12 Chapter 12

As we reached the auction hall, we didn't draw any attention seeing as quite a large amount of people had either masks or hoods hiding their faces. They probably didn't want to be identified when buying or selling things. There was a corridor that leads people to separate rooms, so that the objects that they wish to sell be appraised in secret.

They also had some things in display to sell, which were less valuable and they probably weren't able to sell at the auctions.

The auction hall had three different types of auctions, each one sells more valuable items than the previous one, and the fee to participate in it also increases. The next auction was the cheapest one and it would happen in 2 hours, so after we bought slots to participate in it we got out of the hall and started walking around the town.

When someone enters a town they have to pay for how long they wish to stay, except for residents, of course. We had payed for a night only, since we were only going to look around and if we saw something good we would buy, otherwise we would continue on our way.

"Do you guys want to taste the food of Azgal world? I don't have a place to prepare food here in town, and I can't exactly start cooking in the middle of the street." I said.

"I want to try it." of course Nifret would want to experiment something knew.

"You can just open a stall or whatever in the market, that would be better, since I prefer to eat your food and you can also earn some money that way." Ragnar said.

"Yes, I would love to earn some money like that, but for that to happen I would need to have enough food, but I only have enough for us. Unless you wish to go hunting to provide us with more meat." I said. Even though I earn points from making food for Ragnar and Nifret I spend most of it buying more food, so I would need to do that a few more times to save enough points to be able to sell.

"Fine." Ragnar agreed to eat in town reluctanly, I knew he wouldn't go out just to hunt.

"I saw some fancy restaurants on the main street when we were on our way to the auction, they seem nice." I said.

"You are planning on going to a normal restaurant when you only have spirit stones as currency? We need to go to a place for cultivators, I kown one, so just follow me." Ragnar said after admonishing me with that question.

"I thought that there weren't sane people that would sell food for spirit stones, every person that came to my place always got surprised by the price." I said.

"Well that's because your prices are quite expensive, no other place would dare put such prices, and if your dishes weren't so delicious nobody would waste such a amount of money. But anyway, there will always have cultivators that don't carry any other currency besides spirit stones, so places like the one we are going to now started appearing, it's just that since cultivators don't really need to eat frequentely like non-cultivators, rarely anyone pays spirit stones to eat even if the price is exactly what a magical beast meat is worth. So usually those places are used as a meeting place and an information gathering point. If Nifret didn't want to try the taste of somewhere different and you, just a puny human, didn't need to eat we wouldn't need to waste spirit stones there." Ragnar said.

"Hey! That is not something you should be saying considering that you, a Fenrir, started tolerating humans just because of food." I said angrily.

Bang!

Someone was thrown and sent flying out of a door, and that someone fell just in front of us.

"You lost the bet, and if you can't pay you won't be able to walk anymore." said a man as he was coming out of the rundown establishment.

"You guys cheated! There is no way that I lost all those times." the fallen man said panting while trying to get up.

"Let's go." Ragnar said and started walking towards that same establishment not minding the two arguing men.

I and Nifret picked up our pace to catch up to him. As we went inside of it, I noticed how simple the enviroment was, but there were lots of tables. You could see people gambling and drinking in many tables, while others just stayed to themselves or were talking in groups.

"I thought you said that this place was used as an information gathering point and meeting place, but it looks like a gambling den." I said.

"What better way to get information an wait for someone than with alcohol and bets." Ragnar rebuked.

'True, maybe I should share some of the gambling games with cards that existed in my world, it would help me with my information network as well as attract more customers.' I thought.

"Two dishes of the day." I heard Rarnar saying to someone.

"Why didn't you aks us what we wanted?" I asked

"Since normally nobody eats there is only one type of dish per day, maybe it's even the same the entire week. Let's get ourselves a table while we wait." Ragnar said.

"You two can go ahead, I think that I will gamble a little." I said.

There were people gambling with mahjong tiles, playing pai gow (chinese gambling game played with a set of 32 dominoes, also refered as "double-hand poker"), liar's dice (five dice are used per player with dice cups used for concealment)...

I sat down at a table where there were three people drinking playing mahjong (usually the betting amount is small) and that were betting with only spirit stones. Who knows, maybe besides entertaining myself I could earn some in these bets, I have around 135 spirit stones, since only Ragnar has payed until now. Anyway, I could always earn back what I lost.

"I want to enter the next round." I said.

"Sure thing, the more the merrier. The name is Noah, what are you called?" one of them asked.

"You can call me Scar." I said.

"Haa! You lost Noah. That is not her real name." another on said laughing triumphantly.

"What did you guys bet?" I asked intrigued.

"That the next person to enter the game would use a pseudonyms like the two of us, only Noah actually gave his real name. By the way, you can call me Wolf and this one wanted to be called Cross." Wolf said.

'I think it is good that they misunderstood my real name for a fake one.' I thought.

"Anyhow, let's start another round." Noah said unhappily.

While Wolf distributed the tiles and Noah asked for more alcohol, Cross started talking.

"Oh, that's right, have you guys heard that the new sect leader of the Sun Sect in Sathir world went to Kriton?" Cross asked more like in a rhetorical manner, since he started answering before we could.

"To think that it will be finally over that war, I am still surprised that he is the one that windup as the winner. One of the strogest sects in all seven worlds ended up in such a mess." Cross said.

"I don't see how you didn't expect such an outcome, even though that man is young, he is extremely ruthless and crafty, besides having achieved a high cultivation realm. He massacred all those geezers, cutting all future problems by the roots, and I doubt that the war in Kriton will end so fast, he has only just arrived and I will bet that he will probably commit another massacre there." Wolf said.

"Why didn't those elders terminate such a strong enemy when he was still weak?" I asked, to think that information would just start to drop in front of me. It seems like each one would share something about a topic and if the others knew something about it they would say.

"Before he achieved his current cultivation realm I heard that he created another identity in another world, and he was living in that world while growing his network and forces. That's why, when I heard about the internal mess that the Sun Sect was going through I though he would loose, after all, he was in hiding all this time." Cross said grumbling.

"That is not hiding idiot. That is called being smart, what kid would go head on against elders from such a strong sect without a plan and subordinates. That is asking to be killed." Wolf rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"I heard that he was staying in Laimyra as a noble, recently such information started popping up, probably because he stayed in a prolonged period of time in Sathir and now Kriton, so it got easier to find out some details about his other identity. Especially since he doesn't reveal his face, but I still don't get how people can't get a hold of neither his name nor his face, he is now the leader of the Sun Sect for gods sake." Noah said.

'Laimyra huh, this universe really is a small world. I wonder what he is like.' I thought.

"Speaking of Laimyra, I heard that a group of devil cultivators will be coming to Azgal world from there in a month's time." I said, I should try to reciprocate their information.

"No way. What are they planning? It has been such a long since I last saw a devil cultivator, much less a group." Cross said.

"They would appear in Holcan region and Elfcia is the closest to there, if they don't want to be chased by the immortals in the night they would have to pass through here or stay in the outposts close to town. Maybe I should delay my departure, this will be an extremely fun show to watch. I hope that they will at least be able to create a little bit of chaos." Wolf said excitedly.

"I won! Hah! I actually won on my first round." I said happily, "Do start paying up." I said smugly.

"I wasn't even really paying attention on this round." Wolf said taking out a few spirit stones.

"Me neither." Cross said following suit.

"I see that Noah is the only one that isn't a sore loser." I taunted the two.

Ding!

[Host's total spirit stones: 150 spirit stone]

"Hey Wolf! Did you hear about what happened to the Riasara Black Market?" said some panting guy that just arrived.

"What do you mean?" Wolf asked.

"Well, I remembered that you said you need to go there this time around, but I think you are going to have some problems. Some crazy nut job just "invited" those prehistoric immortal monsters inside the Riasara, it turned everything into a mess, quite a lot o people died as well. And since the monters can't die, they had to lead them outside the formation until the night ended it. The peopleo in charge of the black market have already executed him, bu it seemed like that crazy dude was quite a regular in the Riasara Black Market, he went there always, so he was able to open the formation when he entered for the immortals to go with him. Now the Riasara have changed their fixated coordinates and their way to obtain it, so that everyone will be like a newcomer. But I heard that you need to go the arenas of the Cliff area to find out if you can and how to obtain it now." the guy said.

"The food is here." Ragnar appeared behind me as he said that.

"Well seems like I will have to let you guys have your rematch another time." I said with a smile.

"Next time I won't let you win, you only won because we thought it would be nice to motivate the newcomer." Cross said.

After saying goodbye I went to our table with Ragnar.

"You heard what that guy said about the Riasar Black Market, right?" I asked Ragnar quietly.

"Yes, I did." he answered.