"1500 Tier-10 Mana Stones!"
"1800."
"2500."
The bids came rapidly, one after another, as the thousand-kilogram block of Tier-10 Geofray Starviel Clay sat in its glass box on the platform.
This was the real prize.
"Three thousand," a voice called from one of the upper booths, smooth and unbothered.
"Three thousand five hundred." Another booth, on the opposite side of the dome.
The two numbers had barely landed before a third climbed over both of them.
"Four thousand."
The hall did not laugh this time. It leaned in. Geofray Starviel Clay was a forging material of the highest grade, the kind a Phase-10 Ascension Powerhouse would kill for, and it was a full thousand-kilogram block of it. Every family with a craftsman worth the title wanted it, and the families that did not want it for themselves wanted it simply so a rival could not have it, and they could commission it to craft themselves an item or two.
