Chapter 26 - Rise up
Bob was pretty upset, he had to pay a fee to enter the auction. He assumed it would be free, but that wasn't the case. It cost 10,000 beli per person.
Bob reluctantly gave it up, at the end of the day it was going right back into his pockets.
The auction house had two levels to it, the main floor and an upper level where the vips were situated. Bob was only given access to the main floor, but that did not stop him from glancing up at the upper floor.
As people were still coming in through the main door to fill in the main floor, the upper floor already had people seated. They were the rich and noble.
As for any celestial dragon, Bob saw none. He highly doubted they be here on this island.
Bob took a seat in the back, he wanted to be far away from everyone. Mostly to keep his presence hidden but also he wanted to leave early.
It took a while before everyone got seated and the auction started, but Bob waited patiently. It was the only thing he could do.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen, this months auction is a tad bit special as we have two rare items being sold off today. One being a devil fruit the other being a lion mink!"
A man took the stage and started the auctions introduction. Behind him was a large cage covered with a black cloth, and on the other side was a stand covered with a cloth.
The man walked to the stand and removed the cloth revealing the devil fruit. It looked like a bunch of blackberries, except it was pink in color. Bob saw the weird looking marks on the fruit and he knew that it was indeed a devil fruit.
As for what it was, no one knew until you ate it.
After revealing the devil fruit, the man walked over to the cage and removed the black cloth.
Inside the cage was a female lion mink. She had long golden hair but a curvy body. She was not wearing the best clothes, just a simple white shirt that stuck to her body. The shirt was long enough that it went to her upper thigh.
Bob's eye grew large, this was his first time seeing a mink.
He could hear all the oo's and ah's.
The man on stage started to laugh a little.
"However, before we get to the main course and the desert, we have to have a taste of the appetizers."
Two men walked on stage, one grabbed the devil fruit and the other pushed the cage with the lion mink inside away.
When they were out of sight, a woman came out carrying a long sword.
"First off on the list is for all you sword collectors out there. I'm sure there's no need for you all to understand the quality of this sword. It's a supreme grade sword, called Amane. As you can see it's an Odachi so the length is greater than a normal sword."
The man started talking about the blade in detail, while the woman took it out of its sheath and showed it off.
He talked about the swords history as well as where it got its famous name.
Bob was confused, this guy was talking about starting things out slow with items that wouldn't be as expensive as a devil fruit or a lion mink. However, he just brought out a famous sword.
Did he consider this thing to be worthless?
Granted, everyone here except for Bob were rich citizens, so the probability of them getting into fights was slim. But still! This sword was up there with Mihawks, yet it wasn't a main item of the auction?
It hit a nerve in Bob.
The big started at 500 thousand beli, but the fire was ignited in the hearts of the people. The bidding wars were fierce, and the item was eventually sold for 30 million beli.
Other items were brought out either one by one or in small groups. Most items went for around 200 thousand or 10 million beli.
When the slaves were brought out, Bob could only keep calm. He just let them bid, surprising none of the slaves were sold for over 700 thousand beli. Bob counted 24 of them, and if he were to count the lion mink then that was a total of 25 here.
All of them were human, but they were broken down into different tribes. There were two from the longleg tribe that were being sold, which were a pair of brother and sister. Bob was shocked by their height.
There was also a dwarf being sold. Everyone else was just normal humans, besides the lion mink.
All the items were sold off and some people started to run out of money, it gave an advantage to the nobles and rich people. The ones who were conserving their money for the last two items.
The devil fruit was up first, the starting bid was 10 million beli. Although no one knew what ability they'd gain from it, that did not stop people from bidding. They knew that once they ate it, they'd gain tremendous power.
Bob even got in on the bidding, except his own purpose was to keep the price going higher and higher. The more they spend, the more he gets at the end.
The final price for the devil fruit was 200 million beli.
Bob was almost forced to buy it when he raised the bid to 180 million beli, but luckily some nouveau riche was here and went up 20 million more than Bob.
Last to be sold off was the lion mink. Although in One Piece members of the mink tribe were sold for around 700 thousand, because of it being a lion mink and a female the rarity was much more higher. Therefore causing the price to go up.
The starting bid on the lion mink was 50 million beli.
Bob thought the price was actually too high, but he said nothing.
There were only three people that bid on the lion mink, and the final price ended up coming to 90 million.
The man who was hosting the auction started giving his final words as well as where the people who won the items could drop off their money.
Bob paid close attention to that as he got up from his seat. Now that the auction was coming to a close, it was about time for him to start his plan.
He had two options, go free the slaves and take the items he wanted, or go get all the money that would be dropped off. He was going to do both of them, it was just a matter of which first.
Bob decided to get the money first.
He could have the system change the money into points, so he wouldn't need to carry any coins on him. As for the slaves and items, Bob would need to carry the items. Once one thing or another happened, there were bound to be people coming after Bob.
Bob quickly made his way back stage, he made sure to avoid any personal and guards.
Bob even spotted a few marines.
When Bob arrived at the location where people would need to drop off their money, he started to wait. No one was here yet.
Maybe he did pick the wrong option.
He ended up spending twenty minutes waiting for everyone to come and drop off their cash. Majority of them already had their money waiting, so all they needed to do was turn it in.
Bob licked his lips when he saw the money pile up in the vault.
When the last person left, Bob dashed inside the vault. A guard saw him and pointed his gun at Bob, but Bob sped up using Grand Blessing and knocked the guard out. After he knocked out the guard, he also punched the staff members of the auction.
Bob was tempted to kill them, but opted against it.
When the area was clear, Bob went inside the vault and started changing all the beli into system points.
He didn't check how many points he obtained, instead he ran directly towards the back of the stage. He figured that's where all the items and slaves were being stored.
Bob hoped he wasn't too late, and that when he arrived everything would still be there.
Bob spent 5 minutes running before he arrived at the back of the stage. He arrived just in time too as people were coming to collect their goods.
The staff saw Bob and realized he wasn't someone who won an item. He was sweating for one, no noble ran.
"Get this guy! Turn him into the marines!"
One of the staff members yelled out.
"Hey now, do you know who you're messing with?"
The staff member rolled his eyes, why should he care?
Bob noticed the mans carefree attitude.
"Dont care? Alright, i'll show you why you should care!"
Bob drew Black Death and activated Spellblade. He quickly swung his sword at the slaves cages. Spellblade did enough damage to cause the cages to break open.
Bob looked at all the slaves.
"Rise up! Now's your time to get revenge on those who put you here!"
The slaves being freed hesitated for a moment, but then they thought of something. Bob just swung his sword at their cage and opened it up. If he were to do that to a person just think of the damage.
It only took them a few seconds before they realize that they had a chance to be free.
Each of them roared and lashed out against the staff as well as the people who bid on them.
While chaos was breaking out, Bob went over to the items.
"I'll take this, that, oh and this too!"
Bob started to collect all sorts of items. He made sure not to forget the devil fruit. Both his hands were full, Bob could barely see over the stack of items he had.
"Crap… how am I going to get all of this to the ship? I still need to fight my way out of here."
Bob couldn't reach Black Death so he couldn't really fight with his sword.
Bob ran over to the lion mink who was ripping apart one of the nobles.
"Aye, come here for a second."
The lion mink looked at Bob and came over to him.
Bob threw the items over to her.
"Hold those, gather everyone up and let's get out of here!"