Chapter 362 - Securing 10,000 High-Grade Illusion Stones.
The moment the applause stopped, the Queen displayed the next bundle.
This time it was filled with orange stones, and it was obvious that the number was way more than what was shown before.
"The 2nd bundle is 100,000 High-Grade Fire Elemental Stones."? She followed with, "The starting bid is 100 million SC..."
Naturally, the Death Elemental stones were placed at the start to fire off the auction and set the start's intensity.
But following it, the other bundles were just from either common element or uncommon element.
Felix merely kept spectating as everyone fought for tooth and nail for them since energy stones were a must commodity to have.
There was never having 'too much when it comes to energy stones.
Before long, 100,000 High-Grade Sand Elemental stones were auctioned as well.
Princess Bird floated in front of Felix and asked with her eyes narrowed, "Why aren't you bidding for them? Or are you bidding telepathically?"
She got closer to his expressionless face and started examining him, wanting to see if he would show any reaction.
Alas, he was as stoic as the British Queen's guards.
"Tsk." Princess Bird clicked her tongue in annoyance and promised, "I will find out what you are doing one way or another."
Still unresponsive, Felix scratched his chin while thinking, 'What's my maximum bid for illusion stones? I should probably set it at 5 billion SC. If it goes above it, I can only give up on it.'
Just as he thought so, the Queen had removed the bundle that had just got auctioned successfully and replaced it with another one that was full of peculiar-looking stones.
They didn't have a specific set of colors as they kept constantly changing between them. Sometimes, they were colorless and sometimes they turn into shimmering rainbowed stones.
'Illusion stones, Finally!' Felix exclaimed in his mind but his reaction on the outside was the same as others next to him...Enthralled and fascinated.
"The 24th bundle is 10,000 High-Grade Ilusion Elemental Stones." The Queen carried on monotonously, "The starting bid is 650 million SC"
Before Felix could even try to bid low so he could test the water, the price had climbed to 720 million SC from a single bid.
'This is going to be tough.' Felix rested his chin on his hand and kept watching the ongoing fierce bidding.
"840 million from room 33."
"950 million from seat 133."
...
"2.3 billion from seat 98."
Only after the bid reached this amount did the Queen started to slow down her calls. Even the bids weren't getting increased by hundreds of millions anymore, lowering the intensity for a bit.
Felix could see with his enhanced vision that most interested parties that were bidding fiercely before, were starting to exhibit signs of discontentment. Yet, they were still going at it, increasing the bid by 50 million SC each time.
In a few moments, the price was about to reach a whopping 3 billion and Felix's palms were starting to get sweaty since he noticed that more than 5 bidders had no intentions of stopping soon.
'F*ck it, I can't let them keep hoping that they might win it if they kept increasing slowly.' Felix decided to bid big and big he did!
"Queen, Please increase the b..."
"3.2 billion from an anonymous guest." The Queen announced abruptly, cutting off one of the five bidders in mid-sentence.
He was just about to increase the bid by 40 million SC before the bid jumped from 3 Billion to 3.2 billion, increasing by a whopping three two hundred million at once.
'Motherf*cker, did you have to do that in my turn.' The bidder cursed in his mind while closing his mouth shut, not daring to follow up after that.
He was already past the budget deducted to this auction and he had no intentions to follow that madman.
In his eyes, this was just an auction for energy stones and capital should really be saved for other treasures and items in different auctions.
He wasn't the only one thinking like this as the other three also decided to withdrew silently from the bidding war.
This left only Felix and another man, who didn't hesitate to increase the bid by 50 million.
Felix waited for two seconds until the Queen repeated the latest bid, then he increased it by 100 million SC.
This time, the other bidder didn't raise instantly like before.
"3.350 billion from an anonymous guest."
"3.350 billion from an anonymous guest...going once, twice..."
"3.400 billion from seat 5."
'F***ck youuu!' Felix bawled in his mind, annoying both Asna and the J?rmungandr who had just started a new game of chess.
'Mute him.' The J?rmungandr said calmly while setting up his side of the board. Asna did so by a finger snap and started working on her own pieces in utter tranquility.
Good thing they disconnected as Felix kept cursing each time that f*cker increased the bid after him.
"3,600 billion from a seat 5."
"3.700 billion from an anonymous guest."
The other guests were left speechless by the ongoing bidding war as they didn't doubt for a second that the amount proposed was not worth it at all for those energy stones.
After all, 10,000 High-grade Ilusion stones would never bring them back the same profit if they used them as materials for potions or substances. As for using them to recover energy?
No one was a fool to waste them like that since recovering energy could be done using medium-grade stones.
Plus, the illusion bloodliners never reach the 4th stage of replacement since tier 5 illusion beasts were either extinct or hiding.
Felix knew so as well; hence he was quite pissed that he ended up against a bidder who seemed quite desperate for them.
However, he still had no intentions of stopping since the final bid had yet to hit his limits.
Thankfully, it seemed like even that bidder was starting to feel the brunt of the large price as he kept waiting until the Queen was about call trice, then he adds an extra 20 million.
"4.100 billion from an anonymous guest."
'F*ck it, if he added after this, I am will leave it to him.'
Felix couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to keep going until 5 billion, but he felt that a vein would definitely snap if he did so.
He was doing his very best to keep appearing as stoic as possible when his heart was about to burst out in flames.
"4.100 billion from an anonymous guest...going once, twice...sold." The Queen struck the gavel forcefully without giving even a second to Felix's contender to make a comeback.
Clap Clap Clap!!...
Honeslty, Felix didn't even know if he should feel happy by winning the bid or not as he felt that he had gotten cheated out of at least half a billion in this bidding war.
'Sigh, no harm was done, money can be earned again but chances like those were hard to land on.' He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Then, he smiled faintly and started clapping his hands joining the deafening applause. Princess Bird didn't notice his emotional turmoil as she was engrossed in the bidding war before.
If it were the Chief, sitting next to Felix, he would have noticed everything. So, it was a blessing that Princess Bird was accompanying him.
After the applause died down, the Queen sent a message to Felix, 'Congratulation, the serial Code of the bundle had been sent to you per email.'
Felix didn't respond as his attention was stolen by a holographic notification, entailing that 4,100,000,000 SC had been wired to the Belverian Auction House.
Felix sighed softly and removed the cursed notification from his face. However, he still didn't teleport outside the auction like some guests were doing after securing what they wanted.
He wasn't stupid to leave right now since Princess Bird could guess that he had already gotten what he wanted.
Hence, he waited for extra ten minutes before snapping his finger, activating the teleportation process.
"Wait for meee!" Princess Bird beseeched with a panicked tone after seeing that he was breaking into light particles.
Since she was just a hologram, she couldn't really teleport outside like Felix. Thus, she had to float outside of the building manually.
By the time she reached the gate, Felix was nowhere to be found!
"Landlooord!! I will kill you!!!" Princess Bird bellowed with flushed cheeks in anger after realizing that she got ditched behind!
She quickly chose a direction and started searching for him. She didn't want to inform her father now as she knew that he would scold her for losing him in the 1st place.
While she was searching everywhere like a woman on crack, Felix was walking casually in the streets while having a different face on and clothes! He even removed his name from above his head to stay subtle.
Currently, he was heading to one of the three bloodline auctions in this event. He marked it previously since there was an epic tier 6 sand bloodline within their items list and an epic tier 4 illusion bloodline.
He wanted to secure them no matter what since the customs taxes between empires didn't apply to the attendants in this event!
If it weren't for so, Felix would have coughed blood after reading the customs taxes for the 10k High-Grade stones.
After all, the weight of such a large delivery was definitely going to make him pay extra 50 million SC!