Chapter 005: Windfall

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The next day.

Lying on his bed, Chrono contemplated on what he should do with his remaining money and how he should increase it.

After yesterday’s transaction, I am down to approximately $280,000. How should I earn more money? Back to the Casino? Nah. They would ban me sooner or later and I might get into trouble with the authorities…

Looking at his status screen again, he tried to see if there is any skills or abilities he missed out that could help him earn more money.

If only I can play the a few more times…

Suddenly, he remembered that he had a precious stone that he drew from the previous lucky draw in his inventory. Opening his inventory, Chrono withdraw it from his storage space. The precious stone was cool to touch and very pretty..

Turning on his computer, Chrono used the search engine to look for information on his precious stone. Typing the word “raw red precious stone” and went to images to look for a picture that was similar to what he had. However, after browsing for 10 minutes, he still couldn’t find a stone that looked like the one he had.

Weird… Why can’t I find it on the internet? Does it mean that this stone do not exist on earth? I hope not. If not how am i able to sell it soon? I would run out of time before I get a buyer for an unknown stone. Maybe I should change my keywords.

This time, Chrono typed in “rare red stone”. Lo and behold, the first image was the exact same stone he had lying next to his keyboard. Clicking on the image, he looked for more information on the stone, most importantly, the name of the stone.

Red diamond? Since when is diamond red? I thought that diamond which is woman’s best friend is white? Didn’t know diamonds have so many different colours.

Typing in the word “red diamond” Chrono looked for more information on this so called “red diamond”. After a minute or two, Chrono suddenly shouted out loud, “I’M RICH!!!”.

Among the colored diamond gemstone family, the rarest color of of all is the red diamond. In fact, there are only perhaps 20 to 30 red diamonds known to exist, and most weigh less than half a carat. The size of half a carat is approximately 5.2mm. The stone lying on the table is almost 20cm.

In 2001, the Moussaieff jewellery firm acquired the Moussaieff Red, originally known as the “Red Shield”, it is a triangular brilliant cut or trilliant-cut, fancy red, internally flawless (IF), 5.11ct diamond. for USD 8 million. It’s the largest red diamond in the world today. But not anymore, with the diamond lying on his table, it would definitely shock the world.

Chrono quickly placed the diamond back into his inventory for safekeeping when he realised that his curtain is drawn and there might be people watching him and might find out about his precious stone. However, the truth is that no one is that bored to look at him early in the morning, but people who suddenly have a windfall will naturally become more suspicious of others.

Once again, he went online to check where are the places he will be able to either sell or auction this red diamond off.

What the hell? Singapore doesn’t have any auction houses that deals with gems… What should I do now?

Opening up his status screen, to check how many days were he left with.

[Dead but alive: 14 days left before the special status wears out and the target dies]

After checking out which are the top auction houses, he found out that the top two (Sotebe’s and Cristi’s) originated from United States of America. With such a huge and rare diamond, he need to be more careful and sell or auction it at a trustworthy auction house.

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2 hours later.

“Sir, how can I help you?” The man at the counter asked.

“Hi, I would like to appraise a stone that I found.” Chrono replied with a smile.

“Sir, we do not appraise just any stone that is found on the roadside, the stones we do appraise are gemstones like diamonds, sapphires and other precious stones.” The male looked at Chrono in his T-shirt and jeans and replied condescendingly.

“So are you going to help me get an appraiser?”

“Sir, as I just told you, we do not appraise just any random stone you find on the roadside.”

Chrono spotted another clerk who looked pretty young, most probably around his age, and beckoned her over.

“Sir, how can I help you?” The clerk asked.

“Well, your colleague doesn’t look like he is willing to assign me an appraiser any time soon and I do not have the time to waste with him. So I hope that you will be able to help me get an appraiser. I will let you have more commission from my sales if you do me this favour.” Chrono told the female clerk.

The female looked at her senior then look back at Chrono. This was her first time attending a customer since she started work three months ago. What she did most of the time during work was menial labour. In addition, she was bullied by her senior and was not allowed to attend to any customers that visited Sotebe’s.

Seeing that someone wanted her help, she could not help but feel grateful. Even though this customer doesn’t look like he has anything really expensive to appraise, at least she can gain some experience since this will be her first time after three months of working.

“Audrey at your service, please follow me this way to the appraisal room.”

The senior clerk heard what she said and sneered at her. Thinking that she would most probably be scolded by the head appraiser who was on duty today. If only he knew what Chrono had in his inventory, he would have gotten on his knees to beg Chrono.

Ignoring the sneer from the detestable senior, she led Chrono to the room and asked him if he would like a cup of coffee or tea. After Chrono declined her kind offer, she proceeded towards the appraiser’s office.

When the head appraiser saw Chrono, he hesitated for a bit before he walked over and greeted him. As a professional, he decided that he should not judge a book by it’s cover and be judgmental.

“Good afternoon, esteemed customer. I am the head appraiser and also the Branch Manager. My name is Kim Mok Chuan. How can I help you?” The head appraiser signalled Audrey to close the door as the transaction was about to begin. Audrey then closed the door and stood behind the head appraiser.

Without saying anything, Chrono reached into his empty bag, retrieved his red diamond from his inventory and placed it on the table. As the red diamond is very rare, Mr. Kim definitely have not seen it before. However, he was certain that it was worth some value when he saw it.

“We do need to charge an appraisal fee for the item.” The Mr. Kim informed Chrono.

“How much is the fee?” Chrono knew that they would definitely collect some fees for appraisal but not sure how much it would cost.

Appraisal fees are the main source of profit for the auction house. As for the auction, they only auction items that is worth tons of money.

“There are two types of appraisal fees. The first type is 1% of what the item(s) are worth. This option is normally chosen for antiques worth a few thousand to tens of thousands. The second type is USD 2000 for an item.” Stated Mr. Kim matter-of-factly.

“I see. Then I would like to choose the 2nd option.” Although Chrono doesn’t know exactly how much his red diamond exact value is, but it is definitely worth millions of dollar.

Seeing that Chrono choose so readily, Mr. Kim had a feeling that it was not as simple as it looked. If he was purely an appraiser, he would not be able to get any commision from the sale of gems sold to or auctioned by them. However, he was the branch manager and he was able to receive a commission of 0.0005%. The clerk that attended to the customer would be able to receive a 0.0001% commission as well. However, for the past couple of years, the most expensive gem they dealt with was just worth a few thousand dollars.

After examining the red stone for a few minutes, Mr. Kim could not help but started to boil over in excitement. He immediately rushed out of the appraisal room to get his personal equipment that can measure the stone more accurately. On the other hand, Audrey just stood silently at the side and looked at Mr. Kim puzzledly over his exaggerated actions. After half an hour, Mr. Kim was done with his appraisal and said to Chrono.

“Sir, you have hit the jackpot. This stone you have is the very rare red diamond.”

At this point, Audrey who knew a little about the different type of precious stone, could not help but to cover her mouth and gasped in shock after hearing what Mr. Kim said.

“It has excellent gradings on all four Cs. The net weight of the diamond is 40.1 carat. Each carat’s final price is almost a million dollars and you have a 40.1 carat diamond!”

“I see. So I would get approximately 40 million from the sale of the diamond?” Chrono who did his homework already knew the price of the stone that is in his possession. Unknown to him, what he knew was only the tip of the iceberg.

“No. No. No. The diamond is an intact red diamond. The price I told you is the price for a 1 caret red diamond. The price of an intact red diamond of this size at least need to be multiplied by 30 times.” Mr. Kim dropped the bomb on Chrono.