-15 Minutes earlier-----
Mark Baker was at the headquarters of the Special Defense Department in Y City. In his possession, he had a whopping 130 gold. These were all assets of Koku City. Together with roughly 70% of Y City's budget, it added up to 667 gold. They did everything they could to collect system currency, but the supply was simply lacking.
The only source of gold in Urth at the moment were dungeons and trade with people from the pathworks. The rough methods used in the beginning had... complicated their option of trade. It was not like there were few dungeons on the territory of Y-City, but the number of dungeons they could successfully raid was limited.
This was all the gold they were able to buy from their citizens via the shops. Mark was currently located in a meeting room inside one of the most important buildings of Y-City. The highest-ranking officials had gathered here. Spending this painstakingly collected money was an important decision.
The money and devise were handed to a magician with an uncommon class. He had a psychic ability to share his sight, all members could see the effect of the item and confer among themselves.
When the mage channeled mana into the silver device a window opened in front of his eyes, similar to the system windows.
"Hello, Customer. You are accessing the Auction House via a portable terminal. Your current dimension differs from the purchase location. Please keep in mind that cross-dimensional purchases will each have an additional shipping fee of 3 gold. The Auction House wishes you a nice day."
Following this message was the main site of the auction house. It resembled the websites of similar purposes. There was a search bar, recommended articles, and a long list of different product categories. One difference was that the user could choose between local and inter-dimensional.
Everyone in the room knew how to navigate on a site and understood the additional shipping fee.
Without anyone even telling him, the mage first sorted by local.
There was nothing. Nobody on Urth was selling something via the Auction House.
Begrudgingly they had to change to interdimensional trade. What they needed the most were good weapons and armor. It involved many losses to defending the city with just their skills and bare bodies- And there was no chance to get an upper hand. The whole situation could flip, once they got a chance to get an upper hand.
Seeing the prices of items in the auction house made those present call out in rage and despair. Most of the common weapons easily exceeded the performance of many of the items officials ever saw on Urth. They already dreamed of equipping a whole army and razing the dungeons, but the price of 5 to 10 gold per weapon shattered their dreams like broken glass. The armor parts were even more expensive than the weapons.
One had to keep in mind that this was an auction house. The prices were not fixed. However, this was the only chance, so they had to pay the instant-buy prices.
It made sense, even if these items were common ranked, there would not be any mediocre items in the auction house. Not everyone was like Seth and sold for cheap because they only needed a way to empty their inventory.
With these prices, they might be able to fully equip two or three squads at most. Was this enough to make a difference? No! These items were definitely much better than what they had right now, but it was not enough to bridge the difference in strength to their enemies.
Those squads would only die trying to clear more difficult dungeons before they break. Even if the people came back, the items might be lost.
The official took an hour to come to a solution. After all, this was their only chance. The decision was to buy higher-ranked items and form small elite teams. This seemed like the best use of their money. This was also a good idea for public relations. They could make them heroes to motivate and reassure the populace.
Tears ran down their face as the mage changed to uncommon ranked items. This was simply heart-rending. Uncommon items ranged between 20 to 30 gold. If they were frugal, they could maybe equip a group of 5 people with uncommon items...
They almost did not dare to look at the rare items. They lost all hope. The rare items started at 30 gold and there didn't seem to be an upper limit.
What had Baker said? There was a guy going around in a set of rare or above items? Just what did he do to accumulate that much via this Auction House?
They ended up purchasing a mix of common and uncommon items to equip two elite teams.
The next step would be to choose the heroes of Y City.
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While others were hard-pressed with the decision of buying uncommon items, Seth light-heartedly left a bunch of uncommon swords with Samuel to sell. His opinion of the priest had really risen and Seth saw that the same applied to Samuel as his affinity with Seth rose to 300.
He was quite the devilish old man. When Seth told him that he really wanted to make people bleed, the Priest came up with many fiendish ideas to maximize their profits. The church would take it upon itself to advertise and host the new and upcoming event: A public auction.
Hosted by the system church, not even Y Cities leadership could pull some shady stuff like "confiscating" the items. They even publicized the performance of the sword and the fact that an owner could be registered. This option caused great ripples than even Seth had anticipated. If no one but the owner could use the sword, it would make theft or "confiscation" completely useless!
In the eyes of these people, who had been fighting with weapons that were barely better than the Billhook Seth made in the very beginning, these swords were legendary items.
The higher-ups were also shocked by the church's revelation. They had just obtained a collection of high-grade items and soon after they dropped such a bombshell. The worst thing was that anyone with money could buy these swords. These people might get in the way of their Hero-project. They would have to pull together all their assets to get all items.
Seth didn't know that the events he himself had kicked off, would come together bring him a windfall.. Seth was occupied with the preparations of making his own equipment.