The next day the classes had resumed and the students were back to exercises to help awaken their mana vision.
Among other courses, that of Professor Gibson was the slowest when it came to the student's progress. He was afraid that 80% of the students wouldn't be able to cast fusion spells before the beast tide season.
The process of awakening mana vision was a very slow one, and Gibson was tempted to tell the students to purchase herbs that would quicken the process. The problem was that methods like these result in them awakening an inferior version of mana vision and they always came with serious side effects.
The 4 soul candles given to Blake by the school couldn't be considered as artificial shortcuts, but an item to grant him insight into what he was doing wrong.
Giving each student soul candles wasn't an option, because not only was it too expensive, but from what he could see so far there was a high chance that 40% wouldn't receive any form of insight.
Rather than wasting a ridiculous amount, it was better they gave out the artificial shortcuts, but that also wasn't an option.
At this point, the students were being given nothing except mana control exercises. For most of the students, it was depressing and stressful, but for someone like Blake who had an insane amount of mana control, it was a way for him to bag points.
After they were done with the second and last exercise for the day, Blake walked up to the front of the class.
"Ahem!" Blake cleared his throat, attracting the attention of more than half of the class.
"I have seen that most of the class is struggling with the exercises. So I have decided to auction 2 of my soul candles to help." Blake announced to the entire class with a straight face.
The reason Blake didn't feel too bad about spending 40k EP on night veil was that he had a plan on getting twice that amount. This was the introduction and it had to be perfect for the plan to work out. His targets were both the nobles and commoners, but it was most likely the former.
He had to make sure he didn't appear too prideful especially to the nobles because attacking their egos would cause the plan to be a total failure. Also, he had to keep a straight face to let them know he meant business.
"Have my ears gone bad or did I hear he wants to sell his soul candles?" A noble student asked.
"As expected of commoners, they are dumb and don't know the value of things, lets be of help and take them off his hands." Another noble student said.
"Hahaha, it's a free steal!"
There was an uproar from the nobles because the major problem they had with the soul candles wasn't that it was too costly but it was rare. So blake selling it was seen as a dumb move by most of the nobles, especially since he hadn't awakened mana vision.
Ignoring the words of the nobles, Blake waited for the whispers to die down before he continued. "To give everyone a fair chance at the soul candles, only exchange points will be used in the auction."
At the moment Blake had no use for gold coins, but that wasn't the main reason for limiting the auction to only exchange points. The main reason was the first step and it involved manipulating both sides psychologically.
With the commotion the soul candles had caused back at the auditorium, everyone knew about the effects of the soul candle, meaning both commoners and nobles would most likely compete for them.
Now that Blake made the auction 'fair', it was natural for the nobles to not be happy with this decision. So they would try to put the commoners in their place by spending more than necessary.
[How are you sure that the nobles have more points than the commoners?] The system asked.
'It's very simple. The nobles are provided with almost everything they need by their families, meaning they have way fewer needs than the commoners. Also, why would they spend something as precious as exchange points when they can purchase it with gold coins?' Blake said.
He was right. When the commoners were admitted into the school they came in with almost nothing. As they gathered points they began purchasing things like weapons, armors, and training items to reduce the gap between them and the nobles.
As for the nobles they came in with good armors and always received extra resources from their families to make sure they maintained the gap. This meant those from top noble families had spent close to 0 exchange points.
"As I said, I will give everyone a chance, so the price for one soul candlestick starts at 50k points." Blake's announcements were followed by whispers before a noble bided.
"80k Exchange points!"
"What! 80k points doesn't he know what to do with points?!" Some of the commoners complained because the price had instantly skyrocketed way past their total points.
"90k Exchange points!" As the commoners were complaining Haldor bided.
It was shocking that a commoner had so many exchange points to spend, but before they could get over the shock, Ansgar bided.
"110k exchange points!"
At this point, the entire classroom went silent in shock, they were still trying to process exactly what was going on.
'More than 100k points! Isn't this what people earn in a semester?!'
'A semester's worth of effort for blue-colored wax?'
"120k exchange points." The voice of a girl was heard and when they turned in its direction they saw Esmeralda. Not only did this render commoners speechless, but also some nobles.
"120k exchange points going once, going twice, gone." Blake waved his hand in the direction of Esmeralda.
'Just like I expected, let's see how the second one goes..' Blake made a mental grin as announced the auction of the second soul candle.