Chapter 550: Sky-high Price
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Unlike the people downstairs, Wilkinson and his companions had given up upon knowing that Master Felic was determined to get the branch—it was clear as he had bid at such a high price. In fact, if even they could think of putting this branch in their herb farms, how would Master Felic not know given his expertise in pharmaceutics?
Though Wilkinson didn’t get Master Felic’s reply for the earlier question, this bid of 5,000,000 gold coins had proved the problem sufficiently. Given their understanding of Master Felic’s personality, he wasn’t someone who would waste even a bronze coin on useless things. Now that he had bid, it only meant that this branch was worth more than 5,000,000 gold coins no matter what its origin was. In other words, they perceived Master Felic as someone who wouldn’t do a losing business.
However, Wilkinson and his companions wouldn’t be sad if this branch landed in Master Felic’s hands. After all, they could be considered students of Master Felic, although Master Felic wasn’t their real teacher. This relationship was much closer to friends or companions, so they could certainly get some benefits from this.
Meanwhile, in the other guest room, Tedya of the Dark Blade shut his mouth with resentment. His bid was stopped by the sky-high 5,000,000 gold coins just as he had wanted to respond.
As a Necromancer, Tedya resented the vitality from this branch. The so-called natural fragrance made him feel like vomiting. However, the branch was still very useful for him.
Necromancers faced dead creatures on a daily basis, so it was inevitable that death aura would intrude their bodies. Thus, most necromancers looked very peculiar. To say it nicely, they looked extremely thin. To say it not so nicely, they looked like a skeleton wrapped in a layer of skin, and definitely scarier than real skeletons.
Image was only secondary since this world admired the strong and powerful, and didn’t care about appearance much. After all, who dared to say that Sendros looked ugly? The real problem was, the accumulated corrosion by death aura day and night was detrimental to health. This wouldn’t be a problem if one reached Legendary-realm. However, if one wasn’t able to become a Legendary necromancer like Sendros, then he’d have to make a choice.
One of the choices was to wait for death, which nobody would choose. The other was to turn himself into an Undead creature such as a Lich like Ujfalusi. This transformation, however, had a very low success rate. If Tedya possessed this treasure filled with vitality, he could use it to dispel the death aura in his body frequently. This would largely increase his lifespan.
Moreover, such a powerful treasure rich in vitality wasn’t only useful for extending lifespan of a necromancer. Although life and death were conflicting kinds of energy, the understanding of such vitality would help with the understanding of necromagic.
However well Tedya thought it through, the reality gave him a slap in the face again. His hopes were killed off completely when Lin Li raised the bid directly to 5,000,000 gold coins. The Dark Blade had the ability to take out 5,000,000 gold coins. However, he didn’t have so much money to bid for it himself. After all, he couldn’t make decisions for the Dark Blade now.
The one who had given up on the bid because of Lin Li wasn’t just Tedya. Prince Hilary of the Ledin Kingdom had originally been interested in this branch. Despite not knowing its use, 1,000,000 gold coins were nothing to him. However, just as he wanted to bid, he was stunned by Lin Li’s bid of 5,000,000 gold coins.
“He’s still too young!” Hilary sighed and shook his head. His good friend Englos admired this Mage Felic very much. However, that was just for his talent in pharmaceutics. In Hilary’s eyes, this young mage was still too young and impulsive.
To raise the bidding price from 1,000,000 gold coins to 5,000,000 was an extremely unwise move. Even if Lin Li had wanted the branch urgently, he shouldn’t have been so quick to raise the price by so much. This was a taboo during auctions. Not only did it tell others about your strong desire to possess this object, it might also spark the competitiveness in some people and push the final transaction price to an uncontrollable high.
This young mage, pharmacist, and President of the Guild of Magic might have spent all his efforts on learning magic and pharmaceutics such that he wasn’t equipped with basic common knowledge. A young genius couldn’t be a genius in everything. Some things still needed accumulation of time, and not just knowledge from books.
This was not only Hilary’s opinion. Others who knew Lin Li, including Robbio who had bought the Myth Potion just now, and even William who was hosting the auction, laughed bitterly at Lin Li’s bid. It wasn’t because they had anything against Lin Li, but rather that they felt that it was a wrong move to bid 5,000,000 gold coins.
“What? He’s the one who made that potion?”
“Did they gang up to deceive us? I don’t believe that potion was worth 10,000,000 gold coins. Now, there’s even this 5,000,000-gold-coins branch!”
After a potion had been sold at a sky-high price, the people downstairs were curious what its effect was. They couldn’t imagine what kind of potion would be worth 10,000,000 gold coins.
Although these people were sitting downstairs, all of them were influential in their own fields and knew one another. Hence, it wasn’t difficult for them to find out about this.
The Glittergold Trade Union had won the bidding for the potion, so some people immediately approached Robbio to see what exactly he had spent 10,000,000 gold coins on.
How could Robbio tell the truth? How could he say that he had spent 10,000,000 gold coins on a potion that hadn’t even been tried and tested? He could say this to his boss Hoffman, as Hoffman was a pharmaceutics Master himself and respected President Felic’s pharmaceutics abilities very much. However, he would be viewed as a fool if he had told the truth to other people. Therefore, he had told everyone who came to ask the effect of the potion with much certainty, not mentioning a word about the fact that it was still in an experimental stage.
After the people returned from Robbio, everyone gasped. A potion that allowed a mage to reach the realm of an Archmage without suffering from the side effect of depletion of potential meant that the possibility of reaching the Legendary-realm wasn’t cut off. In other words, 10,000,000 gold coins were extremely worth it. Of course, the precondition was that only a wealthy organization like the Glittergold Trade Union could afford to fork out 10,000,000 gold coins. Others wouldn’t make up their minds to pay so much.
What was more surprising was that Mage Felic, the one who had concocted the Myth Potion and who was currently sitting in the VIP guest room, had just bid for the branch at 5,000,000 gold coins.
Just then, some people recalled that William had led the way for a group of people back at the front hall before the start of the auction. They had never seen William so respectful to anyone before.
“Wait, the Tower of Dusk? Isn’t that the Guild of Magic we were trying to poach the pharmacists from?” The fact that they only thought of this now showed their attitude towards the Tower of Dusk. Much as they valued its pharmacists, they couldn’t have cared less about the Tower of Dusk itself.
“That little brat is the President? No wonder he bid for that branch at 5,000,000 like a nouveau riche just after he earned 10,000,000 gold coins,” someone commented sourly.
Although these people were green with envy towards the Tower of Dusk, they couldn’t help but reevaluate the value of this seemingly typical branch on stage. Nobody doubted William upon knowing the real identities of the bidders anymore. Mage Felic aside, at least Master Wilkinson wouldn’t do something that would damage his own reputation.
Even though these people didn’t trust that this young President of the Tower of Dusk would be an esteemed pharmaceutics Master deep in their hearts, at least Wilkinson was in that guest room too. Maybe Wilkinson had recognized the identity of that branch? Unfortunately, most of them were blocked by the barrier of 5,000,000 gold coins even though they had realized the extraordinariness of that branch by now.
The price of 5,000,000 gold coins was beyond the imagination of everyone. After all, this branch wasn’t an astonishing potion, precious material, or even magical equipment. Though everyone knew how valuable the natural magical energy it radiated was, wasn’t 5,000,000 gold coins still too much?
Theoretically, every faction would be quite anxious about the things they did to the Tower of Dusk after knowing more about it and its young President. After all, even someone as reputable as William could lower his attitude while hosting President Felic and lead the way for him personally. Moreover, the Glittergold Trade Union, the Dark Blade, Castellan Arathor of Roland City, and even Prince Hilary of the Ledin Kingdom had shown much interest in the Myth Potion during the previous auction.
However, thinking of the nouveau-riche-like bid just now, people immediately relaxed, and exclaimed that Lin Li was still just a kid. In the eyes of many, Lin Li was just an immature child too young to intimidate them. The reason why he would be treated with so much respect by Master William was probably because of the accompanying Master Wilkinson and the other high-level pharmacists.