There was a rough mental chart Kain kept in his head whenever he thought about the upcoming auction based on what he saw while fulfilling his Black Mision last year, and the going rate for weapons.
After fighting against Kyria, Kain realized that he’d completely let his equipment slack. Due to the strength of his contracts, Kain no longer felt the need to join the battle and fight himself like he did when it was just Bea and himself with a spear.
Therefore, Kain was hoping that he had enough funds available to completely outfit himself in the best 5-star gear—5-star gear with 6 sigils (the max they can have and is typically only achieved by a Grandmaster Blacksmith).
However, 5-star gear—weapons, armor, accessories, or tools—usually hovered in the 50 to 100 million credit range. The quality of the sigils, the rarity of materials, and the specificity of function made a huge difference. An okay 5-star bracer with decent affinity reinforcement? Fifty million CD, maybe less. An enchanted pendant with 6 sigil effects including one or more passive bonuses or even passive spiritual regeneration? That might push closer to 150 million, depending on how desperate the buyer was.
6-star gear rarely sold for less than 500 million. A particularly refined 6-star enchanted armour once sold for 1.2 billion at the last Royal Auction.
And 7-star gear?
Don’t ask. Most 7-star beast-tamers couldn’t even afford it, and many also didn’t have the connections to even try and get one.
Kain rubbed his temples, staring at the folder Collin had handed him again.
His original plan—his realistic, grounded, budget plan—had been to bring 200–300 million CD to the auction. Enough to pick out a few pieces of top-tier 5-star gear, maybe one or two low-end 6-star pieces if he got lucky in the later rounds.
Nothing crazy. Just enough to bring him from “pauper” to “fully decked out.”
And then Collin’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
“You’re doing that thing where you stare into space and forget I exist.”
Kain blinked. “Right. Sorry. Just… thinking.”
“I figured,” Collin replied dryly. “Now, let’s go over the finances again. This includes only the businesses I manage—you’ve probably got your separate patent income stashed somewhere that even I can’t see.”
Kain didn’t deny it.
Collin continued, “First, spiritual brewing. As you know, demand spikes sharply around holidays, festivals and tournaments. We’re already up 30% this quarter just from pre-tournament parties and festival build-up leading to the National Torunament”
Kain raised an eyebrow. “So profits are up?”
“They are,” Collin nodded. “But inventory and logistics are under strain. We had to increase production hours and shift bonuses just to keep the bottles moving. So we’ve reinvested a lot. Therefore, don’t be too disappointed but the income you can safely withdraw and ensure daily operation is lower than usual.”
Kain sighed. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. How much can I pull?”
Collin gave him a bland look. “Probably 9.5–10 billion CD. If it was a less busy time of the year, the amount you could safely withdraw would be double.”
Kain nearly dropped his tablet.
“But,” Collin added smoothly, “as your responsible and underpaid business manager, I’ve also set aside just under 2 billion from the non-brewing assets to make up for the loss from the beer side. After the military signed a contract with us and the fashion industry took note of the elemental silk, both industries boomed. The additional 2 billion can be pulled from FMT pills and elemental silk profits. That’s clean. No debt, no risk. All yours.”
Kain nodded slowly, blankly. Unsure how to express to Collin that he was far from ‘disappointed’ by what amounted to nearly 12 billion CD.
“But don’t be too disappointed. That doesn’t include any deals you made as a Planner,” Collin added. “Though I imagine they’re substantial.”
They were.
Once Collin left the room, Kain swivelled in his crescent-moon chair and went on his secure laptop and logged into the Planner Guild system. Kain received substantial dividends from Collin and a lot of money while fulfilling private evolutionary planner requests from nobles, and so he never felt the need to log in and assess how much he made from his various patents until now, and so he couldn’t remember the password he’d set on the banking portion of the site. Fortunately, a face scan sufficed to just view the income (he still would need to recover his password to withdraw).
A brief loading screen appeared before he finally saw what he was working with.
Evolutionary Planner Patent Income:
Cumulative patent purchases: 121,362
Total commission: 391.26 million CD
Patents
Ongoing licensing for:
Gilded Serafin (Lumifin evolution)
Elemental Fairies (Elemental Silkworm tertiary evolution)
Warhog Ravager (tentative name for Ragin Steelboar Evolution)
Due to the penalties for privately reselling patents being extremely high, and the actual cost of said patents not being too high, most of the money obtained from those with the evolutionary formula still went to Kain (and the government who took a substantial cut).
But Kain still couldn’t believe he had almost 400 million CD just sitting there.
Which brought his available funds to…
Kain’s brain froze on the total number it calculated when combined with his business income:
12.4 billion CD.
And he knew he had another 300 million or so just sitting in his bank account from working as an evolutionary planner and selling materials he obtained from trips to the wilderness.
“I guess I can roughly round to 12.7 billion CD…This is crazy!”
It wasn’t just more than he planned—it was enough to buy some of the items he’d only ever seen the high-level nobles fight over. He could bid aggressively.
For the first time since he’d started planning this trip, Kain realized something:
He wasn’t going to the Royal Auction as a student taken to see the world like most students his age.
He was going as a power player.
He leaned back, still absorbing the number, when a pulse tickled the back of his mind. Chewy, still curled in his sleeve, was sending him a lazy but unmistakably content wave of psychic emotion.
Satisfied. Comfortable. Hungry again soon.
“Yeah,” Kain murmured. “You deserve a toy or two too.”
His eyes narrowed as he reopened the auction item preview list with new eyes. Most of the elite items weren’t shown ahead of time. But Serena might know some of the higher-grade items that would be revealed during the final phase of the auction.
He made a note to ask her.
After all… if he was going to spend over 12 billion credits… he might as well shop smart.
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