Chapter 641: Instincts vs Benefits (part 4)
'Ahem, we can discuss that later, those accumulation treasures are worth studying, considering that those three are still surprised after listening to Valentina's explanation', he said, referring to Eris, Mylene and Mira.
The first two were too busy learning about their professions to worry about investigating the customs of the four Heavenly Quadrants regarding the Genesis Manifestation realm, what's more they had faced enemies at that stage already and weren't impressed in the least by them, so they indeed committed the honest mistake of not looking into it, but now they gained a new interest.
As for the ligress girl, she is both a spirit beast and a spirit element so she doesn't cultivate the same way as humans, just like the little wyrm, she is currently at the Sea of Knowledge realm and will rebuild her Genesis Core like those two, but the process is different for her, a contractor is more effective than those accumulation resources, that being said she did pay attention for Aria's sake, but she didn't say it out loud since she knew Aster will tease the hell out of her.
Little did she know that Aster could practically see through her, the ligress girl was rather indifferent towards most things, so it was easy for Aster to notice the changes in her mood.
'She is already treating Aria as her contractor, how cute', he amusingly thought before returning to the real world as the auction of the second item of this round had started.
Originally, there were really few people who were interested in the stone tablet, since it had no apparent use, but now that Aster clearly expressed his intention to buy it, of course other people felt tempted by it, thinking that he might have seen something they missed.
But that was only for the people at the first floor, at the second floor, more accurately the people at room number seven, received a certain message asking them to raise the price, naturally it was Wade who made the request.
"Senior brother, are we really going to contend against the guy who killed a prospect of the Stall family, didn't the young miss say that we shouldn't stand out in other Heavenly Quadrants?", said a young girl at room number seven to a slender man wearing a blue attire with a badge that portrayed a beast claw.
"What are you talking about, we are only bidding since the young miss is interested in many kinds of trinkets, everyone knows it', said the slender man not without inwardly thinking.
'And if we can make a connection with the Mountain Amber and Ocean Aquamarine families, just by raising the price of a useless piece of trash, then it's two birds and one stone'.
The price which had actually risen all the way to eighty million spirit jades, was suddenly doubled by the slender guy from room number seven.
"A hundred and sixty…", or at least that was the idea, unfortunately for them, Aster wasn't in the mood to wait, his cute treasure girl needed a comfy bed to sleep, so he decided to put an end to this farce.
"Five hundred million".
Aster's calm voice echoed through the room, making the guy at room number seven nearly fall on his butt, he was planning to raise the price all the way to three hundred million, that was enough to give face to the Mountain Amber family, since that was an average price for a middle ranked Stellar grade treasure or resource on the upper side, but for a useless trinket it was too much.
He never expected that Aster would directly surpass what he was willing to offer for this little charade, so he didn't even finish his previous sentence and remained silent with an angered expression, he could listen to the rogue cultivators laughing at him since he was interrupted midway and couldn't retaliate.
"The Sun Diamond and Lightning Amethyst families surely have deep pockets, to sponsor someone whose hobby is buying trash", said the glasses guy from the Ocean Aquamarine family, with a calm voice, since his friend was humiliated earlier and his glasses were destroyed, he wanted some revenge.
"What are spirit jades worth in exchange for a smile on my girl's face, for someone who acts so domineering to think I need to be sponsored to spend a mere half billion, are the descendants of the Mountain Amber and Ocean Aquamarine families that poor without the support of their backings?", casually said Aster, making some of the female rogue cultivators to look in his direction, while the guys felt the urge to curse him for bragging.
They did see the girls who accompanied him and while they didn't recognize anyone but Valentina and Agnes, each one of them were incredibly beautiful, so regardless of whom he was referring to, it was impossible for them not to feel envious.
Naturally, Aster didn't forget to strike while the iron was hot.
"Since your two families are that worried about my finances, I suggest you to keep trying to play tricks, the last one refunded me three hundred million spirit jades, so I wonder who will be the next to show such courtesy like the Teles family did", he added.
The previous caused a turmoil in the auction house, even the auctioneer girl who remained aloof and enjoyed the show so far, nearly tripped at the fact that Aster casually revealed that the Teles representative accepted a bribe and ended up having to compensate the harmed party
'That was hush money you know', she thought, still she couldn't help but giggle, amused by Aster's way to handle the insults of those haughty young masters from top tier forces, no matter what they said he easily turned their words against them.
Don't get it wrong, toying with them wasn't as easy as Aster made it look like, he could do so because he had the capital, those members of the young generation had each from a few dozens of thousands of spirit jades to a hundred thousand at their complete disposition, which for a member of the youngest generation is quite a big sum.
That's normally enough to brag about among their peers from the same generation, unfortunately for them, Aster never sought to compete with those from his group of age, Lilia made it so that his goal was always those older than him.
For a good reason, the other candidates to inherit the Drage family are all older than him, even the youngest who is his direct cousin is older than Alice.
In other words, for Aster those young masters were a bunch of greenhorns, whom he didn't take seriously.
'No wonder the princesses of the incredibly elitist Sun Diamond and the strict Lightning Amethyst families favored him, such a talent is hard to come by even at the top tier forces', thought the auctioneer.
Since no one here was crazy or rich enough to risk paying more than half a billion spirit jades on an item with no use, out of their own pockets, she directly declared the winner.
"Congratulations to the esteemed guest from room number one for obtaining the last item from today's auction, and we thank everyone for having honored us with their presence, staff from the auction house will go pay a visit to the participants who spent more than three hundred million spirit jades at once, please stay in your rooms and seats", she said.
The formation that allowed one to directly pay and receive the goods, had a limit, any bid that surpassed that had to be paid directly and the item will be delivered in person by the staff of the auction house as well.
All those who didn't get to buy anything and those whose transactions were handled by the formation, started to leave the auction house, practically everyone at the first floor, that being said, some stayed behind hoping to see some kind of drama.
Since this temporary settlement was under the rule of the Fey family, one's safety was practically assured, so unlike other auction houses which had a spatial array to offer a safe passage to a random but safe destination, here the participants in the private rooms had to leave through the frontal door like everyone, something probably done on purpose by those godmothers of Aster.
Anyway, though the people at the first floor couldn't see the corridor that connected the private rooms, they stayed behind to wait for when the young masters and young misses from those renowned forces left, hoping to see something interesting.
But for now, they couldn't see the staff members arriving at the doors of all the private rooms, to then knock.
Aster got up from his seat after carefully letting Camila who was sweetly sleeping, on the couch and then walked towards the door, imagine his surprise when he saw the auctioneer girl from earlier being the one that came to receive the payment and also deliver the stuff he bought over the limit price, which was basically the stone tablet.
"Here are the goods, please check them before paying up, we don't accept complains after the deal has been formalized~", said the auctioneer girl with a relaxed smile as she took out the stone tablet which was inside a transparent jade case for preservation purposes.
Aster accepted the tablet and after quickly scanning it with his dragon eyes to make sure the auction house or more accurately the Teles family weren't trying to play any tricks, he nodded.
"It looks fine to me, here is the payment", he said, naturally he had already prepared a spatial ring which contained the half billion of spirit jades already, so he just handed that to the auctioneer whose smile brightened even more.
'Well, she is for sure merchant's descendant', thought Aster.
Don't let her pretty outer appearance and bright smile trick you, the girl in front of him was for sure more than what met the eye, others couldn't tell, because she is using a certain treasure to hide her cultivation realm, making people believe she is just an auctioneer who was hired for the sake of sweeting the participants eyes.
But how could Aster not notice it, she is a Sea of Knowledge realm cultivator who has already started her secondary path, while being around Agnes's range of age, in other words while she is definitely a bit behind, it's not by that much, of course one thing is realm and a completely different matter is one's battle prowess, but the point is that she isn't just a random character like those rogue cultivators who openly tried to flirt with her, thought.
"Thanks for your cooperation, the Marius family hopes to keep a healthy business relationship with the Lord of the Twin Sword Valley, so if you need something in the future, please take our auction house into consideration", she said as she raised the sides of her dress, before leaving along the other staff that had just finished their duties.
"Don't let her auctioneer persona trick you, while the Marius and Teles family are second tier forces by themselves, the Golden Scale is one of the four largest auction houses that exist in the four Heavenly Quadrants and so as a whole they can compete with first tier forces in terms of influence and strength, there have been a couple of fools that tried to take things too far with a random auctioneer and ended up buried in a ditch somewhere in the Mystic Talisman Heavenly Quadrant", said Valentina.
"Heh, that's one interesting hobby", jokingly said Aster, for the young miss of a prominent merchant family to act as an auctioneer which is basically a front-end job without any real authority, while being the one who can call the shots, probably that Teles guy didn't even know about it which is why he dared to accept a bribe, it was quite cunning.
'This is probably the way the direct descendants of their family gain experience', thought Aster before putting the matter at the back of his head, while the Teles would probably come back to look for trouble, the Marius were much more neutral.
"We should get going before it gets noisy", said Aster as he used telekinesis to gently make Camila float while he sent the stone tablet into the mind space.
But just as the group came out of the room, a lot of gazes fell on them, more accurately on Aster, among which the ones from the Mountain Amber and Ocean Aquamarine family members, were especially noticeable since they were practically spewing flames.
"You really did us dirty earlier, I wonder if you'll be able to keep that brave act once your group leaves…", the glasses guy from the Ocean Aquamarine family smirked as he spoke, while his group walked towards the stairs that led to the first floor, the idea was to insult Aster before leaving, making it so that he could only swallow the offense, an idea that in his mind would create a cool scene.
Also, this time his brother was walking next to him, unfortunately things didn't result quite as he expected, the glasses guy stopped in cold as he felt the cold sharp metallic touch of a sword, resting on his shoulder right at the height of his neck.
He turned to see his brother, just to see him standing straight with veins bulging on his neck and forehead as he was trying his best to move only to realize that he was practically locked in his current stance.
The people from the other private rooms where just coming out and were caught by surprise by such a scene, someone from a middle grade Stellar System was pointing a sword to the neck of a direct descendant of the Fey family in their own Heavenly Quadrant!
"I think you are misunderstanding something, the one who is being protected by the rules of the city isn't me, after all how much stronger can a nobody like you be when compared to Edward", he said as he slowly shoved the tip of the sword in the glasses guy shoulder.
"Aghhh... mmmph", the scream of the glasses guy was muffled by Aster forcefully closing his mouth with his telekinesis.
"Shhh, you are going to wake her up", said Aster with a low voice, while holding his training sword on his right hand while keeping Camila floating with the left one.
All this while the glasses guy inwardly screamed.
'Why isn't the defensive array activating!!!', it was just a little trick which Aster pulled by using a bit of annihilation to cut through the runes of the glasses guy's clothes.
This was a "safe" zone, so those young masters weren't using outer armor, their clothes still had defensive means though, not to mention they had lifesaving treasures on them for sure, but the wound Aster inflicted wasn't life threating, so it didn't activate.
While keeping that guy's mouth sealed, Aster retrieved his sword and cleaned the blood on the glasses guy's clothes to then say.
"You should be really careful with your words, right now the only reason as to why your head is still attached to your body is that killing you here will trouble miss Valentina, so you should be careful if you are planning to leave the city's vicinity".
And with that Aster stopped keeping the guy standing with telekinesis, letting him fall to the ground, his face was pale and his expression was lifeless, he was scared witless.
Wade could finally move, but contrary to what one would expect, he didn't explode against the one who just stabbed his brother with a sword, for a simple reason, he was horrified, he previously thought that a Soul King was protecting Aster's group.
But to completely overwhelm him, through the many layers of treasures he has, not even a half step Heavenly Realm cultivator could do it.
'S-She is here, no, that can't be, we made sure to make it so that she had to leave to the Black Meteorite Heavenly Quadrant, but then how can there be another monster like those two in a sect that resides in a mere middle grade Stellar System!', he inwardly screamed.
Wade for a second tried to glare at Aster, but ultimately, he didn't dare and just took his brother to then leave in a hurry along the other members of his group, who couldn't understand what happened as they weren't affected by the previous.
In fact, the bulky guy was about to jump in and fight with Aster but he was dragged out of the room by Wade, the only one who seemed different was Fawn who stole a gaze at Aster before following behind the rest of Mountain Amber family's group.
Aster sent his sword back to his spatial ring and then gazed at the people from the other private rooms, the protectors that were in charge of each group, immediately tensed up, while they couldn't discern who and how was Wade rendered defenseless earlier, they did realize that was the situation and were sure that they would have ended up like him as well.
"Why are you all so tense, it's not like you harbor any ill intent towards my group, right?", casually said Aster, earning a laugh from a certain person.
"So, the rumors about you were right, extremely aggressive when needed", said a guy in his early twenties with long brown hair, his clothes were a bit unkept, but he didn't look shabby, it was more as if he had been exploring somewhere before rushing to the auction.
"I am Cayden, the young saber of the Wanderer sect", said the guy as he offered Aster a handshake.
"Aster, you already know my affiliation so I'll skip it, I have an urgent matter to tend to, so we can continue tomorrow if you don't mind", said Aster as he pointed at Camila.
"No worries, besides if you don't leave first, I doubt those guys will dare to make a move, unless their old fogeys come to escort them", said Cayden as he looked at the people from the other rooms, well to some more specifically than others.
Aster inwardly nodded, it would be a pain in the ass if those guys kept trying to mess with him, so someone had to be an example, since a skewer in that lackey's hand wasn't enough.
'I hope a direct descendant of the Fey is enough', he amusingly thought as he led the group downstairs.
The rogue cultivators that were still at the first floor, all had confused expressions on their faces, they couldn't hear not see what happened earlier at the corridor upstairs, but they indeed saw the group from the Mountain Amber and Ocean Aquamarine leaving in a rush as if they were escaping from someone and then nothing, no one came for a few minutes until now.
That being said, feeling the still murderous atmosphere around Aster, they didn't dare to ask and just opened way for them to leave.
Outside of the auction house, Aster saw Valentina sigh.
"I even went out of my way to try and prevent it, but it happened anyway, I guess cousin was right, those guys only listen through the hard way, now I don't want to return to the office…", she mumbled.
"You can stay with us, I don't think they'll even try to approach our spaceship", said Aster, to which Valentina's eyes sparkled.
"Mm, I'll take you on that offer, I'll leave the troublesome stuff to that lazy bastard for a change", she happily said.
Aster chuckled as the group was teleported by Valentina using her authority, the scenery changed from the merchant district to the private area designated to the Myriad Occupation sect.
Everyone had already had dinner so it was time to sleep, naturally Valentina decided to stay with Agnes since she didn't want to take a room for herself.
But before that everyone said goodnight to each other and then Valentina was taken aback by the seeing the group that followed Aster into his room, which was actually Lilia's room.
Including the still soundly sleeping Camila, Valentina couldn't help but give Agnes a question filled gaze, unlike those gossiping young girls from the Black Sword faction, Valentina didn't have the leisure to pay attention to the rumors of the sect.
So, she basically didn't know that Aster had many lovers, she was that busy, as far as she knew, Aster was "dating" two girls, Alice and Aria, but now she just got to see Sarina, Lilia and even Camila coming along, so she was naturally confused.
Not to mention that in her eyes, her younger cousin Agnes seemed to be developing romantic feelings for Aster as well.
'What the hell is going in!', she screamed in her heart, only to nearly faint when Mikaela patted her shoulder to then say.
"Don't tell me that the "Purple Lightning Princess" of the Fey family is afraid to spend the night under the same roof as a member of the younger generation".
"S-Shut up drunkard and you have a lot to explain", said Valentina as she gazed at Agnes who feigned ignorance and rushed towards her room while being followed by her cousin.