บท 6: Auction

Wednesday.

Today Zhang Wuji persevered and was finally able to complete his training session to perfection for the very first time in the week since he got here. All tempering exercises done to exhaustion and even no scratching in the medicinal bath. He whistled a tune and with a spring in his step he walked to his classes.

'Perfect tempering and perfect absorption of medicinal essence. It won't be long before I reach qi condensation then foundation building then core formation and finally nascent soul and beyond and rule the world. Although it has been a week I'm sure my cheat is waiting for me somewhere. I should do some system trials and walk around the sect grounds. I'm excited to see whether my cheat is gonna be a system or some heaven defying treasure. Just you wait. You dare to make fun of me suggesting me to give up cultivation and choose acting. Once my cheat arrives I'll shove your face up your ass. That'll teach you. Hmph!'

He reached the class and took his seat still daydreaming when he was brought back to the world with a shout.

"Silence!" A bald grey robed middle aged deacon entered the class and slammed the tanle to quieten the rowdy class "THIS IS NOT A FISH MARKET. WHERE'S YOUR DISCIPLINE?" He looked at the whole class for a long moment and continued "If you can't even stay quiet and wait for the classes to begin how can you stay in long periods of seclusion and cultivate? That is how a proper cultivator spends most of his time. Patience and perseverance are THE MOST important for cultivation. You might as well go back to your mortal lives if you can't even sit quiet and wait!"

He waited a few breaths and said "Today you will be learning combat formations and martial arts for the whole six hours. New disciples I've already explained the basics repeatedly in the past few weeks. Starting today you will lose sect points for every mistake you make in combat formations just like your seniors. Now assemble in the training grounds. I better not hear a single sound from you in the process."

He walked out the class and the disciples followed.

'Ai the worst class. I'll be tired the whole day following this. Well atleast there is no risk annoying some inner disciple or deacon by falling asleep to their boring lectures.' Zhang Wuji grumbled inwardly.

The assembled disciples were divided into four groups of hundred and eight each and two smaller groups of less than fifty.

Each group of 108 were arranged in a combat formation with three disciples making a small triangle formation and four of such triangles arranged in a Y fashion and nine of such groups forming an octagram like structure with the Y tail sticking out the vertices and one Y group in the centre. None of the structures were completely rigid with the central Y being most flexible. With the direction where the two arms of the Y points as the direction of movement the combat formation performed all kinds of routines that looked majestic from the bird's eye view.

The two smaller groups worked together with the larger ones and this continued for four hours after which the disciples were dismissed.

'So tiring. Such an impractical formation. If just practicing it for four hours sucks the juice out of me how would it perform on the battlefield. And what's the cultivation world's obsession with breathing techniques. I can't even breathe comfortable and you want me to vanquish enemies on the battlefield with this formation. Curses! I even gotta wash the pots after I reach the room. Fuck my life!' Zhang Wuji dragged his tired body towards his room.

"Brother Zhang!" He turned around towards the shout to see Lin Yingjie waving towards him and waved back and gestured for him to come forward. 'I'm definitely not gonna walk back' he thought.

Lin Yingjie walked towards him and put his arm over Zhang Wuji's shoulder and said "Brother we are going to the Duck Lake for fishing and then to the east hot springs. Wanna come?"

Zhang Wuji wriggled out of his arm, distanced himself from his sweaty body and asked with an irritated tone "How the hell are you so energetic? And no. I'm dead tired and what I need is a good sleep and that's what I'm going to do."

"Brother we've been doing this for four years, how can you be tired? Anyway, Sunday's program is still on right?"

"Ofcourse! I'm determined to get that pill."

"Ok then see you later." Lin Yingjie then walked to his friends waiting for him and left with them towards the lake.

Zhang Wuji kept staring at his back till he disappeared in the distance and sighed 'I was excited to make an acquaintance as I could try for various scenarios that could activate a system. I tried to make them laugh and get some system based on joke points or something, tried angering for rage points and even acted tough but none gave positive results. Lin Yingjie seems impossible to anger and I don't want to risk angering the other two. I searched for good jokes from back on earth but either my delivery was wrong or they did not get the jokes, I failed to get laughs the majority of times. Even those that magically clicked did not activate a system. As for acting tough I think my act wasn't believable for them. Haish.. real life systems aren't as easy as novel ones. I'm starting to believe that my cheat is some heaven defying treasure and not a system. I gotta roam around for that. What a bother. Sigh'

He reached his room and decided to sleep right away and wash the pots when he wakes up.

When he woke up it was already late night. He looked at the pots 'Fuck it!' and went back to sleep. The next day in cleaning the pots and training he missed the first class leading to deduction of points. The cleaning up messed up his routine and lowered his efficiency in training which added to his frustrations and messed up the next day's training. The bad training streak continued till sunday, the auction day.

Sunday.

This time he along with Lin Yingjie, Pan Mu and Wan Lin left the sect in the evening around six, ate some street food and had some fun before reaching the Magnificent Auction House a few minutes before eight. They paid the entry fees of one silver and entered the building.

Zhang Wuji looked around, the enterance, the interior, the boxes the seats below everything was just as he had imagined when reading the novels. The auction house had gold and red as the main colours. The curtains, carpets, seats and every cloth item was red and the walls in the corridor leading to the auction hall and the whole building itself were painted a not too bright light golden colour. The corridor displayed various items in glass enclosures placed a metre from each other on either side of the red carpet. There were attractive young men and women in red clothes welcoming guests on either sides. The ceiling was five to seven metres high with five chandeliers hanging down with the biggest in the centre and smallest near the entrance and exit. After walking for ten metres he reached the doors leading to the auction hall. The doors were square and opened inwards. They were twice as tall as him with a glossy finish and no carvings on them.

Upon entering the doors he was greeted with a familiar movie theatre like hall with stepped floor and red seats. The only addition were box like structures at the top and some protruding out the walls of the hall. The walls and flooring of the auction hall were covered with black fabric to manage the sound and echo characteristics of the hall. The stage and the stepped floor were curved in shape with the extremes making a 130 degree angle when extrapolated. By the time he was done checking things out he was already in his seats along with the other three.

He was excited. 'Finally the auction scene! Fuck this is awesome. I always, always wanted to be in one of the auction scenes where the mc crushes all opposition with money. Luckily old Wuji saved me enough money. I gotta calm myself down. Deep breaths deep breaths'

*inhales*

'awesome'

*exhales*

'awesome'

'Damn if I don't control myself I may really go berserk and say some this young master dialogue and get myself killed.'

"Brother Zhang you seem excited. Is it your first time in an auction?" Pan Mu looking at his red face and bright eyes.

Zhang Wuji was woken up from his young master fantasy and replied "Yeah. Brother Pan do you know what items are gonna be auctioned?"

"Well, there are some standard items and some monthly additions. Monthly additions are all decided last minute so I got no idea. I could tell you the standard items. There's the body nourishing pills, mid and high quality gate opening pills, pill pattern quality qi recovery pills sometimes, a bunch of other grade 1 high quality assist pills not used for cultivation like healing, poison, antidote and various other effects, grade 1 enhancing pills of any quality like speed, physical strength, fast qi circulation, momentary explosive power, defensive ones like stone pills etc. Then there is grade one high quality main stream weapons like saber, sword, spear, rod, hammer, axe and others, grade one auxiliary tools of any quality, there's grade one inscriptions, formations, talismans, someti...."

"Alright enough. I don't want to hear your annoying voice anymore. Brother Zhang there's a long list of items, all grade one and useless to us. Only the body nourishing and qi recovery pills are useful. You could learn about the others in the duration of the auction. No hurry." Wan Lin couldn't take the never-ending list anymore and snapped.

"Alright. Thank you brother Pan." Zhang Wuji replied with a smile before thanking Pan Mu. 'What's your problem dude? Once I get my cheat hmph hmph.'

After a few minutes the seats were filled and the auction began. A handsome young man with a red shirt and black pants came onto the stage.

"Welcome to all fellow cultivators. Just like always we would first start with the standard items and then move onto the special ones. If you have any items to be auctioned please go at the back and apply as soon as possible. You have time till the end of the standard items' auction after which no items would be added to today's list.

Alright then. Let's start. The first item for today's auction is a high quality qi circulation enhancement pill bottle with ten pills. The starting price is 15 gold with the minimum bid increment of fifty silver. You may start the bidding."

An opening appeared on the table in front of him and a pill bottle rose to the level of the table. It contained small white pearl like pills with a bluish tinge.

"Brother Zhang don't mind Wan Lin. He is just like that. Always grumpy." Pan Mu whispered and started explaining the pills "Enhancement pills are usually costlier than cultivation pills. Not because they are more valuable but because they are not as frequently made and their ingredients only occupy a small corner in most herb gardens. They are also life saving in certain situations. As for these pills, they enhance qi circulation speeds and thus make all qi deployments faster. They could be a deciding factor in a fight between two qi condensation realm cultivators of similar prowess. A high quality pill could sometimes even allow the user to jump levels and fight. But as brother Wan said it is useless to us."

Zhang Wuji nodded.

....

The auction continued in this manner with Pan Mu explaining and Zhang Wuji listening. Sometimes Lin Yingjie chipped in with some battle records involving the items.

"Next up is low quality body nourishing pills. There will be fifteen of them auctioned in five rounds. Each bottle contains three pills that will last you for three months. The minimum bid is fifty silver with a minimum increment of five silver."

Zhang Wuji's excitement level was through the roof. Finally the bidding scene. He checked the amount of gold he had for the umpteenth time and tried his best to curb his excitement.

'Alright how should I play this? Should I double the minimum bid to give a shocking effect in the beginning itself or wait till the bidding reaches a plateau and then double it Or I could just round off the current bit to the nearest gold and savour the high from that...'

Before he could complete his thoughts the bidding started

"60 silver"

"70"

"1 gold"

"1 gold 10silver"

"220 silver"

'2 gold! So soon! That is more than four times the minimum bid. Three qi recovery pills of the same quality sell for only thirty silver. Isn't this a bit too much? I only have around twenty gold with me and that is after old Wuji saved for four years. I can play rich young master later. For now I'll just go with the flow. Maybe the pills later will be cheaper.'

"Brother Zhang you better bid early. There might be a dip at the second or third round but that isn't guaranteed. First round is the one with the least risk. Also if it goes beyond 4 gold just wait for the second round. And if you do not have enough gold do not hesitate to ask. I can lend you upto 3 gold." Lin Yingjie saw him hesitate and thought he did not have enough money.

"Thank you brother Lin, but it's fine. I have enough." 'Since that is the case I'll directly increase to 3 gold and shock them.'

"300 silver" before he could say his bid someone beat him to it.

'Fuck it!' "6 gold" he shouted stunning himself in the process.

.....

"Brother Zhang you got really impatient. The price for the rest of the bottles did not even cross five gold. Usually people who jump a few minimum increments to the next round number are those who are going all in and want to scare others. You only had to increase by five silver and you would've gotten the pills. Even if it didn't end there it wouldn't have crossed 350." On the way back to the sect Lin Yingjie couldn't help but say.

"Isn't it possible that he was a rich kid showing off his money?" Zhang Wuji whispered trying his best to convince himself that he did the right thing.

"If they are that rich they could just hire an alchemist. Spending more than 4 gold on this pill is a waste. It is a low quality one and isn't even helpful to high stage body refinement realm cultivators. It even takes a month to show effect which decreases with every pill taken. These three will help you reach only to the mid stages of fifth level and that too after three months. If you had spent the same money on quality herbs it would better help your cultivation journey."