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Chapter 45: The Rock Legion Necklace
The parchment referred to by the auctioneer as the "Revelation Scroll" caused a ripple of whispers to spread through the crowd when it was unveiled. Low murmurs rippled outward like waves, quickly reaching Brandon’s group, signaling that the auctioneer had successfully captured the attention of most attendees right from the start.
However, while people whispered among themselves, most remained cautious and refrained from bidding immediately. The nobles interested in competing for the scroll generally came from families with substantial resources. These individuals sat comfortably in their private boxes above, waiting for the first bidder to make a move.
"The Elemental Revelation Scroll is mostly crafted by the fairies of Crystal Tundra," Lorne explained on the side. "Each year, there’s a fixed quota originally intended to supplement lower-level Elementalists within their communities—but many such scrolls leak into private hands annually."
"Why don’t they produce more of them?" Roma asked curiously.
"Creating an Elemental Revelation Scroll consumes magic energy from the Elemental Pool," Chael interjected. "For high-ranking Elementalists, this isn’t a trivial matter."
"Moreover," he continued, "forcing an elemental contract through a revelation scroll may allow even ordinary people to succeed, but their achievements in life will ultimately remain limited. They won’t surpass the average person by much. Such scrolls aren’t necessarily better in greater numbers."
Barthom, Antietta, and Roma listened intently, surprised to learn that such a small scroll carried so much significance. Chael and Brandon were already familiar with its origins, but Brandon still remarked, "I didn’t expect to see one here in Braggs."
Lorne’s instincts were as sharp as a sneaky rat’s. He caught the implication in Brandon’s words—that the young man’s knowledge extended far beyond a small place like Braggs. Though for Roma and Antietta, this city was nearly the largest they’d ever seen—he hesitated before asking, "Brandon, are you interested in that item?"
"A little."
"Shall I have my men bid on it?" Lorne offered.
Brandon considered for a moment, then nodded. The starting price for the Revelation Scroll was set at five thousand torr, with each subsequent bid required to increase by five percent of the base price. At Lorne’s signal, his underlings soon raised a paddle from another section.
Five thousand.
But once the first bid was placed, the price quickly climbed higher. New bids emerged from the second and third tiers of private boxes, escalating round by round. Before the auctioneer could even raise his gavel, the price had surged to eight thousand torr.
The bidding seemed to circle the "miniature theater," eventually returning to Brandon. Lorne turned back, his eyes questioning. Brandon thought for a moment, then nodded and gestured a number.
His associate raised the paddle again—eight thousand five hundred.
Antietta’s expression shifted slightly.
Little Roma remained unfazed.
Barthom wore an amused grin, clearly enjoying the spectacle.
From the second tier of boxes, however, a new voice soon rang out. The auctioneer’s assistant announced the updated bid: nine thousand torr. The nobles in the boxes were growing impatient.
The second round of bidding lost its initial air of probing and took on a sharper edge, almost drawing blood. Each quoted price grew colder than the last, and the numbers steadily rose. Starting at nine thousand torr, the increments leaped by ten percent each time: ten thousand, eleven thousand, twelve thousand… The auctioneer and his assistant maintained their composure, no longer needing to provide introductions as the competition entered its white-hot phase. Yet, the price still hadn’t reached the bidders’ perceived limits.
Finally, a calm voice drifted from the fourth box on the left: fifteen thousand.
Like the final drumbeat in a storm, silence followed as the rain ceased and the wind died down. The sea of faces below felt the weight of inevitability settle over them, assuming this would be the final hammer strike.
Lorne smacked his lips and turned back.
Brandon furrowed his brow, weighing whether spending sixteen thousand torr for two thousand experience points was worth it. After a brief hesitation, he lightly tapped the back of his hand.
Lorne’s associate raised the paddle once more:
Sixteen thousand torr.
The crowd tensed, realizing they had reached the critical moment.
The auctioneer’s assistant glanced at the paddle rising from the "audience" and muttered under his breath, "Is Lorne mad? We didn’t tell him to go this far. Those nobles won’t be pleased…"
The auctioneer nudged his young assistant. "He has someone backing him."
When Brandon gestured, both Antietta and Barthom turned to look at him. They couldn’t understand why this young knight was so keen on acquiring the scroll. Did he intend to become an Elementalist?
But hadn’t the apprentice wizard just explained that even those who used a Revelation Scroll to initiate their path as lower-level Elementalists would ultimately achieve only limited success? Such scrolls were meant for the naturally gifted—to save them time during the elemental accumulation stage.
Still, Brandon offered no explanation.
Chael didn’t need one. He understood perfectly why the young man coveted the scroll.
Lorne’s bid caused a slight pause among the nobles in the boxes. They seemed to deliberate over this unexpected competitor but quickly resumed bidding moments later.
Eighteen thousand torr.
It came again from the fourth box on the left. Lorne leaned close to Brandon’s ear and whispered, "Baron Donnel. His family owns several estates near Braggs, and he has significant holdings in the city itself. He’s also a member of Braggs’ local council—a position held by his father and grandfather before him."
Brandon nodded. Such local gentry could be found throughout Eruin. However, a minor baron wouldn’t typically fight tooth and nail over a single scroll. This man was likely acting as an agent for someone more powerful.
Before Brandon could fully process this, the bid climbed to twenty-one thousand torr. A knight from the third tier of boxes locked horns with Baron Donnel. Amid their verbal sparring, the price soared to twenty-six thousand torr. Finally, the big players in the first-tier boxes took over. Each new bid now felt like a blade slicing through the heads of those below, driving the price to an astronomical forty thousand torr in mere moments.
Around twenty thousand torr, Brandon had attempted to reenter the bidding, but he was swiftly outbid by agents representing the nobility. In the end, the scroll sold for a staggering forty-two thousand torr, leaving the young man with a pang of regret.
Two thousand experience points would have been a boon if acquired for twenty or thirty thousand torr. But at over forty thousand, the cost was prohibitive—it might even disrupt his plans. With a resigned sigh, Brandon reluctantly abandoned the purchase.
Outwardly, he showed no emotion, fooling both Antietta and Lorne into thinking him merely a wealthy youth indifferent to such sums.
After this initial surge of excitement, the auction settled into a predictable lull. Several items were sold consecutively, with prices ranging between several thousand to ten thousand torr.
The transactions were unremarkable, and the audience grew bored. Lorne, however, kept himself busy by providing detailed explanations of each item’s origins to Brandon and the others. While he might not identify which workshop produced a magical ring that glowed like a candle, he could at least say whether it was stolen goods from somewhere or something discreetly leaked by a noble family.
Antietta, little Roma, and Barthom listened with great interest, while Brandon and Chael focused more on discussing the geographical origins of these items.
At one point, they mentioned Tama, lamenting that the master alchemist was too absorbed in his work to attend. Otherwise, some of the magical items sold earlier might have appealed to him.
Soon, the second climax of the auction arrived. This time, the item up for bid was a necklace—or rather, a crude string threaded with a few stones. To the untrained eye, it might have been overlooked entirely. But when Brandon saw it, he nearly gasped—the Rock Legion Necklace.
This item was designed to complement the "Rock Lair," a construct created via seventeenth-level alchemy. It reduced the material costs of producing Rock Golems within the lair by fifty percent, effectively doubling their output.
As Brandon explained its function to the others, Roma and Chael reacted mildly, but Barthom and Antietta’s eyes lit up almost immediately. One was a seasoned mercenary well-versed in warfare, and the other a noble-born lady educated in strategy—they both understood the significance of this necklace for a territory.
In Vonder, wars relied on three primary resources:
First, people; second, amber stones; third, all other strategic materials; and fourth, "lairs."
People needed no explanation. On the vast and nearly boundless plains of Vonder, the productivity brought about by magic had fostered populations far exceeding the limitations of this era. They formed the foundation of war potential between nations and territories.
Amber stones, extracted from Sormyr ore, was a translucent crystalline mineral resembling amber, often found alongside silver, gold, and copper deposits. Its ability to store magic energy made it indispensable. Antietta’s "magic energy conduit device" was specifically designed to harness the power of raw amber stones—it was the lifeblood of the magical systems sustaining intelligent beings across the land and the cornerstone of this "industrial system."
Other resources, such as grain, metal, wood, and stone, were common strategic assets even on Earth, where Brandon had originally come from. These were stockpiled explicitly for war.
But the final resource—"lairs"—represented a concept alien to conventional warfare yet familiar to Brandon as a player. In fact, any discussion of lairs necessitated delving into the origins of the world of Vonder.
How did Chaos exist, and how did Order arise?
How did magic energy interact with the land, and where did monsters originate? How were their lairs harnessed for human use?
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