Chapter 361 - Entering The First Auction!
Sir Hecarim brought one close to him and started reading it carefully. Felix didn't say anything else as he just remained seated waiting for Sir Hecarim to finish.
It took almost two hours before Sir Hecarim lifted his head and started questioning Felix about the terms.
'You wrote that the explorers needed to be wearing AP bracelets and especially the one who possessed the coordinations.' Sir Hecarim nodded his head in approval, 'This will ensure that no trickery will occur during the exploration to cheat you out of your money.'
As Felix said, he knew what he was doing. All the terms written in those contracts were worked by him and a professional contract writer who got paid to see through the loopholes and close them.
The Guarantee contract did have quite a few loopholes and the most dangerous one would be exploring the ruins first without wearing bracelets.
Then, when the real client explores them while wearing the bracelet, he would show the Queen that ruins were empty of treasures unlike what he was promised.
However, rarely would anyone try to pull those tricks off since it was hard to fool the Queen when she was literally in people's minds.
Still, it was better to take precautions.
Felix was confident that the ruins had treasures within them since Asna looked it up in his memories and saw that all of them were proclaimed to have bountiful treasures.
Meanwhile, Sir Hecarim kept asking questions on each term that brought his interest.
Questions ranged from when Felix's map would be auctioned and what's position would be given in the auction. Were some of them were going to be placed near the end, marking their importance and such or not?
Felix was satisfied by some answers and some he wasn't pleased by. But, this was how negotiations were supposed to be. He couldn't be winning them all.
This back and forth Q&A finished after three hours.
'Would you like something to eat?' Sir Hecarim offered while rubbing his eyebrows with a stalk of his brown hair, controlling like it was part of his limbs.
Unreactive to such a sight, Felix shook his head and said, 'I still have an auction that I need to catch up to, so let's conclude the deal first.'
'I see.' Sir Hecarim nodded his head and brought the contracts close to his face.
Without hesitation, he signed all three contracts next to Felix's name. There was still an empty spot for the client to sign as well.
After seeing so, Felix brought out the notepad where he wrote the coordination of each ancient ruins map and sent it to Sir Hecarim, who got quite excited after reading them.
Naturally, since he signed the contract he was forbidden from sharing this information with anyone. Even the auction owner didn't have the right to know the content of this deal.
This would make the entire transaction include only Felix, Sir Hecarim, and the buyer.
'Good, good!' Sir Hecarim bubbled in his mind, 'I will earn at least 40 million SC from this.'
'I want to sign another contract for early payment.' Felix abruptly sent this message.
'Oh?' Sir Hecarim asked, 'How much do you want for them?'
'Give me your minimum estimate of their total price.' Felix said
Sir Hecarim thought about it for a second and said firmly, 'The worse price they could bring you would be 21 billion SC.'
'Oh? That's a bit higher than I anticipated.' Felix's eyes beamed in elation.
He totally believed in Sir Hecarim's estimate since he was a professional who was doing this for years unlike him.
'Are you satisfied with the amount?' Sir Hecarim asked.
Immediately after seeing Felix nodding his head,? Sir Hecarim sent a prewritten standard contract that was always used for this kind of deal.
Felix had already read one previously and everything was the same besides small differences. The contract's gestation entailed that Felix would be receiving an initial payment of 21 billion SC.
When his products get auctioned successfully, the house would deduct that amount from the final earning and send Felix what's left.
If the estimate was wrong and the maps ended up getting sold cheaper than 21 billion SC, Felix would be required to pay back what he owned.
After Felix made sure that he didn't overlook any loophole, he signed it and kept a copy of it.
Ti-ring!
>You have been wired 21,000,000,000 SC from The Aquatic Auction House.
Felix smiled widely after seeing the notification emerge in front of him. He never got wired such a large amount at once and it felt excellent to see those many zeros in his bank account.
Felix's ego even started to inflate after knowing that he currently possessed 36 billion SC total.
In his eyes, with this amount, he would finally be joining the whales in this event and compete with them for jaw-breaking treasures.
"This was quite a pleasant deal." Sir Hecarim spoke out loud for the 1st time in those couple of hours.
Princess Bird who was sleeping peacefully above Felix's head opened her eyes groggily at the abrupt sound.
"Likewise Sir Hecarim." Felix proclaimed with a satisfied smile while standing on his feet.
He bowed his head politely and said one last time, "Let's meet again someday."
Then, he turned around and opened the door of the room. He closed it shut after he heard Sir Hecarim's polite response.
"What did you sell?"
Princess Bird asked for the millionth time while floating in Felix's front, trying to block his path. Alas, Felix treated her like air and floated right through her.
"Stop ignoring me you prick!" She cursed while chasing after him.
'She is truly the living incarnation of you Asna.' Felix fired shots without care.
'F*ck off, don't compare me with that whiny kid.' Asna cursed while glancing at his situation from her bed.
'Just saying.' Felix shrugged his shoulders as he glanced at his bracelet.
Upon seeing that there was only 15 minutes before the auction for energy stones begin, Felix stopped fooling around and requested the Queen to show him the way.
Like before, an arrow that was pointing forward emerged in front of Felix and he swiftly floated in that direction.
"Argh! Stop dragging me around! Tell me where are we going at least!"
"Nope!"
***
A couple of minutes later, Felix was sitting in a packed noisy auditorium, appearing like many baby spiders stacked together from high above.
From a single glance, anyone would guess that at least thousands of people were sitting in this curved auditorium facing a well-lighted stage.
Obviously, there were VIP rooms but they had been already taken by individuals who came way earlier than the rest.
In this Yearly event, there were no prebooked VIP rooms for the guests.
That's because everyone had weight on their words and actions, and it wouldn't be fitting to give some rooms and others not. Hence, the rooms were taken on a first-serve basis.
That's only for those types of open auditoriums.
Since Felix was quite late, he ended up getting teleported in this chair that was right in the middle of the auditorium.
Honestly, no one seemed to complain about sitting close to each other since everyone was considered a worthy peer.
If those individuals were placed in an auditorium filled with commoners, their reaction wouldn't be this cool.
Peng Peng!
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Belverian Auction House."
After hearing a greeting from an elderly white-haired man who had manifested in the center of the stage, the chatter quietened down.
"I am just here to welcome you and wish that you enjoy your time under our hospitality." The elderly man smiled gently as he said so. Then, he disappeared again.
But this time, a holographic image of an other-worldly beauty had emerged in his place. She had an expressionless face as she glanced at the people who had their focus placed on her.
"I am the Queen AI and I will be acting as the auctioneer." She said with her usual monotonous voice.
It was a bit unusual for Felix to see the Queen while she speaks but he didn't react much since he knew that her body and face were fake.
It was known knowledge that the Queen had never been seen before. Hence, every race had its own self-created versions of how the Queen would look like.
In this case, she appeared like a goddess with her artificial beauty that was too perfect to be true.
"Let's begin."
Without further ado, she displayed the first auctioned item which was just a bunch of pitch-black stones bundled together. They kept emitting dark waves ceaselessly.
Those weren't added animations but the stones were truly capable of doing so in reality!
The reason why...
"The first bundle is 500 High-Grade Death Elemental Stones."? She added expressionlessly, "The starting bid is 500 million SC..."
Before her voice could even trail off, noisy chatter broke off in the auditorium followed by a vicious war of bidding.
"600 million SC from room 15."
"670 million SC from the seat 199."
"710 million SC from the seat 1788."
She kept calling the bids clearly, even though only a few individuals
...
"999 million SC from room 70."
"999 million SC from room 70 going once...twice...Sold."
Clap Clap!...
Felix joined the applause as well but his eyelids kept twitching at the sight of the last bid for only 500 High-Grade Death Element stones.
Heck, he knew that those stones weren't going to be used for anything besides research purposes or as a material.
Yet, the price still reached one billion and this made him sweat a bit at what was waiting for him when the illusion stones make an entry.
'Dear Lord, have mercy on my wallet.' He prayed in his mind while easing down on the applause like the rest.