"Ladies and gentlemen, the 113th Scott Province Royal Auction is about to begin. Please take your seats." A melodious voice announced the moment everyone had been waiting for, and at the same time, the lights around the auction stage changed.

The audience immediately slowed their conversations as they took their seats, either in the general seating areas or on the balconies of the VIP rooms.

Vicente and Layla already had their masks on when they sat down on the balcony of their room, with him facing the darkened stage and she watching him from the side.

Then the female voice announced. "Please welcome our auctioneer for the evening, Sir Joshua Marks, representative of the Royal Chamber of Commerce, Head of the 2nd Auction Department."

The lights focused on a large red curtain above the stage, from which, moments after the previous speech, everyone saw a very well-dressed man in a black tuxedo emerge.

His eyes were clear, and he had a few wrinkles here and there that showed his age. But even though he was obviously a very experienced person, his haircut and beard made him look younger without taking away the respectful aura that age imposed on younger people.

But even if his appearance weren't so good, it wouldn't have made a difference. By not hiding his level, everyone at the auction could easily see that he was a strong, High-level Mage, someone powerful who shouldn't be ignored.

He smiled and looked at the audience when he stopped before the stage. "Welcome to the Millfall Theater. Tonight, we will hold a grand auction of items rarely found in the province or much of the kingdom.

Tonight, we have a total of 20 items to auction, all of which have been properly sorted and appraised. Our dear customers have a royal guarantee that each item is genuine and exactly what we will be presenting.

For those who wish to know more, our staff will distribute the technical evaluations of the items to be auctioned every 3 bidding rounds, starting now, before the first item is auctioned.

Please review the items carefully before bidding."

Auctions were rare in the Seidel Kingdom, as only the royal family was allowed to hold such events. But the black market did exist, and underworld groups held auctions.

At black market auctions, one would usually have to be careful with the items being auctioned, as it was not uncommon for fake items or items with inferior characteristics to those presented during the auction to be sold.

But this was obviously not the case with the royal family's auctions. The items in these royal family events had technical evaluations, and the reports for each of the items up for auction were available for anyone to check their validity.

If an item had a problem, that person could seek royal justice and even receive compensation if they were wronged.

But given the responsibility of the royal family and the quality of their service, few people distrusted the royal family's methods.

Still, most of the people at this auction were curious about the first three items to be auctioned off that evening, and soon, several VIP rooms were calling the many people attending this event.

Vicente was one of the people who activated his room's device, which sent out a call to this theater's attendees.

The auctioneer continued, going over the auction rules, while the attendees received the list of the first three items with the reports for each of them.

"Before we begin with the first item of the evening, I would like to mention the rules of this auction so that no one here loses their right to bid.

First of all, no fighting is allowed inside the building where the auction is being held. Anyone who attacks a competitor will be severely punished. Anyone using their aura or magical pressure to force themselves on their competitors will receive a warning and be banned from bidding on that item again.

Second, any threat or attempt to discourage new bids is prohibited. Any threatening comments made during the bidding process will be considered a violation of this rule, and the person making them will be banned from the event.

Third, auction items can only be purchased by bidding with COINS. We do not exchange coins for other resources of similar value. We only accept COINS. Failure to comply with this rule will result in the item being guaranteed to the second-highest bidder. The highest bidder will be fined 50% of the item's value and banned from participating in new auctions for 10 years.

Fourth, payments are made immediately after the end of bidding on a particular item.

Fifth, items will be collected in the collection area at the end of the auction..."

While Joshua was listing the rules, Layla and Vicente received the list of the first three items to be auctioned and their values.

As expected, the first items would be the lowest quality, three 2nd-grade items, one of which was armor, another a formation, and finally, a living plant with a pentagram on it.

It was possible for people to buy pentagrams in this world. Not only were there methods of storing pentagrams in their free form, such as what the staff at Seidel's Magic College wanted to do with Vicente's yellow pentagram, but one could also collect the living being behind it.

Vicente had already done this with the 3rd-stage herb. Still, it was also possible to do this with beasts and other beings capable of forming these magical essences.

With this possibility, one could even live as a permanent pentagram hunter and sell such beings behind these essences either at auctions like this one or through special shops.

That meant that wealthy people could easily get some of their pentagrams by buying such beings collected by others.

That was a quick and easy way to increase one's power, which normally only nobles or the rich could do.

'Interesting... This plant probably has a valuable pentagram. Otherwise, it wouldn't be in this auction.' Vicente thought before reading the report of the expert who had evaluated this resource.

As he did so, he saw that he was right. Such a plant would produce an orange Magic Pentagram when it was killed. It had an affinity with the elements of light and wood. Hence, the evaluator of such a resource estimated that the powers of this essence would somehow be related to healing or, rather, medical abilities.

'Eve has an affinity with the element of wood... It would be interesting if I could get my hands on this plant.' He remembered that Eve hadn't yet absorbed her second pentagram since the recent problems had prevented him from taking care of Nina and giving the blonde woman time to hunt it.