Later I will ask Lin what she knows about it, but for now it is not something I can use. Maybe with more knowledge and some experimentation I can figure it out. That will have to wait until after I return to the ship and have some free time.

When the bidding war finally ends, the wand goes for the staggering price of fifteen million. I am starting to think that the amount of money I have left is not going to be enough. If the prices keep climbing like this then the remaining items will be insane!

Even if I can't buy anything else at the auction, this trip has still been worth it. Not to mention, the remaining bidding wars should be plenty entertaining. As I have already seen, even the normal rules go out the window for these items.

When someone wants an item enough, they stop yielding to the upper boxes. Even Henrietta did the same and that is when she has to worry about business interests. If she pisses off the wrong people then the merchant group could suffer as well.

However, that isn't my problem, all I need to do is keep my issues from affecting them. Henrietta should know what she is doing, if she messes up then she will need to deal with it. Besides, if she messes up too bad then the merchant group can just fire her.

Although, if she does get fired, I wonder if she'd be willing to come home with me. She would make an excellent assistant for Pol, especially since he has probably expanded a lot. I might have made a mistake when I gave him his mission in the Free Union.

By now he probably has control of half the country, but I didn't expect to be gone so long. When Myria stops hiding from me I need to remember to send him new orders. He needs to turn his focus back to developing the beast lands into a nation.

Then again, I should be back in a couple of months, so it's alright if it waits until then. Besides, if I am able to make the ship into an airship, we will be able to use it to trade with the main continent. That is one of the reasons that I want to keep good relations with the merchant group.

If we have an airship, then I want to open a trade route with the merchant group. I believe that they will trade fairly with us, or at least they won't cheat us outrageously. The airship would be useful in the war, but not all that useful, mainly because of the weapons.

Catapults and ballista won't be very effective when fired from an airship. The airship would need cannons to become a true weapon of war, but that's not a good idea. While I could figure out magical cannons fairly easily, it probably is a bad idea.

If I create magic cannons, then others will see them and try to duplicate them. Eventually they will figure out how to make them and wars will become even worse. It won't end there, they will keep making bigger and stronger cannons.

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Eventually, they will be able to wipe out cities at will and I don't want to be responsible for that. They have more than enough destructive potential just by having magic. I certainly don't need to make it any worse, it will be bad enough once they see an airship.

Luckily, it will be much harder for them to duplicate my airship than some cannons. Although, eventually they will probably figure out how to do it another way. However, airships on their own won't be too huge of a change to the balance.

Besides, with as many flying beasts as there are in this world, their airships won't have a good time. Thinking of that, I probably need to improve my airship's weapons as well. It wasn't exactly designed to face enemies while flying, but I can fix that.

Catapults will be almost totally useless in air-to-air combat, they are too slow. So I should plan on removing the catapults and replacing them with more ballistas. That will only be good against large targets, I will have to come up with something for smaller enemies.

As I am designing the airship in my head I keep an eye on the auction below. The items are all things for mages that don't really interest me, but the bidding is amusing. Then as an item is sold I notice Lin moving to the very edge of the stage.

Lin says "Now we come to the second to last item of the auction! A golem made by Master Redcliff himself! He promises that it can match against a fully equipped army on its own!"

As Lin is talking the golem is teleported onto the stage and I find out why she moved. The golem is a dragon and it takes up most of the stage, it stands at least twenty feet tall. Of course, since it is a dragon, I instantly want to buy it, but I doubt I will have enough.

Lin says " This golem is capable of flight, so it can also be used as a battle mount! The starting bid is ten million with increments of one million!"

Even the starting bid is more than I have left, so all I can do is watch the fun. As soon as the bidding starts I notice that only those on the top floor are bidding. When I ask Henrietta she informs me that only kingdoms are allowed to bid on a strategic weapon.

This makes me take another look at the golem, but other than its looks I can't understand the reasoning. Sure, it would be a pain to fight, but I am pretty sure I could defeat it by myself. How is that considered a strategic weapon, or does that mean I count as one?

Then again, to the nations around the Magic Kingdom, maybe I would be a strategic weapon. Especially if they find out that I can counter a mage's spell as it is being cast. I would actually be the perfect weapon against the Magic Kingdom.

Luckily, no one knows about my abilities, otherwise they would be trying to capture me. That would be almost as bad as if people found out about Lin leaving with me. I never expected that I would have so many things to worry about just from coming to an auction.

Finally, the bidding war ends and the dragon golem is sold for twenty-one million. From how the bidding went at the end, the two last bidders are definitely enemies. I am fairly sure that the winner bid everything that he had in order to win.

That means his kingdom has a new defense, but it also means they are going to suffer a bit. Spending that much money isn't a simple thing, even for a country. It will affect the kingdom's economy, especially if they raise taxes to get it back.

Then again, if they use the dragon to go on the offensive, then they could make the money back through conquest. I still find it hard to believe that one golem can make that much difference. However, it also makes me curious as to what the last item is going to be to be able to top the golem.