Apophis arrived in a huge hall majestic enough to be an Olympic soccer stadiumbut 10 times bigger! He estimated the hall could hold at least 2,000,000 people!

Apophis, being categorized as an Eternal, was lined up with the members of his species. In fact, each species was partitioned into a separate box.

Upon arriving in his reserved box, Apophis noticed a lot of famous faces. Most of them were guild leaders, in fact, though he noticed a few solo players among them as well.

The lack of single players wasn't too surprising compared to the number of guild leaders. After all, it was pretty hard at that point in the game to find the 15,000 GC required for registration unless you bought them with real-world money.

Some players recognized Apophis and sent him black looks, but he ignored them. There was only one other star player here, "Zelda" of the SuperGuild "Hyrule," a Warrior!

They'd seen each other quickly during the siege of Tyo, but hadn't really spoken.

Zelda took the initiative. She rose and made her way to Apophis in the box. "Hey, aren't you that player whose head's worth five million?"

Though not all the funds had been gathered yet, all the players who hated Apophis for his new governor's position had started referring to the five million GC bounty they were campaigning to put on his head!

Apophis replied, "Five million isn't that much. A little insulting, actually. I've got to be worth at least ten times more. No, a 'hundred' times!"

Zelda laughed. She was intrigued by this other person who'd attracted so much attention on the forums. Even among the other guild leaders, it was rare for an individual to be talked about so much. "How about we grab a drink after the auction," she asked, "so we can get to know each other?"

Zelda was a beautiful woman in her thirties with blue eyes and long golden hair. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that most men would sell their soul to spend a night with her.

Yet, despite feeling an unmistakable attraction for her, Apophis was eager to reform his bond with Lotus and didn't want an additional romantic relationship. So he politely declined.

Zelda felt terribly insulted. After all, it was usually the men who came to 'her' begging for sex, not the other way around! Outraged, Zelda went silent and walked away from him.

Apophis put her out of his mind, for the auction was about to start.

The room's lights went out and an ugly green xeno with eight arms and no legs appeared in an illuminated circle in the room's center. He raised a microphone and spoke into it. "Hello, everyone! I will be your host for this 999th edition of the Galactic Auction! Let's start with the order of the items!

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"First, we will auction off the weapons and armor! Then the Skill Books! Then the slave lots, and finally the spaceships! But that's not all! At the end of the auction, we will put on sale many mystery boxes! So stay until the end, because you will not want to miss it! Let the 999th edition of the galactic auction begin!"

Enormous applause resounded throughout the room!

The first lots were uninteresting to Apophis, nothing but some overpriced weapons and armor. Most of it was useless compared to what he'd already looted though there were several Legendary items that he might have liked to buy, had they been more reasonably priced. Perhaps the next time, when he was richer.

But then came the Skill Book lots which interested Apophis much more. The first few lots were between Common and Rare, and were unfortunately considerably weaker than what he already had at his disposal.

But then an item caught his eye!

.

[Skill Book] [Universal] [Epic]

Name: ~Zooanthropy~

Skill Summary: "Invoke primal power to gain bestial power!" Upon learning this skill, imagine an animal and embody it. The animal must be compatible with your class, and the choice cannot be undone.

*This skill can be upgraded for 100 talent points.*

It was perfect!

The announcer yelled, "Very well! For this article, the bidding starts at 30,000 GC!"

Several people bid, until Apophis stood up and said, "100,000 GC!"

The announcer continued, "Oh ho! A 100,000GC bid! Going once! Going twice! Going three times! Sold to gentleman number a6795!"

This would be the perfect skill for a fire master like him!

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Another item quickly drew his attention.

[Skill Book] [Esper] [Epic]

Name: ~Berserk~

Skill Summary: "Channel cosmic power through your body, becoming a powerhouse of destruction!" Double all your stats and all your damage for 30 seconds.

*This skill can be upgraded for 100 talent points.*

This time, Apophis wasted no time before bidding!

"35,000!"

"48,000!"

"86,000!"

Finally, the auctioneer said, "And 94,000! Sold to number a9567!"

Apophis felt a little bad about spending so much money at once, but decided that the next item would be his last!

[Skill book] [Esper] [Legendary]

Name: ~Spatial Materialization~

Summary: "Reject reality and force it to obey your will." You can materialize imagined objects. More complex and valuable objects require much more energy.

Apophis was amazed that such a skill could exist! He'd never heard of such a thing in his original life. And it seemed that others were just as excited as he was!

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The announcer said, "Bidding starts at 500,000 GC!"

Fortunately, few people in the room could spend so much on one skill!

Nevertheless, the price rose quickly to 650,000.

Asserting his dominance, Apophis overbid right to 700,000 GC!

He won.

Good thing, too, because that was just about the most he could spend.

In the end, Apophis had gotten what he wanted! Even he had to admit he was crazy for the magnitude of the last purchase, but he still had 119,000 GC left. That would be more than enough to pay his monthly bills!

Even though he knew he wouldn't buy anything more, Apophis was curious what would come next, and stayed until the end.

The slave auction in particular seemed to have excited everyone else, both the NPCs present and the guild leaders, who were eager to buy their first NPC companions.

The sheer amount of money the guild leaders could spend made Apophis jealous! The first-rate guilds even had bankrolls big enough to afford 5,000,000 GC to buy space corvettes!

Renovatio Imperii, Ceasar's SuperGuild, even bought a destroyer-class ship for 35,000,000 GC and three corvettes at 5,000,000 GC each. Clearly, the SuperGuilds had taken advantage of the low GC to cash rates after the war to buy up huge amounts of GC!

Despite himself, Apophis felt jealous of Renovatio Imperii and their quickly growing fleet! As he watched billions of GC worth of ships change hands, he promised himself that one day, he too would have a huge fleet!

As promised, the auction ended with the sale of mystery boxes.

The speaker took the floor. "The auction is now over, and we are now selling one thousand mysterious boxes at 100,000 GC each. May luck smile on you! Don't forget the special "Auction of the Century" edition we will be holding next year!"

Apophis hesitated. Yes, he had over 100,000 GC left, but he really wanted to keep a bit of treasure instead of spending it on something that might be worthless.

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Then he remembered an instance from his old life. A player had found an antimatter warhead in one of these mystery boxes, something extremely rare and difficult to make! He'd certainly gotten more than the money he spent on the box itself!

So Apophis took the risk and bought a box. He also took some time to learn the skills he'd bought, then rejoined the rest of his group and headed for the MK.1.