44 Auction Part 1

A few weeks had passed since Ye Xiu had gotten his bloodline awakened by San Guo. He had taken his week of Alchemist training and managed to pass the Rank 3 Alchemist exam. He was considered one of the youngest Rank 3 Alchemists in their generation as the alchemist guild didn't know if there were any other alchemists of the same rank with a similar age to him. He had attracted a lot of attention because of the examination and decided to lay low for a while.

During his week of Alchemy, he had made thousands of batches of Grade 3 pills and hundreds of elixirs. For every ten batches of pills that he made, he kept two batches for his and his friends' usage. The rest he sold so that he could get the money back for the ingredients that he had used for Alchemy. He had saved up a lot of money from this and was going to spend it today. The elixirs were kept for their own personal usage because he knew that all the elixirs he made were good for training and healing purposes.

San Guo was planning to take the group out to the city because there was going to be an annual auction where most of the rare things would be sold. San Guo told Ye Xiu that he wouldn't have to worry about not being able to not buy anything in the auction because he probably had more money saved up than some of the families and clans in the city due to his excessive selling of pills.

Ye Xiu was eager to see what rare things would possibly be displayed in the auction for San Guo to be willing to take them out of the academy for the day. Shi Die voiced his concerns over the teachers noticing that they were leaving but San Guo waved them away easily. All San Guo said was "Don't worry, they wouldn't say anything to our group leaving the academy premises anyway." With that, Shi Die had nothing else to say.

It wasn't just San Guo going along with the children because Jin Yuan and Liu Fan were also following them for the auction. Though Liu Fan earned much less money than Ye Xiu would be able to if he set his mind on making pills, he still earned a generous amount of money through his salary at the Academy which was high because he was also the Academy Smith and he also earned money from his side jobs which required him to Smith.

Smithing wasn't as lucrative because it took the Smith a much longer period of time to craft an item than it would take an Alchemist to make a batch of pills or a single elixir. If the Alchemist was of high enough skill, they'd even be able to make two batches of pills at the same time and they'd earn even more money compared to Smiths.

Jin Yuan had a lot more money to spare compared to Liu Fan because Spirit Cooks' food is expensive and people require to eat food every day. He earned 20% of the money from the students that paid for food in the mess hall every day because he was in charge of every other Spirit Cook who was hired by the academy. He had more money than Ye Xiu had even after he sold his thousands of batches of pills which wasn't surprising considering the number of students at the academy eating at the mess hall.

Ye Xiu was also extremely excited to go to the auction due to a certain friend of his that he had recently made. After his bloodline was awakened by San Guo, his next entry into his Locket Dimension was very surprising to him. He had entered the house as usual and was greeted by a voice that called him master. Ye Xiu was obviously surprised at the sudden voice but calmed down afterwards once he remembered what the voice had just said.

As he was pondering this, a strange little figure had appeared in front of him. It was apparently the voice that had been speaking to him. "Hello there Master! I'm Xiao Bai, a treasure spirit. I'm a spirit that was formed after millions of years inside of this dimension and have been given the task to help and protect the Master in the Dimension. I was unsealed from the house once you managed to achieve the appropriate goal that he had set. In this case, the previous Master had me be unsealed once you managed to awaken your bloodline."

"It's strange that you hadn't unsealed me earlier because the previous Master had said that I would meet you fairly quickly! He said that in the year that you inherited Master's will, you'd have been able to unseal me with your bloodline awakened. I don't know why it took you so long but at least you're finally here!" Xiao Bai was extremely enthusiastic after finally being unsealed after many years.

After weeks of talking to Xiao Bai, the group had managed to learn more about the functions that would be unlocked in the future once Ye Xiu managed to achieve a goal that the previous Master had set. The goals were unknown to Ye Xiu and would be discovered once Ye Xiu managed to reach the goal.

When Ye Xiu heard about the auction, Xiao Bai immediately pressured him into going to the auction because Xiao Bai wanted to see if there was anything useful for his Master. Xiao Bai was able to tell if something was rare or was useful to Master after it's many years with the previous Master. His previous Master had taught him how to sense for rare treasures and how to identify them. Xiao Bai was a relatively powerful treasure spirit due to the high density in Qi and the years that it had been formed for.

The auction building was massive to accommodate the many people that were going to be entering for the auctions. The city that was around the academy was apparently one of the twenty largest and most prosperous cities in the Outer Region. All the biggest cities had an academy there which was why the cities had grown to be so big and prosperous in the first place.

Ye Xiu could see many students around the auction which wasn't surprising because most of the students were from families or clans that had extensive amounts of money that they could spend in the auction. There were several entryways into the Auction House and San Guo led them through one of the more private ones so that they wouldn't be waiting in a huge queue to enter.

The Auction House usually had stringent checks on people so that they don't cause any trouble at the regular entrance, however, the private entryways were less stringent because only people who had been recognised by the Auction House for their patronage by using a card that was given to the one who was recognised. Those who held the card could bring anybody they wanted through the private entrances and be unmolested by the masses and the checks.

San Guo continued to lead them through the Auction House and into the Auction Hall where hundreds of people had already gathered in the seats around the stage. The seats were for those who did not have a private Auction Box and they were usually squished together when big auctions such as this came about. San Guo walked up the many stairs in the Auction Hall to get to one of the private Auction Boxes that were in the Hall. "Here, this will be where are for the Auction. I'll explain how the auction works."

San Guo sat down on one of the seats in the room and explained how the auction works. "The auction box we are in is one reserved for those of high ranking in the Academy. Most of the auction boxes are for those who are influential in the city or have good relationships with the Auction House. The Auction House is considered one of the main powers in the city due to it only being a branch of the Skylight Auction Organisation. The Skylight Auction Organisation is the main Auction organisers in the Outer Region."

"The organisation can be called the S.A.O, the S.A.O is one of the powerhouses in the Outer Region because of their branches in many cities that rake in huge amounts of money every year in their Auctions. With this money, they are able to hire many talented cultivators to work under them and that is why many people are very hesitant to attack any Auction hosted by the S.A.O."

San Guo looked to the door where a person was peeking in and he stood up to go talk to the person at the door. "Mind taking over the explanation Old Yuan?"

Jin Yuan shrugged. "It's not like I have anything better to do. The Auction Houses give out cards to esteemed guests and these cards lower down the prices that they would have to pay for every successful bid that they place. The higher the card rank is the less they have to pay. Usually, the cards cut down the prices by percentages, and the card that San Guo has can cut down the price for things successfully bid on by 20%."

"In order for us to bid in the Auction Box, we have to insert the card into this slot here and state the amount of money you want to bid. The slot 'reads' the Qi inside of the card so that it knows who bid and where it was bid from and when you successfully bid for an item, the item will be brought to the box and we will pay."

"If you're unable to pay for an item, and you are the highest bidder, you'll be banned from the Auction House depending on the mood of their manager. An item which was unable to be paid for will be sold to the one who bid the second highest price and it will continue to go on until someone manages to pay for it or it goes back to the Auction Lists."

"Always make sure you have enough money to pay for your items because Auction Houses usually keep a record on those who don't play. You won't have to worry about being attacked in the Auction House if you manage to successfully bid for an item because the Auction Rules prevent them from even trying it lest they wish the be punished harshly. The moment you step out of the Auction District, however... all is fair game and you should be careful of your surroundings after every auction."

"The first item of the auction is usually the worst item an Auction can offer, each subsequent item is higher in price and rarity. This helps keep those bidding excited for what's next on the Auction and they'll continue to spend as much as they possibly can. The very last item is usually the rarest or most expensive item that the Auction can offer and most of the time, fights break over the item after the Auction leading to bloodshed."

San Guo came back with drinks and food in hand, provided by the kind staff of the Auction House. "Glad to see you are wrapping up with the explanation. I'll take over from here now. In order for you to place an item to be sold in the Auction, you must go through stringent checks to make sure that the item is rare enough to be sold on the Auction. The Auction House doesn't care about what kind of person sells it and will keep their identity secret unless the seller wishes their name to be known."

"Sometimes before you can even place the item on the Auction, the Auction House will even offer prices to buy it directly off the person. Usually, the price for the direct price is lower than what can be obtained from the Auction so I suggest you to only do something like this if you are extremely desperate for money. I highly doubt you'd run out of money since your group is filled with people in disciplines that can earn a huge amount of money in a short amount of time anyway."

As San Guo started to stroke his face, he stopped speaking once he realised that the more influential people were entering the Auction Boxes.