IRM Chapter 49

Bard was so startled by Ji Chi’s bid that he nearly died on the spot!

You have to understand, if the magic circle detected fewer gold coins than the bid amount, they would be directly disqualified from this auction!

Bard jumped up abruptly, snatching the communication array from Ji Chi’s hands, his voice breaking in terror. “Are you kidding me? Where would we get that many gold coins! This is it! We have no hope left…”

As he spoke excitedly, he suddenly realized something was wrong. He and Tang, who had also come to his senses, turned their heads in unison to look toward the magic circle—

The magic circle emitting a faint golden glow floated quietly in mid-air, and no one could peer into its contents.

Similarly, it wasn’t emitting red light to warn of insufficient gold coins.

Bard was stunned. “How… how is this possible! When did…”

Only then did he remember a detail from before the auction began—Ji Chi had lightly tapped the magic circle twice with his finger.

Bard looked at Ji Chi with complex emotions. “It was you. Just how many gold coins did you put in…”

Ji Chi sat back down in his chair, smiled, and didn’t give him a direct answer. “Just bid with confidence. This lucky charm is watching over you.”

Tang rested his chin on one hand, a hint of inquiry and doubt flashing in his deep, dark eyes. He leaned against the door looking at Ji Chi’s back, sweat from his hurried return still beading on his forehead.

Tang silently left the private box, pulled out a small, special communication array from his pocket, and spoke softly into it, “Have the Crows investigate someone for me. Named Ji Chi, from the Saint Trilley Empire, he’s a… mage.”

At this moment, Anthony in the third-floor private box was also questioning his existence.

The instant the six million bid succeeded, he straightened up sharply, dropped the wine glass in his hand, kicked away the human servant kneeling before him, and strode to the barrier, his fat jiggling.

He looked downstairs with a blank mind, then back at the magic circle, saying in disbelief, “Impossible! How could Bard come up with that many gold coins! What was with all that cautious bidding earlier! Is he mocking me!”

“Six million gold coins, second call!”

The auctioneer’s excited voice echoed through the venue, bringing Anthony’s rage-flooded reason back.

While instructing servants to fetch more gold coins, he continued bidding viciously, “Six hundred ten!”

Anthony stared fixedly at the scroll on the display platform, a ruthless and panicked look flashing in his eyes.

This was his most cautious bid increase, because the price had risen so absurdly that his remaining gold coins suddenly weren’t enough.

He was starting to panic.

However, he wasn’t the only one panicking—Bard was also very flustered at this moment.

That little bastard Ji Chi absolutely refused to tell him how much money was actually in the magic circle. He couldn’t very well stick his hand into the magic circle to count the coins one by one, so now he felt extremely insecure.

Bard hesitated for a long time but finally decided to go bit by bit. He timidly raised the bid. “Six hundred eleven.”

Anthony after hearing this bid: “?”

Anthony could now confirm that old thief was definitely mocking him. He was instantly so angry his face flushed red, his chest heaving like a broken bellows!

His eyes reddened as he dumped all the gold coins the servants had brought into the magic circle, gritting his teeth. “Six hundred fifty…”

Bard was also startled, the old man constantly rubbing his chest, unable to handle this stimulation. Just as he was about to raise by another ten thousand, he heard Ji Chi chuckle.

Ji Chi finally showed some conscience and said to Bard, “Just bid ten million directly. If we drag this out, he might gather more and more money.”

Bard was so mentally exhausted he didn’t even have the energy to complain. On one hand, he felt that even given more time, Anthony couldn’t gather that many gold coins. On the other hand, influenced by Ji Chi’s casual tone, he felt ten million didn’t seem like much either.

“Second floor A12, ten million gold coins.”

When this number came out, not only the audience who had been enjoying the spectacle, but even the auctioneer was stunned.

In this era where one gold coin could buy a slave, they could hardly imagine what ten million gold coins represented.

However, the auction also included royalty and nobility from various countries. They had long since stopped participating in this ridiculous bidding war, but hearing such an enormous figure suddenly, they instinctively calculated the value of these gold coins in their minds—nearly a year’s tax revenue for the Saint Trilley Empire.

Could this really be wealth that one person could possess? One conspiracy theory after another emerged in certain people’s minds, and they couldn’t help but furrow their brows.

Anthony stared blankly at the display platform, still holding a heavy iron box, suspended helplessly above the magic circle.

It was over just like that. Anthony couldn’t quite understand—just a moment ago he had been confident and mockingly superior, but the next second, he was the one plunged into despair.

He had lost, trampled underfoot once again, and this time it was by the person he was most unwilling to lose to.

Anthony’s breathing gradually steadied. He slowly turned his gaze toward A12, his look so cold it made the guards beside him shiver.

He spoke to himself in that direction, his eyes bloodshot. “I haven’t lost yet. Before you get it, I still have opportunities, don’t I?”

“Besides…” Anthony added silently, “I know you well, teacher.”

As soon as the bidding ended, the pale gold magic circle began to rotate slowly—it was automatically deducting coins from within.

It rotated for quite a while before stopping, ejecting Bard’s briefcase, Tang’s magic pouch, and the money bag containing three hundred thousand gold coins that the mercenary group had delivered.

These magical containers were still full of gold coins, not reduced at all, indicating that the coins Ji Chi had put in should be greater than or equal to ten million, so the magic circle deducted directly from the largest amount.

But Bard and Tang waited a long time without seeing Ji Chi’s remaining coins ejected.

They looked at Ji Chi questioningly.

Ji Chi made a sound of acknowledgment and looked away. “Don’t wait. I only put… deposited exactly ten million in there.”

As he spoke, he opened his panel to check. Sure enough, after the magic circle finished calculating, the balance on his panel instantly increased by nine million, and the eight-digit balance was back to over nine hundred million.

Though he didn’t know the principle behind this, having the remaining coins directly returned to the game system was quite convenient. Otherwise, this entire room would immediately be flooded with ninety million gold coins, which would be utterly devastating to imagine.

But ten million gold coins was shocking enough. Bard retrieved his briefcase and walked to Ji Chi’s side. “Thank you so much this time. I’ll find a way to pay back all the gold coins. Please accept these first.”

He bowed and offered the briefcase. Dwarves were famously hot-tempered, but they were also a serious and meticulous race. Once they made a promise, they would do everything in their power to fulfill it, even if it might take a lifetime.

Ji Chi looked at those pitiful three million coins. Honestly, he didn’t really want to take them. He truly didn’t lack game gold coins at all—even hundreds of millions of gold coins were just numbers to him.

However, Ji Chi ultimately chose to accept Bard’s case. For the insecure and sensitive dwarf, free help could sometimes be an insult.

Sure enough, only after Ji Chi accepted the coins did Bard breathe a sigh of relief. He steadied himself and tremblingly brought out the scroll the auction house had just delivered, his small body visibly shaking.

“Finally… I’ve waited too many years for this.” Bard caressed the hard wax seal at the opening with emotion.

The originally bright red wax had been eroded by time into the color of dried blood, with a shallow seven-pointed star silently floating on its surface, seeming to tell of distant history.

Bard took considerable effort to remove the wax seal and carefully unrolled the scroll.

The entire Demon Sword Continent was clearly displayed on the ancient leather, but the place names marked differed from those of today—these were what the continent was called hundreds of years ago.

Bard’s callused fingertip gently traced across the brownish-yellow parchment, stopping at the lower right corner of the map, where someone had marked a small circle with ink.

Bard deeply imprinted the map in his mind. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then turned to Ji Chi. “I remember you’re a fire mage, right?”

Ji Chi looked down at the map. “Are you really going to burn it directly? Won’t you regret it?”

Bard smiled. “No.”

He tapped his head with his index finger. “A dwarf’s memory can last a very, very long time—so long that even when mountains and rivers forget their own names, dwarves will remember for them.”

Ji Chi took the map and cast his only known spell—Fireball.

The old leather curled and blackened in the flames, emitting a foul, fishy smell. Only after Bard watched that ten-million-gold-coin flame gradually extinguish did he pull out three teleportation scrolls from his pocket and hand them to Ji Chi and Tang.

“I prepared these early. These scrolls can take us directly to the teleportation array. We must leave this place before everyone realizes what’s happened.” Bard looked at Tang. “Tang, I’m counting on you from here.”

Tang grinned confidently. “No problem. No one has ever seen through my disguise techniques~”

As he spoke, his right hand reached into shadows where light couldn’t penetrate, and darkness seemed to take physical form as he extracted it, swirling around his fingertips like wisps of smoke.

Tang bent down and moved his shadow-stained fingers across Bard’s face, skin, and body. The shadows covered Bard’s original contours, and visual distortion gradually changed his build and features.

In just dozens of seconds, an unfamiliar middle-aged dwarf appeared in the room. He looked extremely ordinary, even carrying a somewhat timid and submissive expression—vastly different from the originally irritable and stern Bard.

Tang straightened up, stepped back a few paces to admire his masterpiece, and nodded with satisfaction. He reached out to gather another handful of shadows and smiled at Ji Chi. “How’s that? Not bad, right? Now it’s your turn, little lucky charm. Do you have a particular appearance you’d like, or should I decide…”

Tang stopped mid-sentence, stunned, because the Eastern youth before him was looking at him with bright, eager eyes.

“Really… really possible?” Ji Chi was so excited he was somewhat incoherent. He looked brightly at Bard’s dramatically changed appearance, then turned back to gaze at Tang with anticipation and burning intensity. “Can I really choose for myself?”

Tang was just stunned, but Bard was completely flabbergasted.

In Bard’s impression, Ji Chi seemed to live in a world where he had everything, appearing uninterested in anything. But now, he looked like he had finally encountered something he’d dreamed of!

Moreover, he had seen this little bastard arrogant, disdainful, calm, and indifferent, but never once like this—his whole being glowing with joy!

Tang snapped back to reality and looked at him with interest. “Of course you can. What would you like? But there’s one situation that can’t be achieved…”

Ji Chi didn’t wait for him to finish before enthusiastically describing his vision!

“I want to be this tall!” He stretched up on his toes, raising his arms above his head—easily two meters twenty-three by estimation!

“And this muscular!” He waved his slender pale fingers, tracing bulging muscle shapes on his thin arms!

“This skin color!” He pointed to the gilded chair leg nearby, which showed a sexy bronze color in the shadows!

Ji Chi turned his bright eyes to Tang. “Can you do it?”

Tang’s mouth twitched. You’re really trying to make this difficult for me.

He looked over Ji Chi’s small frame with complexity, took a deep breath, and continued his earlier statement. “There’s one situation that can’t be achieved—adding too many non-existent things to the original foundation.”

Tang emphasized the key words syllable by syllable.

“Oh, then do whatever you want.” Upon hearing this, Ji Chi instantly became cold and uninterested, lowering his head to pull out a fireball to play with.

As if his earlier excitement had been an illusion.

Tsk, this little bastard.

A vein throbbed at Tang’s temple as he approached with a fake smile. “Alright then, I’ll make the decision.”

He carefully traced Ji Chi’s face and hair. “Hmm, yellow skin is still a bit uncommon. I’ll add some shadows here to make the skin tone much whiter! The hair is also quite ordinary—might as well make it curly, more attractive! And the eyes and nose, though already good-looking, still need some adjustments…”

Ji Chi’s expectations plummeted to zero, and his mood wasn’t great. Combined with being annoyed by the constant chatter, he couldn’t help but look up at Tang. “Is your full name Tang Tony?”

Tang stopped his babbling and asked puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

Ji Chi: “Nothing, just feel like you have that vibe.”

Tang instinctively felt this wasn’t a compliment, but still smiled. “I’ll take it as praise. There, now you look much more… different. We can set off now~”

Ji Chi didn’t notice his strange pause and had no interest in seeing what he looked like now—aside from muscular hunks, other physical appearances made no difference to him.

Bard, however, looked at Ji Chi several times. “Is this okay? Won’t it be too conspicuous?”

Tang laughed heartily. “Not at all. Sometimes being conspicuous is the best camouflage, isn’t it?”

Bard didn’t dwell on it and nodded. “Then let’s go.”

With that, he tore open his teleportation scroll first. After a flash of light, he disappeared on the spot.

Tang held his scroll in one hand and winked at Ji Chi. “Just follow the master afterward. From here on, it’s my working hours.”

As he spoke, his figure became increasingly faint, his presence weaker and weaker. His entire being seemed to transform into a shadow, melding into all things—legend had it that the most powerful infiltrators were everywhere at all times, yet nowhere at all times.

Ji Chi acknowledged and withdrew his gaze from the shadow beside him, also tore up his scroll, and disappeared from the room in a stream of light.

When only Tang remained in the private box, he put away all his unserious expressions. Looking in the direction Ji Chi had vanished, he whispered to himself, “That was my stealth state, and he could still see me… This kid is really scary. Besides potions and summoning, don’t tell me you also know stealth techniques?”