Sulfur beetles

The other items were attractive in Nicola's eyes too, but he restrained himself. High-level spiritual herbs, earth drake scale armor, a griffin feather... Goblin and orcs slaves appeared on the stage in lots of ten, and many people bought several at a cheap price. It didn't interest Nicola so he didn't bid to buy them.

Perhaps what most rocked him to enter the bidding contest was an essence of spiritual flame, an item created naturally by the heavens and could be merged with the user's own soul so that he acquires an innate affinity with the element.

He wanted to buy one so that Gin could easily develop his alchemy. But seeing that even the academy's alchemy and blacksmith entourages made their own moves, he was quiet and let it pass.

In the end it was sold for 1,300,000 high-quality mana crystals and a soul recovery pill. It was the most expensive item sold so far and was purchased by a sect focused on alchemy whose name was Sect of Heavenly Pills. Some more time passed and another item started to interest Nicola's eyes. A cage full of beetles appeared in the middle of the stage.

"These are the sulfur beetles, they were captured in a caravan that ventured into demonic lands, these beetles can adapt to any environment they find themselves in. They are very efficient as research material, but unfortunately we were unable to train or give them basic commands, even through the slave handcuffs. So the starting bid is 1,000 mana crystals. " Few people started bidding on the specimens but the price soon went up to 30,000 mana crystals.

"35,000 crystals!" Nicola suddenly declared, scaring even some members of his entourage that they had already forgotten that he was there.

"Somebody else?" the young woman on the stage asked. Then she did the counting and the cage with the beetles was quickly sold to Nicola.

"Now I understand why you need the space equipment, it seems that you also like to experiment with these little creatures and it would be very inconvenient to carry cages around." Cassius said seeing Nicola's eyes shining through the beetles on the stage.