The Path of Ascension Chapter 483

Chapter 483

Once the first auction was officially underway, a dozen additional auctions kicked off as well, but there were few listings that really caught his interest during the first week. There were appealing items, yes, but not so much that he wanted to buy them at such inflated prices.

Still, his lack of interest didn’t make things dull, far from it, but that was why he was in a private room with a smaller group, taking a break from the larger group in the central room.

Getting notified about an item, he was prepared to ignore it. But after seeing the item’s tags, he interrupted his conversation with Sam about how aura potions affected the high Tier mortal cosmetic industry, to change the auction they were idly watching.

Vinnie backhanded Matt’s leg, trying to grumble through a mouthful of food. Rather than arguing, he dutifully rewound the recording to watch the item’s full introduction.

While they did that, he slapped the bid button a few times to ensure he didn’t miss out as the price climbed higher and higher.

Seeing a very attractive woman walking down the stage to the equally attractive auctioneer, all of Matt’s friends raised their eyebrows at his choice of item, but he immediately shook his head.

“I wasn’t the one who wanted to see the auction start from the start.”

Sam, seeing the title protested, “A noble-only auction? How is that fair?”

Matt only rolled his eyes, having checked the previously sold items. “Watch this item and tell me if you’d want to buy the stuff on offer here.”

As they’d talked, the item was delivered to the auctioneer, who revealed it with a flourish.

Obviously made out of a Tier 13 essence stone, that was where the description fell apart. Rather than a small sphere, the item was a ribbon only a hair’s width, frozen in a perfect mobius strip larger than most dinner plates.

After the auctioneer gave them a moment to appreciate the item, he pulled a normal Tier 13 essence stone out of his spatial ring and crushed it without saying a word, letting the Natural Treasures speak for itself.

And it did.

The essence released from the stone was instantly swept up by the item and pulled into a vortex through the mobius strip.

Kyle shrugged as the in-person crowd started murmuring. “Yeah, I don’t get it.”

Matt waited a moment for comedic effect and pointed at the auctioneer right as he started speaking. “Did I mention the range of this Natural Treasures is eighty miles from itself in all directions on worlds of its own Tier? Silly me. On lower Tier worlds, it scales until Tier 5 worlds, where it has a range of almost two hundred miles. That’s the lowest the Empire is allowing this item to be used on. Everyone has thirty seconds to review the attached information. Bidding starts at a Tier 35 mana stone, which is also how the item’s Tier is being treated for purposes of the sale, allowing anyone to bid without penalty.”

“How does that equal anyone being able to bid? Shouldn’t this be like every other auction item with Tier penalties?”

Matt sighed. “This being a ducal item? Nope. Therein lies my problem. Let’s catch up to current. This might be a bit fast, as they are operating at Tier 25 speeds for this auction, but we can slow it down if we need to.”

Sam, passing a plate of finger food, asked with her cheeks bulging, “Are you still bidding?”

“Of course I am.”

Still mid-chew, she waved him to go ahead. “It’s fine then. I wanna see you win! I’ll boost for a bit.”

Seeing the current bid, she started choking, as did all of his old friends.

Vinnie, clasping his throat squeaked out, “Why would anyone pay that much? It’s only a Tier 13 Natural Treasure.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “I haven’t even started bidding seriously yet, and I bet a lot of others haven’t either. Change your perspective. I’m not buying this item, my duchy is, because really it is a ducal level item. In fact…”

Seeing a comatose Phoenix Liz next to a platter of hors d’oeuvres, he poked her rounded stomach, waking her up as he continued his explanation. “Acording to the provided information, this item will increase ambient essence levels in entire cities, allowing for those who cultivate ambient essence to progress something like seventy percent faster. Multiply that by self admittedly stringent regulations stating we can only use it for a year or so per city, and a decade per planet, so as to not disrupt the planet’s natural essence cycles.”

Vinnie continued to poke at the projection as if to change reality. “But how does that equal a Tier 40 mana stone? No, excuse me, a Tier 41 mana stone, silly me.”

Phoenix Liz, having woken up, plopped onto the chair next to Matt and transformed into human Liz.

“I’ll eat another plate of hors d’oeuvres if it doesn’t sell for at least a Tier 43 price.”

Sam rolled her eyes, poking Liz’s now flat stomach. “I don’t think we need to make a bet with you in order for you to do that. But why?”

Liz grinned right back, “Nope! In fact, I’m putting in a new order, who wants to join in.”

As Matt threw a few interesting recommended items onto the list, he idly watched as the price of the Natural Treasure slowly crept to Tier 42, fearing it might blow past his initial estimation.

Seeing a small delay at 300 Tier 41 mana stones, Matt wasn’t at all surprised when a much higher bid appeared, pushing the item to Tier 42 all at once, confirming his worst fears. Naturally, it was made by a hereditary ducal family, marking the first entrant of the real players, as well as those with revealed names.

Flicking the button to increment the bid, Matt let his own presence be felt for the first time since his initial few bids.

Unlike many of the auctions, this nobility-only auction didn’t have hidden identities enforced, and social etiquette considered it shameful for any Marquess’ or Duke’s to hide themselves. Or so was the official story. In reality, most Duke’s and Marquess’ wanted to flaunt their identities, so it was more a matter of allowing the powerful to do as they wished while still offering protection for the lower Tier nobility.

That was also why the auction had started with the item being labeled as Tier 35. Anyone lower than a Duke wasn’t the item’s target audience.

As their food arrived, Kyle asked, “Yeah, but why does that mean the item is that valuable? I see its use, but it’s Tier 13.”

Liz sighed, nodding in agreement. “Some team got stupid-lucky there. What an ideal find. As to answer your question, you are simply underestimating the value we can generate internally using this Natural Treasure. If we wanted to, we could force our Barons, Viscounts, and Counts to do pretty much anything we wanted for the chance to have this item make it to their planets on a regular rotation.”

Matt took over when Liz took another bite of her cranberry fig and goat cheese spread, using her distraction to butter his own slice of toast, having smelled it. “We have an undersized duchy and we have hundreds of worlds under Tier 15. That’s the majority of our duchy in fact. Every single one of them would want to get access to this item. Following the current regulation means a decade of use, with at least a century before another, but during that decade even the moderately wealthy from every nearby planet will flood to that world to cultivate faster. That brings in both short and long term benefits, so long as the local ruler wasn’t an idiot. Then multiply that by forever. It’s a portable economic boon that can be moved around at-will. How wouldn’t it be super valuable?”

As he took his bite, Liz raised an eyebrow, waiting for more questions.

Sam couldn’t resist asking. “What’s your highest price?”

Matt shrugged, wanting to keep up the mystery, but Liz gave a more reasonable answer.

“Below ten Tier 44 mana stones is about where I put it. Any more and I wouldn’t feel it’s a good deal.”

Matt shook his head. “That’s already higher than I have it, to be honest. My internal limit was one Tier 44.”

Liz bobbed her head around as she considered before raising two fingers. “Let’s meet somewhere in the middle?”

Not having an issue with that, he agreed, while the others looked on in shock.

When the door to their private room opened and Melinda and Mathew squeezed in, the others immediately started complaining about how much Matt and Liz were spending.

Mathew was unsympathetic to their plight. “How do you even have that much money? I understand the older duchies buying super valuable items like this, but how can your duchy afford it? You only have a sub-Tier 40 ducal capital.”

Matt waggled his hand, even as Liz explained, “We still have a duchy’s worth of planets under us, which adds up. Sure, it’s a half-sized duchy, but Matt and I don’t touch our portion of our official coffers. Additionally, you are underestimating the draw of a high Tier aspected planet and how many high Tiers that brings. We have something like four to five hundred Tier 40’s living on Palustris and they all pay tax. Sure, it’s not as much as a kingdom-level capital, but it puts us on the higher end of ducal capitals alone. So we can afford to buy one or two of these very expensive items, but even we can’t compete if one of the long term ducal families gets a bug in their ass, unless we want to tap into our personal wealth. Then we can tango, but I don’t think it’s worth that much.”

That seemed to catch all of them off guard, before Melinda rolled her eyes. “They mean their Ascender funds. Each movie must print you guys money.”

Matt shook his head, “According to Allie, it’s still poor compensation for having the terrible movies made about us. It—”

He was interrupted as Allie fell through nothing and into their room, pulling Aster through by her ‘tail’. She managed the illusion and the switch masterfully as she and Allie fell on Sam and Kyle.

After finding their own spots in the now much more cramped room, Matt sighed. “I already called this item, you can’t see it and start fighting me.”

Neither of them were interested, but when Zack opened the door and tried to bring Susanne into the room, Matt had enough. Tapping into the room’s AI, he dismissed the walls, returning their once private room to the main area, letting their couch reform around the central projector and merging them with the others who’d been watching a different auction.

“I hate all of you.”

Getting a laugh, Matt started bartering with Zack to keep him out of the bidding, promising him complete access to the item if he wanted to study it. His capitulation didn’t solve the other bidders, and soon the item ticked up to 390 Tier 43 mana stones, where everyone grew hesitant to bring it over the next threshold.

Seeing the auctioneer start to speak, Dominus represented the Maniakes duchy and raised the bid twice to 392.

As the countdown started creeping its way down from five, Matt raised the bid three times, hoping to scare off anyone lurking.

However, his bid had the opposite effect, and Silvia Dobrescu immediately pushed the bid to 1 Tier 44 mana stone.

Wanting to capitalize on the moment, Liz raised the bid once, doubling the price aggressively.

That finally caused a considerable pause, as for the first time, the timer ticked below two seconds.

One.

The moment before the auction would have concluded, someone else raised the bid and they bowed out. It was a valuable item, but not something either of them were willing to fight with the more established noble families for.

And they fought.

Enough so that Matt didn’t feel any heartache when the Natural Treasure eventually went to the Wyatt family for 24 Tier 46 mana stones.