Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

Walking through the streets of the city with Snowlily at his side, Thomas made the occasional stop to purchase food that smelled good or drinks that looked tasty. It was a habit he had formed to purchase street food whenever he was walking from place to place. It was always nice to have a warm tasty snack just sitting inside of his inventory waiting to be eaten. Bonus, Snowlily appreciated it too. He could just imagine what it would be like inside of her inventory once she took a human form. He expected it would be nothing but meat.

It took some time, due to his frequent snack stops, but they eventually made it to the auction house. Thankfully it was still pretty early in the afternoon and the auction was still going strong. Once inside, Thomas rented his numbered paddle, number 369 and made his way to the second floor where the auction was taking place. The room was rather large, large enough to fit at least a thousand people comfortably. At the moment it was actually about three-quarters full. Given the number of his paddle, he didn't expect the place to be so full. When he looked closer he saw that the paddles didn't seem to be distributed in numerical order. One of the paddles he spotted had a number of over one thousand.

He quickly found a spot near the back with two open seats next to each other and made his way there. Once he and Snowlily were comfortable, he began to pay attention to the auction. The current item for sale was a weapon, a halberd. It looked decent but he was completely uninterested in having it for himself. He did, however, pay attention to the bidding for the weapon. It had a rarity of Uncommon and a fire enchantment attached to it. The current bid for the weapon was over fifty-five thousand gold and still going up quickly.

Thomas glanced at the weapon with his 'All Seeing Eyes' and wasn't impressed. The halberd was made of plain steel and enchanted with regular mana crystals. Now, he was no snob and knew that his Transmutation was akin to a cheat ability that let him work with materials others would go to war for. Still, he couldn't help his dislike for the workmanship of the weapon. It was poorly made and looked cheap in his eyes. He could clearly see dents on the axe blade portion of the weapon where the blacksmith had hit the metal too hard and dented it too deeply. Thomas would have never sold something with such a flaw. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Way back when he was new at crafting he sold all kinds of garbage just to get enough money to buy his next set of supplies. That was nearing two decades ago though. With his current level of skill and expertise, he refused to sell something like that halberd anymore. He would rather melt it down and start over again.

The halberd was finally sold for a little over sixty-thousand gold and the next item was brought out. Thomas focused as the auctioneer began to speak, "Up next we have a case of high purity Mithril that was smelted by a master blacksmith in Kafla. According to our appraisal, the purity reaches almost ninety-percent!"

There were some 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the crowd as the case was brought out and opened for all to see. Once the case was opened everyone could see ten bars of glittering Mithril sitting pretty. Thomas took a single glance at the bars of metal and zoned out. High purity Mithril was excellent for most people but for him, the purity didn't matter at all. He paid no more attention while the auctioneer espoused the virtues of purer Mithril to get people even more excited before the bidding began. Once it did the price of the ingots began to skyrocket. Thomas paid attention to that portion of the auction. If he wanted to be lazy or found himself in need of easy money, he could buy some low purity Mithril and cleanse it a bit before reselling it.

The ten Mithril ingots sold for five thousand gold. It didn't seem like very much but a regular Mithril ingot available outside only sold for two hundred gold. The ten ingots sold for over double the value of a regular ingot. If Thomas made it into a business that would be a profit margin of over one hundred percent. The auction continued as more weapons and armor were sold off to the highest bidder. Only one auctioned item caught his attention. A partially purified mana crystal. It had a purity of just ten percent. Compared to most mana crystals that had a purity of one percent or less, ten percent was huge. It caused a bidding war that ended with the mana crystal selling for just under one hundred thousand gold.

Seeing the fierce bidding war for the mana crystal, Thomas changed his mind about selling a completely purified one. If one with just around ten percent purity went for over a hundred thousand then one with fifty percent purity would likely go for significantly more without drawing excessive attention. He could also only sell one. If he sold more it would bring a little too much attention to him. Selling the mana crystal was all about amassing funds for his future endeavors. When he was no longer restricted by how much he could carry he would start spending gold like it was water in a desert. His couple of million would be gone in no time at all. There was also concern about how much it would cost to build his own U.L.T.R.A. Something like that probably had a hefty price tag attached to it.

As the auction continued, Thomas found himself growing bored. The items being sold did little to rouse his interest in them. As he was thinking about leaving the next item for sale arrived at the stage. The auctioneer smiled as he introduced the item, "Up next we have some raw ore for sale. These several pieces of ore have been appraised and found to be Truesteel, a rare variation of natural steel with no elemental influences present within it. Weapons made of Truesteel are harder and retain their cutting edges even when pushed to their limits. The bidding for the ten pieces of ore will start at five thousand gold!"

The first bids were immediate and fierce. Thomas ignored them for now, he would get in on the bidding when it began to slow down a bit. He saved his breath and instead activated his 'All Seeing Eyes' to get a better understanding of the ore.