Chapitre 58: Galactic Auction

The main hall of the Galactic Auction was a huge facility majestic enough to be an Olympic soccer stadium—but ten times bigger! He estimated the hall could hold at least 2,000,000 people.

Apophis, being categorized as an Eternal, was lined up with the other members of his "species." In fact, each species was partitioned into a separate box. Upon arriving in his reserved box, Apophis noticed a lot of famous faces. Most of them were guild leaders, in fact, though he noticed a few solo players among them as well.

The lack of single players wasn't too surprising compared to the number of guild leaders. After all, it was pretty hard at that point in the game to find the 15,000 GC required for registration—unless you bought them with real-world credits, of course. It was very likely that the solo players in particular had speculated on GC while their prices were at rock bottom after the nuclear strike.

Some players recognized Apophis and sent him black looks, but he ignored them. There was only one other star player here, the Warrior class player Zelda of the SuperGuild Hyrule. They'd seen each other quickly during the siege of Tyo, but hadn't really spoken. Of course, Apophis knew her as one of the 7 Gods.

Zelda took the initiative. She rose and made her way to Apophis in the Eternal box. "Hey, aren't you that player whose head's worth five million?" she asked with a smirk. "You've got a real pair of balls to show up in a place like this with that price on your head! To all the Worms crawling around this place, five million GC is even enough to risk breaking the civil peace in a place like this!"

Apophis felt a flash of hatred. "Worm" was slang for people like him who still lived on the remains of Earth, used by the "Celestials" who were rich enough to live off-world.

Apophis hid his anger as he replied, "Five million isn't that much. A little insulting, actually. I've got to be worth at least ten times more. No, a hundred times! And yet, despite that, I hear that my enemies haven't even been able to collect all the reward funds yet! How pathetic."

Zelda laughed gleefully. She was intrigued by this other person who'd attracted so much attention on the forums. Even among the other guild leaders, it was rare for an individual to be talked about so much. "How about we grab a drink after the auction," she asked, "so we can get to know each other?"

Zelda was a beautiful woman in her thirties with blue eyes and long golden hair. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that most men would sell their soul to spend a night with her.

Yet, despite feeling an unmistakable attraction for her, Apophis was eager to reform his bond with Lotus. He wasn't exactly inclined to pursue another relationship just because he found a beautiful woman who was interested in him! So he politely declined.

And, of course, Zelda's casual disparagement of his social class hadn't made him feel particularly friendly towards her. For a brief moment, he wondered if Zelda knew he was an Earth-dwelling Worm or if she assumed he was also a Celestial due to his fame and resources in Horus. After all, having millions of real-world credits which could be spent on GC was the most obvious way to gain an early advantage!

At Apophis's rejection, Zelda felt terribly insulted! After all, it was usually the men who came to her begging for sex, not the other way around. Outraged, Zelda went silent and stomped away from him.

Apophis put her out of his mind, for the auction was about to start.

The room's lights went out and an ugly green xeno with eight arms and no legs appeared in an illuminated circle in the room's center. He raised a microphone and spoke into it. "Hello, everyone! I will be your host for this 999th edition of the Galactic Auction! Let's start with the order of the items!

"First, we will auction off the weapons and armor! Then the Skill Books! Then the slave lots, and finally the spaceships! But that's not all! At the end of the auction, we will put on sale many mystery boxes! So stay until the end, because you will not want to miss it!" He made a flamboyant gesture with four of his arms. "Let the 999th edition of the galactic auction… begin!"

Enormous applause resounded throughout the room as he left the stage and the bidding finally began.

The first lots were uninteresting to Apophis, nothing but some overpriced weapons and armor. Most of it was useless compared to what he'd already looted… though there were several Legendary items that he might have liked to buy, had they been more reasonably priced. Perhaps next time, he thought, when I'm richer.

But then came the Skill Book lots, which interested Apophis much more. The first few lots were only Common and Rare. These were considerably weaker than what he already had at his disposal.

But then an item caught his eye!

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╟─╼[Skill Book] ~Zooanthropy~

║　╰╼[Universal]

║　╰╼[Epic]

╟─╼[Summary] Invoke primal power to gain bestial power!

╟─╼[Effect (1)] When you first use this Skill, imagine a beast. Using this Skill allows you to embody it for a time.

╟─╼[Upgrade Cost] 100 Skill Points

╚═══════════════╛

It was perfect.

The announcer yelled, "Very well! For this article, the bidding starts at 30,000 GC!"

Several people bid, and the number rocketed up to about 90,000… then slowed to a crawl as people started raising by only 10 GC at a time.

Apophis grew impatient. He stood up and said, "100,000 GC!"

The announcer continued, "Oh ho! A 100,000GC bid! Going once! Going twice! Going three times! Sold to gentleman #a6795!"

Apophis leaned back and crossed his arms in contentment. He was already thinking about the mythical beasts he could transform into using this skill, since those sorts of creatures were real animals in the world of Horus. One or two in particular would be perfect for a fire master like himself.

After several more Skill Books were sold, another item drew Apophis's attention.

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╟─╼[Skill Book] ~Berserk~

║　╰╼[Esper]

║　╰╼[Epic]

╟─╼[Summary] Channel cosmic power through your body, becoming a powerhouse of destruction!

╟─╼[Effect (1)] Double all your stats and all your damage for 30 seconds.

╟─╼[Upgrade Cost] 100 Skill Points

╚═══════════════╛

This time, Apophis wasted no time before bidding… and several others eagerly raised their voices to compete!

"35,000!"

"48,000!"

"86,000!"

Finally, the auctioneer said, "And… 94,000! Sold to #a9567!"

Apophis felt a little bad about spending so much money at once, but decided that the next item he bought would be his last. Still, the raw feeling of victory washed over him, making him tremble with excitement!

It wasn't long before Apophis found the item which would be his last purchase.

╔══════════════╕

╟─╼[Skill Book] ~Spatial Materialization~

║　╰╼[Esper]

║　╰╼[Legendary]

╟─╼[Summary] Reject reality and force it to obey your will.

╟─╼[Effect (1)] You can materialize imagined objects. More complex and valuable objects require much more energy.

╟─╼[Upgrade Cost] 1.000 Skill Points

╚═══════════════╛

Apophis was amazed that such a Skill could exist! He'd never heard of such a thing in his original life. Apparently, whoever had bought this Skill in his first life had done nothing famous with it. Yet, it seemed that everyone else was just as excited as he was!

The announcer said, "Bidding starts at 500,000 GC!"

Fortunately, few people in the room could spend so much on one Skill. Nevertheless, the price rose quickly to 650,000.

Asserting his dominance, Apophis overbid right to 700,000 GC!

He won.

Good thing, too, because that was just about the most he could spend. In the end, Apophis had gotten what he wanted. Even he had to admit he was crazy for the magnitude of the last purchase, but he still had 119,000 GC left. That would be more than enough to pay his monthly bills.

Even though he knew he wouldn't buy anything more, Apophis was curious what would come next, so he stayed until the end.

The slave auction in particular seemed to have excited everyone else, both the NPCs present and the guild leaders, who were eager to buy their first NPC companions.

The sheer amount of money the guild leaders could spend made Apophis jealous! The first-rate guilds even had bankrolls big enough to afford 5,000,000 GC to buy space corvettes!

Renovatio Imperii, Ceasar's SuperGuild, even bought a destroyer-class ship for 35,000,000 GC and three corvettes at 5,000,000 GC each. Clearly, the SuperGuilds had taken advantage of the low GC-to-credit rates after the war to buy up huge amounts of GC.

Despite himself, Apophis felt jealous of Renovatio Imperii and their quickly growing fleet. As he watched billions of GC worth of ships change hands, he promised himself that one day, he too would have a huge fleet! For now, though, he'd just have to make do with the MK.1.

As promised, the auction ended with the sale of mystery boxes.

The speaker took the floor. "The auction is now over. Our last item of business is the à la carte selling of one thousand mystery boxes at 100,000 GC each. May luck smile on you! Don't forget the special 'Auction of the Century' edition we'll be holding next year!"

Apophis hesitated. Yes, he had over 100,000 GC left, but he really wanted to keep a bit of treasure instead of spending it on something that might be worthless.

Mystery boxes were artifacts from ancient civilizations which used spacetime magic to keep their contents in perfect stasis until they were opened. Many mystery boxes had been created as impenetrable lockboxes for valuable treasure… but others had been used as prisons for powerful entities, or encryption devices used to hide treasure maps.

The reason they were called "mystery boxes" in the first place was that nobody had figured out how to open them. There were believed to be hundreds of methods used to open these ancient boxes, but only a few dozen had been discovered in the history of Horus up to this point, and that number had only come close to doubling by the time Apophis had died in his first life.

Apophis looked at all the boxes available for sale. He recognized a few of the designs from his first life, but he knew that, though he'd easily be able to open them using his previous knowledge, none of them would contain treasure even remotely worth the 100,000 GC he'd spend to buy them.

However… one box in particular stood out to Apophis. Its design was sleek, gold, and black, of a pattern he'd never seen before. It seemed to radiate an ominous aura, and some other players even looked away from it as though it made them uncomfortable.

On impulse, Apophis took the risk and bought this box. He had no idea how to open it, but if any one of these boxes was worth the price… Well, he had a feeling it would be this one.

So Apophis took the risk and bought this box. Then Apophis took some time to learn the Skills he'd just bought and then rejoined the rest of his group and headed back to the MK.1.