The auction had finally began. To the organizer credit, they had popcorns.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Said the announcer. "I welcome you to today Northern Land Auction. Like usual we had gathered rare material from both Lightwell and Thunder Ravine for our visiting guest. May I introduce Peregrine Maxwell our host for tonight."
An elf woman in blue dress cut to show her abdomen and cape arrived pushing trolley containing several specimen.
"Good evening all our customers," said Peregrine. "As an representative of Hyper Channel network it was time to introduce tonight guess to our starring item."
She picked up a grey sword from the trolley.
"High-grade spirit blade forged by the Elven House of Alusto. Created from enchanted meteoric steel, forged in the flame of Elfen's Volcanoes and cooled in the blood of a Rank-A sea beast. This blade high affinity to Ice magic and enchanted with aura that raised user Strength Stat by a solid 35. Starting bid at 3.5 millions credit starting now!"
"3.5 million!" Said a Porty gentleman.
"4 million!"
"5 million!" The woman in the front row raised her voice.
...
"I knew I shouldn't said this but isn't that sword seriously lame at higher level." I stated.
"Wait, isn't Alusto one of the house that booted Lux?" Cy said steaming. "Now I wanted to buy that sword to break it."
"Please Cy it's nothing much," Lux smiled disturbingly by Cy's words. "It wouldn't be worth the cake's money anyway."
"Hush kid," Scathach said but couldn't look more disappointed at the lack of carnage,
...
"3, 2, 1...Sold for 6 million to Guest number 65." Said Peregrine handing the sword to the announcers.
She then introduced us to the next item: a gem.
"This was a high-quality lightning-type magic gem that sat at Rank-B. It was hunted by a team led by the pride of elves: Magnolia Drakokia and Artos Savar in the jointed extermination mission near the Thunder Ravinel. This Gem was form a Lightning Prong King founded near the Ravine. It was once in a lifetime gem founded this decade and invaluable to all Lightning mage. The starting price is 9 millions."
...
Magic gem was a stone found in powerful beast containing magic. It contained mana that could be used to supplement ritual and a very reliable source of energy.
I never thought about what Scathach meant or the consequence of magical beast related energy source until its horrifying existence was show right in my very eyes.
Now I could not unseen or unknown it. Curse you Scathach. Curse you world. Most of all, curse all the freaking Nazi bastard who hunted magic gem. May your soul lingered in this world and never find peace. May your existence turn into agony of fire to repent for your crime.
"Brutal," Cy muttered looking ill. As someone who knew mana art she was hit with what I see full force. "Hell with S-rank Alchemist. I will never used a magic gem from a living being ever again?"
"How could you Mag? What the hell get into your head?" Lux looked at the Gem like it very existence was a sorrowful mistake. An opinion I was totally on board with. "How could anyone do this? How dare they endorsed this?"
Scathach looked at them incredulously.
"What the hell gotten into you two?"
As the most sensible person of the bunch I decided to explain the tragedy that was that gem existence and the horror that should not be kept in the fridge.
"Scathach, that gem was full of mana and we already established that mana symbiotically linked with existence and emotion of that existence. So let me enlightened this for you...the Gem's Mana was screaming. It broadcast the raw agonizing memory of the innocent being ganged up, butchered and dissected for measly resources. A beautiful animal with pack and family that broke apart during attack and left to a mercy of fate. Considering that anyone with mana perception can saw this entire memory and felt everything its felt, the gem existence was a hyper realistic video of brutality and cruelty on steroid. Trust me it was painful death and, unlike a beast like Ravine Snapper, the mana inside the gem was benign and in agony. The very sight of it wanted me to start a witch hunt."
Scathach nodded in understanding.
"Kid, I must tell you there are million of these..."
"I know there must be a huge supplies to satisfied this disgusting level of demand," I looked at the crowd who was yelling higher and higher price for a corpse of a butchered father who tried his best to fend of a band of invaders from his children and died in the process. "I think today image just burn into my very memory."
I made a mental note of avoiding any and all auction involving magic gem and to take a shower the moment I had a chance.
...
"3, 2, 1 congratulations for Number 167 who bought this wonderful gem for 20 millions credit." Said Peregrine
The room cheers.
...
At that moment Horizon Dawn member drafted their common denominator share among all member present and future.
"This is my first decree as the leader of Horizon Dawn," Cy said paralyzed with absolute horror at the cheering of those foolishly ignorant spectators. "From this moment forth magic gem hunting was deemed forbidden and illegal for all member of Horizon. Under in no condition, should the synonym of the word such as wonderful, just and progressive be used in conjunction of with the phrase 'magic gem'."
"Roger that," said the traumatized Lux. "Completely Roger that."
"I will draft the constitution," Rem said looking at the gem like he was witnessing a tragedy. "I swore I will made this thing obsolete by this year end. I swore this oath upon the memory of that dying father."
Would it surprised you to discover that every member of Horizon Dawn become infamous for their universal hatred of magic gem's industry as much as their prowess in battle?
To get the picture, let quote some members.
'It was good design even when base on the flawed concept and the power source is...I take my compliment back. No good ever come from using Tragedium'—the history greatest master of magic engineering.
'I saw no honor in beating a weaker beast and parading its corpse as glorified battery.'—Phantasia's greatest sword-master.
'Friend do not let friend married Misery Ore trader.'—Father of Absolute Ruin and pioneered of contract magic.
'Congratulations a**-hole, you landed yourself on top of our shit list. To take that in context, you beat the cooperation who traded ten millions of crystallized agony annually. You must be so proud'—The girl who was called the greatest slayer of Vampire.
Hell even relative was not spared.
"I can defend my sister on many account. But I cannot, in good conscience, defend her unhealthy participation in the hideous botch that is the Stone of Anguish."—Ace of Lightning.
...
"Finally, it was time today highlight," Said Peregrine, flesh from striking existential disgust into my mind. "As you may well know the Northern Forest was home to many medicinal plant but the most coveted by nobles everywhere would without a doubt be the Northern Bloom"
The crowd began to chattered.
"Said to bestowed celestial beauty when concocted under room temperature but lose it effectiveness at great cold. It also display high toxicity at higher temperatures. Without a doubt one of the hardest ingredient to tame. A medicinal concocted with this plant must involve no usage of heat whatsoever. The Alchemist who even dare used it as an ingredient must performed the task of nutrient extraction, mixing and pull-consolidating with firelessly using natural energy manipulation and superhuman level of mana control. A task worthy of a seasoned S-rank Alchemist!"
She was ruling up the crowd with that one.
"Even among S-Rank, less than seven boast such a feat. Yet, here we are. On this table are twenty pills of highest quality created using expertly processed Ravine Earth Snapper's Bone and Blood as based ingredient. Our evaluator indicated that it contained both high quality Honey Tulip and Indigo Vine as enhancer. And, to even our disbelieve, a solid 99.7% extract of Northern Bloom. This record brew away even Nu Wa who hold the solid 99.4%. Lady and Gentlemen May I present you the Northern Flower Pill. The pill that stood grandly even among S-Rank pill and the one that guaranteed to have you the body of Celestial. Each pill would start at the bid of 20 million credit?"
...
"20 millions!" Cy jumped up of her seat. Lux pulled her down immediately. "This is totally ridiculous. Those pills were prototypes. I even write down a much more polish process to make it even better."
"You did an excellent job." Scathach said. "You even broke your master record."
"Because unlike master I can actually ordered natural energy," Cy insisted. "In fact dropping Northern Bloom into the paste like that was really faulty. That why the purity of the extract dropped by 0.3%"
"It could be better?" Lux wondered, her mouth wide opened. "Father always complain that pill that could give you skill cost at least 8 digit worth of credit."
Wait, shouldn't we be happy about the fact that we are about to make a truck load of money.
...
"The first pill is sold for 3o million to number 203. The second pill start the bid at 21 million credit."
"25 million," Said the women on the front row.
"Not on my watches," argued a much younger girl. "28 million!"
"Celestial body will be mine! 37 million!" Said another last on the left row.
...
"Un-freakin-believable," I gaped at the bidding war. "Is cosmetic pill this popular?"
"Rem 50% of the Phantasia's most powerful ability is a woman and the rest had concubine and wives they got to please?" Scathach muttered. "It easier to get to A-rank than to get a killer look. If you think this is bad, looked at the bidding war over a pill that actually gave you a chest upgrade and actually reduce aging?"
"Yeah, master rarely release the pill like that into bidding market," Cy said bringing back bad memories. "The animal that provide the magic gem for those nearly got hunt to extinction."
"My father also stressed an importance of robbing the other after auction," Lux said mesmerized by the carnage. "I never believed him until now."
"It is that bad?"
"Rem the nobles in Grand Empire are totally obsessed with their images," Scathach explained. "Even those bonehead prince and princess in Aztellic was still vain enough to attend overseas auction for the sake of rare pill."
"And given the fact that known Alchemist who make cosmetic pill got kidnap into a faction the moment they made themselves known made cosmetic pill even rarer," Cy recalled. "That probably why Master kept drilling in the importance of forging a fake ID."
So even the Heavenly Empress was afraid of cosmetic pill worshiper. Looking at the fervor's in the surrounding buyers' eyes, I totally believe it.
...
Finally, the auction come to a close.
"3,2,1 sold! The final pill was sold for 83 millions credit." Peregrine declared. "The entire set was sold for a historic 1.35 billion!"
Cy fainted at the sight of money.
"Given the 20% commission that is still solid 1 billion , " Scathach said. "Now we need the noob goddess's register number to collect the money."
"Should we be worry about getting rob?" I asked today had been way too big of a revealation.
"No, you will certainly get rob so there will be nothing to worry about, " Scathach stretched. "Hence that why I will personally collect the money."