Division Leader Shin of the Grey Order frowned. He finally knew why his group of assassins did not have any chance against this Earthly Treasures Pavilion. Not only were they really an empire, but if the young woman wasn't bluffing then they even had a High Stage Origin cultivator.
Who was this young woman? She looked even younger than 30 years old. Actually, she looked like a twin of the other girl who introduced herself as their Empress and he was confident they were both below 30 years. It was not too hard to tell if someone just looked young or if they were really young.
Bone structure, small details on the skin, the overall level of saturation of spirit power in the body. It was hard to tell precisely with just a look, but Leader Shin was confident, that their bodies did not seem to be hundreds of years old, an age he would have expected for an Origin Stage 'monster'.
Who were her elders, if even the young woman was already at High Origin Stage?
He quickly revised his plans of going against this Earthly Treasures Pavilion. They might still succeed somehow, but not only were there too many unknown variables, if any of their plans failed, the results would be catastrophic.
It was the same reason why they did never openly fight against any of the Central Island Union's empires. Little fights among the lower level members would be ignored by the Origin Stage elders, but if they angered one of these strong powerhouses and caused them to intervene directly, both sides would suffer.
"Where did you get this Five Dragon Shield?" he asked in a friendly manner instead, changing his plans completely, as if he never had any intention to harm them.
Ryoma was already prepared for such a question.
"Why, our artisans and enchanters made them of course. The materials for it can all be found in our various gathering locations that we offer access to. While the materials used are a little bit rarer, it still shouldn't be too hard to find them after a while of searching."
"Our locations will only get better in the future too. It shouldn't take too long for us to be able to offer access to locations with saint grade materials."
"Saint Grade?" Once more people were discussing what was just revealed.
"Should we make an outpost here to keep an eye on this pavilion?"
"Why don't we just invade this little kingdom and take control of the city, then we are sitting right next to this place!"
"Don't be silly, what if this angers the people here!"
Their hushed discussion was interrupted by another item to be sold though.
"Our next item for sale is the Starfruit Brilliant Elixir. It will raise a cultivator's lifespan by about 3000 years. They should be at least of Early Core Stage for the effects to not harm the body."
"Three thousand years?! Have I heard that right? We are not talking about 3 decades or something?"
Once more this auctioneer with the evil smirk gave all of them a smile.
"Of course it is three thousand years, we have already sold all the small common items as a warm up, it wouldn't be good to hold back all the precious items right?"
Ryoma's words and smirk once more made the gathered people sit up straight and get interested. There would be more such exceptional items? This auction turned out to be a lot more impressive than they would have expected.
"Should we test the potency of the elixir as well?" he asked them again with a smile, causing quite a few of the people who were arguing about the authenticity of the earlier item, to look away awkwardly.
They tried messing with this auctioneer once before, who would risk it again? If someone would ask them about this auctioneer, they would be confident to say that he definitely had an evil personality.
It was like a really obvious trap and he just waited for someone to step into it, like a hunter waiting for the prey to come. How could his smile be this scary? He was not even a proper cultivator, right?
"You fools! How could you waste such a treasure just for some silly test? Even a blind alchemist would see that it is far beyond anything we've ever seen. Don't you see the life force barely contained in the alchemic structure, don't you see the high spiritual density of the potion?"
Grandmaster Koda was obviously here as well. He did not expect to be able to buy such a treasure, but he would not let anyone slander such a masterpiece. Even an alchemist master would be easily able to tell that this elixir was exceptional, let alone a grandmaster like himself, or even an alchemy saint.
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Strong alchemists had their own ways to tell if a pill or elixir was fake or truly precious. They didn't have to do rigorous tests unless they wanted to find out a recipe for it. Finding out what an elixir would do, was easy enough to tell and unless there was some poison well hidden by an expert, making a statement about its function was also possible.
"Obviously we guarantee the quality of our products. The buyer is welcome to test the product or hire someone to test it if that's what they would like."
The first offers for the elixir were quickly surpassed by more offers and more and more spirit stones would soon be available for the pavilion.
Several more items were being sold, each one more impressive than the other. It was only a matter of time until some of the stronger powers noticed the drain on their resources. Even they didn't have unlimited amounts of spirit stones after all.
With the stronger kingdoms around as well, there were more and more situations where a kingdom would snatch away an item from an empire.
"I offer 8000 spirit stones for this Sun Blaze Sword, don't bid against it, otherwise our Nishi Empire will …"
"Now now, wouldn't that be kind of a rude thing to say?"
Ryoma interrupted the Nishi Empire's envoy from saying any more.
"Our Earthly Treasures Pavilion has various rules and one of them is that you may not threaten our other guests. Please keep your bids civil and don't try to use your standing or power here."
"I didn't mean it that way." the envoy quickly tried to find some sort of excuse.
"I'm sure you didn't mean to threaten anyone and it was just a misunderstanding on my part. We wouldn't want anyone to be blacklisted from our future auctions or our upcoming portal network."
Again, Ryoma smirked and the envoy shivered slightly. Something about this place made this auctioneer really scary. What might happen if they actually did break the rules here? Would the Origin Stage cultivator step in?
With the feeling the envoy currently had, he wouldn't be surprised if the ground opened up and swallowed all offenders whole. Since when did a normal mortal person scare a Core Stage cultivator in such a way?
"Portal network?"
While the envoy was still pale and trying to calm down again, many people wondered what this new information was about. Ryoma though kept this information to himself and continued with the auction and no one dared to interrupt this time.
-
"Look look Tora, he's not shy at all, he's really skilled handling all their questions and concerns."
Yui seemed impressed with Ryoma's skill, while Tora just wondered when the young man had acquired such a sadistic streak, or when Yui gave him access to some of the Pavilion's functions. Using a targeted fear aura, even if the Earthly Treasures Pavilion provided it, required not just a bit of skill, but most of all a good idea about someone's mental state.
Making people run away screaming was easy enough, just turn up the aura force full power and see people run away or faint on the spot. Making things slightly scary on the other hand without causing anyone to notice they were targeted by an ability … what did Ryoma do over the past couple of days?
Were all merchants this scary? Keeping people interested, while at the same time shutting up all those who wanted to cause trouble, with a subtle creepy atmosphere and some sense of danger?
True, Yui would likely not have the confidence to deal with complaints in front of a crowd and as Tora had mostly been around Ryoma when he was together with Yui or Miyuki she never really noticed this other side.
"Don't you think he's slightly scary? You know, in a scary 'I will empty your coin purse' kind of way? Like cross me and you will regret it."
"Scary? No, Ryoma is really nice. Look he even smiles at all of them!"
"Uh, forget about it." Tora just shook her head and went back to nap. As long as this auctioneer from hell would make them a lot of spirit stones, she wouldn't bother asking any more about it.
Yui was obviously blind to this side of him and Miyuki was likely the same.
"Makes you wonder what his family is like to raise someone like him." she mumbled to herself.
"I think they tried to kill him." Yui 'helpfully' provided.
"They what? Why would they try to kill him?" Now Tora got curious. What type of messed up family was this guy coming from?
"Not sure. Something about trouble with some treasure or something. I didn't want to ask too much about it, as Miyuki was around at the time when it came up. Maybe I should at some point." Yui looked as if she wanted to avoid the topic. Asking these kinds of questions was always hard.
"Is he not your boyfriend? You better ask all about it. It could be important. At least it explains why he was in such a sorry state."
"Mhm, yes I will do that." Yui nearly added a 'later' to her words, which would cause Tora to roll her eyes at her again. It was one of her most often used excuse to avoid something she didn't want to do.
-
Kita Ihito looked over the large auction hall and especially the auctioneer with a curious expression. Something seemed to tell him that this person was dangerous.
He couldn't really put a finger on what exactly made him think this way, but he always trusted his instincts.
"Their Empress is great at acting and this auctioneer is just the same. I mean, just look at them, if anyone would tell me that the two young women are anything but an overly nervous and adorable girl and a lazy girl taking a nap, then I wouldn't ever believe them."
His captain just nodded in agreement.
"They are rather strange. Their acting is really top notch as is their ability to hide their cultivation."
"Yes, I don't find any cultivation strength from the lazy gi…" Ihito shook his head deciding not to give important people any risky nicknames. "From the Empress' sister. The Empress herself has some odd fluctuating cultivation but I cannot say how strong she really is."
"Even the auctioneer seems to be a mortal, but I'm sure he has some cultivation, otherwise I wouldn't feel as if there was some kind of danger coming from him. It's not easy for anyone to give me a feeling of danger. How strong would he be? Peak Core Stage at the least."
This whole place was not just odd and impressive, but also made him wonder what this Earthly Treasures Pavilion represented.
On one hand, he felt welcome and relaxed, the staff and people were all extremely friendly and kind. There seemed to be no discrimination, people were all respectful and even the owner, the Empress, was really nice.
On the other hand, there was this vague scary feeling of not stepping out of line, like a Damocles sword hanging over your head, or sitting right next to a giant bloodthirsty slumbering beast.
It would not take much to wake up that beast or have the sword fall down and he really wanted to avoid this part. Ihito much preferred a happy ending for his own life rather than some drama story.