Hell Difficulty Tutorial

There are multiple rooms where the items are previewed, and there are already plenty of people in these rooms inspecting the items for one last time before the auction. A few guards are in each room, while the items are in glass boxes with circuits etched into them.

Armors, amulets, rings, some weird eggs, and bottles that are hundreds of years old. Some expensive meats that are also apparently hundreds of years old and perfectly stored. This meat can be smelled even through the glass and is from high-level monsters.

Mana stones with information stored on them and even plenty of items people don't know what they are for or that are straight up broken.

We pass through multiple rooms like that and even though some items are good, they don't catch my interest that much. Sure, I will buy anything that seems useful, yet they don't excite me, so we pass into a room with more and more valuable items.

Soon the rooms have much fewer people in them and there needs to be an invitation to even be able to enter them, something Obelia has so we can enter.

I notice a few rare armors of the upper tier, mana batteries that are hard to find anywhere else, and encrypted mana stones. Old manuals inscribed into mana stones containing information on classes.

Finally, this is getting better.

“This is the last room,” Obelia says, and this time the confirming of her identity takes longer and when we enter, there are barely ten people inside and two lynthari guards.

There are only ten items in there and I recognize a few of them.

First, the epic spear Obelia got from the old capital and that has the most people around it. The plan is to buy it for Tess so she can use it as a projectile. Might be overkill, but with the amount of money we got from scamm... from leveraging our epic items to the lynthari, we should be capable of buying this.

Plus, we got more money from Sophie and her… well, her ability to make people cooperative as well from me selling some inscribed mana stones.

We are not scammers.

“Oh, feral angry kitten!” I hear the voice and can only sigh as Isola rushes towards us.

One of the strongest humans in the city has a smile on her face and is wearing a black dress that reveals a big chunk of her belly. “You are quite handsome if you dress up, but I still prefer you in normal clothes,” she complains and also greets other people.

“Is there anything you want to buy, Isola?” Obelia asks her.

Isola scratches her head, “Not really, just a few members of my guild want me to buy a mana stone,” she gestures towards one of the glass boxes, “Apparently it has some amazing inscriptions on it made by some upcoming genius enchanter.”

She then pauses for a moment, “Oh, and did you notice lynthari saying ‘nya’ after every other sentence? Lately, more and more of them do that, do you think they are trying to mess with us?”

“Oh? You noticed it too? Maybe it's some trend from their youngsters?” Obelia answers, and they get into a conversation and I use the opportunity to move around the room.

One after another, I check all the items and as expected, the mana stone Isola talked about is the one inscribed by me. As for why it's here among the most valuable items, I don't know. Well, it's probably the old man selling it here, but I don't know why it's considered so valuable to be next to an epic spear.

None of the items look more interesting than the heavy chest without any holes we got from the old capital.

Yes, even after all these months and dozens of attempts, we were unable to open it. Not me, not Lily, not even Biscuit after I told him there is the best food stored inside of it. At this point, I might give it to Min-Jae or Tess to use as a heavy projectile as they did during the first floor with heavy chunks of iron.

“Some items here are really nice, the best rare items I saw, and probably close to stepping into the epic grade,” Hadwin joins my side and I notice that he is playing with the ring he has on his finger. The epic rarity one.

“We will buy most of them and you guys can take them,” I shrug my shoulders.

“Nothing caught your eyes?”

“Nothing here, but in one of the first rooms, I noticed a few broken items and mana stones that I really want to get,” I answer him.

I'm not even lying. More than these highest rare-grade items and even more than the epic spear, I saw a mana stone that had such dense and weird inscriptions that they seemed like cracks and made the organizers put it into the trash items they want to get rid of.

There was also a bracelet that was twisted and broken, yet the metal it was made of was reacting extremely weirdly to my primordial energies. To be honest, it made me so curious I almost tried to steal it right there.

I spend the remaining time there talking with Hadwin and Lily, who sneaks closer to us while Tess deals with other people in the room.

All the guild masters are here, even Lorven, who looks at me so lovingly, and Thalen, the redheaded guild master of the Luminous Order. The healer tries to get into a talk with Lily, but she just straight up tells him that she is not interested, whatever she meant by it.

As for me, I still plan to make Lily a stronger healer than him so I can show off.

Now that we are here, I wonder if I should introduce Hadwin to Isola; both of them have a similar fighting style. I don't trust the woman, but Haddy could learn a thing or two from her.

Then I also get some food for Biscuit and hold him in my hands so he can also look at the items without having to hover. Every time he asks, I answer him that no, the item he is looking at is not food. He seems a bit disappointed, wondering why I'm showing him items that are not food.

As the auction starts coming closer, we head towards another room where all of us register. After infusing a mana stone with our mana we receive another one with our signature, which we can use to bid on the items by sending a pulse of mana inside of it.

Then everyone slowly gets to the biggest circular room. On one side of that room, there is a small podium where the items will be presented and the auctioneer will stand.

Down below that podium are a lot of chairs where people will be sitting and then there are dozens of balconies all around the room. All of them are private and each one is just big enough to house only a few people.

The room is beautifully lit by light that is sharp enough to light everything yet still soft to the eyes. Luxurious red drapes are everywhere, most of them even having embroidery with some material that glows slightly, fed by mana batteries nicely hidden from view.

I also notice a heating system built in the floor. Heating stones buried under and spreading heat through efficient mana circuits, yet in shapes that make them pretty to look at.

But the most eye-catching part of the room is the ceiling that curves a bit, creating a dome over the entire room, and then there is an effect created. The ceiling looks like a pitch-black dark sky full of stars that pulsate slowly and also light the room.

I poke Lily so she closes her wide-open mouth as she stares at it. Not like Angry Kittens have some name, but she will ruin what remains of it.

But yeah, when we get back to Earth, I will totally copy this thing and have it in my room. Obviously, I will make it even better. Maybe I can sneak inside the auction building a bit later and examine it. With the help of the epic cape we have, it should be doable.

“Welcome, welcome!” a tall man with long brown hair enters the podium, a big smile on his face showing his perfect teeth and clothes, “Thank you all for participating in the auction organized by White Stone Company and under the patronage of Ms. Lyriel!”

The man's voice, strengthened by some means, evenly spreads through the room and even reaches the balcony where Angry Kittens, Obelia, and Jenna sit.

“Lyriel?” I ask Obelia.

“Lynthari in charge of administration of the city.”

The auctioneer talks for a bit more, using flowery words to compliment people here or to point out how amazing the auction, White Stone Company, and Lyriel are. It all goes on for a few long minutes.

“Now then, why don't we get to why we all are here?” he finally gets to the point and the mood immediately changes.

People stop talking, they sit up straighter in their chairs, and all eyes turn towards the podium.

Seeing all of this, the man smiles and bows slightly as the drape on the side moves and the first item is brought onto a circular pedestal exactly in the middle of the podium.

“We will start with this item! It's a mana stone found in the ruins of a small village north of the city. Its age is estimated to be two hundred ninety years old. The stone contains information about the people living in that village and its administration. The starting price is two Mirage stones!”

The fight immediately starts, and I can feel multiple pulses of mana from people under us that the auctioneer receives and starts shouting out, the price quickly climbing to four Mirage stones and then changing to one Heart stone.

“So, Tess, how does the currency work?” I say after quickly resonating the air around us so Obelia doesn’t hear.

The look that Tess gives me is halfway between amused and annoyed, “Nat, you've spent multiple months in this city, how the hell…”

I interrupt her, “I'm rich.”

She rolls her eyes, but I can see that she can't help herself and a small smile appears on her face.

Tess then explains and tells me how much each stone would be worth in comparison to dollars. Obviously, it's all estimations, but quite close if I know how diligent she can be.

There are 13 grades of mana stones, and obviously, the higher the grade, the more worth it has, and the rarer it is. Also, the higher the rarity, the harder they are to work on and to inscribe.

I just make sure to remember that the most valuable and somewhat used is the Eclipse Stone, worth around 1 million dollars, and the Sun Stone, worth 500 thousand dollars, among others.

There are probably some even more expensive ones, but that's not something you are usually able to see as a human.

I also quickly forget the names of cheaper mana stones. I don't think I will need this information outside of this auction.

In the end, I also ask, “So, how rich am I?”

“I could tell you that we have a few Sun Stones in the bank and you would have to believe me,” Tess teases.

“That's true. Tess, are you stealing my money and building yourself a villa near the sea?”

“Just one? With how much we have, I could build multiple of them and you wouldn't even notice,” she snorts and smiles, glancing to the side at our healer, “But to quickly answer, before Lily gets even more jealous. In the bank, we have well over one hundred Eclipse Stones.”

Huh, what?

“Come again?”

“Yes, Nat, you are rich, disgustingly rich,” Tess shakes her head, “It could be double that, but the loans you got against epic items were extremely predatory and you guys could get much more. So next time, please take me as well.”

“Tess, do we really have over a hundred million dollars' worth of mana stones?” I decide to ignore that it could be twice that.

“Yes. I'm still in a bit of shock that you didn’t even realize it.”

For a moment, I think about it, and then my eyes move down and I look at the cute corgi that lies by my legs.

How much are you worth? Surely more than some useless epic item, right?

Biscuit senses my look and lifts his head, tilting it a bit, surprised by my intense stare, (Food?) he asks.

No! I can't!

I quickly pet him and tell him that he is a good boy and cancel the isolation field around us, the voice of the auctioneer getting to our ears once more.

That's when I feel goosebumps on my skin, and looking around, I identify the source of it: a little lynthari girl staring at me from one of the balconies. She is there alone and when her eyes meet mine, a big smile appears on her face.

I just give up and prepare my [Perception], and as the rift appears next to me, I observe it, how it is created, how it interacts with space around it, and how mana moves inside of it.

“Underling!” the redheaded girl smiles, totally ignoring the other people in the room.

Obelia's eyes are so wide open that for a moment I think they might fall out, and Jenna seems like she is about to bow or kneel.

“It's good you are here, I was getting bored, nya!” she stops next to me, “Let's watch the auction together.”

Things have become more… interesting.