章 336: Chapter 336: Incomprehensible Bidding
"Tsk, asshole." Ares mumbled to himself as he wasn't interested in needlessly picking a fight by speaking up. He didn't really want anything to do with this guy if he could avoid it because even just being in his general vicinity meant Ares was at risk of instinctively decking him in the nose for things he hadn't even done yet. Anyone with even a shred of justice in them would feel inclined to whack this man because he gave off a sort of evil incarnate aura. Misconduct had seeped into this guy's soul and he was basically a vessel for unnecessary and cruel actions.
"Care to repeat that?" Cash had stopped mid step like some kind of robotic demon and twisted his head, in a way that even an owl might find difficult, so as to stare at Ares. This guy had heard Ares' mumbling?! "Being ignorant will not get you far in life, kid. It's well enough known that I have a passive pillar art that improves my hearing. The deals I've overheard and the secrets I've blackmailed others with have all been turned into stories that you can read anywhere on this country. Do some research next time and don't stand in the way of others."
Ok, no really, fuck this guy! He probably hadn't seen Ares land from his flight, as he'd only just walked around the corner, but to be lecturing him so brazenly like this was asking for trouble even if he didn't know how much! Why on earth was Ares supposed to go and do homework on this guy like he was some kind of saint that needed every single thing he's ever done to be spread far and wide?! He was no messiah and Ares was not interested in how many times he wiped his ass per day! It was unfortunate he overheard Ares, and this was a magic worth remembering in the long run because Cash might not be the only person with it, but that didn't mean he had any right to be a hypocrite! Yes, he was in fact committing the very sin he was reprimanding Ares for.
"Of the two of us, ignorance will only serve to shorten one of our life spans." Ares glared at this muppet and was silently daring him to push back, taking this argument farther. Any excuse to smack this guy's head in would be jumped at and nobody else would feel sorry for him! Onno would probably cheer Ares on if he were here right now.
Cash kissed his teeth and turned the rest of his body to face this unknown kid. "Has anyone ever told you that you put the 'peasant' in 'unpleasant'?"
"Ok good joke, but still fuck you! Keep talking and see if you don't get done in by a peasant's revolt, asshole." Ares was cracking his knuckles in preparation for what was about come. Oh how glorious it would be to deck this guy in the nose! Maybe even drag him over to the edge of the boat and give him a swirly for a bit! Ares would go down in history as a bigger legend for this one act than this muppet would for everything he'd done throughout his life! Ares could stain this guy's record once and for all but, unfortunately, as he was gearing up to make a large number of people happy, the guard stepped in and whispered something to Cash. Presumably he'd briefly informed him about Ares' identity and that seemed to shut Cash up real quick.
"Tsk..." Cash clicked his tongue as he looked back at Ares again. He felt confident picking a fight with someone who was just in sensory enhancement and, yet, he'd almost made a pretty massive mistake. There would be no winning this fight and, unfortunately, this was one of the rare times in his life that he hit a brick wall and had to take other measures than the ones he initially chose. He turned to the guard and nodded in Ares' direction. "... Under no circumstances are you permitted to let him in. Do so and I'll fire you. You and your family will never work on the Federation ever again no matter what. I don't care if he beats you up and walks past, he isn't allowed in or you pay the price."
A pretty despicable threat because it put both the guard and Ares at an impasse. The guard obviously had to follow these orders and Ares would be the bad guy here if he forced his way in. It wasn't unreasonable for a higher up to declare that someone wasn't permitted entry to a place like this auction venue so Ares would be the one really causing trouble here and for what? Just to get this poor guy involved even though he wanted nothing to do with it? The guard was already looking at Ares with a pleading expression now that Cash had disappeared but Ares wasn't concerned much. Normally this would have been a real problem, and his best course of action would be to go damage Cash' property elsewhere until he relented, but today was different. Thanks to his meeting with the C.E.O of that one shop things would be fine. Sure the C.E.O himself was a relatively small fish but the shop he was running had basically been left to him by another higher up on the Federation because they were good friends and trusted one another. All Ares needed was for the C.E.O to show up and then he could sort this out by relaying the information to the other higher up who could supersede Cash and replace his orders.
Cash was unofficially the most powerful person on the Federation but if he clashed with another higher up there would be various problems attached to such an action. He wouldn't be stubborn over this and prevent Ares from entering because the cost of going blow for blow with another higher up would be more than he was willing to throw away. Then there was the matter with the guard and the C.E.O's higher up friend could easily prevent anything from happening to him or his family. Long story short, Ares was using the power of nepotism! Still, Cash should be glad he wasn't using the power of destruction on his ass! Ares was tempted to hit the guy with a Grand Annihilation as he was running away and burn his ass but that was perhaps a tad bit too much of an escalation to be justifiable... Not that many people would care... Also the guard would have inevitably had to try and block it otherwise, again, there would be consequences for him. Ares didn't want to give this random guard trouble because that would just be playing into Cash's plans and it wasn't wise to do so. Besides, although Ares wouldn't likely see it, because the guy was going to have a private booth, the look on Cash's face when he saw Ares enter the auction despite his threats would be glorious.
Even more so hilarious would be his face when he realised Ares had enough backing to shut him up for now! This was arguably a sweeter form of payback because it played into the rules he'd set and still beat them with room to spare anyway. If only Ares could maybe blow up something of his as well then this would be perfect! Unfortunately there was nothing around and making an enemy of Cash to that degree was pointless. It would do more harm than good and just unnecessarily complicate the rest of his time here on the Federation. That didn't mean Ares wouldn't mess with him if he got a chance to but, for now, just entering the auction was good enough... Although, actually, now that he thought about it, Cash might still be a problem anyway... If Ares wanted to bid for something... Wasn't this guy going to try and outbid him at every turn?... Well, Ares had a few tricks of his own! Who was it, exactly, that found out about Jebben!? He had that information and wasn't exactly unwilling to share it! It's not like Jebben wouldn't do it himself eventually anyway! Just the threat alone might be enough to scare Cash off if he was being an annoying prick in the auction house. Ares wanted his items! Well, provided there was anything worth wanting anyway. Just because the goods here were expensive that didn't mean that he would have a use for any of it.
Ares waited around for a while, scaring the ever living daylights out of the guard who sincerely wished he would just leave already and never comeback, but the C.E.O did eventually show up and things could get moving again. Ares explained the situation to the C.E.O and, though he looked troubled as he thunk things over, he nodded along and figured it would all be fine in the end. All Ares had to do was enter alongside him and Cash would get the implication in a heartbeat. He was an asshole, undeniably, but he was also smart enough to have a pretty clear picture painted off just this action alone. The C.E.O didn't know if his higher up buddy would be present today or not but it didn't really matter as his presence wouldn't change much of anything anyway. So long as he was informed of this matter eventually it would be a-ok which meant that, if they were lucky, Cash might not even try and push his luck at all. Given his talents for business, it would be no surprise if he knew when to take a loss on this chin and give ground to an opponent. It seemed like the guard also understood he was going to be safe so he looked a lot more relieved and was quite happy to step aside. It's not like he was following orders because he liked Cash, not even close. Hell if this happened in a back alley and Ares wanted help hiding the body he wouldn't be opposed, that was his true thoughts on his employer.
Ares and the C.E.O walked inside and Ares took a look around at the place. He figured out the layout pretty quickly because it was honestly rather simple. There was one neat trick that spiced things up a bit but, other than that, it was precisely as he expected. All the shelves were gone and there were no longer any isles to speak of, it was just one big empty room with fancy seats forming a semi-circular platform around the centre. This much was to be expected, as there was little that could be done with such a simple layout, but the real trick came in the form of the VIP booths which were actually upstairs and directly above everyone's heads. The roof of this floor, or the ground of the floor above, was made of one way glass meaning the VIPs were actually sitting straight above everyone, looking down on them like the ants they were. Of course the elite were not just metaphorically casting their gaze down at the poor plebs below, they were doing it very literally and even sneering at them from their ivory towers. No wonder the rich didn't complain about using this building, this alone was worth the sacrifice they made in putting up with the exterior.
That being said, the interior was pretty luxurious and the walls had been given a fresh coat of deep brown paint recently before being lined with red curtains. It sort of simulated the wooden look that most traditional auction houses used to signify status but it had its own charm in a way. The chairs were all leather and looked comfortable enough to sleep on if need be and each came with small glass barriers in the arm rests and headrest for privacy. You could raise them and shut the person next to you, or behind you, out. This was not an ordinary auction house so even the potential customers in the non-VIP seats were given a few extra luxuries such as this to prevent them from getting mad at the subpar treatment. Things like free wine and fruit, as well as earbuds for music, professional evaluators for hire in case they came across an item they weren't familiar with, and binoculars for getting a better view of the item were all available. Even if you could see the item clearly sometimes you might want to inspect certain details closer and that was where that last feature came in handy so as not to get conned. This wasn't an extensive list of services at the auction house's disposal but you'd have to really know the ins and outs of this place to request them and, even then, if your status wasn't commendable enough you would be ignored. Such services included lap dances or escorts to look pretty sitting by your side like some kind of trophy partner. There were even some nobles that attended this auction solely to cheat on their significant others which was certainly a bizarre choice but one that could be made here nonetheless. Perhaps doing it here instead of at some random brothel was a thrill for these whackos? Regardless, the point was this auction's main goal wasn't even to sell the items, it was to ingratiate themselves with the clientele by giving them exactly what they wanted. The people running this auction valued power and money above all else and had gotten their hands on a lot of it over the years by catering to these lot so they weren't going to stop any time soon.
But that was just he downstairs area, the next floor up, with the private rooms, was even more pleasant to hang around in. Ares followed the C.E.O up a flight of stairs, which had not been spared being fancified for the sake of the eyes of the nobles climbing up them, and arrived on the second floor in front of a numbered door. The numbers seemed pretty arbitrary, and they even repeated frequently, but the C.E.O gave a wry smile and explained to Ares that you were supposed to pick a room based on the amount of stardust you owned in total, including assets, and enter accordingly. Tax brackets, basically, that would mark you and your financial power for all to see even if nobody knew who, specifically, was in the room. There was full privacy in here but if your voice came from a 750 room, for instance, everybody would know that 750 thousand high grade was your upper limit... It was completely unfair! If you knew how much money your opponent in a bid could spend, you could just call 760 thousand high grade and be done with it then and there! The rich really did play games differently compared to those who were out and about scrambling for every last stardust...
Also, the hell kinda number was 750 thousand high grade supposed to be exactly?! What on earth were they selling in this place?! Surely this was just a matter of rich people throwing money around willy nilly and or money laundering, right!? Had this room number nonsense actually ever been relevant or was it just a way to openly mock people poorer than yourself?! Better yet, who was mocking someone with 750 thousand high grades?! The more Ares tried to think through this matter, the more he wanted to slap the faces of everyone here and not just Cash. They were all the problem! They were all fostering this kind of environment! People like Cash would be less likely to exist if they didn't have to grow up and compete in this kind of nonsensical rat race. Ares decided never to become a businessman and to just leave everything to Onno in the future because killing things, adventuring, and earning pay in a more hands on way was so much easier than this...
As for the room that he and the C.E.O entered, it was extremely well heated if nothing else! Ares had barely walked by the door frame and he was blasted by warm air that soothed his whole body. There was definitely an incense at work as his body felt healthy and somewhat energetic, like his insides were burning to be put to use. If anything, it might have been slightly inconvenient because there was nothing to do in here!... Actually, Ares had to take that claim back immediately as he spotted various exercise equipment in the corner of the room... Did the nobles and elites really use that stuff? It was helpful, sure, but were these people really the kind to actually train? Maybe the treadmill made sense, as just walking to get the stress out and distract your mind was one thing, but cycling machines and rowing machines too? Well if anyone had a personal preference for them then maybe but it still felt odd!
The thing that did make sense here, however, was the bath as you could temper your body if you wanted to with the newfound energy. THAT was a more fitting convenience to have in here! Not that the squishes in the other rooms were likely ever going to temper their body. Still, if they wanted a warm bath, either by themselves or with an escort, then the option was there. 'The option was there' sort of encompassed the entire philosophy behind this room because there were plenty of other hobbyist apparatus sitting around here and there for anyone who got bored. Plus if there was anything else you wanted then room service was a bell ring away. They'd bring you basically whatever you asked for including food from your favourite restaurant. Even if it was on the other side of the country they'd just use spatial magic to transport it over quickly. Unless you demanded something completely ridiculous, like the corpse of a mecha dryad, for instance, you could get pretty much anything you wanted delivered straight to you in here with minimal delay. They'd probably even install a jacuzzi if you were in one of the higher numbered rooms and requested as such. Hell they might already have them in there already!
Naturally this all meant that the rooms were spacious and that was very much true. This floor was the same size as the first and it was the size of a supermarket floor on steroids so, yes, it was absolutely massive up here. For those who were too far to one side of the building to see the auction properly through the floor, as a result of the sheer size of the building, there were screens set up in the rooms displaying the action up close and personal. Not that all rooms didn't have screens it's just that those closer to the middle, with the higher numbers, only really used it for entertainment and not viewing the auction item on a dedicated channel. Also, every room had a microphone in it that would play their voice on the stage so they could bid regardless of distance. 'Your wish is my command' was the motto of the service here and, though Ares was tempted to test it, he didn't want to cause trouble for the C.E.O who was basically temporarily acting as his sugar daddy... Ew. But in all seriousness Ares didn't even want anything from these people to begin with. This was a crowd he would rather not get comfortable around even in the slightest... Though he did buckle and order some curried fish from that one restaurant... He was only human! How could anyone resist a taste of the rich life when it was basically being offered on a silver platter with no downsides!? It's also not like he ordered anything he couldn't afford on his own anyway so this wasn't as big a caving-in of his morals as it looked!
A few minutes later, right as Ares started digging into the food that had just arrived, the auction got underway and all sorts of products were coming out one by one. The very first item that came up was a perfume that made you more attractive to the other sex. It was something that toed the line between legal and highly unethical but was apparently an acceptable means with which to aid in the seduction process. According to the host, it was extremely potent but didn't alter the other person's perception of you. In essence, if you had a shot, it made you more likely to succeed but if you had zero chance from the beginning this would do nothing for you. In the end it sold for 100 high grade... This was the cheapest item in this auction and it was valued that highly! Ares couldn't tell if the item was actually worth that much or if the minimum bid had been jacked up because the people here were stupid and didn't know the worth of literally anything. The way Ares saw things, that perfume was either worth the price, in which case it was potent enough to be illegal, or it wasn't worth that much and somebody had just been scammed! Either way, this whole situation was a complete mess!
Such a mess, in fact, that the second item to come up was something Ares thought would be more valuable but sold for less! It was a wallet with spatial magic for stardust storage specifically. You couldn't put anything else in there but it passively generated interest up to a cap over a decent period of time. Basically a literal MONEY PRINTER and yet not a single person in the room seemed to care! Outside this venue that thing would have people fighting to death in the streets! Free money! Sure none of the people here really needed it but surely the complete disinterest was strange! Even the C.E.O in the room with Ares wasn't paying attention and he seemed like somewhat of a rational guy... Was Ares the one that out of touch?! That thing selling for only 50 high grade felt wrong! Even in a normal auction it would have gone for more than that and moral cultivators were poor as dirt! It was all so backwards but that actually gave Ares a slither of hope that if he found something he liked he could get it for cheap! What Ares valued, as a cultivator, would naturally be radically different compared to these rich spendthrift morons. None of the people here, for instance, would value a treasure tailor made for killing monsters. That wasn't their forte or their interest so Ares could potentially go for something like that without breaking the bank while saving the C.E.O's money for something more pricey down the line. On the flip side, defensive treasures like barriers would be more in demand with a cowardly and weak crowd like this. It went both ways and things would either be dirt cheap or unreasonably expensive... Ares just had to cross his fingers on this one.
An automatic tax calculator, which was a particularly hot item, and a designer pen artifact that never ran out of ink thanks to spatial magic linking it to an never ending reservoir in the headquarters of the company who made it; those were the next two items that confounded Ares. If you had the tax calculator... YOU WOULDN'T NEED THE PEN TO DO TAXES! WHY DID THE GUY WHO BOUGHT THE CALCULATOR ALSO BID FOR THE PEN?! These people were messing around with money weren't they? They had no idea what they were doing or why, they just felt like spending funny amounts of money was chic. That was absolutely the only justification! Aside from doing taxes, Ares was willing to bet these lot never even touched pens with any kind of regularity as they just pawned off office work to their subordinates! The winner of that bid was just going to clip the thing to a pocket on his chest and wear it as a fashion accessory. It wasn't even a treasure that had any business costing more than the wallet or, hell, even the damn perfume and yet it cost 350 high grade! For a pen! Ares was starting to wonder if he'd ever find anything he wanted because the items here that were being sold were both ridiculously useless to him and going for prices that made zero sense... And, yet, the next item defied his expectations by caching his interest. It looked like he might wind up buying something with his own money here after all! The host down below had already named this item as a 'comprehender', allowing anyone who wasn't familiar to take a pretty reliable guess at what it did, but an explanation followed regardless for the uninitiated.
"Comprehenders are relatively rare items..." The host pointed down at what looked to be an antique radio of sorts. "... That do exactly as you'd expect and boost comprehension on whatever it is you're struggling with. This is is a one time use item but will almost definitely help you overcome the roadblock preventing you from learning an art, cultivation method, pressure related skill, or just about anything really. If it's possible to learn within the cultivation sphere, this will enable you to bypass the comprehension process to some degree or maybe even outright." The explanation was good if you understood what the host was already talking about but pretty terrible otherwise.... Put simply, Ares could use this to instantly learn something he was already trying to learn. Things he didn't understand about, say, mana manipulation in an art he was trying to create, would basically be solved for him. You put mana into the radio, funnelling it in the exact way you would for whatever you were trying to learn, fiddled with the dials a bit, and then allowed the mana to transfer back to you and the problem would have been decoded. This also worked with pressure so it was a very versatile resource.
Cultivators were always happy to find one of these bad boys no matter whether they were an expert or a beginner. In Ares' case, he wanted to use it to help figure out passive cultivation but he had a feeling he wasn't in a position to use it for that and see results just yet. Ares was getting closer to accomplishing passive cultivation but the distance between where he was now and full comprehension was not negligible so this radio would likely fail to push him over the finish line. Rather than waste something so incredible on a risk not worth taking, and making slight progress but not learning anything new, Ares had another, better idea. HIs Crystalised Void magic! He'd been thinking about how he could learn to use it without his Bane and this was as good a way as any. His understanding of the magic was already pretty high, because his affiliated aspects were a foundation for it and he'd used it numerous times already, so this might allow him to just skip the long deciphering process of mana manipulation for the arts!
Ares was sold! Now the only question was, were these idiots going to understand how much this thing was really worth or were they going to ignore it because these people were basically all businessmen first and cultivators second? There was only one way to find out so Ares prepared himself to bid with his own spare change. It wasn't the first time he'd done this but it was the first time he'd come into an auction feeling like he couldn't compete monetarily if anyone so much as accidentally sneezed a higher bid than his own. He felt like a rat trying to sneak around at night and avoid hundreds of traps to rob a piece of delectable cheese. If he provoked even a single rich person with his betting habits then SNAP, he wouldn't be able to beat them. This item was good but it wasn't worth using the C.E.O's money on so Ares had to do this alone. Ares psyched himself up and took a deep breath while hoping to God the bidding didn't start at something above his wealth bracket like 1000 high grades.
"The starting bid is 100 high grades and the lowest increment permitted is ten high grade per bid!"
CHEAP!
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Author's Note
- Hello. As promised, the Patreon is finally going to be up and running today. I'll be giving a quick overview of the options available here but that's going to be all that's discussed so if you aren't particularly interested you can skip this without missing out on any information about the novel itself. I'll be leaving a link to the Patreon at the end of every chapter from now which means I'll have to change the structure of the chapters a little to accommodate it. On Royal Road, the post chapter note will always be the Patreon link whereas the pre-chapter note will always be any author's notes that I want to make. On Webnovel, the 'author's thoughts' section at the end is where the link will be and any author's notes will be at the very end of the chapter much like this one is now. If you aren't interested in the Patreon then the link will always be in the same place at the very end of the chapter and easy enough to not interact with.
Now that that's out the way, what exactly is up for offer on Patreon? I mentioned it last time but I'll cover it again here as there will be a second option available as well now. On Patreon, I will post five advanced chapters up front. Each day I will update the chapters and add a new one so that the Patreon is always five chapters ahead of the free releases on Webnovel and Royal Road. At any point, any individual chapter on Patreon can be bought and accessed in full for £3 (that is the bare minimum I can charge for it and I would not recommend doing this at all, sorry). You do not need to buy a monthly membership if you just want a single extra chapter because you're interested in the climax of a cliff-hanger or want to see what comes next. That being said, for £8 a month you will gain access to all advanced chapters I post for an entire month straight. Immediately you will gain access to five advanced chapters and, every day after that for the rest of the month, you will get one more for a total of 34 advanced chapters. This is the bare minimum as it does not include any double uploads that I may do. So, for example, chapter 336 has been uploaded for free today but Patreon will have up to chapter 341 available for individual purchase or bulk access via a membership. If you choose the latter, tomorrow you will have access to chapter 342, then 343 the day after, and so on so forth. I will be posting the advanced chapters to Patreon as soon as this one goes live, so it may take a minute or two for them to show up, and the link to my page on Patreon (you might have to copy and paste it as I'm not sure if it will appear as a directly clickable link) is here --> patreon.com/TWCNovel
Currently there are no other options available but I am considering what other ways I can make use of Patreon and will be back to talk more about it in the future. Thanks to everyone for reading the novel and thanks in advance to anyone who supports me on Patreon.
EDIT - If there is anything wrong with the link, or anything in general regarding Patreon, please leave a comment and I will fix it ASAP. It should be fine but I've never done this before so I want o make sure everything is working properly. Also, if you have any suggestions then please do leave them in the comment section of either site (preferably on the latest chapter) and I'll make sure to check them out.
EDIT 2 - The pricing is actually £7 per month for a membership, not £8, but it is $8. Apologies for any confusion. This also extends to individual chapters as they are $3 not £3 but, again, I would highly recommend not purchasing individual chapters, unless you're just doing it to support me, as it's really not worth the price.
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