Menerva was sure that with Izroth's recent success, he would be difficult to talk to. She expected to face an arrogant "rich young master" and so it came as a shock to her that his attitude was so down to earth. She felt a bit embarrassed by the fact that she had already come up with an entire plan in her mind to deal with that kind of person. It was not often that she was completely thrown off by someone's personality.
[Voice Chat] Menerva, "After occurring too frequently, coincidences turn into patterns. Sometimes standing out too much can have its downsides. All I did was connect a few dots that led me to this conclusion. You can deny it if you wish and I will no longer continue to pursue the matter, however, I am positive that you are the Pill Emperor. I am also equally certain that others have already started to connect the dots as well. It will not be long before this is common knowledge. I will message you the details of the meeting two days from now. We look forward to your arrival, Izroth. I have some important matters to attend to and so you must excuse my abrupt exit. Terminate voice chat."
〈System Alert: Player Menerva has terminated the voice chat!〉
'This girl is not so simple. The Headhunter Syndicate actually have talents like this on their side? If so, it would explain how they were able to rise up in power so rapidly.'
Menerva had terminated the voice chat before Izroth could fully test her as if she had already discovered his intentions. Not only that, but he believed that from the very beginning, ever since she sent him that line along with her friend request, she had been continuously testing him.
The way she performed this action was so natural that one would never realize they were actually being tested!
She also spoke in a way that left him satisfied with her answers and yet still curious enough to draw him in further. On the surface, this Menerva may appear to be a kind saint, but Izroth could feel something else emanating from her.
Even though he did not sense any ill intentions from her voice or words, he knew that Menerva was the most dangerous kind of person to deal with, especially when it came to having conversations.
'Headhunter Syndicate... I'm looking forward to our meeting.'
Izroth made sure everything was in order at the Mystical Realm Palace before he left and headed towards the auction house.
'First, let's take care of improving the Apparel of Insatiable Transcendence. While I'm at it, I can also search for a few special clothing to copy. After I finish, I'll head over to Everpeak to have my mana pool fixed. Once that's taken care of, I can focus on building the foundations for the Boundless Emperor Void Perfection skill I recently acquired. Since it's a growth-type skill, the ranking seems to be different than that of normal skills. Even though it shows it as being equivalent to a skill with a ranking grade of E-, in reality, it's not any worse than a normal C-ranked or even a weaker B-ranked skill.'
However, since only the initial part of the skill was currently unlocked, its true power was still not accessible. But, thanks to his encounter with that mysterious man, the restriction had been limited off of his body and he would gain access to the full skill in 30 days. After waiting for so long, Izroth was already grateful that he even managed to unlock a single portion of the skill. He had no issue with the full skill being delayed another 30 days.
Izroth arrived at the auction and made his way over towards the auction screen. The overall quality of the items in the auction house had improved since the last time he visited this place. However, this much was to be expected. As the strength of players increased and they were able to journey to the more challenging areas of RML, it was only natural that the overall quality of items increased as well.
'The current exchange rate sure has fallen. It's a good thing I set the Mystical Realm Palace to automatically convert the gold coins earned into RMB and periodically adjust prices to keep up with market value, otherwise, I would have lost quite a bit of profit.'
In the beginning, the exchange rate was 1:1000. This meant that 1 gold coin was the equivalent was 1,000 RMB. But, as more gold coins started to circulate within RML, its value started to decline. At the moment, it was a 1:316 exchange rate and so 1 gold coin was only equal to 316 RMB. That was almost a 70% decrease in value since the launch of RML!
After taking care of some essential matters, paying the 5% mandatory personal shop tax, and the 10% promised to Sleeping Gardenia as their cut for providing the ingredients, Izroth was currently left with 75,591,990 RMB. If converted into gold coins with the current exchange rate of 1:316, then Izroth was in possession of 239,215 gold coins! This was the on par with the budget of some top guilds.
RML was a potential gold mine which was why investors and sponsors poured so much money into the top guilds to see them succeed. The massive amount of RMB that traveled through RML had completely dwarfed that of the games that had come before it. Of course, the people who benefited the most from this was the company behind RML.
The first thing Izroth did was check for rare items. But, just as he had predicted, there were no rare quality equipment pieces up for sale. It looked as if he would have to go out and get some rare equipment on his own. For now, he could only purchase common and uncommon items from the auction house.
'For now, let's start small.'
Izroth purchased 1,000 common pieces of equipment from the auction house. The average level for the equipment was between 10-35. There were a few that were higher in level, however, there were not many of them since common and uncommon equipment was what the vast majority of players still used. After all, not a lot of players could afford to spend money to purchase rare quality equipment.
Izroth only carried a few gold coins on him in case of emergencies, therefore, he directly used RMB to purchase most of the items from the auction house. The cost of each piece of common equipment he purchased ranged from 10 silver coins to 1 gold coin per piece, excluding the lower-level pieces. In the end, he spent around 226 gold coins for 1,000 pieces of common equipment. If others knew of this, they would think that he simply enjoyed throwing money away!
Of course, these prices were on the higher end for common equipment, but Izroth specifically selected the items that had a buyout price. This meant that the player who put the item up for auction had set a price where other players could skip the auction process and instantly purchase the item. Not all items had a buyout price since some players found this to be a potential limiter on profits, however, it was more common than not that items possessed a buyout price.
After Izroth's "small purchase", there was an immediate uproar among some of the players who had been bidding for some of the equipment that he claimed.
"Hey, what the heck? Why did so many disappear at once?!"
"All twenty chest pieces I were looking at just vanished at the same time! Is some crazy fool just throwing his money around to spite me?" One of the players said as they secretly cursed that mysterious rich young master under their breath.
Izroth did not stop there, he then went on to purchase 100 uncommon items from the auction house, spending 6-12 gold coins per piece which came out to somewhere just under 350,000 RMB, or nearly 1,100 gold coins.
After he purchased 100 pieces of uncommon equipment, there were at least a dozen players who wanted to cough up blood from anger. They had been there for hours bidding on some of that equipment and yet someone just came in and purchased it at the buyout price. How could they not feel cheated and filled with anger? They wanted to strangle whoever this rich young master or top guild was! But, they would never say this aloud for fear of offending that person or group.
In the end, they knew that they could not afford offending someone capable of throwing around such large sums of money without a care in the world. Though if Izroth could hear their current thoughts, he would not know whether to laugh or cry. Could it be that he really had turned into one of those rich young masters who threw money at a problem to solve it?
'Hopefully, the Apparel of Insatiable Transcendence will be able to absorb everything smoothly. There seems to be no defined limit since it's a growth item and it looks like it's even capable of eventually devouring divine equipment. This Mazi deserves to be called the God of Craft in RML.'
Izroth then searched through some of the special clothing in the auction house that was handcrafted by players with the Tailoring profession or found as the result of a special loot drop. There were even a few which were able to be acquired by clearing a certain quest.
The first thing Izroth tried to do was simply use the Copy Appearance skill of his living armor to see if it worked even if the item was still in the auction house. Unfortunately, the skill did not register anything to copy.
'As I thought, it needs to be directly in front of me or in my inventory for me to copy its appearance.'
There were several decent quality special clothing within the auction house, however, none of them really grabbed Izroth's attention. At least, that was the case until he came across a piece of special clothing made by someone with the player name Divine Needle.
'The materials used to make this must have cost a fortune.'
Item Name: Attire of a Silent Night(Rare)
Item Creator: Divine Needle
Item Description: A wonderful combat outfit inspired by the quiet silence that lingers about in the night. It is crafted from superior materials by a skilled and talented tailor and has a few built-in hidden effects.
Special Note: When this outfit is worn all other equipment, excluding the wearer's weapon(s), becomes automatically hidden. The wearer can choose to keep certain equipment pieces visible.
Although the design was amazing and the material used was extraordinary, the price was on the high end compared to the other special clothing. The Attire of a Silent Night was a rare occasion in the auction house as one could not bid for it, but only purchase it via the buyout price. The buyout price was set at 100 gold coins. That was almost 32,000 RMB! To put this price into perspective, the most expensive special clothing under the Attire of a Silent Night only cost 15 gold coins.
This meant that the Attire of a Silent Night was over six times more expensive than the second most expensive special clothing in the auction house. However, despite its towering price, Izroth decided to purchase it since he had taken a liking to its design.
'This tailor is not bad. Though, not many players would be willing to pay so much for special clothing. After all, 100 gold coins are enough to purchase a full set of uncommon equipment. Even one decent level rare piece of equipment can possibly be purchased with that amount.'
Izroth did not waste any time as he immediately copied the appearance of the Attire of a Silent Night using the Copy Appearance skill attached to his living armor. Right after doing so, the original appearance of the living armor changed to that of the Attire of a Silent Night.
'That should do it.'
Once Izroth finished making a few additional purchases of some miscellaneous items, he made his way back towards the Mystical Realm Palace and entered into the private conference room. Before entering into the conference room, he told Opal not to disturb him unless it was an absolute emergency and with that, it was just Izroth by himself in the conference room with an inventory overcrowded with items.
Izroth then removed a level 10 common armor chest piece from his inventory.
'Now, let's begin.'