The initial auction value was set at 15 gold coins, as Klaus thought that for less than this, it would not really be worth selling it.

Also, he was afraid that no one would bid if he asked too high for a price right away.

The deadline for the auction was set for one day, just as he had done with the Mutant-ranked Swift Arrows. Waiting a longer period of time for a better offer was very unlikely to happen. There was also the urge to be able to help his family soon, and he was in a hurry to get the money.

Usually, there was an extensive range of items available on the World Market, but the auction contents were much more varied. For example, a person could put whatever price they wanted on an item and charge up to a million gold coins for a stone, but this type of sale was the famous fire sale and was most often used in cases of normal items with a known market value. Not to mention that the contents of other people’s auctions could only be seen by paying members, so Klaus couldn’t see if there were any other Beast Mounts like his.

Klaus Park finished placing the ad and went to sleep. He planned to wake up the next day, help his parents with the move, and then head for the Royal Capital.

Not even thirty minutes had passed since he had put the Beast Mount up for sale on the World Market auction platform, and the webnet users had already started making a fuss.

Initially, no one believed the auction posting.

The last update to Rise Online happened only 1 month ago, and nobody knew what had been added. In normal games, the game development companies would disclose what content was added, or data miners, people who literally investigate through the game files, would disclose this information on forums. Still, Rise Online had the best encryption in the world, so nobody knew what was added to the game. However, shortly afterward, the first players appeared with Beast mounts other than normal horses for locomotion, meaning they were extremely new and rare items.

It was still really hard to obtain even a Primal Beast Mount.

In the entire Midgard, less than 200 players had Mounts, and having an Epic Rank Beast Mount was impressive. No one had a mount of that level in this world, as far as anyone knew.

“Someone is trying to make fun of our faces.”

“What kind of asshole makes such a dull announcement? I thought this was an exclusive community with no trolls.”

“These things happen so often that I don’t even see it as funny anymore.”

“I do not doubt that this is a scam. Don’t fall for it guys!”

Several people made such comments. Some advised that no one should be cheated, while other users responded in the comments with laughter.

Since online selling and shopping became famous at the beginning of the 21st century, techniques to steal users’ information have become common. Because there were so many cases, people already thought that this would be one of that kind again. Except for those who knew that Hónghé Holdings assured them that Scams would never happen on their servers.𝒐𝑣𝑙xt.𝔠𝑶𝑚

“Never that could be true…”

“It can’t be.”

“What if it is?”

Fifteen gold coins were strangely low for an Epic Beast Mount. Users tried to ignore the auction post, but their curiosity couldn’t be resisted, and they logged on to look again and again.

When a user posted an item for auction, everyone who accessed the auction had access to the attributes of the posted item, and this was no different in the case of the Mounts.

The Beast Mount information was truly exceptional. Two of the stats exceeded a hundred attribute points, which were essential attributes for a Mount.

“But where the hell did this person get this Mount?”

“Epic rating, meaning Epic Nature… Is that a dream?”

“The current name is Chiron, but before, it was Druid Beast Mount! A druid beast mount, WTF That’s HUGE!”

People admired it a bit and slowly began to believe that the announcement might be true.

“That player must be very strong or dumb to sell an item like this.”

“If that ad is real, it might be considered an enormous luck…”

“I’ll bid!”

The starting price of the auction was 15 gold coins. After the first bid, people rushed in and started bidding.

In the blink of an eye, the value went from 15 to 30 gold, and suddenly it went straight to 50 gold coins. Not even an hour had passed, and the value had already exceeded 100 gold coins.

The offers started to skyrocket.

When this started, many people stopped participating out of desperation because they already knew to some extent what the final value of the auction would be. Even considering that the number of people accessing the World Market was not even 20% of the total number of players in Rise Online, after the auction of the Epic Beast mount became news on a television channel, the competition increased greatly, and there were a considerable number of people competing for this item.

In the beginning, it was the casual players of Rise Online who raised the price, and after them came to the rich players and the professionals as well.

Those smarter among the professional players quickly called their bosses.

“Sir, is that you?”

“Why the hell are you calling me at 5 a.m.! Do you want to be fired?!”

“Eh? Sir, it’s just that a business opportunity has come up that interests you.”

“What is it?”

“An Epic Rank Beast Mount is in an RO auction. I thought you might be interested in it…”

“What? Why didn’t you warn me before, you idiot? Of course, I’ll buy it!”

Back in the day, e-sports were as famous as conventional sports, so companies and organizations loved to invest in them, especially in a game as new and promising as Rise Online. Thanks to this, they boosted the price even more.

On the big webnet portals and every game-related website, the main subject was this auction.

Many people started searching for it, and instantly, the internet forgot about the mysterious individual named Kaizen, who shot up in the keyword popularity rankings the day before. From that point on, the real auction started.

…

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

More character images in:

https:///bpqq9u4gS8

Like it? Add to library!

Don’t forget to vote with Powerstone to support the book if you like it…