Chapter 139- The First Item.

Chapter 139: Chapter 139- The First Item.

Elona announced the start of the auction and stepped back, clearing the frame. The large screen beside her shifted immediately.

The camera cut to the stage, where a woman walked out onto the platform.

She looked to be in her late twenties, dressed in an elegant black formal suit. Her dark hair was pulled back neatly, and her emerald-green eyes caught the studio lights as she moved, framed by a pair of Ray-Ban-style glasses. A small microphone sat just beneath her chin.

She crossed the stage with the easy confidence of someone thoroughly used to commanding a room like this.

Behind her, an enormous screen displayed the Eternal Forge guild.

She stopped at center stage and smiled warmly at the camera.

"Good evening, everyone. Most of you already know me — I’m Aria Vale, auctioneer at one of New York’s premier auction houses, and I’ll be conducting tonight’s proceedings."

Her voice came through calm and perfectly clear.

"On behalf of the Eternal Forge guild and Space Z, welcome to the first official Eternal Forge Guild’s auction."

The display behind her shifted, laying out the rules of the auction.

She continued. "As many of you have already heard, this auction will run entirely online. Any registered bidder who’s received verification from Space Z is eligible to submit a bid. Once the current highest bidder is announced and the countdown begins, if no one outbids them before time runs out, that highest bidder wins the item. Same rule as any other auction in this regard."

The screen changed again, this time displaying a set of numbers.

[Verified Bidders: 15,046]

"You’ll be able to follow every active lot through the public broadcast. The moment you place a bid, the current highest bid updates instantly in your own bidding panel — and it’ll also display right here, on the screen behind me."

[Current Highest Bid: —]

[Active Bidders: 0]

[Time Remaining: —]

The screen shifted again to display the layout in full.

She held up a single finger. "And just so we’re clear — you don’t need to shout your bid at the screen. If you’re busy yelling at whoever’s currently in the lead, you might just miss your own window to bid. Feel free to shout all you like, though, so long as you’re doing it from the privacy of your own home." She laughed lightly.

A ripple of laughter came back from viewers watching along at home.

"Alright. Bidding will open at the announced starting price. Every new bid has to meet the minimum increment, or it simply won’t register."

The screen changed once more, showing exactly what viewers could expect to see displayed throughout.

"Public information will be shown for every single item — stats, name, rank, all of it. Skill details, however, will remain classified. If you want to know exactly what an item’s skills do, you’ll need to win it first."

She looked directly into the camera and let the silence hold for a moment, giving everyone time to absorb everything she’d just laid out.

Then she smiled. "Let’s begin."

The screen changed again.

It now broadcasted live footage directly from the game itself.

A woman walked forward, pushing a cart draped in silk cloth.

She stopped at the center of the display and pulled the cloth away, revealing the very first item.

A three-foot single-edged saber came into view, its blade gently curved along the edge. The metal itself was ash-grey, laced with black burn-veins crawling from guard to tip. The guard was shaped like a pair of curved fangs, its grip wrapped in cracked red leather. Faint heat shimmered off the blade every so often as it sat in its display case.

"This is a Rare-rank saber, forged by our own blacksmith, Master Hugh — an NPC blacksmith belonging to the guild. Master Hugh holds Epic-rank blacksmithing skill, and he’s already well known throughout Ironhaven within Myth Online."

The feed cut briefly to Hugh himself, who flashed a wide grin and a thumbs-up before the camera shifted back to the saber. Item details filled the screen.

[Cinderfang Saber]

[Rank: Rare]

[Quality: Good]

[Type: One-Hand Saber]

[Attributes:]

STR +30, AGI +20

Damage: 87–112

Durability: 80/80

[Active Skill: ????]

[Passive Skill: ???]

[Description: A piece forged by the blacksmith Hugh using volcanic ash and obsidian.]

Aria smiled. "Every bid will be evaluated in gold coins, but payment itself is due in equivalent real-world USD. The gold values you see displayed are all system-appraised."

The starting bid appeared on screen.

[Starting Bid: 30G]

"The starting bid is thirty gold coins," Aria announced, "with a minimum increment of one gold coin per bid."

The moment she finished speaking, bids began pouring in.

[Current Highest Bid: 31G]

The number kept climbing steadily.

Thirty-two gold coins.

...

...

Forty gold.

...

Fifty-three gold.

...

...

...

Eighty gold.

One hundred gold.

The pace finally began to level off.

Aria stepped forward. "Is that our highest bid?"

"Anyone else?"

"One hundred gold, going once..."

No movement.

"One hundred gold, going twice..."

Still nothing.

She glanced at the timer. "Last call."

"One hundred gold—"

Just then, the number changed.

One hundred ten gold.

Aria smiled. "Well, there we go — one hundred ten."

The number held steady after that.

"No further bids?"

She waited a moment longer, then restarted the countdown.

"One hundred ten gold, going once."

A short pause, then she continued.

"One hundred ten gold, going twice."

...

"One hundred ten gold, going three times."

"Sold."

The entire world seemed to erupt at once.

Even Leo sat there, stunned. A Rare-rank item like that typically fetched fifty gold at most — some sold for as little as thirty. Yet here it had climbed all the way to one hundred ten, more than double what he’d expected. Bidders must have figured they’d just throw USD at it instead of worrying about gold conservation.

Heh. Works out fine for us.

Meanwhile, chat rooms and forums exploded with activity.

"110 gold coins??"

"That’s like 55,000 USD??"

"Who even bought it?"

"Show us the winner!"

"Can a normal player even wield that thing??"

Comments kept flooding in, one after another.

Aria addressed it simply. "The winning bidder’s identity will remain undisclosed, for security reasons."

She glanced toward the massive screen behind her.

"Congratulations to our very first successful bidder."

"The winner is welcome to come sign the sale agreement, complete the deposit, and have their personnel collect the item in-game."

"For everyone else who didn’t win this round — don’t worry, there’s plenty more Rare-rank items still to come."

"Now, let’s move on to the next lot."

"Lot number two."

Aria gestured, and the display shifted. The saber was cleared away, replaced by another cart wheeled forward into position.

The same attendant pulled the cloth away, revealing the second item.

Another blade came into view — this one finished in smoky, pale steel, cold enough in appearance that it almost looked like a lesser-quality weapon at first glance. Just looking at it seemed to draw the warmth out of the air. A fine layer of white frost crept along the fuller. The edge itself gleamed razor-sharp, catching the light with every subtle shift. Its guard curved like two frozen fangs, the grip wrapped in pale, frost-touched leather. Faint tendrils of cold vapor rolled continuously off its surface.

"This," Aria said, "is another Rare-rank weapon from the Eternal Forge — forged by a different master blacksmith within the guild. Master Sigil, of dwarven lineage, crafted this blade with tremendous care."

She let that settle before repeating herself. "That’s right, everyone — you heard correctly. This sword was shaped through genuine dwarven smithing technique. Everyone knows dwarves are natural-born blacksmiths, renowned the world over for their craft."

"And yes — Master Sigil is a full member of this guild."

The item’s details filled the screen.

[Frostbite Edge]

[Rank: Rare]

[Quality: Flawless]

[Type: Frost Saber]

[Attributes:]

STR +90, AGI +50

Effect: Frost Resistance: ????

Damage: 96–124

Durability: 86/86

[Active Skill: ???]

[Passive Skill: ??]

[Description: A saber forged from smoke-grey steel and frost ingot by the dwarven master smith, Sigil, using traditional dwarven technique. The ambient frost properties of the ore itself were harnessed to their full potential in shaping this weapon.]

Aria continued. "As you can see, this sword is also Rare rank, though the quality differs from our first piece. I imagine most of you already know how Myth Online’s quality tiers work, but allow me to explain regardless, for anyone new to this."

"Every rank in Myth Online — Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary — can carry six distinct quality tiers on top of that base rank."

"Starting from Normal, up through Good, Flawless, Master, Unique, and finally Transcendent."

"A Transcendent-quality Rare-rank item will actually outperform a Normal-quality Epic-rank item. Please keep that in mind as we go."

"Transcendent quality, though, is exceedingly rare — nearly impossible to come by, really. It’s said that quality tier can only emerges naturally, from materials shaped entirely by nature itself."

She gave a brief rundown of how the quality system worked before circling back to the item at hand.

"So — what we have here is a Rare-rank item, but rated at Flawless quality, one tier above our previous piece, which was rated Good. Given that difference, the starting bid runs noticeably higher this time around."

The starting price appeared on screen as she spoke.

[Starting Bid: 80G]

"The starting price for this sword is eighty gold coins. That may sound steep at first, but let me remind everyone — the Rare-rank items you’d normally encounter out in the world are all Normal-tier, sold through standard NPC vendors, and they come with no attached skills whatsoever. Every item here tonight, by contrast, is genuinely unique, carrying its own active and passive skills, along with distinct effects all its own."

She paused again, letting bidders and viewers alike fully absorb what that actually meant for the item in front of them.

Then, after a moment, she smiled at the camera once more.

"Now — let’s get the bidding started."