To be fair, the very first auction for the Goleo statue went from 2mil to 7.5mil in one go..
It's still a really dumb thing to do though.
Notice the chair . The chairs are arranged based on social status. Front row(sofa) are the highest in social rank more likely royalty or duke rank . Second row(sofa chair) are middle ranked noble. Third row where the mc seat are for rich merchants and auctioneers and the last rows are for everyone else.
the first bidders are rich merchants(still commoners in the eyes of nobles) or low nobles and the one that outbid them with large margin is a high noble(first row). The main reason why they only increment only a little is because they want the item paying
little cost as possible. That the thing, what a high noble and rich merchant consider low cost are different.
Now we go to the orichalcum auction. The first bidders are the high nobles judging from the sofa chair (second row) and the bid amount while our mc here at the rich merchant seat.
What dumb per say is not only the huge gap but also he bid against high nobles who are known to have huge egos and excess pride. What would happen if they got beaten by a person they consider beneath them .
Even if they are rare nobles who are not easily offended they might still want to use him.
He definitely have their attention now.