With eyes that were swimming with gold, the assistant eagerly guided them into a private consultation room.

It was not uncommon for people to come to these establishments to sell their items, as it acted somewhat like an auction house, although without the bidding. The business offered up items, took a cut of the price - a cut that was usually in the millions, mind you - and acted as a middle man.

Perhaps instead of an auction house, it was better to think about it as a pawn shop for the wealthy. Which was actually more accurate, as these types of establishments were perfect for laundering money, hence why no one complained about them taking their cuts.

It was a poorly kept secret that no one could really do anything about. Rich people created or ’found’ certain items, such as art, and brought them into the establishment with a recommendation from an appraiser that the individual themselves hired or personally knew.

The Appraiser would naturally value it incredibly high, and they would then sell it for that insanely high price, even if it was a price that was utterly ridiculous. With a nice route for clean money, everyone won.

Especially if it was their child that created the art piece, because then they could play pretend that they were an actual artist that sold pieces for billions, even if that piece was just sneezing orange juice onto a picture of a dog. That particular piece sold for 2.6 Billion Ollies, by the way.

That was part of the issue for Valerie, however. She was not claiming this was an art piece, but a discovered artefact, and she had no fake verification lined up. However, she had a plan for that.

As part of the privacy of the consultation room, as soon as the door was closed the outside noise immediately shut off. It was completely soundproof, with thick walls that obstructed radio waves and disrupted net connections.

It even had its own controlled climate, with a separate heat zone around the exterior, to make sure that thermal vision could not be used. Essentially, if a spying method existed, they had went to great lengths to counteract it.

The employee sat down in front of them, his mouth still twisted into a disturbing, greed filled grin, as he rubbed his hands together like a fly. As for the two vampires, Valerie remained seated, while Bai Yin took her place in the corner, following her natural training both as a bodyguard and assassin.

With that training, and her disturbing lack of bodily functions such as breathing or a heartbeat, she practically became one with the wall. So much so that as soon as you looked away from her, you found yourself forgetting that she existed.

And that was without her using her magic skills.

"My throat is parched." Valerie said plainly, her eyes overflowing with disdain as she finally spoke for the first time.

The salesman flinched slightly, glancing between Valerie and Bai Yin, before grabbing a nearby jug of water and quickly pouring it for her. He slid the glass over to her, laughing nervously, before pausing as Valerie glanced at the glass and then looked back up at him.

She raised an eyebrow suspiciously, a prompt he knew all too well, as he immediately poured himself another glass and drank it without hesitation. Even if they had not had a successful poisoning attack in over two years, that never stopped people trying or from worrying about it.

After that, Valerie did not speak again. Sitting in complete silence, not even reaching for the water he had poured for her, and let him sweat out what he had drunk, as they waited for the expert to arrive.

Five torturous minutes later, the salesman practically leapt out of his chair when the door opened, allowing some sound to sneak in, before closing it behind him.

"Ah, Mister Bloom! I am glad to see you. These ladies here have brought with them a most interesting item and would like to discuss their collection, if you would be so kind as to verify it.

A formality, I am sure." The salesman laughed nervously again, swiping his hair from his face and then wringing his grubby, sweaty fly hands once more.

Valerie glanced at the newcomer. This ’Mister Bloom’ was barely older than themselves, but carried himself with the dignity and refined nature of a noble. Although he was dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, every item of clothing - including his underwear - was designer and custom made. Because for some reason, rich people needed underwear that perfectly fitted their butts, even if there wasn’t much to fit and support from Valerie’s quick inspection.

He had gold plated implants covering most of his forearms, as well as plating his whole fingers, as if he had dipped his fingers into liquid gold. The same had been done with his eyes, as he had iris replacements.

Valerie raised her hand and snapped her fingers, causing them to both flinch as Bai Yin stepped forwards, as Mister Bloom only now noticed that there was a third individual in the room and the salesmen almost felt like she was lunging to kill him.

Although she might have enjoyed that, Bai Yin instead took the wrapped up coin from her pocket and presented it to the expert.

His brow immediately creased into a deep frown, as he took the coin from Bai Yin. He ran his fingers over it, his eyes changing colour as his implants started to carry out multiple different scans and inspections.

No longer did people need to bite gold or wear special scopes to inspect diamonds, it could all be installed into your eyes themselves, if you were unlike Valerie that is.

However, Valerie’s eyes had their own uniqueness. As she watched this mans expressions shift with confusion at the positive results his scans were giving him, Valerie trickled some mana into her eyes.

The red spattering in her iris’ slowly but surely glowed brighter as the crimson overtook her mixed colour eyes, fully changing them to red. It was thankful that such a change was not unusual in her world.

"Well Mister Bloom?" The Salesman asked, "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

There it was! That was what Valerie had been waiting for. Now all she needed was for the man to raise his head and question her about the coin.

He would look in her eyes, ready to ask her the question, and she would give him the answer. An answer she was going to worm into his mind and make him accept as fact, with a little hypnotic influence.

Everything was going exactly to plan, until Mister Bloom finally spoke.

"Yes, I believe I have."