Jin Quanyou was utterly dumbfounded. Not even in his dream could he have imagined that Xia Fei would take out more than three thousand spatial rings! If each ring was packed to the brim with items, how much volume would it take up?!
Xia Fei smiled. Pointing at the pile of spatial rings, he asked, “Do you need me to open them all?”
Jin Quanyou hastily waved his hands. “No need! No need! Sir, please wait here a moment. I’ll be gone and back fast.”
Jin Quanyou wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief as he struggled his way out of the room, a panicked look on his face.
…
Strength decided everything. There was nothing false about these words. The moment Xia Fei revealed his stock, he was immediately invited to a VIP room, and Jin Quanyou was switched out for the chief appraiser of the Boundless Heaven Trading Association, Li Ning.
Li Ning was a genial-looking old man, who spoke in a tone that was calm but also not too stiff. He took Xia Fei’s deerskin backpack, opened it, and sent his consciousness in to inspect the contents.
“There’s a lot here, and several hundred of them meet the grade. Our Boundless Heaven Trading Association will take everything but probably at a discount.” Li Ning put down the ring in his hand and slowly said, a cunning gleam in his eyes.
“Are this old man’s eyes that sharp?” Xia Fei muttered. Before coming, he had looked through everything and made sure to destroy any items that had any identifying information, precisely so that people would not find out where he had gotten them. However, this was not enough to escape Li Ning’s eyes, and he had still managed to find out that there was a problem with these items.
Xia Fei smiled. “As you wish, sir. I’ll accept the discounted price offered by the Boundless Heaven Trading Association, but I’d like it to paid all at once in cash. Plus, I’d like it only in grade 5 crystals.”
Li Ning was taken aback at first, but he quickly regained his composure and lightly nodded. “Acceptable. The discounted exchange rate will be one to four hundred. This is the best price that Boundless Heaven Trading Association can offer, and we only offer it to our VIP customers. We can’t go any lower.”
Grade 5 crystals contained one hundred times the energy of grade 4 crystals, but the discounted exchange rate was several hundred. This was very normal, as grade 5 crystals needed high-ranking energy masters to convert fully, and in the Law Realm, energy masters were incredibly rare.
Li Ning’s exchange rate of one to four hundred was neither too high nor too low, exactly at the level that Xia Fei could accept. It was apparent that this old man had a clear idea of what went on in the minds of others.
Li Ning called someone over to take the spatial rings and then handed Xia Fei a golden card. “Sir, this is Boundless Heaven Trading Association’s VIP gold card. If you need anything in the future, I hope that you will grace us with your presence. With this card, you may visit any store under Boundless and receive VIP treatment.
“It will take some time to clear all the items. While this is happening, you may take a look around at our various stores.”
After some thought, Xia Fei said, “I’ve heard that Boundless Heaven is the Law Realm’s biggest trading association. Does your esteemed society have a Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa? If so, I’d like to buy some.”
Li Ning chuckled and softly said, “Buy some? Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupas are mystical materials used by artificers and are extremely valuable. If you want to buy one or two, I may be able to help you, but if you wish to buy in bulk, I’m afraid that I’ll be helpless.”
Xia Fei was taken aback. So Li Ning was saying that the Boundless Heaven Trading Association did have Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupae? This really was the Law Realm’s number one trading association, operating on a truly impressive scale. Xia Fei had been getting a headache over trying to find a Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa; if he had known this beforehand, he would have come straight to the Boundless Heaven Trading Association.
Li Ning turned on a screen, looked up the information, and said, “At present, we have three Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupae. One of them will be officially put up for bidding tomorrow afternoon at the Boundless Heaven Auction House. If you need it, you may go there and bid for it.”
Xia Fei asked, “What of the other two?”
Li Ning shook his head. “The other two are still at our branch locations; we currently have no plans to auction or sell them. The trading association plans to keep them in the inventory for now.”
Xia Fei was a businessman himself, and he well understood the idea of hunger marketing. The good things had to be sold slowly and made difficult to obtain. If all three were auctioned off at one go, the price would naturally drop, and the merchant would be unable to make the maximum profit.
“Having one is better than nothing. I’m guessing that Huo Yutong only needs one. He asked for nine, purely to make things hard for you and have you make some money for him. With just one, you should have the right to negotiate with Huo Yuto,” Oro said to Xia Fei.
…
After putting away the golden card, Xia Fei went for a stroll on the streets of Boundless City. He prepared to see what was up for auction. Any auction would have an item preview phase, and Xia Fei had yet to see what a Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa really looked like.
The Boundless Heaven Auction House was located on the right-hand side of the trading association headquarters, two blocks away. By the time Xia Fei went in, there was already a sea of people. Tomorrow was the official day of the auction, and the people who wanted to participate in the Boundless Heaven Trading Association’s monthly auction were all arriving.
There were even familiar faces in the crowd: Brother Gigawolf’s Uncle Wolf Jiulin of the Law Enforcement Board and Mu Fuping’s father Mu Nanchen. It was clear that this auction had some significant pull in the Law Realm. Xia Fei disguising himself so that no one recognized him had saved him the hassle of being called.
Frowning, Xia Fei muttered, “Even people from the Nine Great Clans are here? It seems like the competition at the Boundless Heaven Auction will be quite intense. Tomorrow, if I want to get the Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa, I’ll have to go through an intense bidding war.”
Oro replied, “That’s not for certain. The Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa is a baby that only artificers love. What do warriors need it for? They might have come for something else.”
Xia Fei neither agreed nor rejected this view; he just began searching through the countless items on display for the Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa. However, the more Xia Fei looked around, the more astonished he became, for he even spotted bigshots like Dragon Ascension Martial Hall’s Busey and Dotzel and the Nine Fan Clan’s Nine Smiles in the crowd.
All of these influential figures had all appeared at the Boundless Heaven Trading Association? Xia Fei could not help but start getting fanciful ideas. It was not just the human species. The other sapient lifeforms had also sent their bigshots, all of whom Xia Fei did not recognize. Numerous powerful people had gathered at this auction.
Xia Fei mixed into the crowd and sought out the Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa. Finally, in a corner, Xia Fei found it.
Through the glass, he saw a golden pea-shaped object. There was no rhyme or reason for its round exterior, but the luster was good, like crystal.
“High quality! This Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa is definitely high quality!” Oro said in surprise. “Look there! Its exterior is plump and its color is crystalline. This is a rare high-quality good. It’s just a shame that its exterior is too irregular. It will probably create a lot of variables if given to an artificer.”
Xia Fei asked with curiosity, “The exterior will affect the artificing process?”
Oro sternly explained, “I’ve only heard about this from others. The Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa serves as an important catalyst in the artificing of high-class weapons. The plumper the exterior and the brighter the color, the greater the catalyzing effect, but it can’t be of a disorderly shape. The ideal form is that of an oval, but this one is like a pea, having grown long and crooked.”
Xia Fei asked, “What does it matter if it’s long and crooked?”
Oro dejectedly replied, “Variables! Many variables will appear in the catalyzing process. As for what that actually means, you’ll have to ask those artificers yourself.”
Xia Fei shrugged. Even if this was a long and crooked Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa, Xia Fei had decided to get it. After all, these things were extremely rare, and there was no guarantee that he would find another.
“Variables? What sort of variables could there be?” Xia Fei muttered. After seeing the Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa, he continued to walk around the reception hall. While there were a lot of people, few of them were paying attention to the Solid Gold Flying Cicada Pupa, much to Xia Fei’s relief.
There was a large crowd in front of him, gathered around a potion bottle the color of butter and sighing at it.
Xia Fei got closer to take a look. He saw that this concoction was called Cloud-swallowing Liquid, and the starting price was ten thousand grade 5 Origin Crystals!
“This potion costs this much?!” Xia Fei exclaimed in surprise.
Oro casually said, “Cloud-swallowing Liquid isn’t your average medicine. It can forcibly open up your seventh brain region. Normally, warriors take optimization fluids from a young age or rely on training to open up their seventh brain regions, but the openness of the seventh brain region isn’t a guaranteed thing. If your brain region is sufficiently open, it will have enormous influence on your future cultivation and progress.
“Cloud-swallowing Liquid is made precisely for those warriors who are extremely talented but don’t have brain regions that are sufficiently open. If a warrior has a brain region that is 50% open, then after they take this liquid, they will reach around 80%. Of course, someone like you has no need for it. Your brain region has already reached a shocking 100% openness.”
Xia Fei was startled. He immediately understood the value of this medicine, for it was a medicine that could modify the brain region!
Normally, the openness of a warrior’s brain region could never change once it was fixed. For example, if a warrior reached 70% openness at the age of ten, then even at one hundred or one thousand, it would still be 70% open.
However, the Cloud-swallowing Liquid could fundamentally modify the brain region a second time, forcefully opening it. Those warriors who had run into walls because their brain regions were not open enough would pay any price for this medicine. After all, even the smallest increase in cultivation was excruciatingly difficult, and without this medicine, they did not have the slightest hope and would have to remain where they were for the rest of their lives.
As he looked around, Xia Fei discovered that there were several other medicines of astonishing prices, all of them starting at prices of more than ten thousand grade 5 Origin Crystals!
“This is all very normal. Low-level apothecaries are useless in the Law Realm, only capable of treating a few injuries and sicknesses. The Law Realm reveres individual strength, and its technology is also very advanced, so normal sicknesses don’t require an apothecary. Such services are only required in barbaric regions like the Exiled Grounds.
“It’s a different matter if an apothecary reaches an advanced level, for that figure becomes a hot commodity, and their medicines, like this one that can modify the openness of the brain region, can sell for astronomical prices! The Law Realm has three major support professions: Energy masters and artificers are highly valued from the start, but nobody cares about apothecaries until they reach a high level,” Oro explained.
After looking around the auction, Xia Fei returned to Li Ning’s office.
“It seems like the auction this time has attracted a lot of attention. There are many esteemed individuals are present,” Xia Fei commented.
Li Ning smiled and mysteriously said, “Boundless Heaven Trading Association holds a large-scale auction every month, and this time is the important summer auction, its scale only second to the annual premium items auction. I’ve already reserved a seat for you for tomorrow night. Trust me, sir; you won’t be disappointed.”
Li Ning handed over the final receipt to Xia Fei. On it was a number followed by many zeroes.