Chapter 53
A notice was posted on the Dokkaebi Auction tab.
[Notice] Three Elemental Sealing Keychains Scheduled for Auction
Seller: Cheonsan Sect's Master Craftsman Do ✔
― Deep-Sea Whale (Water)
― Incandescent Tiger (Fire)
― Thunderous Hawk (Lightning)
Limited to one each.
[Product Description]
-Can immediately seal and carry up to Grade-2 spirit beasts.
-When the attribute matches, can seal up to Grade-1 spirit beasts.
-Can remain sealed for a long time.
Even that alone was already an astonishing level of performance.
It had only been a short while since the Grade-3 budget models were released.
But the highlight was something else entirely.
-When the attribute matches, grants an additional effect while sealed.
· Deep-Sea Whale (Water): Accelerated spiritual power recovery.
· Incandescent Tiger (Fire): Enhanced fire energy.
· Thunderous Hawk (Lightning): Refined lightning energy.
That's right.
The first buff-type sealing implement in history had appeared!
Auction time: One week from now, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. (6 hours)
The moment the notice went up, the message boards began erupting.
[HOT] Did the Grade-2 sealing keychains finally drop~~~ Let's gooo~!
└Whoa, I heard they can seal Grade-2 by default and even Grade-1 if the attribute matches???
└Damn, the style is insane….
└Damn, it's Do-hwang again. Looks like I need to take out another loan…
[Chatter] But these new items seriously look fucking gorgeous.
(Screenshot)
Forget the performance—they just look fucking beautiful and luxurious.
└Ooh…… Look at the detail and colors on that whale.
└The class is clearly on a whole different level from the budget models.
└The Incandescent Tiger lol It looks exactly like its name.
└Wow, I kind of want to buy that just as a display piece, even without a spirit beast to put inside lol
└Are you the third-generation heir to a conglomerate? lololol
[General] No, but what the hell is the principle behind putting a buff function on a sealing implement??
└It's a spirit beast transport container that also restores spiritual power and boosts elemental attack power? lololol Truly the Great Do-hwang.
└How is that even possible? This is seriously impossible.
└For real, Do-hwang is definitely keeping aliens locked up in his basement, torturing them while feeding them fried dumplings. Yep.
***
Ok Man-ho was a master of sealing implements.
More specifically, he was the master of Okho Workshop, which had insisted on making nothing but sealing implements for three generations.
He had turned exactly seventy-two this year.
If you asked why, now that he had become a white-haired old man, he still refused to step down and continued as an active workshop master….
Absolutely not.
It wasn't because his only son had run away after refusing to inherit the family business, leaving him with no child to pass it on to.
Nor was it because his fussy personality had kept him from finding an apprentice worthy of inheriting his secrets!
It was because he was that devoted to making sealing implements.
Well…… people in a trade that earned their living through skill generally didn't have a mandatory retirement age anyway.
‘Ugh…….’
Ok Man-ho pressed firmly on his stiff, tired eyelids.
He had already been sitting at his workbench for several hours.
In his hands was a rabbit keychain!
Yes, it was the hot item currently occupying nearly all the top spots in the so-called Best Items rankings.
The asking price had soared so much in the meantime…!
He had paid the price of three or four high-end sealing implements for something the size of a finger.
‘Ahem…. Well, you have to make an investment like this to learn something new.’
What lay before him was a special ritual implement shaped like a magnifying glass.
It was an item that fired the user's spiritual power into it, allowing them to see the internal formula.
His plan was to figure out the keychain's internal formula as quickly as possible, incorporate his workshop's three-generation secret techniques, and create a new line of products.
Still, if there was one silver lining….
Wasn't it true that this thing could only seal Grade-3 spirit beasts for now?
He should certainly be able to produce a superior spirit beast sealing implement.
But then….
"Why, why won't it work!"
No matter how much spiritual power he poured in to examine the internal formula, everything remained blurry and nothing could be seen.
It had already been several hours.
'……It seems he took special measures to prevent anyone from reading the formula.'
What a troublesome bastard!
There was no helping it. It might take some time, but this magnifying glass was also a priceless masterpiece.
It was capable of subtly changing the grain of the spiritual power waves it sent out.
‘It'll take some time, but….’
Even so, he had to do it.
Ever since he had put up the heirloom gourd after being pushed out of the rankings, the sales that had once soared had visibly declined over the past few days.
Of course, they were still high compared to before, but he was no longer satisfied with that.
Wasn't this the Okho Workshop, which had walked the single-minded path of sealing implements?
There was no way he couldn't unravel the formula inside this little keychain.
It was right then.
Bang!
“Master! Master!!”
His apprentice burst through the door.
“Ahem, what makes you behave so rashly, boy?”
"That's not it! That Master Craftsman Do! He posted a new scheduled sale!"
"A scheduled sale?"
"He says he'll be releasing new sealing keychains in a week. They're Grade-2! And if the attributes match, they can even seal Grade-1 spirit beasts?!"
“What?!"
That couldn't be. Grade-1?
It had only been a short while since the Grade-3 keychains had appeared.
And now he was already releasing an item that leaped two entire grades above them?
'……That's impossible.'
How could he develop a new ritual implement at such an absurd speed?
‘Damn…’
That man had to be the direct disciple of some sealing implement master from a foreign country who was hiding somewhere.
Otherwise, there was simply no explanation.
'Whew. Fine. If he's carrying a lifetime of secret techniques on his back…….'
There was only one way left.
He had to strip the formula from this rabbit as quickly as possible and catch up before the new products sold out completely.
"Tsk…… So how long is the sales period?"
Six months? A full year, at most?
That should be enough to somehow—
"Apparently…… six hours?"
"What?! What kind of lunatic is this!!!"
***
[Info] Beta male trait: Hogging a billboard for a year.
Chad trait: Dropping a six-hour limited sale.
└LOL, Do-hwang really does play by a different set of rules.
└It's like his entire way of thinking is completely different from ordinary people.
└Everyone else sets theirs up for six months so they can stay on the rankings for even one more day.
└He doesn't need a billboard because he'll be number one the moment he lists something lol
└I wonder how high the bids will go this time. I'm already excited.
└Could this be the Great Do-hwang's profound intention to keep our dopamine levels topped up?
[Daily] Which of the three are you going for?
Whale / Tiger / Hawk
└Definitely the whale. Spiritual power recovery is the most broken.
└Nope, the hawk is where the romance is. I can't resist lightning refinement lol
└So what exactly is lightning refinement?
└Dunno? Anyway, it means lightning gets a hell of a lot stronger lol
└But even if you buy one, do you actually have a Grade-1 spirit beast to put inside it?
└……
└Ah, whatever. You have to buy it first and think about the spirit beast later lol The item comes first. Why would the spirit beast come first??
└For real, take out a full loan, win the auction first, and worry about the spirit beast later.
└This is the right answer.
└The reversal of priorities is insane lol
[Daily] Breaking) Latest news on Dokkaebi Bank.jpg
(Photo)
What's this line for? No way, right?
└????
└LOL, look at that line. Are they insane?
└What a blatant attempt to stir things up. There's always a line there.
└For real, how many people could possibly have enough money to buy that? lol
└……It isn't what I think it is, right?
.
.
.
‘Ahem, ahem. The response isn't bad this time either.’
At first, I had only planned to sell the budget models in small quantities.
But as I kept making them, something felt lacking.
Because I had focused on portability, the amount of spiritual power they could hold and the sealing duration were both too short.
'Hmm…… It would be nice if something portable could handle Grade-2 and above.'
But I couldn't make another gourd.
As it turned out, that gourd was made from a rare variety Ji-an had gone to great lengths to obtain.
Getting another one would be impossible.
While I was worrying over it, I remembered the sealing implements I had seen in the vault.
Sealing implements that utilized the properties of their materials.
'……Should I try applying that idea?'
That could be fun.
It would be fun. Hehe.
So I casually asked Ji-an about it, and she said,
"Hmm…… Getting another gourd like that one would be difficult, but I think I could find some other materials."
And a few days later, she really did bring them back.
A lightning-struck jujube tree, or byeokjomok.
Agarwood aged in tidal mud for over a century.
The heartwood of an ancient tree said to have survived a massive wildfire.
Even at a glance, every one of those materials was absurdly rare.
'……She really does procure incredible materials.'
Apparently, Ji-an had an information network all her own.
‘Well. I don't need to know about that much.’
The basic principle of a sealing implement was to use an outer formula to suppress and confine whatever was inside.
Since the thing inside wouldn't stay still, its durability was gradually worn down by the resistance, so it couldn't be kept sealed for long.
But what if the material itself contained the same attribute?
What if, instead of suppressing it, I added a formula of the same nature to make the inside comfortable?
In other words, I would decorate the inside like a five-star hotel suite!
The kind of room where, once you lie down, the thought of checking out disappears completely.
……Though, of course, the door had been designed from the beginning to open only from the outside.
Since they wouldn't struggle, it would last longer.
With no resistance, it could hold much more spiritual power.
'……Hehe. Am I perhaps a genius?'
The materials were so excellent that I grew a little greedy while engraving them.
Since I was doing it anyway, I decided to make use of the properties contained in the materials as additional functions!
The byeokjomok had a lightning circuit engraved in it from the strike that hit it.
The water energy of the agarwood had seeped into every single growth ring.
The ancient tree that survived the wildfire had an internal structure resembling a furnace.
When I modified, refined, and engraved the circuits to match each individual grain,
the whale's infused water energy replenished the spirit beast's spiritual power,
the hawk's lightning circuit amplified its lightning energy even further,
and the tiger's furnace-like interior warmed its fire energy.
Those were the three items I had created.
The Deep-Sea Whale.
The Incandescent Tiger.
The Thunderous Hawk.
They were a little larger than the budget keychains, about the size of a fist, but with performance like this, everyone would probably be satisfied.
“Wow… Do-hyeon, you're seriously…… a genius! A genius!”
Ji-an made a fuss as she accepted the completed keychains and turned them over and over for quite some time.
“Then let's list these once the budget models have sold well and the excitement has built!”
"How long should the sales period be? Since these are high-end products made from materials that are difficult to obtain again…… at least three months?"
Hmm, that was the conventional choice.
……But that would be a shame.
"No. Six hours."
"……What?!"
"With things like this, people flock when the time is short."
Instead, I would post a notice about the scheduled sale and its performance a week in advance.
I would give them an entire week to stare at them and desperately want them.
"It's just like home shopping. 'Almost sold out! Five minutes until the deadline!' Then everyone picks up the phone as if hypnotized, right?"
People naturally became more impulsive when they didn't have much time to spare.
"……!"
Ji-an's eyes grew wider and wider, and then she said,
"If you'd gone into business, Do-hyeon, you would've made a fortune!!"
.
.
.
And that's how it came to be.
Hehehe.
‘Well, that was part of it.’
The thrilling dopamine rush of watching the bids skyrocket in real time!
That was what I really wanted to feel.
An auction was best when it was short, intense, and blazing hot.
If it dragged on too long, it wouldn't be fun.
[Daily] It's finally today.
From 6:00 p.m. to midnight.
I cleared my schedule of commissions. Is everyone ready?
└LOL, what happened to professionalism?
└Raise your hand if you took the day off.
└It's only one each. Do you really think you'll be able to buy one?
└Even if we can't buy one, we still have to watch, dumbass.
└For real, the auction tab displays every bidder's username. Watching who throws down is half the fun lol
└Watching the big spenders' war of money in real time lol This is fucking entertaining.
*
"D-Do-hyeon! Five minutes left, five minutes!"
'All right. Let's see.'
Tick. Tick.
At last.
[6:00 p.m.]
Ding―
[The auction has begun.]