"A trillion of IC? How was that possible?!!"
From the expression on Gerrard's face and everyone else, I could see that they were trying to get their hands on some information about my new character John Sylvester.
Nonetheless, I used Cristal's ability to duplicate virtual money used in the Empire. Such of thing would of course end up being detected by the system if they were competent enough, but after a few days, the real values would merge with the duplicated ones, so the only people that would get in trouble would be those who received the money for the payment.
After all, the system should detect the duplicates, but it wouldn't be able to make the difference between the real ones and the duplicates.
As such, in a few days, the people of the dark side would realize that all of their assets would have disappeared, resulting in turmoil, but they would take time to guess, or would never guess, that it was me who did it, as people who didn't even participate in the auction would also lose money.
Moreover, all of them were related to the dark side of the Empire. I analyzed and studied the information that Cristal retrieved from the Raizel family. Among them was the list of wealthy people in the Empire.
Next, I only needed to ask Cristal to identify these people as we entered the room earlier. After that, I froze all of the transmission from this place by asking Cristal to become some kind of wall between all the transactions, data transfer, and communication from this place and the secondary server of this area.
During this, Cristal would analyze every kind of signal and transfer of data, then use all of that to make the duplication. As such, once Cristal reestablish the connection, the system would finally notice the anomaly.
Nonetheless, even if they thought so, it was not like they could do anything about it. As such, I could also use this doubt to pressure everyone else.
Moreover, even if I was deemed to be the culprit, it was not like they could report that I scammed people during a secret auction of the underground community held inside of one of the buildings owned by a Guardian. I would happily show the items I bought as well as the information about those who auctioned them if I was asked to do so and pretend to be a spy affiliated with the Raizel family under Adam Von Kepalta's order.
Considering all of that, Gerrard would certainly become a useful tool for me to take control of the dark side of the Empire.
He was smart enough to figure out that this problem might be related to me. And if he did, he would be playing in the palm of my end.
"What do you think of this, Mr. Gerrard? Who is that person?"
"Yeah, he just spent almost a trillion of IC and tool all of the auctioned materials for him."
The people in the VIP section began to panic, as there was no rule about how many items a person could acquire from the auction.
Gerrard didn't say anything but just looked in my direction with narrowed eyes. Noticing this, I waved at him.
"This bastard!"
'',
Gerrard didn't say anything and just left, but the other VIPs began to curse me with their words.
I was about to leave too, but the guards surrounded us.
"Please follow me. It's time to finalize the transaction and acquire your items."
Among the guards, there was someone who looked like some kind of butler and he asked us to follow him.
I didn't have any issues with this so I nodded and followed him. Nonetheless, I wasn't if the other guards were there to assure our security or to keep an eye on us. Well, maybe it was both reasons.
"Please wait here."
We were brought inside a luxurious room and were asked to wait. I didn't ask for more explanation, but I guessed that Gerrard or some important person would meet me.
Looking around the room, Cristal detected a few cameras and recording devices.
Knowing this, I began to play with something that looked like chess which was put inside the room. It was used for decoration, but I took it and put it on the table.
"Do you know how to play, Lisa?" I said, referring to Blanca.
"No."
"Sure, let's play then."
Soon after that, an old man wearing too many gaudy outfits formulae age entered the room along with some people who were supposed to be some kind of big shots in the community.
I already knew what they were trying to do, because the auction ended in a very unexpected way. I bet that a lot of people wanted some of the s so badly, for them to bid up to 30 billion, but to their surprise, I still raised the bid.
"Mmm? Who are you? I am here to finalize the transaction. I don't want to discuss it with anyone for the rest of the day," I said, not even glancing at them.
As soon he hear my words, the old frowned and was about to say something but my character should be so tolerant as to let anyone look down on him. John Sylvester should be indomitable.
"I don't want to repeat myself. You, the butler, finish the transaction immediately. I'd like to see my items now, and I hope you won't do something as foolish as handing me something fake!" I said, and stood up, looking at the bunch of people who were immobile in front of me.
"Y-yes, sir."
'',
The butler quickly realized what was going on, just by looking at the old man who had his mouth open wide, and an extremely unsightly expression. I guessed that he was about to yell at me in anger and order his guards to give me a lesson.
"Move out the way. You are not in the least interesting," I said, and with just my words, apart from the butler, everyone else was shoved out of my way and crashed on a wall outside the room.
However, they didn't fall on the ground and stayed stuck on the wall like bugs trapped by a spider's web.
"That goes for you too, Gerrard. I hope you come up with something more interesting next time. Today has been very disappointing. I expected something more from all of you. How can you be called the greatest criminal organization in the Empire with this kind of boring attitude? I don't see any difference between you and some random thugs on the street," I added looking in the direction of the camera.
"Sir, this man. He is looking down on you. Should I kill him?"
"No, not yet. Don't fall in his trap," Gerrard said. He hadn't yet noticed the existence of the bug. "From now, find everything about him. Everything! Don't leave anything uncovered. It has been a while since someone dared to challenge me in this way. This is fun, I guess I will play him for a while."
After that, Gerrard began to laugh like a maniac, and I felt sorry for him. I bet he still had a lot of goals in his life.
Like these villains in webtoons, I bet he had a very sad backstory, but unfortunately for him, he would probably end up dying soon.
After analyzing the file that Cristal had on him, what he did to more than thousands of people could be considered a deadly sin.
Well, I wasn't about to judge him, but it was just that he shouldn't blame his death on anyone else other than himself when that time came.
"Wh-why is he smiling in such a way?"
The man who was talking to Gerrard looked like he had noticed my expression. I should be more careful in the future, or so I thought as I followed the butler.
I didn't know if it was by Gerrard's order, but everything else went smoothly after that.
After leaving the building, however, I knew that we were being followed, and I had equipped the vehicle with a way that could deal with this situation.
It was not only the suites that could turn invisible and intractable, using X-ray vision or any other kind of scanner.
It took me a while to figure out how to do this, but by experiencing the atoms that I merged, transformed, and converted with my astral body, I finally managed to create the weird metal that I used to deal with the old man and his friend.
I just considered it as iron, but it didn't have the same property as simple iron.
'Well, at least then we're lucky that I managed to create something that didn't kill my opponent instantly. Now my offense is almost as invincible as my defense. Well, I still struggle with large-scale attacks though. However, after analyzing the property of elemental gifts, it will be only a matter of time before I could also duplicate their effect.'
I knew that such a thing wasn't still enough to achieve my goals but I was proud of my growth.
"Well, let's see what the Academy's test has in store for us."