Why this exchange could not be done like the others? She was not quite sure, however when the old man in front of her smiled. It gave me the creeps. He was so tense, there was an invisible aura around him that weighted down on both me and Mimi, it was quite strong but not strong enough to actually affect me, but it was still scary so I turned tense too, Mimi looked down and gave my hand a little squeeze, reassuring me as my eyes pierced the old men and he did the same thing right back.

After a little, while he chuckled and the tense aura was gone, and he seemed just like a good-natured elderly man raising his hand towards the Sofa was he placed the Box that held my price on the desk, the first thing I did was grab a cookie, sniffing it first, it didn't smell dangerous so I had one while starring at the old man with my entire hostile might. While Mimi was simply confused looking.

"Well.." The old man coughed awkwardly "Usually this is the time when the arriving party introduces themselves to the elder and pays their respect.. but I suppose... I'm expecting too much." He twirled his long mustache before pushing the box further toward me and Mimi, both of us a little stunned by the display and words, it did not help that I wasn't very social and Mimi was nervous.

"My Name is Elder Ironback, I'm currently the overseer of this branch," he explained his grey eyes narrowed a little as he stared at the silent both of us, so after a moment I opened my mouth but before I could bring out any words Mimi had already spoken.

"We are Mimi and Kou, no surnames." She explained quickly while reaching over to grab the box and putting it on my lap. I forgot that Mimi had been a courtesan for quite some time, so while she was probably awestruck for a moment and certainly nervous she was much more eloquent and talkative than me, which .. to be honest, was good for me, I'd rather not speak to much.

"As for anything else, I'm afraid I can not tell you, Elder. We do not wish to create any waves." Mimi continued, I blinked a little while my fingers played with the latch of the box. The Elder still eying me but had most of his attention on Mimi now who spoke.

"I see... Well usually those with means such as yours are afforded private booths, so it was quite shocking, to be honest, to see you bid on this, and to that degree, usually, we are informed of such things beforehand."

At that moment I taped the little bag on my waist and pulled out the small mountain of Spiritstones, filling the table between us, It was the amount the bidding came down to, which basically left us with a few hundred or so normal Spirit stones, and a few handfuls of the very large ones I didn't know about.

The oldtimer laughed at that looking at me again. "Straightforward aren't we? Very well, you are indeed right. In the end, money is money, even if you have offended someone quite troublesome for us, and for you." At his words, I could see Mimi look a bit concerned. "So this person will waylay us to try and take it by force then? Or will she make trouble for us otherwise?"

The Oldman laughed and shook his head. "Oh no, no, she is not one like that. She knows better to understand that such wealth has backing, and she is not very bloodthirsty anyway, just difficult to deal with..." At that point, I felt the temperature drop as the door flew open. A woman entered wearing a white outfit that barely counted as clothing, leaving barely anything to the imagination, long and deep leg slits in a short skirt, a fully exposed midriff with her chest bound up in a flowery and short top, she wore a silky sash as well seethrough and floating behind her, giving her a weird fairy-like appearance.

I opened my mouth and closed it again, turning to Mimi "This Lady is naked..."

Stating the obvious, but I could not help myself it just felt so odd to look at, I had seen plenty of naked but even the whores would dress up in layers. So it was just so weird, why did she feel the need to display... everything like that? My Innocent comment seems to have stopped the angered Lady in her tracks, her face flushed and her expression loose as she stared with an open hanging mouth.

Old Ironback gave a cough and smiled at the Lady. "Lady Iceheart from the Ice Palace, I welcome you in this little old man's business room, but I can not help but feel wronged by the manner of entry into a transaction you have shown." His voice shook the woman out of her stupor. She moved her hands and took on a haughty pose as she stared at him.

"I do not care about your discomfort, Elder Ironback, my Master has specifically ordered you to acquire this, and you are aware of the situation, so fix it. Neither I nor you want me to return empty-handed, my Master would skin everyone here alive." She said ignoring me and Mimi entirely. Mimi seemed to be somehow offended by the woman, her expression was sour, as she picked me up and held me close.

"Well, I do wish you the best of luck at this but we need to return, as we have finished our transaction and will now return home." Her tone was steady but she clearly did not want anything to do with this situation any further, so she started walking only to be stopped by a hand.

"You will stay here until I tell you can leave." Said the girl, continuing but was interrupted by a cough from the Elder. "I can not let you do that Miss Ice heart, you as much as me know the rules." He said as Mimi just glared at the woman, who glared right back. "The rules do not matter clearly these peopl.."

But she could not continue as Mimi simply walked past her using some of her energy to enhance her speed, making the girl unable to stop her in time. "You stay right here!" She said reaching over before her hand was stopped by the Elder who seemed to have actually teleported from his seat holding onto Iceheart's hand. "Our transaction has been completed I will remind Lady Iceheart of the rules of our establishment again for a few minutes, you should go ahead and return home, young ladies."

Neither I nor Mimi cared overly much about this interaction or the woman's anger. instead, we hurried outside, brushing past some people who seemed to want to talk to us, or rather specifically to Mimi because she at least was mostly an adult, but she simply bulldozed her way through them, and quickly entered the main streets outside, walking among the normal people.

I noticed that people were following us at first, but somehow they seemed to lose us as we walked around the city, taking many corners before simply jumping the wall at some point and leaving to quickly enter the woods outside.

"What was that all about...?" I asked Mimi who seemed to have a grave expression on her face as she continued walking while carrying me. However, I wiggled my way out and ran next to her after a while, unable to hold still for that long.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"To be honest, I do not really know. Bidding is always a pretty serious thing. I have heard from clients before that went to normal auctions where people would waylay them later and take their price if they could not outbid them. Also transactions between auction houses and buyers where the bidding was supposedly just a scam to appease other forces.. where one party knows the budget of any potential buyer beforehand and has already talked to the Auction House and set the price so it would be just above it... stuff like that." Mimi spoke a bit slowly, this was just fantasy hearsay she had heard from rich men after all.

"Apparently it's all rather nasty... but I did not expect that the Immortal Auction-houses would be just like it?" She seemed a bit miffed about it. "I don't know I kinda thought they would be much more... pristine and fair? But apparently, it's just as shady. We should count ourselves lucky that apparently, nobody too powerful was there.. otherwise we would probably already have been hunted down. Also, you seem to scare quite a few people."

My head tilted at that while I walked. "Me? Scary? Weirdos...Who is scared of a child.." This seemed silly.

"Mh, it seems to be about your ears and tail, as you could see none of the Immortals seemed to be quite that different. Maybe you are something powerful and rare." Mimi gave a chuckle at that. "From what I could feel most people were around our power level or below, at an age around mine or older, so you being almost as strong with how small you are... and looking as you do, they probably think you are someone with great backing."

I guess that made sense. My gaze wandered around before finally spotting her "Over there is Li." The whole thing about my appearance being weird, strangely didn't bother me at all. In fact, I felt like I might even like people looking at me with awe and fear, it was better than anger and pity that's for sure. "Well..good thing the old man stopped that lady I guess..." He seemed to be fairly amused and troubled at the same time over the entire interaction, making me wonder if we were going to see him again at some point.

Still...Nothing else happened on the way home leaving me with my thoughts and the comfortable feeling I got from the box in my hands. It felt similar to the nice feeling I got whenever I was surrounded by ice and snow, while I was concentrating on the box I could vaguely hear Mimi talk to Li to take a more quiet and difficult route back home instead of the quick one. And so riding the large Tiger we finally returned home. Sadly without any livestock... Mimi seemed devasted as she realized we had forgotten that.

...

A week or so after the Auction~

I found myself in my most beloved spot once more, sitting crosslegged near the glacier ice on a huge flat rock, surrounded by snow and ice, soft little flakes gently falling down from the sky. The air was icy and fresh, and each breath filling my lungs felt like joy. It was weird to me really, taking so much joy in the simple action of breathing. But with each breath, I could feel myself becoming a tiny bit stronger, I could feel something changed within me. Cultivating was hard. I had to fight my restless legs, and Cultivating itself also took a toll on my mind and body, so I could only do it for so much time a day, but ever since I had found this area it was by far my favorite part of the day.

It even beat food.

As for my new flower friend. Luckily in one of the books we had gotten for Lu there were some instructions on how to take care of it. And... to be honest, It was probably the easiest plant in the world... at least for me specifically. The flower that looked like a little closed Lotus was currently floating in a small pond I had carved out of the glacier ice. I had filled it with some leftover Spiritwater and it seemed set and happy, slowly growing bigger. I also had to feed it with my own energy every few days, which was fine. It slowed my cultivation down quite a bit but the comforting cold I could feel from the flower made me happy. I never had taken care of anything else before and I was intent on making this flower bloom into a wonderful fairy!

Maybe we could even be friends.

These were my intentions whenever I fed the flower, according the the book, what you felt when you fed the flower would influence what the fairy was like, but I didn't want to fill it with weird things, I just wanted it to grow up and feel good. No ambitions or anything like that. I would become strong slowly anyway, I didn't need a fairy to help me with that.

It was my own little project, Lu had come up and drawn weird circles around my little pond at some point apparently "Shielding" the place from prying eyes. In my honest opinion.. the Monkey took way to well to all this nonsensical magic stuff, like formations and runes, alchemy, and all that! But I was thankful for it. I was attached to this flower and wanted to see it bloom someday after all.

Mimi had taken another trip to the city, after dying her hair brown for the trip. She had brought back with her a couple of goats, sheep, and for some reason a dog. The Dog was big shaggy and laid back with a build like a bear but the temperament of a back fisherman. She had also resolved any other things we needed to buy to make our little paradise more perfect.

"Well I like dogs, and he was just there and seemed to like the sheep so I bought him too."

Was Mimi's excuse for bringing the animal, but to be fair I did not mind as much. I had a weird dislike for dogs somehow, but this one seemed at least quiet and calm, even if he always looked at me a bit strangely. The other animals seemed to have quickly taken to the valley and Mimi was working on building a barn out of bamboo and wood with the help of Lu, because he had thumbs. Li was not very helpful in building things. Something she seemed to dislike.

As for me. I spend most of my time out here, relaxing and being by myself. I still spend lots of time with the others, but had quickly realized that I did enjoy being by myself quite a bit. If I was surrounded by people for too long I would get cranky and desperate to leave, so everyone seems to have understood that I needed my alone time. Even if Mimi still insisted I came back home at night for sleep... Which I did not feel like I needed to do much more. But because she was basically the only Motherly figure I knew... I still listened just to make her happy.

Still, there was something missing, something I felt like I should be doing.. something that excited me, and it was not just me that got antsy, Li also went for longer and longer trips away from home, Looking for something...straying far and wide, exploring the mountain range. And sometimes I joined her for it. Not this time however so when Li excitedly hopped up the mountain towards my spot I was rather curious what had gotten the Tiger so excited.

"Kou~ I found something good... Something wild..." There was this gleam in her eyes, and I felt excitement as well getting up and closing the Ice flower into ice, hiding it even further. "Oh? What's that? Something exciting it seems!" My tail was wagging already.

Li nodded. "I found a large cave full of Monsters, It's filled with magical energy too! icky brown energy.. so it's earth aspect!" She nodded. "I only took a peek, but it's a large cave system full of large insect-like creatures and walking boulders! It seems to be some kind of hive thing!" She was very excited... and I felt it too. We exchanged looks. "I think.. it's a Spirit node."

From the books Lu made us read or read to us, we knew about places like that. Places where the energy of Haven and Earth was thick usually formed such places in various forms. Spirit-beasts, demons, elementals, and other creatures nested there and made it their home... forming what is known as a spirit node. Combating creatures in these nodes would not only further your cultivation, by absorbing some of the amassed energy in their bodies, but you could also find treasures in these places, like the Spirit-flower she had herself. Or other things like magical rocks, and sometimes even weapons!

I felt a tingling sensation on my back as my excitement grew and I pulled out the spear I had taken for myself. "Let's explore it!" I was not even thinking straight, it was like my desire to .... too... hunt was overwhelming me, and Li seemed to be the same. Neither of us bothered to tell the other two for now, we would just take a quick peek... maybe fight 1 or 2 Monsters and then come back, right?