneer didn't elaborate on the incident he mentioned, Jack turned to marquess Fernando, "what kind of incident was he talking about?"

"It was a blatant stealing while the auction was in progress," the marquess answered.

"What? Aren't there many guards around?"

"There are, but the thief was a high-level individual who used some kind of unknown magic to teleport himself away once he managed to snatch the item. That unknown magic of his even manage to bypass the confinement rune diagram in place here. The guards failed to even see his shadow and he was gone. Since then, such precaution was taken."

Jack was amused by the history, such an incident would be a sight to see. He then heard the auctioneer's voice again, "the Armor of Crest Fang will be auctioned with the starting price of 15 gold coins, the bid increment will be 2 gold coins."

Wow, 15 gold coins. So the high-level armor was sold in gold coins already. But then again, this is super rare grade equipment, such an amount should not be strange. He tapped on the red gem to check on the armor data. A holographic image appeared soon, showing a similar picture shown above the auction block except much smaller, with more comprehensive texts to describe the item.

The data not only showed the statistic of the equipment, but also showed its history. The chest armor had a physical defense of 255 points and a magical defense of 190. It was apparently produced by a famous advanced master blacksmith called Haestus who was at the moment close to reaching the rank of grandmaster.

The bid started, many of the NPCs seemed to be interested in it. Jack was tempted to bid himself, but it would just be a waste to buy a piece of equipment that he cannot use, he would need to be at least level 35 before he could equip the armor, so he restrained himself.

The bids kept going on fiercely, it was a good start for the auction. The bids started to slow down once they reached 35 gold coins. Jack was astonished, that was around half the private stock of his gold coin. It was finally sold to one of the NPCs at the price of 55 gold coins.

"What a waste, the fair market value of that armor should just be around 30 gold coins," he heard Dylan spoke up from his side?

"What's a fair market value?" Jack asked.

"It's an average price if you buy this piece of armor in a store," Dylan answered.

"But you can't buy a super rare equipment in a store," Jack said.

Dylan didn't reply.

"So how can you know its price if you can't buy it?" Jack didn't let the subject go.

Dylan was getting annoyed, he finally uttered, "I read the information from a journal in the Trade Association, ok. It depicted the average prices of most items, including equipment."

"It even has the price info on this Armor of Crest Fang?"

"No, it has the info of average price on super-rare chest armor. Of course, every armor is different, but it should be more or less within that price range."

"Wow, that is still impressive. So you know the price of every item then?"

"Not every item obviously, how big do you think that journal is? But the association should have records of almost everything. There are many journals in the association and I only have access to one of them, which cataloged the most basic items."

"They considered super rare armor as most basic?"

Dylan gave him a serious look before replying, "yes. Only you brutes valued those fighting equipment so highly."

Marquess Fernando had long since gotten used to the two's repartee, so he wasn't bothered by them. Yet he was also not so interested in the things in the auction, which had already proceeded to the second item, a super rare material. He gave a yawn to express his boredom.

The third item was a complete corpse of a Rare Elite monster. Jack was surprised that the corpse was intact. His understanding was that all monsters would disintegrate once they died. Peniel explained to him that there were tools that allowed the corpse from getting disintegrated. Such corpses of rare monsters were usually popular for academics who like to perform experiments on them. There were indeed many NPCs who bid on the corpse.

Jack was also getting bored. Though the auctioned items were interesting, he still preferred to go out questing and increasing his level. However, when the auctioneer announced the fourth item, he perked up.