Affinity:Chaos

"The starting price for the egg is fifty thousand mid-grade essence stones, for every bid made, the price must see an increase of two thousand mid-grade essence stones." Verla said before staring at the special rooms at the top, "Begin,"

"Sixty thousand,"

Just like from the previous items, an offer was made immediately after Verla finished speaking.

"Sixty-five thousand,"

"Eighty thousand,"

"Ninety thousand,"

"Ninety-five thousand,"

"One hundred thousand,"

The price of the egg continued increasing, and what was shocking was that none of the people in the special rooms had made any offers yet.

Verla was all smiles on seeing how quickly the price of the egg was shooting up.

Grey stared at the people who were sitting on the regular seats weirdly. They clearly know that items like these will be obtained by those in the special rooms, yet, why were they bidding?

"One hundred and…"

"Two hundred and fifty thousand,"

A deep distorted voice interrupted the man who was about to make a bid. It was from one of the special rooms.

'Huh? Even their voices are hidden?' Grey thought surprised.

This was his first time coming to an auction, so he found a lot of things going on to be strange.

'Hmm, maybe they don't want anyone to be attacked after they purchase an item. I don't think all the people in these special rooms are from big families. Some might even be like me who were just opportune,' He concluded after a while.

This was the only reason he could think of why the identities of the people were hidden.

After the person from the special room made an offer, the hall went silent. Given the large amount by which the price of the egg increased, none of the people in the normal area could make another offer.

On seeing that no one else was making any offers, Verla smiled before taking a step forward, "Our guest from room two offered two hundred and fifty thousand mid-grade essence stones, is anyone else going to make an offer?"

The room remained still for a while, and just as Verla was about to give the item to the guest in room two, a deep voice spoke out once again. This time, Grey saw a small light coming up from the room from which the voice came. The number eight was written on it.

"Three hundred thousand,"

Verla smiled when she saw this, as long as another room had made a bid for the item, then the price of the item would continue increasing.

"Three hundred and fifty thousand,"

The number twelve was written on the room which made this offer.

"Four hundred thousand," The person from room two made another offer.

"Heh! Four hundred and fifty thousand," The person from room twelve scoffed before saying.

"This is Owen from the Cedric family, I'll be in your debt if you allow me to take this egg," The person from room two said, this time though, his voice wasn't distorted.

"I don't care who you are or where you're from, I'll be the one to obtain this egg," The person from room twelve snorted coldly before replying.

"Hmph! We'll see about that," Cedric said coldly.

"Five hundred and fifty thousand,"

He increased the offer by one hundred thousand, unlike the previous time he made an offer.

"Six hundred thousand," The person from room twelve made an offer again.

"Seven hundred thousand," Cedric said calmly.

"Seven hundred and fifty thousand," The person from room twelve said.

"Eight hundred and fifty thousand," Cedric increased the offer by one hundred thousand once again.

"Heh! Nine hundred thousand," The person from room number twelve said.

Even though his voice was distorted, Grey and the others in the hall could still clearly sense the mockery in his tone.

"Hmm, you know what, you can have it," Cedric's calm voice resounded in the hall.

Grey found the exchange between the duo a little confusing, at first, he thought the person from room twelve was the one who was tricking Cedric into buying the egg for an exorbitant amount, who would've thought it was the other way round.

"Uh! Giving up so easily," The person from room twelve let out a surprised exclamation. He didn't think Cedric would give up so easily.

Cedric didn't reply.

"The guest from room twelve made an offer of nine hundred thousand mid-grade essence stones, is anyone making any other offer?" Verla asked, looking at the crowd.

After a few seconds of silence, she opened her mouth again.

"And the item is sold to the guest in room twelve! One of our workers will bring the item over to your room, you can make your deposit after clarifying the authenticity of the item," Verla nodded at one of the ladies by the side of the platform who walked over to take the item.

"I don't need to clarify the authenticity, I'm fully confident in what the Lenz organization offers," The guest from room twelve said coolly.

"Alright, thank you," Verla bowed towards the room, before turning to the crowd again, "We will continue with the regular items once again, after ten items, one of our main items will be placed on sale just like before,"

After that, she brought out a regular-looking rock. According to her, it was a special rock used for making elemental weapons.

Grey watched on as the auction continued further. Other than the Griffin's egg, nothing else had piqued his interest. Not just that, but he wasn't sure he would be able to afford any of the things here. The final amount which the egg was sold for was unbelievable.

He didn't even have up to one-tenth of that number of essence stones in his storage ring, much less even daring to make a bid.

'The people who come for all these auctions are insanely rich, given my poor status, there's no way I'll be able to cough up five thousand essence stones, even with the ones I took from Alice's place,' Grey thought.

"Looks like I need to find a way to make money," He muttered to himself.

The auction continued with Verla presenting the next few items.

….

"Now, to present the second of our main items," Verla said after she finished selling the tenth item from the regular items.

She turned to look at her right, a young lady walked out with an item that was covered by a brown cloth.

"This is a rare herb found only in the depths of the Magical Beasts' forest. You all know how important it is to gain a good understanding of your element before breaking through to the Overlord Plane. This is exactly what this herb has to offer. Unfortunately, this particular species of the herb only helps with the comprehension of two elements, the water, and earth element,"

"The starting price of this herb is three hundred mid-grade essence stones, for every bid made, the price must see an increase of fifty thousand essence stones," Verla said before removing the piece of cloth that was used to cover up the herb.

Strong water and earth essence immediately spread out in the hall, covering the entire hall.

Even in the special rooms which were sealed by an array, Grey could still clearly feel the intensity of the water and earth essence in the herb.

"Wow, I should note down the appearance of this herb, I don't know if I might see it again when he heads back into the forest," Grey mumbled to himself.

He didn't have any plans of making a bid for the herb. To be honest, from the number of stones he had with him, he didn't even have any plans of bidding for anything. Well, unless something like what he was searching for appeared, then he would use every possible method he knew of to get it.

"Four hundred essence stones,"

An offer was made immediately after the herb was placed on sale.

Every individual here knew how difficult it was to gain a good understanding of their elements. Without this, there is no way an Origin Plane Elementalists could break through to the Overlord Plane.

Compared to these people, Grey had a huge advantage since he had been comprehending the elements from when he started cultivating. Although, he didn't really know what the requirements would be for him to break through, given the high number of elements he had.

"Five hundred thousand,"

"Five hundred and fifty thousand essence stones,"

"Six hundred thousand,"

"Seven hundred thousand,"

Within a little over a minute, the price of the herb had shot over one million mid-grade essence stones, and it was still increasing at a rapid pace.

"One million two hundred thousand,"

"One million five hundred thousand,"

The sudden increase in the price drew the attention of everyone in the hall.

The window covering room one opened up, and a handsome-looking young man stepped forward.

When everyone saw his appearance, they stood up hurriedly.

Grey found the behavior of the people in the crowd to be surprising.

Verla looked in that direction, on seeing the young man, she bowed, "It's an honor to be graced by your presence, Your Highness,"