Author’s note: This chapter was sponsored by Goku Cloud and Dominique D.! Thank you! One queue down…two more to go.
Host’s note: I’m not the author, but feel free to shower the comments and reviews with your love of the novel. It’ll surely reach the author.
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Hei Mo’s heart trembled as he stared at the cloaked figure, who wore fox mask, in front of him. As a one of the top experts in Tian City, he had went through many deadly battles and opponents stronger than him before.
But none of those times would Hei Mo have felt such hesitation and lingering fear in his heart. From the moment the other party moved, Hei Mo was not even able to act in time. By the time he reached Jin Xia, Gu-Hai was already dead.
Yet, even that was not something that would have shook Hei Mo’s soul. It was the fact that when Hei Mo had attacked Jin Xia with nearly half percent of his strength in order to save Gu-Hai, yet he was unable to deal a single bit of damage, much less even wrinkle his cloak.
And to top it all off, Hei Mo had even launched an attack at his opponent’s back — and was still unable to harm the latter! In Hei Mo’s entire life thus far, someone as powerful and mysterious as the man standing before him was a first.
As Hei Mo stared vigilantly at Jin Xia’s back, the latter turned around to face him with his fox mask.
“Mm, Gu-Hai is now dead so my second condition is now fulfilled. I thank the head manager for his understanding. Now, since I am in a bit of a hurry, I would have to trouble manager Hei Mo to help me auction a few items…”
A deep voice came from behind the fox mask as Jin Xia spoke casually to Hei Mo. It was as if he never noticed Hei Mo’s sneak attack behind his back, or perhaps he never cared at all.
The truth is, while Jin Xia had already sensed Hei Mo charging towards him behind his back, he did not feel threatened by his incoming attacker at all. With his Hades’s Cloak, not only would it hide his aura it also possessed an unparalleled defensive capability. Any cultivator below Xing Profound realm will not be able to deal any severe injury to him.
Thus, Jin Xia did not even bother to dodge. Although Hei Mo did attack Jin Xia, the person had done so in order to save someone. Moreover, Hei Mo did not appear conceited when he appeared before Jin Xia and was respectful. There was not even killing intent in neither Hei Mo’s attack or his overall aura, unlike Gu-Hai.
In fact, from the moment Jin Xia saw Gu-Hai, he had already felt a faint, bloodthirsty aura coming from the latter’s body. This aura would often appear on someone has killed a large sum of people, which was evident with that Gu-Hai. Moreover, the savage man had full intent on killing an innocent “beggar”, who was in reality Jin Xia, without hesitation. Just these two facts alone was more than enough reasons for Jin Xia to seek Gu-Hai’s death. Perhaps even if Jin Xia let him go today, the man will definitely meet his demise sooner or later somewhere else!
And because Hei Mo’s overall disposition was good, Jin Xia was not so much put off by the manager, even after the latter had attacked him.
At least, with such positive qualities about Hei Mo, it had allowed him to retain his spot in this world as a living being…otherwise, Jin Xia wouldn’t have minded to send another one down to the Yellow Spring river.
While Jin Xia was once deity, he was definitely no benevolent being. He simply eliminates anyone who seeks to kill him, just like how he took care of Gu-Hai who had attacked him with bold killing intent. The passing ages may have taught him to not take others’ ignorance to heart, but it have repeatedly reminded him not to let bloody enemies go unchecked. Those who bare their fangs at him in pure malice, risks getting their fangs -and their entire existence- broken by him in return.
So while being arrogant in front of Jin Xia, he may not care that much, but to get in his way would simply be looking to die.
“This…” Hearing that Jin Xia had still wanted to sell his items at his Azure Sky Auction house even after killing his subordinate, Hei Mo felt hesitant in his heart. But when he saw a green colored battle axe, with various symbols on it, suddenly appear in the mysterious man’s white-gloved hand, Hei Mo’s eyes suddenly went round like the two big moons.
“Here is the first item I would like you to help me sell at your auction. This is the Heavenly Lotus Battle Axe. It has the might to split over giant boulders and momentarily part a small river if wielded in the hands of an expert. Its rank: Jade-grade.”
Jin Xia calmly explained to manager Hei Mo as he threw the battle axe that he took out from his gourd towards Hei Mo.
Head manager Hei Mo was startled as he wildly grabbed at the battle axe that was flung at him in panic. Only after he had a firm grip on axe, did Hei Mo let out a breath in relief as he looked down at the exquisite battleaxe in front of him.
The weapon was about five feet tall and three feet wide. Its handle and head was of a dark green color, with the axe being decorated with four mysterious yellow symbols that were still faintly glowing carved on the battle axe.
“SSss!” Hei Mo sharply sucked in a deep breath as his eyes madly danced over the battle axe. Jade-grade. This was actually a Jade-grade item. From the awe-inspiring aura that the battle axe produced to the four tiny shiny symbols on the item, Hei Mo knew that it was a genuine artifact.
Only Low-grade items and above will have glowing symbols etched on them. This was what separated them apart from items of No-grade. As the quality and grade of an item increases, the number of symbols found on the said item will increase in accordance.
One symbol meant Low-grade.
Two symbols meant Mid-grade.
Three symbols meant Top-grade.
Four symbols meant Jade-grade and so on!
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In the entire history of Tian City, a Jade-grade item had never appeared on market once. And even in the entire Great Azure Country, such items were true luxurious things.
At most, there was only once where a Top-grade item had happened to grace the city with its presence. But that was already a hundred years ago. Since then, at best only Mid-grade items could be found in Tian City, but even those were extremely scarce in quantity. As for a Jade-Grade item, only the royal family of this country would be able to possess one. And that was already treated as a national treasure! With Mid-grade items being a relatively hard find, and Top-grade items being rare, a Jade-grade item was simply one word: priceless.
After all, these items known as Symbol Artifacts are quite rare to come by.
As Hei Mo continued to stare reverently at the battle axe in his hand, Jin Xia spoke up.
“As for the amount I would receive from this battle axe at the auction, you may take thirty percent of the profit as fee for fixing up your store and for keeping everything ‘under the carpet’, if you would.”
Hearing this Hei Mo’s eyes shone brightly as he finally snapped out of his trance. Thirty percent of the profit?! My god! A Mid-grade weapon would already sell for about 1,000 Crystal Coins (1,000,000 gold) at minimum, while a Top-grade item could go for at least 20,000 Crystal coins. With the sudden appearance of a Jade-grade weapon, just how monstrous would the price be?! Hei Mo screamed inside his head.
To take even just one percent of the profit, would probably allow Hei Mo to live the rest of his life in retirement without worry.
As for the last part of Jin Xia’s words, Hei Mo naturally understood what he meant. After all, he did not live in this world for around sixty years for nothing. He would naturally cover up Gu-Hai’s death and keep today’s matter under control…
“T-this one humble accept this esteemed lord’s request. Since we are in the middle of an auction at the moment, I would go right away to have this battle axe auctioned. If this esteemed lord would like, you may rested inside the VIP room in the auction hall…”
But before Hei Mo could finish his sentence, Jin Xia suddenly interrupted with a firm voice.
“No need. Just hurry up, as I have wasted quite some time here already.”
“A-ah, that is no problem. I will go have it auctioned right away. Please wait here and I will be back with good news.”
Hei Mo quickly straightened himself up as he gave a deep bow towards Jin Xia before turning around and disappearing behind the black door. The drastic change in attitude made it seem as if there had never any tension in the air moments before.
Several minutes after Hei Mo entered the black door, an enormous roar of excitement rang out from within. It seems the auction had begun.
After waiting for a quarter of an hour, Hei Mo hurried out from behind the black door as he walked towards Jin Xia. The latter had stood at the same spot without moving for the entire time.
Walking up to Jin Xia, Hei Mo respectfully handed over a golden bag with both of his hands outstretched to Jin Xia.
“Esteemed lord, here is the money your Heavenly Lotus Battle Axe sold for. The bid reached an all-time high of five million Crystal coins! It was purchased by an anonymous guest from a different province. As for the fee, since our esteemed lord was kind enough to grace our shabby auction house with such a priceless item, our Azure Sky Auction House have decided to only take one percent of the profit earned. This will leave 4,950,000 Crystal Coins left in this Space bag for you. The space bag can also be used to hold any item you wish, living or nonliving, and can even store as big as an average five story tall building..”
Jin Xia took the bag into his hand without bothering to inspect it. The golden Space bag seemed to be a Low-grade item, which was what gave it the ability to store items within its dimensional pocket. An expensive item such as this had been unreservedly gifted to Jin Xia.
“Mn, good. Head manager is indeed easy to work with. If I ever need anything to be sold again, I hope you won’t mind…”, Jin Xia spoke in his deep voice. Although the chances of him returning to this same auction house would be almost nonexistent in the future, Jin Xia had said those words just in case he does visit again one day…
“Ah! Please be at ease, esteemed lord! If you ever need your items to be sold, we, the Azure Sky Auction House, will definitely not let you down!” Manager Hei Mo quickly replied as he cupped his hands towards Jin Xia.
“…And please do make sure that next time I come, there won’t be any wild dogs biting around here.” Jin Xia coldly said before swiftly turning around and exiting the auction house.
“O-of course! I will make sure that will never happen again…” Manager Hei Mo replied in a panic as deeply bowed towards Jin Xia as the latter left.
It was only after Hei Mo was certain that the mysterious man had left, did he lift up his head and sigh in relief.
“To think our Tian City would be graced by such an expert…ai, I better go warn the other managers to be wary of that person from now on…” Hei Mo muttered under his breath as he looked pitily over at Gu-Hai’s corpse.
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Host’s note: As you might have noticed, this account is fairly new yet I have knowledge of RRL’s system. That’s because this is an alt account. This makes it easy for me to transfer the account over to the actual author if he ever decides to take over. The name is basically the combination of part of his site’s name and “host” to indicate that I’m just rehosting the story for him and that’s all I’ll ever do on this account. If the account does transfer over to him, it’d be fairly easy to request a username change if need be.