Shopping was nice? Kind of actually. Having money was never something I connected to something positive, I could have a lot of money, and pickpocket quite a few people, but given my appearance and age I would either be stolen from, beaten up or the guards were called whenever I tried to pay for something. So going around hand in hand with Mimi like this and handing out money left and right was quite something.
Soon we left the more "Posh" area and entered the central square with the large building in the middle. An Auction House? At least that is what the large sign said. Most people would stay very clear of the large multilayered building, using the outer edges of the square to move around, nobody ever really got close to the building. And quite quickly I could tell why. We all saw them. A group of young people appeared in the sky, some women were flying on large white birds, and young men stood on flying swords.
The men were dressed in clothes much like ours, flowing and proper multilayered robes, with long sleeves. The girls wore a variety of clothes, one of them wore a very scandalous outfit that looked like some kind of fairy dress, and barely covered anything, Others wore proper clothes, and yet others had pure white dresses, each person was beautiful and pretty in some way.
However, they also did not pay attention at all to anyone around them but themselves and their peers, and the ground dwellers stayed clear of the path around them, they were in fact the only ones that did not stay that far away from it, using the ample space to not be forced to walk in the crowded area. Some people looked at us funny, but none would say a word that was until someone landed in front of us.
It was a young man including an entourage of other young adults, 3 boys and 2 girls in total. Each of them was very pretty. I found my gaze wandering over them for a moment, it was a bit weird seeing such handsome people, but being around Mimi had desensitized her a little bit at this point. None of them was as pretty as her, at least in my humble opinion.
These people kind of surrounded them, each of them had a playful expression their eyes showing a rather mean streak as they stared them down, clearly Something was up here, and they did not like them just walking on the Plaza for whatever reason, there was even quiet giggling from the two girls who looked especially unhappy at Mimi, to me both of them seemed like venomous little snakes.
The guy in front was tall, around 180cm with long flowing brown hair and dark eyes. His figure was a mystery as he wore flowing wide robes that only showed his broad shoulders, next to him hovered a glowing fancy flying Sword in the shape of a blade of grass. The Man looked sternly at them for a moment, his eyes glowing but then they flashed in surprise.
"I greet you, fellow cultivators, on this fine day." He did a little bow, much to the surprise of his goons. I could imagine neither of them was able to see that both Mimi and she were cultivators like he could, From their expressions before I had a fairly good idea of what they wanted to do, bully us off the plaza. They had these smug expressions older kids had in the streets where they were the top dog.
Now to the problem. Mimi was clearly awestruck by this man's handsome face and was already blushing. So instead of letting Mimi make a fool of herself I stepped forward looking at the man, doing a little bow back, much the same as he had, Mini quickly following suit.
"I'll greet you back, do you want something from us?" I asked, while my gesture might've been polite my voice was cold, laced with actual ice, and the ambient temperature dropped a little, it wasn't an attack but I made it clear that I was well aware of their intentions. Starring at the people in the back my pupils turned into fine slits which made them step back a little. While I had no fancy Magic to see what people's powers were like the man in front of me, I could read their body language and expressions and could tell that they were weak, definitely weaker than me, and for sure weaker than Mimi, while the one in front seemed to be at least on par with me.
The man was surprised for a moment, clearly, he had not expected this much hostility from me but quickly waved his hand in an apologetic gesture. "It was our mistake, my name is Illdon. I am a member of the Ancient Cloud Sect." He said that name with some gusto, apparently assuming it would have any meaning to myself or Mimi, which it didn't so I continued to stare at him unimpressed and kind of angry, I wasn't a fan of bullies.
Taken aback that the namedrop had not pacified her made Illdon smile disarmingly. "Very well, I apologize for our sudden engagement, we were not aware of your status as you walked like mortals." He said in an apologetic tone. "How about that, I'll invite you to join me in the auction house for today. I am in a position of great luck and have a few tickets to my name." Now that he had seen their strength this man seemed to be very eager to make friends, his gaze wandering to Mimi especially who remained silent throughout the conversation, she seemed more intimidated and awestruck than Kou, this was their first real interaction with proper Cultivators after all.
However, when they were invited she gave a quick nod! "If you invite us then we will of course join!" She said with a bright smile. I was satisfied to see that all 3 men had a faint blush on their faces seeing this, while the girl's gaze seemed to become even more unhappy. Now it was Mimi's turn to awe those around her, her smile was infectious so I also smiled.. a lot meaner than her but I simply nodded.
I was interested in this Auction. And we did have quite a few Spirit stones between the inheritance of the Elder and those I had stolen from the youth.
What followed was a bit funny actually, Illdon the leader of this group quickly eyed his own party pointing at one of the boys and one girl and dismissing them. The girl especially was not happy at this, staring daggers at Mimi, weirdly enough I seemed to be left out of the hate, the boy just shrugged and nodded he clearly was not very attached to it, so after a moment of huffing from the girl they left.
Illdon included us in his party, the other girl and boy making sure to stand behind Mimi at all times, Weirdly enough they did not want to walk in front of her for some reason. Maybe because Mimi was pretty strong? Who knew, I certainly did not and I did not bother to ask as I simply walked next to her, still holding her hand, neither of us had let go.
"The Auction this day will be quite something." Illdon was having a conversation with himself as I wasn't keen to talk as always and Mimi seemed kind of shy and reserved, but.. apparently, he loved hearing himself talk so he continued to explain what was going on today.
"There will be a few high-level artifacts on sale today! I have been told an Elder is opening his coffers to sell what he had collected in life in a bid to buy some lifespan-prolonging items. So there will probably be quite a bit of treasure to be found. My own Master handed me 100 Spiritstones and 10 Medium Spiritstones, for a total of 1100 Spiritstones!" This was actually interesting, he even showed them some of his wealth like a moron. If I was alone she might've just snatched it. But seeing the size and glow of the spirit stones was good information. I could figure out that way that most of our stones were Medium Spiritstones, there were a few hundred of them, mixed with quite a number of normal ones, and a handful of larger ones that I would assume would be an even higher grade than Medium.
Good.
My attention ebbed away as he continued to drone on about how he was keen on buying a new protective artifact of some sort. Instead wandered into the storage bag I had with me. I could sense what was inside so instead of listening to him talk as we walked I was counting the Stones. Who would've guessed that all that Math training and counting actually would amount to anything useful? Kou felt a bit begrudgingly thankful to Lu for his insistence on teaching her.
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Given how highly Illdon had spoken of the "10 Medium Spirit-Stones" Kou could summarize that they were quite wealthy.
All in all, they had more normal Spirit stones than she would bother to count right now, it was clearly a few thousands. As for the Medium ones they had 844 of them, It took a while to count them, but Illdon was still speaking so Kou could continue to mull over numbers. As for the larger stones they had 32. She had no idea what that was but probably a lot.
Finally, they arrived at the place of the Auction a large room that was shaped like an amphitheater with a stage in the middle there were already quite a few people present having picked their seats, and while they sat down in the area just next to the stage I noticed that above there were private booths, with curtains of silk that clearly were magical and made it impossible to see more then silhouettes behind them. That must be where the important people watched.
I peeked up as Illdon was currently explaining how the auction worked, one of the girls he had come with had asked him with a honeyed voice clearly trying to stroke his ego more than actually wanting the information. It worked as the man seemed rather elated to explain more. "Of course, Of course, this is your first Auction, isn't it?´Well, let me explain." I was rolling my eyes at this point, while Mimi seemed to have finally come back to life, squeezing my hand a little as she grinned behind her sleeve at me, clearly she had only been enchanted with the man's appearance for a little bit, but his demeanor... was breaking his image so much.
He continued his tone rather know-it-all-ish with a wide grin and superior expression. "Well, it is quite simple actually, if we wish for something or wish to bid for something we only have to raise a hand and call out the amount, and the auctioneer will note or bid down, they have special magic here that helps them to have no bid go unnoticed! So no joke bidding, it will be taken seriously!"
That was easy enough, I leaned over to Mimi to whisper in her ear. "We actually have quite a bit of money.. so if you really want something tell me." Mimi blinked and nodded, whispering back. "Sure... he really does like to hear his own voice, does he not? It kind of ruins his handsome image..." This made me giggle, luckily quiet enough for Illdon not to notice as he was currently telling the tale of how he 'Heroically' had outbid an opponent some time ago, grossly enough, the other girl was hanging on his lips, giving him exactly what he wanted.
Finally, the curtains rose and an elderly man with a long white beard appeared on it, next to an impressively large table that had weird runes carved into it. I could right away tell that it was magical too, feeling the spiritual energy from it. The man did a little nod towards the crowd before bowing specifically towards the little booths above.
"Welcome to the Treasure Pavillions 704's Auction! Today we have quite a few..."
And at that point, I turned my attention to other people around, most of them seemed quite confident and had solemn expressions, nobody was talking anymore even Illdon had shut up as the old man gave a little speech. Before presenting the first item of the day.
"This my Friends is an Emerald Wind brooch. It holds the power of a 4th-level green albatross, allowing the user to summon blades of wind to cut down their foes. In testing, we could confirm its strength and it's certified as a mid-tier artifact." There were some murmurs and the bidding started at 900 Spiritstones and quickly went up by increments of 10 to 50.
Finally, after a rather heated bidding contest, it was sold for 3200 Spirit stones. Apparently, the auction always started with a somewhat strong or rare item to keep people excited and would end with the most expensive item of the night.
To be honest it was kind of boring here the items they sold were not particularly interesting to her at all, she had no connection to any of their value, or what any of the descriptions meant. What even was a 4th level green albatross? She got no clue, and for much of the Auction, this theme continued.
However, in the middle part, there were some items that interested her. Mainly books. A book on Alchemy recipes was being sold."This tome has been handed to us by the Golden-Core Master Ironback. A renowned Alchemist, due to its nature as written material it has been sealed and will only be opened upon purchase. According to Master Ironback it olds beginners to intermediate Alchemy recipes he has created himself, as well as basic instructions. The starting price is 2000 Spiritstones."
There was quiet in the room for a little time, before someone from above in the little private rooms made a loud "Harmph" noise. "I can assure you this article is genuine." A decrepit male voice somehow filled the entire room. I did not really care about the others but Lu would love a book like that, she was very sure! So Kou raised her hand. "2010" She said.
There was a bit of a murmur but nobody seemed to want to bid on it much more, not until another angry "Hrmphs" came from above, some people shly started to bid, but none seemed very interested to be honest, so, in the end, I got it for probably cheaper then it's creator wanted, only 2200 Spirit stones! Which was quickly taken from her by a young lady, who handed her the book. It was a very quick interaction and the Auction continued.
It wasn't until half an hour later that Mimi was poking me a few times, she had dozed off at this point, everything else was just weapons and items she could not place any value too. But Mimi seemed to have paid attention quite a bit, currently, there was a set of ribbons for sale. Apparently if used by two people they could communicate over long distances together. It wasn't a particularly awesome item like the ones that could throw lightning or wind blades but it was pretty and useful for them. She handed Mimi the storage bag that held all the money and nodded.
5 minutes later there were 200 spirit stones poorer and each of them had a pretty white ribbon with cherry blossom embroidery, quite nice! I put them away into the bag for now. After that, it was a whole lot of nonsense that I had no idea what to do with, Pills, Elixiers, Weapons, and even creatures got sold off to people.
It was finally time for the end. What arrived was a small jade, that made me curious right away, I could feel a strong icy aura from it, and when the Old Man opened the lid for a moment I stood up and leaned forward. Inside the box was a small frozen flower, it was closed but emitted a strong icy energy.
"Our Treasure for today is a Frost-Fairy-Flower from the Demon Realm! It hosts a fairy of frost inside of it! And is a perfect Cultivation tool for frozen arts! And if nutured correctly one could even form a contract with the fairy! The starting price is 10000 Spiritstones!"
There was a reaction! Many people stared at the Flower with bloodshot eyes, some even stood up like I had. There was a murmur around the entire theatre and a loud voice suddenly called "11000" from above, The bidding started and quickly the price was above 20000.
I went quiet and sat down, she looked at Mimi. "If you want it and we have enough buy it." She said nodding slightly, Mimi seemed to not care that I was about to throw away a big chunk of our money, but .. I really wanted that flower, it wasn't anything about what the man had said about it but .. my body reacting to it, I could feel the icy energy, it was comforting and I wanted it badly.
"30000" I called out when the bid was around 27000. This shut up quite a few of the people below, some even looked at Kou with a vexed expression. However, the voices from above did not stop at all. Quickly the bid was above 35000.
Leaving the large Spirit stones out since she had no idea of their value, they had around 80000 spirit stones medium spirit stones left, and a small hill of normal spirit stones that had shrunk a little bit from their purchases so far so it was probably around 20000? Something around that. Making it about 100000 they had a total of spending power, not counting the big spiritstones.
My head was hurting with all of these numbers, but I tried my hardest to concentrate. We had quite a bit and I really wanted this! When the bid hit 36000 I called out again.
"38000"
There was a sharp breath from above and then silence for a bit, the Auctioneer looked upwards, giving ample waiting time. Before an icy female voice spoke "50000"
That increase was huge... Kou felt uneasy about it, the voice was rather powerful, and she could feel that the temperature had sunk in the entire auction house, but she wasn't about to give up.
"51000!"
"52000"
"53000"
It continued on until the price hit 70000 on my bit. And there was silence from above. I was sweating at this point, everyone was staring at me in disbelief and respect. Then there was a sigh from above and the voice spoke. "If the Junior wants this flower so badly, this Senior will take a step back," This gave another murmur around the theatre.
And finally, the little jade box with the flower was mine. It even came with a little instruction on how to take care of it, and I felt pretty good about myself, even if Mimi was rather pale at this point, probably because it was so cold in the room... everyone seemed to shiver.. well except me.
"The transaction will happen upstairs.." A young lady said to Kou guiding her and Mimi of towards a different door and up some stairs into a large and lavish champer with two Sofas...There was an old man there holding the box and .. cookies were on the table... Nice!