CH 165

The elevator door opened with a ding. The lights were off outside the hallway. No matter how Ji-Cheok looked at it, it didn’t look like a place for an event.

Then, someone walked up to them.

“This place is still under construction.”

Ji-Cheok responded with the phrase that Ji-Han had told him beforehand.

“Hm… I’m here to buy a camel.”

“Ahha, you’re here to buy a camel. Okay then.”

He radioed in and took a step to the side. Then, the door of yet another elevator opened behind him. Ji-Cheok wondered if there was a building in Seoul that was tall enough to require so many elevators.

Reining in his curiosity, Ji-Cheok expressed his thanks, then entered the elevator.

“You’re welcome. I hope you find a good camel.”

The door closed and the elevator moved upward.

“The barrier technique is quite good. It seems that the God of Commerce and the God of Labyrinths have bestowed their blessings on this,” Reable said.

“I don’t know how high up we’re going,” Ji-Cheok said.

“Well… I don’t think that matters, if I’m correct about where we’re headed…”

Ding-dong.

The door opened.

The hall that appeared in front of them was full of people wearing masks just like them, walking around with glasses of champagne. Judging from the different languages and accents Ji-Cheok heard, they seemed to belong to many different ethnicities, both Asians and foreigners. There were some that didn’t even look like humans. Everyone respected the same dress code, but they all had their own unique—and strong—aura.

“Let’s talk later,” Reable said, putting his index finger on his lips.

A strange world unfolded before their eyes.

* * *

“I don’t think there is anything strange in the wine, hyung,” Mu-Cheok said as he drank the wine.

“Can you detox poison?”

“Better than most people.”

Ji-Cheok walked naturally with a glass of wine in his hand, like everyone else. A transparent glass case was placed near the wall of the banquet hall, and various items were inside. Next to each item was written an appraisal and an estimated winning bid. These items appeared in the catalogs he had received before coming here.

“I’ve never been in a place like this, so I don’t know how it works, but is this what a VIP auction is supposed to be like?”

Ji-Cheok looked at the exhibits on each wall of the banquet hall.

[Right Eye of a Demon]

[Class: B

Type: Accessories

The right eye of a fire-type Demon, cured in order to prevent decay. It amplifies fire-type abilities and grants resistance to fire-type attacks. However, the power of the item is not really great, because it was made by an inept person with poor skills.

Function: Increases power of fire-type attacks by 3%.

Function: Increases fire resistance by 3%.]

‘This is a B-class item? What’s the winning bid price… 1.5 billion won?! That’s way too expensive!’

“The actual rich people are sitting in their own rooms, watching this on their screens. The people here are mostly agents or people who come here for fun.”

“Oh really?”

‘How does Mu-Cheok know about this kind of stuff?’

“A friend I used to have lunch with is from a chaebol family. I heard it from him. He said that the rich would watch the auction while having a light meal or drink at their home. It’s kind of like a social gathering here,” Mu-Cheok said.

“So people here are just here to talk to others?”

“Even if you’re wearing a mask, everyone knows who everyone is. It’s not that hard to guess.”

‘I guess it’s easy to identify if you text someone ‘The eagle mask to the left of the stone statue is me.’ But if that’s the case, why would they come all the way here to have a social gathering, isn’t it bothersome?’

“Humans like to play in complicated ways, don’t they?” Reable remarked.

“That’s true. Since you’re not human, you seem to like observing us,” Ji-Cheok said.

“Yupp, it’s fun~ And there are a lot of bones that I’m particularly interested in.”

“... Are you here to observe people, or to shop for bones like in a butcher’s shop?”

The most expensive item they had seen in the catalog was priced at one hundred eighty billion won. That was probably the kind of item that top-tier Hunters, those at level 100 or higher, wanted to have.

“But you won’t find the most expensive item in the catalog.”

“Why?”

“I heard that they’ve been spreading rumors about that item. They said that it would increase the bids.”

“So… it’s a sales gimmick?”

“I guess.”

“Oh wow~ Earth’s alcohol is delicious. It’s very good! Such a pure taste of grapes~ No poison~ No parasites~ No blood~”

‘Has this bastard only drunk wine from the literal pits of hell till now?’

Reable seemed to only care about the wine rather than how good or bad the auctioned items were. If anything, he was more interested in watching the crowd than these items.

“Excuse me, lady, but you should fix your shoulder straps.”

Reable started talking to an unidentified being with the upper body of a bear and the lower body of a woman. Ji-Cheok left him and looked around the exhibits. There were some items that looked useful, and there were some so bad that he didn’t even want to look at the price. Among them, he finally saw an item that looked like it was worth one hundred eighty billion won.

[Ring of the Poison Dragon Fang]

[Class: A+

Type: Accessories

A ring made from poison dragon fangs. The wearer becomes immune to poison.

Function: Immunity to poison.]

Simple, yet powerful. Complete poison immunity was an ability on the same level as Ji-Cheok’s immunity to negative mental influences. And the price of this item was one hundred and eighty billion won!

‘Wow… I know I’m making good money these days, but still, this is too much for me.’

“By the way, hyung. There are elixirs too,” Mu-Cheok said.

“I know. But the elixirs are not worth the money.”

Since elixirs were really effective at making people healthy, they were popular among the rich. Rather than taking an elixir to increase one’s Qi, however, it was several times more beneficial to buy a few more items or cultivation skills with the money. Just by looking at the elixir and its estimated price of ten billion, Ji-Cheok knew that it wasn’t worth it.

[Jaso Elixir][1]

[Class: C

Type: Elixir

A potion said to have been made by the Flower Mountain Sect using an Arcane Refining method. If the user drinks it, there is a good chance that the user’s Qi will increase by 10% of a sexagenary cycle’s worth of cultivation.]

One sexagenary cycle meant sixty years. When it came to Qi cultivation, people who had cultivated for sixty years were generally called ‘masters,’ and the Qi accumulated was around the B rank if rated in terms of System stats.

That said, ten percent of a sexagenary cycle meant only six years' worth of Qi accumulation! Spending ten billion won on that was just way too expensive. Not to mention that it said ‘good chance’ in the item description, which meant there was also a good chance of gaining absolutely nothing from drinking the elixir.

Technically, if everything went perfectly, consuming ten of these elixirs meant acquiring sixty years’ worth of Qi and becoming a master. However, entering dungeons with equipment worth a hundred billion won was much better than entering dungeons with B-rank Qi.

«This just shows how rare the elixir Ji-Han gave to you was.»

‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that. He brought suspiciously good items and continued to support me. Besides tha elixir, he gave me many other things, materials, skill books, weapons, armor, consumables, maps, keys, seals, all that stuff—wait, some lunatic put a statue of a sealed demon in the auction? What the hell?!’

«I read the description and it seems that the Demon is not a God-level Demon.»

Ji-Cheok looked for Reable and found him sitting in a chair nearby. Just then, he heard a voice coming from the speakers around the hall.

“To all our distinguished guests, the auction is about to begin. I would appreciate it if you could take a seat.”

As Ji-Cheok sat down, the host came up and started introducing the items and sellers with visible excitement.

The auction had begun.

“Let’s take a look at the first item for tonight! This is a historical Artifact infused with mana. This Buddha statue is made in the same era as some of Korea’s National Treasures, the [Gilt-bronze Maitreya in Mediation]!”[2]

It was something Ji-Cheok had seen earlier on the exhibition stand. It was a treasure that had been created in the same era as the national treasures but had somehow escaped being designated as a national treasure. After the Gate incident had broken out, there had been a lot of ordinary treasures that had turned into Artifacts. In fact, it was no exaggeration to say that almost all national treasures were now Artifacts. Because of this, the world was cursing France and England for taking all the national treasures of their colonies around the world.

Among these national treasure Artifacts, some were good and some were actually cursed. The item put up for auction this time was one of the ‘good’ ones.

[Bronze Maitreya in Meditation]

[Class: B+

Type: Artifact

A bronze statue made in the Silla period.[3] May Maitreya look upon us.

Function: Removes lesser debuffs within a radius of 10 meters.

Function: Increases mana recovery rate by 15% within a radius of 10 meters.]

Its effect fell far short of the World Tree, but that did not mean that it wasn’t a valuable artifact. Rather, it was the World Tree that was completely overpowered.

The auction went on, but the problem was that there was nothing good for Ji-Cheok to buy!

“Come to think of it, what did Ji-Han send us here to buy?” Ji-Cheok asked.

“There were no specific instructions like that~ There are no items that you have to buy~”

“Then why did he ask me to come here?”

“I don’t know~ I’m sure Mr. Jung Ji-Han has his reasons, right?”

‘Why did Ji-Han send us here?’

As they kept watching the auction with this question in mind, even the item worth one hundred and eighty billion won was won by someone. Even for complete poison immunity, it seemed far too expensive to Ji-Cheok.

‘A fighter jet equipped with the latest magic spells and skills is priced at about eight hundred billion. No matter how good poison immunity is, one hundred and eighty billion won is too much.’

The three of them just ate finger foods and watched.

“Do you need to buy anything?” Ji-Cheok asked.

“There are good items, but it’s not my style,” Mu-Cheok replied.

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Can’t you use alchemy or crafting skills to modify them? Like that [Right eye of a Demon].”

“My proficiency level in my crafting skills is very low, so there is nothing that I want to modify right now.”

“Yeah, makes sense. By the way, hyung, how much money do we have to use in the auction?”

“I have around thirty-two billion to use. How about you?”

From selling potions, dungeon loot, and GodTube, he had earned a whopping thirty-two billion won. If it had been Ji-Cheok from the past, he would have gone ‘AHHH!! I’m rich now!! Now I can swim in a pool of money!’, but right now, it did nothing for him.

“I have about six billion,” Mu-Cheok said.

That was about the amount of money he had earned from hunting. It seemed that he kept saving up since he didn’t invest that much in equipment. Ji-Cheok, on his part, invested a lot in equipment, but since he went through more dungeons and made potions to boot, he made much more money than his brother.

‘But I need to earn more, faster…’

“Next, for our distinguished guests who have not participated in the bidding, let’s take a look at the treasured item from Sky Trading!”

Sky Trading Co., Ltd. was the auction company said to be the largest in Asia. As the announcer gestured, the floor next to the podium he was standing on split and an object rose up from the floor. As the object appeared, Ji-Cheok felt a tremendous and terrifying mana emanating from it.

«Wow… It seems to have been hidden with an elaborate seal to hide its mana.»

‘Yeah, we can be certain that the anti-theft measures here are top-notch.’

“The item presented to us tonight by Sky Trading was found in the East Sea. Its very existence was considered nothing but mere rumor, and yet here it is now, in front of us all! Everyone, this is the Manpasikjeok![4]

1. Jaso (purple perilla) is a plant commonly known by its Japanese name, shiso. In other words, this is a USD $8 million bottle of shiso juice. ☜

2. There are two of these statues in real life, Korean National Treasures nr. 78 and 83, respectively. ☜

3. Silla was a Korean kingdom located in the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula from 57 BCE to 935 CE. ☜

4. The Manpasikjeok, a.k.a. ‘Pipe that Calms Ten Thousand Billows,’ is a magical bamboo pipe. Legend has it that King Sinmun of Silla acquired it from a dragon, and it has the incredible power of making enemies retreat, curing illnesses, summoning rain, and making floods cease. See https://folkency.nfm.go.kr/en/topic/detail/5500 for more information! ☜