Unsealing Emptiness

Hana shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she noticed Ozul’s calm behavior. However, she put her thoughts to the back of her mind since she desperately needed the Harmony Leaves.

“I was wondering if you could sell this to me directly instead of auctioning...” Hana proposed. She paused to see Ozul’s reaction.

However, she was bound to be disappointed because of the ever blank face.

“Go on,” Ozul said when he noticed that she stopped.

Hana smiled wryly as she replied, “As the manager of this auction house, I assure you that I can even pay you with twice the original value of the Harmony Leaves.”

“If you are so capable, why can’t you win the bidding when I auction?” Ozul asked.

.....

He was here to sell them directly at first, but auctioning sounded like a better idea. He would need more convincing than just double the value of it.

“It’s because even as the manager, I am still bound by the rules. I don’t work with Ashin Family; I work for them... They have set up the rules that no matter whatever item it is, once it is put on the auction list, anyone from the staff cannot bid on it,” Hana explained with a sigh.

“Oh?” Ozul found it interesting that the Ashin Family was so strict with their rules, but it was indeed a great method to keep everything in order.

“Please, I promise that you can see the whole catalog for the auctioned items, and I can find you any one of those..., but please give these leaves to me. I have a loved one who is in desperate need of them,” Hana stood up and bowed to show her sincerity.

Ozul felt her emotions and found out that she was telling the truth. However, he still needed to confirm one thing.

“Show me the catalog...” Ozul said.

Hope lit up in Hana’s eyes as she nodded her head and immediately ran out of the room to bring the list of items that were going to be auctioned today.

A few seconds later, she stood before Ozul with a thick book in her hand.

Hana gave the catalog to Ozul and stood patiently to his side. Unlike how she wanted to appear in front of him, her high and mighty persona had quickly vanished when she had to ask him to sell the leaves to her.

Ozul started to skim through the catalog carefully. There was a lot of time before the auction started, and the one who was going to host it was here in this room, so he wasn’t in a hurry.

“These are all the items provided by Ashin Family to be put on the auction. Like before, I won’t be able to get them directly. But, I can use my connections and can get you anything in the catalog from somewhere else. Though depending on the rarity, it might take some time to find the exact thing...” Hana declared resolutely.

“I just couldn’t find these leaves in time...” She added with a low tone after a while.

There were all kinds of rare and valuable things in the catalog. It started with useless stuff like the calming pendants and other enchanted items.

However, with each turn of the page, he saw better and better things. Each item had an image, name, and brief description written under it.

Communication Crystals... Camouflage Orbs... Protective Amulets... At one point, Ozul even saw something similar to the crystal that Garth had used for the giant formations.

Though they required Mana’s use, and the ones auctioned here were not as good as the one Garth had used.

‘I should’ve gotten their Cores first...’ Ozul remembered that he used the fire pillars to kill them, leaving almost no flesh on their body. It also shattered their Mana Cores.

Although the last Rank-8 Core he had absorbed did little to no good to him, they were still valuable all around the Mainland.

But now that the deed was done, there was no use in lamenting over it. Ozul shook his head and focused back on the catalog.

Whole 20 minutes passed before Ozul had finally read everything down to the last detail.

Some amazing items and herbs that could make people fight to the death over them were listed on it. Though most of them required Mana’s use somehow, and the rest were not much use to him either.

However, there was one thing that did attract his attention, even if it wasn’t as valuable as the Harmony Leaves.

“Did you like anything?” Hana asked, hoping that he had his eyes on something.

Although she could get almost everything in the catalog using her connections, she could not get the Harmony Leaves before it was too late. So she could absolutely not let them go.

“In fact, I did... Though I doubt you would be able to provide so many of these,” Ozul said while pointing his finger at the image of a bluish crystal in the catalog.

‘Even if I do put these Leaves on the auction, I am not really guaranteed the double of its original value. Not to mention, the money is useless to me. It’s better to get these instead...’ Ozul contemplated in his mind.

“Frozen Mana Crystal?” Hana muttered curiously.

This Frozen Mana Crystal did not actually have frozen Mana. There was only a compressed form of Mana trapped inside the bluish crystals.

They were mostly used as the source of Mana for the instantaneous activation of powerful formations. Although they were rare, it wasn’t to the point where they could even come close to comparing with the Harmony Leaves, which could cure some of the most deadly poisons on the Mainland.

“That’s easy! It would be a piece of cake for me! What else?” Hana declared happily.

“Easy? Yeah, but I need as many as you can get. I meant as many as it would equal the value for the Leaves.” Ozul calmly stated as Hana’s face drew a blank.

“Equal to the value of Harmony Leaves? That would be hundreds of them...” Hana muttered in distress.

‘Why does he even need so many of those crystals!?’ Hana thought inside her head.

However, she quickly shook those thoughts away since she was running out of time. Without even saying anything to Ozul, she stormed out of the room.

The two girls who had gone outside were puzzled about what happened to their boss, but they respectfully closed the door as they came inside again.

Ozul had assumed that the woman would at least try to convince him to choose something else, but he was a little surprised with her sincerity.

He knew that this would take a lot more time than simply finding the catalog, so he proceeded to close his eyes as nothing was interesting down in the hall anyway.

People were still finding their seats, not to mention he would rather sleep than watching the auction happening now that he was already aware of the items.

. . .

He did not know how much time passed, but when he opened his eyes again, the auction had started down in the hall. On the stage, there was another woman who showed each item instead of Hana only because she was standing beside Ozul at this moment.

“Did you get them?” Ozul asked as he looked at people placing bids over other bids, competing for every item.

“I did,” Hana answered. She sounded a little exhausted.

Placing her hand before her, a pile of bluish crystals appeared on the table with a wave of her hand.

Ozul could easily tell that they nearly reached three digits! Hana had indeed brought almost a hundred of those crystals under a few hours!

‘Just how many connections did she have...’ Ozul thought in his mind as he looked towards her.

“... I know that they are still not enough... But I can only apologize since this was the best I could do. To even out the value, you can ask anything else!” Hana said with a pitiful face.

Her current appearance could have made just about anyone want to embrace her and comfort her, but Ozul was indifferent.

There was another thing he remembered. It was about the Spatial Ring. Even taking this big pile of the Frozen Mana Crystals required him to use a Spatial tool.

However, he neither had blood nor Mana, so he could only choose the Spatial tool that did not require both of these.

“What about a Spatial Pouch?” Ozul suddenly asked.

“Spatial Pouch?” Hana was again surprised by his demand.

These pouches were used hundreds of years ago. Nowadays, no one used these pouches as storage. People only had them as a piece of decoration or antiques.

The most notable difference between the Spatial rings nowadays and the Spatial pouches in the past was that the latter was slowly outdated.

Not only was the Spatial ring smaller in size, making it more discrete. It also had functions like setting up an owner using the blood or the Mana of that person as their signature.

Even when the function of setting an owner of the Spatial Ring was better for the people, Ozul could only choose to use the Spatial pouches in the absence of both the necessary keys.

He wasn’t able to find any of those when he worked as an assassin with Count Oliver, but he was sure that this Hana would be able to easily get her hands on one such pouch.

“Yes. The bigger the space inside, the better,” Ozul said before Hana nodded her head and again ran out of the room.