WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈
Chapter 53: On Sale for Exactly Six Hours.
──────
A notice appeared on Goblin Fire’s auction tab.
[Notice] Three Elemental Sealing Key Rings Scheduled for Auction
Seller: Master Do of the Tianshan Sect ✔
― Deep-Sea Whale (Water)
― Erupting Tiger (Fire)
― Lightning Hawk (Lightning)
One of each only.
[Product Description]
-Can immediately seal and carry spirit beasts up to Grade 2.
-With an elemental match, can seal up to Grade 1.
-Long-term sealing possible.
That alone was already astonishing performance.
It had only been a short while since mass-market Grade 3 models had hit the market.
But there was another highlight.
-With an elemental match, additional effects while sealed.
· Deep-Sea Whale (Water): Accelerates Spiritual Power recovery.
· Erupting Tiger (Fire): Enhances Fire Energy.
· Lightning Hawk (Lightning): Lightning Energy Refinement.
That was right.
The first buff-type sealing implement in history had appeared!
Auction Date: One week from now, 6:00 PM to midnight. (6 hours)
The moment the notice went up, the board erupted.
[HOT] Finally, Grade 2 sealing key rings are here~~~ Let’s go~!
└Holy shit, they’re Grade 2 by default, and they can even seal Grade 1 if the element matches???
└Damn, this is insane....
└ Damn it, it’s Do Emperor again. I have to take out another loan...
[Chatter] These new ones look ridiculously pretty, though.
(Screenshot)
Forget performance, they look gorgeous and expensive as hell.
└ Whew...... Look at the whale’s details and colors.
└ They’re in a whole different class from the mass-market ones.
└ Erupting Tiger lol, it looks like it lives up to its name.
└ Damn, I’d want one just for display even if I didn’t have a spirit beast to put in it lol.
└ Are you some third-generation chaebol heir? lolololol
[General] How the hell does a sealing implement even have a buff function??
└ It’s a spirit beast carrier that restores Spiritual Power and even pumps up elemental attack power? lol Great Do Emperor.
└ How is that even possible? This seriously makes no sense.
└ For real. Do Emperor definitely has an alien locked in the basement, torturing it while feeding it fried dumplings. Yep.
* * *
Ok Man-ho was a sealing implement craftsman.
Not just any craftsman, either. He was the owner of Okho Workshop, which had spent three generations devoted solely to sealing Ritual Implements.
He was seventy-two years old this year.
If anyone asked why a white-haired old man like him had yet to retire and was still running a workshop...
It was absolutely not because his only son had run off after refusing to inherit the family business.
Nor was it because, with his exacting temperament, he had yet to find a disciple worthy of inheriting his secrets!
It was because he was that serious about making sealing implements.
Well... this line of work did not really have a retirement age to begin with.
‘Ugh...’
Ok Man-ho pressed his stiff eyelids.
He had already been sitting at his workbench for hours.
In his hand was the Rabbit Keychain!
Yes, that hot new product currently occupying every top spot on some best-seller ranking.
The asking price had soared like crazy in the meantime...!
He had paid as much for this finger-sized thing as he would have for three or four high-end sealing implements.
‘Ahem. If I want to learn something new, this much investment is necessary.’
Before him sat a special Ritual Implement shaped like a magnifying glass.
It allowed the user to send Spiritual Power into an object and view its internal Spell Formula.
His plan was to uncover the key ring’s internal Spell Formula as soon as possible, combine it with the three generations of expertise at his workshop, and create a new product line.
Still, there was one saving grace.
It could only seal Grade 3 spirit beasts for now.
He would surely be able to make a spirit beast sealing implement with even better performance.
But...
“Why, why isn’t this working?!”
No matter how much Spiritual Power he poured in to inspect the internal Spell Formula, all he saw was a blur.
He had been at it for hours.
‘...It looks like they took measures to prevent anyone from reading the Spell Formula.’
What a nuisance!
There was no helping it. It would take time, but this magnifying glass was an invaluable masterpiece.
It could finely alter the texture of the Spiritual Power waves it emitted.
‘It’ll take some time...’
Still, he had to do it.
Ever since he had put up the workshop’s heirloom gourd bottle after losing its ranking, the sales that had shot through the roof had noticeably dipped over the last few days.
They were still high compared to before, of course, but that was no longer enough for him.
This was Okho Workshop, which had walked the path of sealing implements alone.
There was no way it could fail to decipher the Spell Formula in some measly keychain.
That was when it happened.
Bang!
“Master! Master!!”
His disciple burst through the door.
“Good grief. You’re a grown man, why are you making such a fuss?”
“That isn’t it! Master Do posted another upcoming sale notice!”
“An upcoming sale notice?”
“Master Do is releasing new sealing key rings in a week. Grade 2, no less! And if the element matches, they can even seal Grade 1 spirit beasts?!”
“What?!”
That could not be possible. Grade 1?
It had only been a short time since those Grade 3 key rings appeared.
And now Master Do was releasing something that surpassed them by two whole grades?
‘...Nonsense.’
How could anyone develop a new Ritual Implement so quickly?
‘Damn it...’
Master Do had to be the direct disciple of some sealing implement craftsman hidden away in another country.
There was simply no other explanation.
‘Hah. Fine. If my opponent is backed by the secrets of a lifetime...’
There was only one thing left to do.
Before those items sold out, he had to peel away the Spell Formula on this Rabbit Keychain as soon as possible and catch up.
“Tch... So how long is the sales period?”
Six months? A year, to be safe?
If it was that long, he could somehow...
“Um... they say it’s six hours?”
“What?! What kind of lunatic is this?!”
* * *
[Info] Weak men be like: Squat on an ad board for a whole year.
Real men be like: Drop a six-hour limited sale.
└Lol, Do Emperor really operates on a different level.
└Do Emperor’s whole way of thinking seems completely different from ordinary people.
└ Everyone else leaves their listing up for half a year to stay in the rankings one more day.
└ Master Do does not need an ad board because anything Master Do posts goes straight to first place lol.
└ How high do you think it’ll go this time? I’m already excited.
└ Could this be the profound will of Great Do Emperor, who seeks to fill us with dopamine?
[Daily Life] Which one are you all going for out of the three?
Whale / Tiger / Hawk
└ Definitely Whale. Spiritual Power recovery is the most broken.
└ Nah, the Hawk has style. You can’t pass up Lightning Energy Refinement lol.
└ So what even is Lightning Energy Refinement?
└ Dunno. It just means your lightning gets fucking stronger lol.
└ But even if you buy one, do any of you have a Grade 1 spirit beast to put in it?
└ ......
└ I don’t care, I’m buying first lol. The item comes first. Who cares about the spirit beast??
└ For real. Max out your loans, win the auction, then worry about the spirit beast later.
└ This is correct.
└ You people have the cart before the horse so bad lol.
[Daily Life] Breaking) Goblin Bank these days.jpg
(Photo)
What’s with this whole line? No way, right?
└????
└ Lololol, look at that line. Are they insane?
└ Nice bait. There are always lines there.
└ For real, how many people could even afford that? lol.
└ ...Right? It can’t be that, right?
.
.
.
‘Ahem, the reaction isn’t bad this time either.’
At first, I had only planned to sell a few mass-market models.
But while making them, something felt lacking.
Since I had focused on portability, both their Spiritual Power capacity and sealing duration were too short.
‘Hmm... It would be nice if I could make something Grade 2 or higher in a portable size.’
I could not make more gourd bottles, either.
Apparently, the gourd bottle Ji-an had found for me had been an extremely rare variety.
Finding another one would be impossible.
As I thought it over, the sealing implements I had seen in the repository came to mind.
Sealing implements that took advantage of their materials’ properties.
‘...Should I try applying that?’
That sounds fun.
It sounds fun. Hehe.
So I casually asked Ji-an.
“Hmm... It might be difficult to find something like that gourd bottle again, but I think I can find something else.”
A few days later, she really did.
Lightning-struck jujube wood.
Agarwood cured in mudflats for over a hundred years.
The heartwood of an ancient tree said to have survived a massive forest fire.
Every single material was rare beyond belief.
‘...She really does have a knack for finding incredible materials.’
It seemed Ji-an had an information network of her own.
‘Well, I don’t need to know that much.’
The basic principle of a sealing implement was that the outer Spell Formula suppressed and contained whatever was inside.
Since whatever was sealed within would not stay still, its resistance gradually wore down the implement, preventing it from holding things for long.
But what if the material contained the same element?
What if, instead of suppressing it, I added a Spell Formula with similar properties to make the inside comfortable?
In other words, I would furnish the interior like a suite in a five-star hotel!
The kind of room where, once you lie down, you completely forget about checking out.
...Well, the door had been designed to open only from the outside anyway.
They would not struggle, so the seal would last longer.
And with no resistance, it could contain far more Spiritual Power.
‘...Hehe. Am I a genius or what?’
The materials were so good that I got a little greedy while inscribing the formulas.
Since I was at it, I decided to preserve the properties each material contained as additional effects!
The lightning-struck jujube wood had lightning circuits formed when it was struck.
Every layer of the agarwood’s growth rings was steeped in Water Energy.
The ancient tree that had survived the wildfire had a structure like a furnace within its core.
After modifying, refining, and inscribing the circuits to suit each grain of the materials...
The whale’s absorbed Water Energy replenished the spirit beast’s Spiritual Power.
The hawk’s lightning circuits amplified Lightning Energy even further.
The tiger’s furnace-like core warmed up Fire Energy.
That was how these three were created.
Deep-Sea Whale.
Erupting Tiger.
Lightning Hawk.
They were a little larger than the mass-market key rings, about the size of a fist, but everyone would probably be satisfied with performance like this.
“Wow... Do-hyeon, you’re really... a genius! A genius!”
Ji-an took the completed key rings and spent a long while turning them this way and that, making a huge fuss.
“Then let’s post these once the mass-market products are selling well and the timing feels right!”
“How long should the sales period be? The materials are hard to find again, and these are high-end products... Maybe at least three months?”
Hmm, that was the conventional approach.
...But that would be a shame.
“No. Six hours.”
“...What?!”
“Things like this attract more people when the time is short.”
Instead, I would post the upcoming sale notice and performance details one week in advance.
Let them look at them all week and make them desperately want one.
“It works just like home shopping. ‘Selling out fast! Five minutes left!’ Then everyone picks up the phone as if they’re enchanted, right?”
People naturally became more impulsive when they did not have much time.
“...!”
Ji-an’s eyes gradually widened.
“Do-hyeon... If you went into business, you would’ve made a fortune!!”
.
.
.
That was how it happened.
Hehehe.
‘Well, that’s part of it, but...’
The thrilling dopamine rush of watching bids rise in real time!
That was what I really wanted to feel.
An auction was best when it was short, intense, and blazing hot.
It was no fun if it dragged on too long.
[Daily Life] It’s finally today.
From 6:00 PM to midnight.
I cleared all my requests. Are you all ready?
└Lol, what professionalism.
└ Raise your hand if you took the day off.
└ There is only one of each. Do you really think any of you can buy one?
└ Even if we can’t buy one, we have to watch, idiot.
└ For real. The auction tab shows every bidder’s nickname. Watching to see who’s throwing money around is the fun part lol.
└ Watching the big spenders wage war with their money in real time lol. It’s so damn fun.
* * *
“D-Do-hyeon! Five minutes left, five minutes!”
‘All right. Let’s see how this goes.’
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
At last.
[6:00 PM]
Ding!
[The auction has begun.]
Footnotes:
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