Start of the auction

"Two for one! Two Talisman for the price of one! Just 1000 DP for two talismans! Hurry up, our stock is running out!"

Loud shouts resonated through the reception as Five and Ariel arrived at the designated location. There was an endless queue of dungeon masters and monsters making their way to a large dark hall.

The long queue consisted mainly of players and monsters but near the entrance, Five could see a second queue where the NPC dungeon masters were lining up with their own monsters. The NPCs were not wearing any cloak or mask.

At the entrance, 5 tall red devils were examining each dungeon master before allowing them inside the building. The process was relatively slow but no one was complaining.

Five quickly joined the queue of the players; in front of him was a rather short man accompanied by a level 33 Tar Slime. Five did not think too much of the Tar Slime; it did not look very menacing but Five knew that the innocent looking slime was a powerful Boss Monster.

At his side, Angela was nervously comparing herself to the other monsters. She immediately noticed that she was one of the weakest monsters there. Furthermore, she was not even a Boss Monster and felt guilty to be embarrassing her master.

As they were queuing, several imps were running up and down the line, waving small pieces of papers to the dungeon masters while shouting, "Talisman! Just 1000 DP for 2 talismans!"

The red imps would actively harass the dungeon masters into buying their talismans. They were not cheap and furthermore, nobody knew their uses. For the first time, the system did not give any explanation about the use of the talismans. They were not even good sellers; their appearance was quite repulsive and they would constantly drool everywhere. Nevertheless, the imps would still manage to make a few sales as the players would give up a few DP to keep the drooling imps away from them.

Angela was intimidated by the persistent imps but Five managed to keep them away. He stood firm and did not give away a single DP. His DP was precious; he did not have much and was not planning to spend any at the auction. His only goal was to have a look at the monsters brought by the players and look at the items that would be displayed.

The queue moved at a snail pace but eventually, it was Five and Angela's turn. They stopped in front of the devils who took out a bracelet. "Put this on." The devil's tone was firm with a tinge of annoyance.

Five quickly complied and immediately, he received the notification:

[System prompt: Prisoner Bracelet has been equipped. Bracelet will automatically be unequipped upon leaving the venue. The dungeon shop and all forms of transactions of DP will be disabled.]

"Interesting... They don't want players to pool their DP together to increase their purchasing power..." said Five to himself. His gaze then turned toward the bracelet.

Several characters suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the previously white bracelet. A large 'E384' and '61849' was clearly displayed on the bracelet. The first line of characters did not change but the last one kept slowly increasing.

"Your seat is 'E384', please hurry up, there are many other people waiting behind you," impatiently said the devil as he signaled Five to quickly enter the building.

The latter nodded. It was not hard to understand that the first line of characters would represent his identity at the auction while the second line represented the DP he had available for this event.

Five and Angela quickly walked into the building; it was a large circular room with a large platform at the center. There were countless rows of seats arranged in concentric circles around the platform. 'E' represented the row he was allocated to while '384' represented his seat number.

There were several winged devils floating everywhere in the hall. "Will you please follow me, sir?" As soon as he entered, Five was immediately greeted by a winged devil. Despite its name, the winged devil was polite and welcoming. He happily escorted Five to his seat as he introduced the auction to Five.

The hall was abnormally large; such a building could have never been built in reality but in the game, everything was possible. It took several minutes for Five to arrive at his seat but when he saw the person sitting next to him, Five froze.

"Is there a problem with your seat, sir?" asked the winged devil. He took great care of his guests and immediately noticed Five's abnormal behavior.

"This... Will it be possible to change seats?"

"I am sorry, but seats cannot be changed. May I request, sir, to please take your seat. There are many other guests we need to look after," answered the winged devil with an apologetic tone.

Five knew he could not stand in the middle alley for too long. He thanked the winged devil and reluctantly made his way to his seat with Angela. As soon as he saw his left neighbor, Five had been unwilling to take his seat but he was left with no choice.

As he walked past his neighbor, Five suddenly heard the voice of the elderly man, "It has been awhile Five. I am surprised to see that you are still alive."

Five felt the cold stare of the man on his shoulders. His tone was frosty and sarcastic. The last few words seemed to have been forcefully stressed out.

All the neighboring dungeon masters immediately turned their gaze toward Five. He became the center of attention with just these two sentences.

"Kroff... Looks like your dungeon core was not too damaged," drily answered Five as he sat next to the elderly man.

Five's neighbor was none other than the previous mentor he had been allocated to. As he started the game, Five had to go through a tutorial period under Kroff's guidance but in the end, things fell through between them. Kroff had his own agenda of trying to recruit Five into his alliance. As Five refused, Kroff refused to teach him anything useful to avoid grooming a future threat to his alliance and even made things difficult for him. In the end, to escape from Kroff's grasp, Five had no choice but to plot against him and severely damaged his dungeon core.

His plan succeeded and Kroff suffered quite a lot from his actions. At that time, Five was protected by the system but now, Kroff could easily get rid of him. He was reluctant to come into contact with him before he accumulated enough monsters to be able to defend himself. Although he was immune at the venue, he did not want Kroff to remember him and think of taking revenge.

The tension was building up between the two men as they silently stared at each other. The conflict between them was not simple and all the neighboring dungeon masters were curious about what happened between them.

Kroff naturally did not say a word about having been tricked by Five. If he did so, his status would immediately go down the drain. All he reported to the Cyclone Alliance was that Five refused to join and have been left to survive on his own.

All the dungeon masters could tell that Kroff was Five's mentor. The seat arrangement was set up such that the players would once again meet their mentors as a chance to catch up on what they accomplished since they left the tutorial. It was something many players were looking forward to but to Five, it was the exact opposite.

Kroff's piercing eyes briefly stared at Angela who shivered in fear, before turning to Five's bracelet. "Hah! This is what you get for refusing my offer! Only 62000 DP? How pathetic, you won't even be able to buy the cheapest item here!" exclaimed Kroff with a demeaning tone.

Five frowned but did not answer. The facts were laid bare in front of Kroff, he really only has about 62000 DP at the moment.

Murmurs immediately rose from the other dungeon masters.

"Look, this is what would have happened to you if you refused to join our alliance. He can already be considered lucky to have survived but 62000 DP? That is pathetic."

"Sometimes you have to lower your head. Look at how much you've earned from us. You have 10 times more DP than him."

"See? And you were complaining about how your growth is slow compared to your friends... "

The dungeon masters all warned their students about the situation. They used Five as a warning to the others; the players needed the NPCs if they wanted to safely grow. Without them, they would just end up as poor beggars like Five.

Five could feel the judgemental eyes of the crowd but he paid them no mind. It was true that he did not have much DP with him but that was because he never planned on buying anything at the auction.

"You boast quite a lot... How much DP do you have? Enough to buy yourself another [Aegis]?" calmly answered Five. He did not like how everybody was looking down on him. He knew he did not hold an advantage but that did not mean he should just lower his head.

"Hmmp. More DP than you'll ever see in your life," grunted Kroff as he shifted his body. Every fiber of his body wanted to crush Five to death. However, Kroff was still sane and was aware that the winged devils would not allow any fight to break.

"Harriet probably died protecting you and you don't even have enough DP to bring her back! Or else, why would you just bring a regular harpy?"

Five did not bother answering anymore. The less he spoke, the better it would be. He briefly looked at the monster to Kroff's left; it was the Dryad he had previously seen in Kroff's throne room. She sat quietly next to Kroff as her green eyes stared at Five.

An awkward silence fell into this part of the hall. Both Five and Kroff were looking in opposite directions, avoiding any form of contact. The other dungeons masters were quietly observing the situation while murmuring among themselves. None of them were allies while some did belong to the same alliance, there was still some conflicts of interest. In the end, they would often compete with each other to obtain items for their dungeons; the auction was a place where alliances did not really amount to much.

There was not much to do. The other dungeon masters were quickly catching up with their mentors or disciple but Five obviously could not do so with Kroff. They did not even try to communicate aside from their initial exchange.

More and more players entered the hall and took their seats. Eventually, the auction officially started as a bright light suddenly shone from the top of the platform and a giant hologram appeared above it.

On the platform, a tall devil confidently walked in front of the entire audience with a microphone. His tail gracefully swung behind him as he took large strides. "Good morning ladies and gentlemen! I am your host, Amour. Welcome to the Noxamus Auction! This time, we have the pleasure of welcoming a whole new generation of dungeon masters! We hope that you will enjoy our services."

"Today, we have a total of 128 items, 28 of which have been auctioned by your fellow colleagues. We take your feedback very seriously and as you previously requested, this time, we are proposing a much wider range of items. Without further ado, let the auction officially begin!"

Amour, the devil flicked his fingers and immediately, a sexy female devil graciously walked onto the platform, carrying a long scepter on a red cushion.

Five's seat was quite far from the platform. He could not see the platform very well but there was a giant hologram of the same scene being projected right above the platform.

[System prompt: Two additional functions have been added to the Prisoner's bracelet.]

[System prompt: The auction has officially begun. If you are interested in any items, please use the Prisoner's bracelet to input your bids.]

'Two new functions?' thought FIve. He quickly glanced at the bracelet and sure enough, there was another option called [Examine].

[Examine]: Instantly reveals all the information about the items being auctioned. 2000 DP will be deducted per use.

As Five read the effects of [Examine], he suddenly had a bad feeling. His eyes turned toward the scepter being auctioned but his vision was soon clouded by a series of "???". Absolutely no information about the scepter was revealed; not even the name of the scepter was displayed.

[System prompt: The player's level or expertise in the profession is too low. Please contact an identifier to examine the item]

"D*mn... To have to pay just to see what kind of items are being auctioned? This is a complete rip off! It will cost 200000 DP just to have an idea of the effects," internally complained Five. He immediately realized the importance of the accompanying monster. This was why the dungeon masters would often bring along monsters specialized in crafting. These monsters would have a chance of identifying the items on sale!