One trope that I’d thought I understood about xianxia stories was the incomparable value of the auction houses. From simple buying and selling that alone is difficult to overstate why someone without the backing of a dedicated pavilion would find useful, to the ways that the auction houses had dreamt up to keep their nominal neutrality if they weren’t sect-owned, to the secret backroom deals if you were recognized as ‘worthy’ of such illustrious contacts.
For something that had almost no value as a weapon to murder foes with, the theoretical value of access to a reputable auction house was apparent to me.
And yet I still managed to underestimate my gain from Kang’s gratitude.
My first visit with Lee was relatively uneventful. I was introduced to the procedure for putting something up for sale, learned that visiting cultivators have no sense of fiscal value -no seriously, none. I knew it was bad, but merciful heavens had I misjudged it- and became acquainted with the auxiliary services, like the retainer bidders.
While there was only one ‘greater auction’ per month, where treasures and rare materials were hyped up and sold to people who thought money grew on slave-trees, there were also weekly ‘normal’ auctions that were mostly aimed at merchants and craftsmen, featuring foodstuffs, common crafting materials, and low-quality medicinals, suitable to keeping a slave labor force intact.
Retainer bidders existed to allow cultivators without dedicated shopping servants to participate by proxy without interrupting their routines. Having noticed them trying very carefully to catch the eye of lone cultivators and inquiring about them, I chose to employ one. I set up a formal account at the auction house, had my sale goods’ profit added to it, and instructed him of the quality of materials I sought, the maximum to bid on each, and arranged for him to be paid his percentage at the end of each auction instead of when I came to collect.
The accountant I made the arrangements with asked if I had a good reason to trust the retainer, and I explained that I was simply of the opinion that a man should be paid for his labor, not the employer’s profit.
The show of trust that that constituted inspired the retainer, Hao Pen, to excel at his job, and I returned a second time with Lee to discover him beaming with excitement to show off a truly impressive amount of iron, steel, copper, and ink reagents that he’d managed to acquire for notably less than my maximum bids.
I asked after his methods and learned that he’d simply gone to the other retainers and the craftsmen who showed up and explained that he was trying to impress a cultivator who trusted him over nothing, and most of them agreed that it was worth it to see if other cultivators would try being so sensible. Especially after they heard who he was employed by.
And because he was an employee of the Auction House, most of my detractors were hesitant to just kill him for taking my money. Even before worrying about what traps that’d spring on them.
So I gave him a few pointers about how price-fixing could be done among the retainers and how to ensure the craftsmen received the materials they needed as well as I gave him my updated shopping list.
Naturally, my enemies, upon hearing that I was turning a profit in the auction house, sought immediately to deprive me of the metals and reagents by hiring their own retainers and ordering them to outbid mine. Hao was distraught at how his second month had nothing to show, but I laughed off his worry that I’d be upset and coached him in the bidding pattern to allow the craftsmen their needs while gouging my enemies.
Kang felt the need, as Master of the Auction House, to sit down with me during my fifth visit and confirm at length that I was not doing anything that would bring my enemies down on his establishment. We came away from that meeting with a nifty plan to make it look like he had grown fed up with me exploiting him, but was sticking true to his neutrality by only cutting me off from several of the auxiliary services that were reserved for trusted members only.
Which everyone else would take as a significant blow to my plans, without hindering me in the least because said trusted members were majorily my foes in one sense or another.
Meanwhile, the mortal craftsmen and semi-independent experts who had seen prices skyrocket and then stabilize quickly learned through the rumor mill that I was deliberately manipulating things so that they didn’t suffer, and had started contacting me through intermediaries to learn what my game was.
Then a Red Fist young genius was caught trying to antagonize one of his rivals by exploiting a combination of the Auction House’s sales rules and a trio of travelling cultivators, and tensions racheted up abruptly, causing the Weapons Pavilion that most of the independent craftsmen worked with to panic and declare that siding with me was their best bet at survival.
The fuckwits.
I made the case before the sect Elders that while sub-ideal in timing, taking the nominally neutral Weapons Pavilion as a Yellow Fang asset would allow for better control of the flow of armaments in the long run, further securing the Yellow Fang’s supremacy over the territory.
They agreed on that and immediately started bickering over whether to send me to the front lines, hoping to get me killed off by someone above Stone Core and risking the statement that I spoke for a meaningful portion of the sect or worse, that I controlled a meaningful portion, or whether they should hold me back where I’d almost certainly survive, but theoretically not be able to control the impressions upon our enemies and the general population.
Raka, the cunning bastard, proposed to send only me and several of my teachings’ followers to ‘defend’ the pavilion, as they had declared loyalty to me, personally, instead of to the Fang as a whole, while “better trained” disciples opened proper hostilities.
Master Ho made the point that sending an apprentice would telegraph that I was my own distinct entity from the rest of the sect, which our enemies would capitalize on instead of falling to a unified Fang, and agreed to head the deployment herself, with the auxiliary note that she could better appraise the available stock of the pavillion than most.
The rest of the squad, fifteen common-borns who’d made it to Qi Condensation in the past year and two basic medics who’d taken to my company, kept pace with Master Ho in silence, terrified of her apparent foul mood as we marched.
I, having had more than enough time to acclimate to her mannerisms, wondered how far she’d come in making herself a second heart dantian that she was so earnestly happy with the assignment, despite her disdain for the pavillion’s sales policies.
We arrived only a day after the idiots made their decision to back me known, courtesy of one hell of a rumor network, and there was already a problem waiting for us. A trio of Silver Spire cultivators were menacing the proprietor at the doorway, demanding that he reconsider his decision.
“Guang.” Master spoke tersely as she came within earshot of the mortals. “This mess asked for you by name. Clean it up while I handle the important part.”
“Yes, Master.” I bowed before turning to the trio of Stone Core foes.
“Really?” I asked with an exasperated sigh. “You’re half a tier stronger than me and you need to threaten a mortal with your hands on your weapons to get him to cower?”
“I’d heard you were a mouthy bastard!” the strongest of the three straightened up to visit violence upon me. “Are you prepared to die, ‘Celestial’?”
Of course that blasphemy would stick around.
“I was born a mortal.” I flashed a grin. “How many of you wish to escort me?”
My lesser Flowing Dragon Realm poured out of my soul, overlaying on the physical space around me in the same span it took the man in front of me to draw and swing his large blade. I fell backwards, under his blade, then slid along my Realm so my feet were on his face and twisting.
“Oh come now!” I laughed as he recoiled in confusion. “You want to deliver me to Yama without being able to walk the spirit paths? Has no-one told you how obstinate I am about walking the path myself?”
His buddies drew their swords and started weaving their qi like Silver Spire cultivators tend to, guards up to prevent normal interference.
Instead of trying, I scooped up three rocks and tossed them in the air and laughed as they each stepped back on reflex, right into my line of ‘fire’.
The big guy glared at me and charged again, noticeably stronger and significantly faster from his buffs. The Silver Spire sect was infamous for direct status alteration. At the most basic level, this manifested as massive boosts to their own abilities, but if you were fighting multiple at once and they were skilled, you had to be mindful of their ‘curses’ hindering your abilities.
Their major weakness was the way that their arts didn’t mesh well with more direct body and soul tempering, so they were more vulnerable than most to ambushes. Leading many to become hyper-aware of their surroundings to compensate.
My rocks having revealed these three to not be that skilled, I shift-stepped under the big guy’s guard and slammed my fist into his armpit, popping the bone out of socket.
His backups, having finished their own buffs, circled around us and glared at their now-falling buddy who was doubling as a shield for me while he tried to get his bearings through the pain.
Well, not at him at him. At the fact that he was in the way for their attacks. Seeing their frustration, I decided to lend them a hand and slammed my elbow into his back to speed him to the ground and make him pass out.
The remaining opponent in the better position was already swinging as his leader cleared out of the way, and I had to shift as I fell to avoid the blade. So I kept the shift going to twist my leg between his and hook his otherwise very stable foundation out from under him.
The third caught what I was doing and caught me across the chest with a downward slash as his buddy ate shit, causing my arm to reflexively shoot out for his, allowing my continued fall to pull him off balance as I pivot-shifted with my Realm-motion to slam my knee into the back of his head.
Two out of three unconscious, and the remaining one now pinned under his buddy and me sitting atop them, I planted my foot on the back of his head -gently, so he knew it was just a warning to shut up- and sighed. “Really? This is what the Spire sends to try kicking off a war properly? Does no-one over there check rumors?”
“What are you talking about?” my footrest hissed. “You’re the one who laid claim to the Weapons Pavilion!”
“No, actually. They did that without my input. Master Ho is probably beating them within an inch of death for it too.” For as abrupt as the fight was, she had still vanished inside with the proprietor and doorman before I’d even tossed the rocks.
“Then why are you here if not to claim it?”
“Would you tolerate someone claiming your house’s protection getting mugged? Regardless of whether you’d offered the protection?”
I could feel the cognitive dissonance radiating from him as he tried to come up with a retort, so I sighed and planted his face back in the dirt. “Waste your breath somewhere else. Pick up your cohorts and go report back that I didn’t take the bait of killing any of you, or even maiming you beyond bruising your boss’ solar plexus. If your masters want a war, they can declare it properly before I start killing their dogs.”
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I stood, putting my full weight on the man’s head in the process, and approached the rest of the crew who were clamoring about how awesome I was in the fight. I raised an eyebrow after letting them get some of the hype out of their system and shook my head as they piped down.
I’d already advised them at length about the senselessness of getting invested in someone else’s prowess, but the hype proved to transcend cultures in its pervasiveness.
Not that I really blamed them. Watching someone kick ass was great. And I knew for a fact that, having had the experience of punching up for decades and having more fights picked with me than most of them combined, I was among the most exciting fighters their eyes could (mostly) track.
“Now that everyone has their composure back, stick to the plan. Do not instigate anything. Do not crow about our greatness. Keep your eyes open for belligerents and calm the ones that can be talked to. This is not a glory seeking mission. This is Face Management. Act accordingly. Be better in essence than the people who won’t be calmed.” I ordered firmly, receiving bows of acknowledgement from all seventeen.
One of the functionaries of the pavilion grovelled out to me as soon as the Spire idiots were out of sight, and I gave him the simple order to acquaint the squad with whatever internal security protocols the pavilion used so that they could act without tripping on poor communication.
Then I walked the perimeter of the grounds laying talisman traps as I went so that I wouldn’t be flattened by the first Bronze Core jackass to attack.
Aptitude in combat covered a massive raw power gap, but not everything I could reasonably expect. So setting the battlefield and controlling engagements was, itself, a life-saving common sense.
Nevermind that my vague recollections of The Art Of War had shaped my mentality enough that I called it common sense despite evidence to the contrary.
When I’d laid the first layer of personalized defenses I took a moment to lament the difficulty in crafting Arrays precluding me from setting up one that would be worth a damn and then followed a functionary who’d been waiting for me to finish my strange cultivator bullshit to lead me inside.
“Ah, there you are.” Master spoke up as soon as I was ushered into the office. “Your evaluation of the position?”
“Tactically, a nightmare. It was obviously built with a complete trust in neutrality protecting it from dedicated assault. As long as belligerents approach seeking to claim it for themselves there’s reasonable security as long as they are met outside by comparable strength. But a single overwhelming opponent would be able to approach from any angle and no measure I can concoct as yet will aid in deterring them. Aesthetically it’s lovely.”
The vein in her temple throbbed ever so slightly, confirming that she appreciated the comment in her own prickly way.
“I’m glad you think so. You’re going to be bait once Lung here makes the formal announcement that justifies our presence here. It seems you’re personally responsible for this mess, after all.”
I blinked, completely bluescreening on how the fuck this was my fault.
Not doubting it, just lacking any context.
Seeing my admission that it was not planned, Master’s eyes gleamed with sadistic pleasure. She loved every chance to demonstrate herself better informed than me, and I wasn’t one to knock it.
“It seems that after the Master of the Auction House openly chastised young master Xue He, it came out that you’d been meddling in their policies. Xue He then came here and threatened to exsanguinate Lung and all his employees if they didn’t publicly declare their loyalty to you.”
“Ah!” I abruptly caught up. “And nobody warned him how bad an idea this was?”
Her scowl deepened as she hid her laughter. “So it seems. And as you know, the rest of the Fist would rather die than suffer waiting, so there’s no point in being merciful. We will both escort Lung to make his announcement and you’ll start the war with his corpse.”
“And then I’m to be available for any challenger who wants the prestige of taking me out.” I nodded, barely holding back my laughter at the situation. It did, barely, outweigh my frustration.
“Indeed. If a Silver Core foe comes to challenge, I’ll make them regret interrupting me. Otherwise you can handle them easily. Everyone else can handle crowd management and the mundane security.”
‘Easily’ she says. It really was like she still wanted my head.
“Understood, Master.” I bowed to hide my flush at the compliment.
“Excellent. Lung will have his paperwork ready for the City Lord shortly, we’ll head out immediately afterward. Finish setting your disciples up and we can get this war started.”
I bowed and left the office to follow orders, meeting her and the visibly distraught Lung at the door half an hour later. I didn’t bother reassuring the panicking mortal that anything would be alright.
This may not be a post-industrial war like my last life was trained to fear, but monstrously powerful people were still going to be fighting with little discrimination and no concern for mortals. I wasn’t going to lie and tell him things’d be okay.
Sure, I was charged with protecting him and his business. But I couldn’t guarantee my own hide would be intact.
The City Lord, a Bronze tier cultivator himself, heard out the situation after only a minor amount of posturing -only half an hour of making us wait on top of the formalities- and comprehended the situation’s inevitability without any difficulty.
He did bristle that Master Ho was stationed within his city, but accepted that she would be leaving everything of importance to me, only being on-scene as a technicality to insist that I was still a mere disciple of the Fang despite having been called out as though I were a rogue Elder.
He also did appreciate my suggestion of having Lung make his announcement at the local arena so that when the idiot provoking me stepped forward, we were already in the appropriate venue.
We also talked briefly about how he could minimize the inevitable damage to his city by streamlining a process for my enemies to approach me directly instead of waste time trying to draw me out by assaulting his residents. He couldn’t afford to simply point everyone my way, as that’d be equivalent to using me as a shield even if everyone was actually looking for my fists, but circulating rumors that he was offended by my presence and would look the other way as long as nobody took their fight too far would help him immensely by itself.
That it would also encourage the attacks to come from cultivators who were below his own strength -to avoid changing his stance, if nothing else- was about as much benefit as I could hope for.
And then we were allowed to move to the arena, who gave the City Lord a convincing amount of deference as he explained what was happening and came to terms with the arena master for interrupting his normal business flow.
Terms that included me not getting the traditional cut of the betting. Totally expected, but funny nonetheless.
The bookies flew into action while the ongoing fight wrapped up, and I caught Master flicking a ring at one of them out of the corner of my eye.
And then the fight was over and the arena master made a big old deal out of interrupting the proceedings to push Lung into center stage to announce that, having come under physical assault over unsubstantiated rumors by members of both Silver Spire and Red Fist, it was his decision to, with the blessing of the Yellow Fang, pledge fealty of the weapons pavilion to the Fang who had sent Master and me to defend them without any promise of reward.
Thus fulfilling the aggressor’s demands of declaring themselves protected by me while not costing the sect any Face.
“About time you expose yourself for a proper fight, Celestial!” a voice rang out from the challenger’s tunnel. The functionaries had been looking for Xue He from the moment the arena master agreed to the ploy, specifically to allow this to play out with only one casualty.
“If I wanted a proper fight I’d go find a grumpy Yang!” I called back as I jumped down. “I’m here because a child started throwing a tantrum and his parents aren’t alive to beat him themselves!”
The crowd gasped as the idiot froze. It was well known that Red Fang cultivators were stronger the angrier they were, and I opened by going right for the Face and the throat.
Because I knew the nature and weakness of that strength, courtesy of Lee’s spies.
“Ha.” his face twisted in elemental rage. “I thought this would be difficult! But you’re suicidal!”
“Please, you saw an unguarded Immortal and stopped thinking, like the demonic dipshits you emulate. Don’t try to pretend you’re a functioning human after corrupting yourself this far. Just pounce like the animal you are.” I laughed despite being able to feel his strength creep up toward the peak of Stone core.
This wasn’t going to be easy, but my victory was guaranteed. My survival, not so much, but he’d lose before he killed me.
After all, the Red Fist were demonic cultivators. Immense power, corrupting qi, and a penchant for straight up devouring souls made them a nightmare to fight, but if they ever got too mad while fighting, well.
I slid along my Realm technique as his axe closed in on my skull and tutted. “Really? A straightforward attack right after being called an animal? Even my friend’s dog knows to go for a feint when it’s insulted. How do you pretend to call yourself a cultivator with less combat sense than a bitch?”
A blood mist started leaking from his skin, laced with demonic qi that would poison and kill anyone without the appropriate foundations unless they had pinpoint-accurate qi control or a heavenly artifact capable of purifying it.
More relevantly, it also burned away flesh, to maximize its chance of infecting a soul.
Weaving around his enraged swinging of his weapon, I made a point to tut and wag my finger at him to make it look like I was having an easy time keeping ahead of him.
I was, but the appearance was more important as his rage and mist kept growing.
“Really? This is all you’ve got? Delicious immortal soul right here in front of you and you can’t even take a bite? No wonder you’re an orphan. I’d die of shame too with such an impotent son.”
His eyes locked on mine and I got to watch as they darkened and his qi flared black and red.
I was not expecting him to be so unstable over the orphan thing. But I’ll take my wins where I can get them. Now the hard part.
The now demonized cultivator roared and the sound itself harmed the people in the audience as I drew my spear and grinned despite myself.
Unlike demonic beasts, driven to madness by normal, if incidental, qi flooding their souls, demonic cultivators danced with essences that even western earth natives would recognize as truly demonic. And this came with an iconic cost -the safety of their soul.
Demonic Qi deviation was a sure-fire way to have one’s soul consumed by the fundamental destructive power that made demonic cultivation tempting to many.
So Xue He was dead, down to his soul. Consumed by the mockery of a proper demon that stood in front of me leaking existential destruction despite only holding the strength of an early Bronze core cultivator.
Demonic qi did have limits based on the strength of it’s host. Not that that helped when the qi itself was the greater threat.
I tossed a talisman behind me as my foe charged me, then slid out of the way as he swung and ran face first into the flame blossom as it exploded. He shrugged it off, but was blinded by it long enough for me to stab him in the head.
That didn’t take him down either, but it did confirm that I had a chance. Had his skin hardness reached Bronze tier beside his muscles, I was fucked. As it was, I just had to wear down a monster made of pure destructive rage that was leaking soul poison.
No pressure.
It adapted slowly, falling for blinding flames another two times before turning to strike where I’d been stabbing it from. On the fourth clash I let it think it got me just long enough for a Lightning Vines talisman to activate and let me stab it in the eye.
By the seventh clash, its miasma was covering enough of the arena that I had to dedicate a lot of attention to planning out our movements. It wasn’t game over if I got poisoned... Probably. But I still would much rather test that in a controlled fashion instead of while fighting for my life.
I caught the briefest of breaks when a Wind Blade talisman revealed that qi-reinforced wind could disperse the miasma, at the cost of the qi falling to uselessness after only a few inches.
Taking a gamble and praying to the wind spirits for their forgiveness, I spun up a variation of my smithing circulation and tuned my out-facing qi to match the ki of the air. Reinforcing it and, as I dodged yet another attack, fending off the thinnest of the miasma around us.
With that bare defense, I was able to keep ahead of the axe that would absolutely have ended the fight if it caught me at any point.
“Pin him with the spear.”
I didn’t recognize the voice that whispered directly into my ear, but it struck me as a good idea anyway, so with a Bright Flash talisman disorienting the faux demon, I jumped and slid upward before driving it back down with the full might of my Piercing Thrust.
Because yes, I bothered practicing the most iconic technique of spearmen.
My target twisted as it felt my attack incoming, so rather than the heart I was aiming for, I had to punch through his sternum and put even more force into taking it down, but I managed it, then discovered why the advice arose as the air in my wake slammed into my fallen target, ceasing its breath and its techniques.
“You did that if anyone asks.”
I nodded my understanding of the instruction and said another silent prayer to the wind spirits, this time of gratitude.
Then I stood, pulled my spear out of the corpse and looked up at the crowd that was staring at me.
Fuck it, I either just started or preemptively ended a war.
I raised my spear in victory and drank in the resulting adulation and chaos as the silence broke like a fallen teacup.