Three days had flown by, and it was now the day of the auction.
At the moment, Thiago was making some preparations for when he would attend the auction later, since he would not just go as usual, since it might be easier to do things without scruples in disguise.
So, Thiago had just bought a transformation potion from the system that would completely change his appearance, and size for six hours.
He had not yet drunk the potion, as it would be pointless at the moment, preferring to wait until he was on his way to the auction house of the Baiming Chamber of Commerce.
In addition, Thiago had also bought a voice changer in the System Shop, which had cost him around a thousand system points, which was a negligible expense for him at the moment, because he had suddenly remembered a famous anime series he had liked to watch as a child, called "Case Closed", or also known as "Detective Conan", in which the protagonist uses a voice changer to speak in the voice he prefers on important occasions, This gave Thiago the idea of using a voice changer, firstly because he would be completely unrecognisable and secondly because it would be a lot of fun to speak in the voice of his choice.
The voice changer he bought was slightly different from the one used in the anime mentioned above, and was not a voice changer in the traditional sense, but rather a potion that allowed him to change his voice as he wished, even for a certain period of time, which in this case also coincided with the transformation potion, and lasted about six hours.
Having bought these two things, Thiago was basically ready to go to the auction and was a little curious about what he would find there, since he had only heard of auctions in his previous life and had never been to one, which was understandable, since how would a simple worker with a low salary be able to find the time to attend an auction, not to mention whether he would be invited to one or not, assuming that it was not a public auction.
'In which appearance should I go there?' Thiago pondered, since he basically had a free choice, since it was not important at all if he chose the appearance of a certain anime character he knew, since this certain character would not be known here at all.
"Well, I guess it would not be a bad choice if I were to have the appearance of...." Thiago mumbled and then made a decision shortly after:" Yes that's the one."
Half an hour later, a rather strange-looking green-haired man with an obvious scar running down the left side of his face and through his eye, who seemed to be about one metre and eighty centimetres tall, walked leisurely along the crowded main street that led to most of the important places in Half Moon City, such as the headquarters of the Alchemy Society, as well as the city's major's mansion, and most importantly, what seemed to be the green-haired man's destination, a large and imposing building made of exquisite materials, the Baiming Chamber of Commerce Auction House, where a grand auction would be held today.
However, many people were unaware of this information, as it was only known to those in the upper echelons, or those with important and lucrative professions such as alchemists.
Otherwise, Thiago would not have found a letter of invitation among Arthrey Xi's personal belongings, which in turn would have meant that Thiago would have missed out on something as interesting as this upcoming auction.
So, it can be said that this time fate really played into Thiago's hands...
Not a single person in the crowd paid much attention to the green-haired person, as if such an appearance was nothing out of the ordinary, which in turn made the green-haired person breathe a sigh of relief, as he had not been sure if it was a good idea to dress up as Zoro, but now that Thiago, who was the real identity of the green-haired person, saw that no one paid any attention to him, he was relieved and could continue cosplaying as Zoro, which he really enjoyed.
A few minutes later, Thiago found the site where the auction would be held today. It seemed as if some information had been leaked because a large crowd was standing in front of the auction house, which made Thiago feel that thing would get interesting. Not that he cared about the crowd, since in the invitation letter it was stated that he could enter the auction hall through a special passage, just like the other invitees.
Meanwhile the personnel responsible for the auction were a little bit uncertain what to do with the growing crowd in front of their auction hall.
"Damn! Who leaked the information that we will hold a grand auction today?!"
"It's no use cursing now, let's find a solution." A more rational man said, which made his colleague calm down a bit.
The problem they were facing now was, that there were a few very powerful casual cultivators among the crowd, that they did not necessarily want to offend. Not that they were afraid with their backing being the Baiming chamber of commerce. Still, it would not be in their interest to offend them so rashly and not let them participate in the auction.
"Why don't we let a few more people in? It won't really matter anyway; our main guests will surely not care too much about this" someone suggested.
"Alright, let's do this."
Thus, it was finalized, they would let a few powerhouses from among the crowd enter the auction. Naturally not for free, there was no free lunch in the world. They would have to pay a large sum of money to enter at all. If they did not have enough, then sorry, they had obviously overestimated their capabilities.
Meanwhile, Thiago was asked to show his invitation letter by a beautiful woman in a stunning red dress.
"Well, here it is, can I go through now?" Thiago said as he took his invitation letter out of his space ring and showed it to the woman, without getting too carried away by her beauty.
"Just a moment," the woman replied professionally, while she took out of her own spatial ring a special kind of instrument, made of a material unknown to Thiago, that looked similar to a modern QR code scanner, only more sophisticated, or so Thiago thought. Then she placed the instrument next to Thiago's letter of invitation and moved it up and down, only when the instrument showed signs of reaction did she stop and politely speak to Thiago: "I wish you a pleasant time at the auction."
"Well, thank you!" Thiago replied and walked through a huge door, secretly thinking that the instrument was probably really detecting some kind of runes or something on the invitation letter to confirm that it was a legitimate one.
On the other side of the door was a huge hall with far too many seats to count, at least a few thousand by Thiago's rough estimate. And these seats were not close together at all. They all had a lot of space around them, which really showed the sheer size of the hall where the auction was about to take place.
The room was already mostly full and Thiago wasted no time in finding his seat, number 5502, as indicated on the invitation.
Once seated, Thiago was eagerly awaiting the start of the auction, as it was his first ever auction. He was curious to see how it would go and wondered if there would be any bidding wars like in the cultivation novels he had read.
Half an hour passed in a flash and the hostess of the auction appeared on stage.
She was a beautiful woman with purple hair, wearing a night-blue dress with bare shoulders, and many of the men in the audience had their eyes fixed on her as soon as she appeared.
Unlike most of the men, Thiago gave the woman only a quick glance, then listened intently to the speech she began almost as soon as she appeared.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this year's auction!
My name is Bai Yue; I have the pleasure of hosting today's auction, and I hope you are all ready for the great items and treasures we have prepared. In addition, we have prepared a special item that I am sure will attract many of you to bid on it. Well, not to spoil the suspense, I won't say any more about it and you'll have to wait until the end to see for yourself.
I hereby declare this auction officially open. I wish you happy bidding and may you obtain what you are looking for-"
After a short applause by the audience, Bai Yue went on to reveal the first item of today's auction.
"Next, let me show you the first item for today." Immediately, an assistant brought over a small, seemingly unremarkable black box and placed it on a sturdy stone table in the middle of the stage so that everyone could see the item.
Bai Yue then introduced it: "This small box was found in an ancient ruin by someone who wishes to remain anonymous, and although it does not look special at first glance, the experts from our Baiming Chamber of Commerce assure you that it contains an amazing treasure.
In one sentence, many in the audience who were ready to bid were discouraged when they guessed that the item was only being auctioned off because the Baiming Chamber of Commerce has no way of opening this small box at present and would rather auction it off.
It was also not sure whether there would really be a treasure inside the box.
When others were discouraged, Thiago quietly opened his Eyes of Eternal Truth and looked at the black box.
Immediately a panel with the information of the item appeared in front of him.
[Mysterious Black Box
This box was found in an ancient ruin. It once belonged to a strong man of the human race. The box requires at least the power of the Mystic Realm to be opened.]
Although Thiago could not see much information due to his limited strength, he could still see the most important thing - this box was definitely a big treasure, so he had to get it no matter what. Money wasn't a problem for him either, with the system at hand.
"Wow, I'm really lucky, the first item of the day and it's such an epic treasure," Thiago thought as he eagerly waited for the bidding to start.
He did not have to wait long as the hostess was just announcing the details of the bidding: "The starting price is one hundred low grade mana crystals, and each subsequent increment may not be less than ten low-grade mana crystals."
"Now may the bidding start!"
Immediately a few people started bidding, but they all remained rational and did not raise the price quickly.
Meanwhile:
"Huh? What are mana crystals?" Thiago wondered and skillfully opened the system interface and browsed for mana crystals to quickly buy their information in the system shop.
[System Shop] -- [Advanced search engine: Information]
[5 points]
[Introduction to Mana crystals (Red Star)]
After quickly purchasing the Introduction to Mana Crystals for just 5 [System Points], he quickly digested the small amount of information that was provided:
Mana Crystals (Red Star) are the second most important currency in the world, and the main currency for cultivators starting from the Master Realm. They are usually found in underground veins and require mining.
They come in many varieties and grades. The most valuable are those that contain no attribute mana, just pure mana without any attributes such as fire, water, etc.
There are also different grades based on purity, from low grade to medium grade to high grade to the very rare ultimate grade.
The exchange rate is roughly as follows: one medium grade mana crystal is worth one hundred low grade mana crystals; one high grade mana crystal is worth one thousand medium grade mana crystals; and finally, one ultimate mana crystal is worth one thousand high grade mana crystals.
This means that you can exchange one high level mana crystal for one hundred million low level mana crystals. Finally, the exchange rate between Spirit Gold and a low-grade Mana Crystal is 10.000:1, meaning that you can get one Mana Crystal for every ten thousand Spirit Gold.
The reason for their high value is that, unlike Spirit Gold, Mana Crystals can be used as an aid to cultivation and have an enhancing effect on cultivation.
Thiago was a little surprised that the currency used for bidding was mana crystals and not spirit gold, but when he thought about it, it actually made sense, as spirit gold was more like a common currency that almost everyone had, but was not that valuable itself, so it made sense for the Baiming Chamber of Commerce to set the main transaction currency as spirit crystals, as they held a greater value for such great powers, as they could be used to aid in cultivation.
Luckily for Thiago, it was no problem to buy some mana crystals from the system mall.
With his doubts cleared, Thiago turned his attention back to the bidding and saw that there was only a small amount of bidding going on, so he decided to place his very first bid.
Little did he know that this would be the beginning of him becoming quite famous, wellt, at least his Zoro persona...