Hero or Villain, Both

I didn't make a move right away as I waited for the auctioneer to finish introducing this item.

With the way that the auctioneer introduced the item, it was clear what they thought about this book.

It wouldn't sell.

That was their fear when it came to items like this.

Though the auctioneer was describing a bunch of facts, there weren't any facts that were actually related to the book. Instead, it was all about the history of the book and where it came from.

It was all simply because they couldn't actually read it.

It was only natural that the auction house would check all the items that came through them for the auction, but they just couldn't do anything when it came to this one since they couldn't read what was written in it.

This book seemed like it was written in a completely different language, one that didn't seem like human language.

But in reality, it was just something that they couldn't read because they didn't have the knowledge for it.

The ones that could read it were people like me.

After all, what this book was written in was alchemic formulas. Even the title of the book was something that was written in alchemic formulas that was hard to decipher.

So unless one was a skilled alchemist, they wouldn't actually be able to see through this book.

Only I knew that the real name of this book was the Philosopher's Stone unlike what the auctioneer was calling it.

As for how I knew of this book, it was all because of my past life.

This Philosopher's Stone was a special item that was supposed to appear later on in the game, but one could have the chance to see it if they came to this auction. That was because the one that bought this book had a quest later on, so one could obtain this book from their collection.

But I was going to steal this quest reward before it could be taken away.

The bids came, but I didn't panic as I waited for them to rise.

Only after they rose to a certain extent that most people were scared off did I actually enter the bidding.

"One hundred fifty."

The price before my bid had been one hundred and twenty, so this could be considered a decent increase. It was certainly enough to deter most of the people that had been bidding from continuing to bid.

But there was one person that didn't seem to give up.

"One hundred and sixty."

"Two hundred." I said without any hesitation after they made that bid.

Once I increased it by this much, the other side seemed to have completely given up.

I knew the status of the other side since I knew who was supposed to own this book in the first place. The one that didn't give up was the merchant that would give a quest later on and give up this book as a reward.

This merchant had only bought the book since he thought that he could turn a profit, but he soon found that it was useless. That was why he was still willing to bid even though I had pushed the bid up that high.

The auctioneer didn't waste any time when he saw that the other person was no longer bidding.

After all, they knew that they wouldn't be able to get more from this. At the same time, with me pushing up the bid, they already knew that they had earned far more than they had expected to earn.

As such, they didn't waste any time in closing this bid.

Once the bid was closed, I sent one of my people to get the item.

There was the option to wait until the end of the auction to redeem the item, but I wanted this item now.

When he came back, I didn't waste any time in taking the book from him.

Seeing the way that I acted, the driver asked, "Young master, is there something special about his book."

With a shake of my head, I said, "Nothing special at all."

It was clear that they didn't believe me, but I didn't mind at all as I read the book.

The book was called the Philosopher's Stone, but it wasn't actually a recipe guide for the Philosopher's Stone. Rather, it was the personal journal of the most famous alchemist in history, Flamel.

It contained the life experience of that most famous alchemist and all of the different experiments that he did in his life.

Anyone with a trace of alchemic knowledge would be able to learn a lot just from reading this book.

Coincidentally, one of the skills that I had gained when I was created as an avatar was an alchemy skill. The main body said that it would be useful and it wasn't a lie since potions sold quite well.

As a merchant, this did help me build up my business.

Half of the recipes in the mall actually came from me.

With this book, I was certain that I would be able to come up with many more recipes that would bring us plenty more income. As long as I could decipher the writings of Flamel, I might even be able to recreate the legendary potions that he came up with.

But I soon put the book away.

It wasn't the time to be reading this right now since there was something else that we had to do.

"Is it almost time for the final item?" I asked as I closed the book and looked up.

I hadn't been paying attention since I had been reading the book that I obtained, so I actually didn't know what time it was.

The driver gave a simple nod as he was the only one that was left in the room.

At some point, the others had already left the room and taken other positions in the auction hall.

I didn't say anything about this as I watched the stage and waited for the last item to be brought up.