The rarity of any item sold was only increasing as the auction went on.
The early stages of the auction had relatively common items that could be purchased in bulk, ranging from crates of herbs to armors. There was no competition during this phase, but it didn't mean the items weren't being sold.
Forgers and alchemists were purchasing hundreds of these items to replenish their stocks, while noble families purchased a lot of armors and weapons for their common members.
As the auction progressed, the rarity of the items had increased and the numbers of each item were below 5. The rate of bidding had slightly increased, but it was mostly between adventurers and adventurer parties.
As a top-tier auction, it didn't take long before epic tier items began coming up for sale, and this was when the true bidding war had started because the noble families had decided to get involved.
The 1st epic tier item was a bow made with the body and beast crystal of a king rank Ent. The name of the weapon was Dawnbreaker and it was a recurve bow that had its center made of black wood. The edge of the upper and lower limb were blades with multiple arrays inscribed on them.
Dawnbreaker had 2 forms; the first was the bow form for long-range attacks, while the second form was a staff with blades at both ends.
When in its bow form, Dawnbreaker had no strings or arrows. It was once the user injected mana into the bow that a mana string would appear, and when he pulled at it a mana arrow would form.
As for the 2nd form, the upper and lower limb of the bow would fold towards the center before elongating to a 6 feet long staff.
The starting price was at 300k gold coins, but in a few minutes, the prize had gone up to 500k gold coins. This continued for a few minutes before the bidding had stopped for 1 million gold coins.
After hitting the gavel 3 times, chief appraiser Langford announced the new owner who was from the Ulrik family.
"The quality of the bow is superb and was quite tempting, but because just like me, majority of those here are not archers causing it to be sold for a measly 1mil." A noble from the Karius family shook his head in disappointment, but his attention soon returned to the stage because the next Item was being brought in.
The auction went on for a few more hours, and gold coins that would put a lot of citizens out of poverty for the rest of their lives were spent on weapons, artifacts, armors, herbs, and even artworks. The auction was finally drawing to a close, as the final item was brought onto the stage.
The final item was a mid epic tier artifact and it was the handle of a whip with arrays inscribed on it. It was named the Master seal and it was a beast tamer artifact.
The Master seal was appraised as a mid epic tier artifact because of its 6 strong abilities.
The 1st was amplifying beast tamer spells to double its power.
2nd was granting the user the ability to communicate with beasts as long as it was in their possession.
3rd was the ability to form an energy whip that drains the vitality of a beast with every hit.
4th was the ability to form energy chains that would wrap the beast and drain its vitality.
The 5th ability was a passive AOE spell that suppressed every beast below the knight rank causing them to be docile.
The final ability granted the user the power to form contracts with beasts. It could be by convincing the beast or forcefully taking control of it.
For Knight rank beasts it was a sure catch but for King rank beasts and above, there were 2 things involved. The level of the user should be at least the same as the beast, and the chances of it working would increase the weaker the beast becomes.
The explanation of the item's abilities was tempting to even none beast tamers, but soon Langford began mentioning the drawbacks.
The 1st drawback was that once the artifact was being used, the user would hear the thoughts of all the beasts within the area.
The 2nd drawback was that the Master seal needed to be charged with beast crystals before use. If it wasn't charged before use, it would use both the users' mana and soul energy to work.
Soul energy recharges just like mana but at a very slow pace. The more one's soul energy reduces, the less mana capacity, physical strength, mental strength, and spell power one would have.
(AN: It isn't the same for soul flame users. Soul flames only permanently burn the lifespan of the user, but don't affect any other aspect of the user.)
The final drawback of the master seal was that after the artifact has been used, the user would begin exhibiting the characteristics of the last beast he had contracted for 24 hrs. For example, if the user had last contracted a Jackler, they could begin laughing like a hyena for the next 24hrs.
The drawbacks quickly chased away many that had eyes on the artifact, but there was still one person that didn't budge even after they were explained. His name was Oliver Nystrom and he was the top beast tamer of the Nystrom family.
The reason he had attended the Auction was that the association had informed him during his invitation that the item would be present. He had gathered a lot of funds for this auction because beast tamer equipment was very rare and expensive.
The reason for this was because, unlike other subclasses which anyone could learn, the beast tamer subclass was selective thus making them quite rare, talk more of rare items for a rare subclass.
Apart from beast taming being a hard magical course, it needed one's soul to be attuned to nature.