Chapter 11: Auction house in Kumji Town

Luo now decided to start for the summer competition. Xian town was to his east now and headed Northeast towards Kumji town, north of Xian town, where the Summer competition would be held.

He just started running out of the forest, all the while practicing the 'Wave' portion of the Iron and Wave steps as he zipped past the Dai Shan forest at high speeds.

After running like that for 2 days, he reached Kumji town with the competition being hosted in 3 more days. The city was already bustling with people coming in from different sects to attend the competition. Lamps were hung in the streets and the shops were decorated gaily.

There was a kind of festive mood everywhere. Most of the inns were already occupied, so Luo had to search for a while until he found some boarding for a few nights and paid the rent. He slept through the night and woke up late, getting all the travel tiredness out of him.

He washed up, had some breakfast and with the blood essence fruits being packed in a bag, he headed out to the city with a plan in mind.

He went to a tailor's shop and bought a set of fine clothes, as his current ones were almost in tatters. He selected a white robe with black sleeves.

After donning his new threads, he made his way to the auction house of 'Golden Heart' in kumji town.

The bodyguards stopped Luo to inquire about his purpose. He told them that he had things to sell, they redirected him to the appraisal room and was instructed to wait there until a representative would come. A few minutes later, a beautiful woman, with brown hair and pretty eyes came smiling into the room. "Greetings. I am Ding Shu and I will be appraising the items that you want to sell."

"Greetings, Big Sister. My name is Luo LianHao. Please take a look at this Blood Essence fruit."

Ding Shu performed some tests on the blood essence fruit and seemed pleased with its quality. "This is a rare fruit, but available easily enough in our auction house. Very well, is there only one fruit? We take a fee of 30% of the sale price and give you the rest. On average this one essence fruit should get you around 100 Gold taels. Would that be all?"

Luo swallowed at the mention of 100 gold taels for just one Blood essence fruit. "I- I have 100 Blood essence fruits with me."

"What? Well, you should have said so earlier. Bulk sales usually drive prices up as a bunch of Blood essence fruits at once gives different results. You can certainly expect more money. And here is a jade slip which you can use for credit. You can buy anything you want at the auction as well."

"Thank you sister."

Luo headed towards the auction hall and grabbed a seat in the third row. After a few moments, the master of the Golden heart branch, dressed in expensive robes and decked out with artifacts, stepped onto the stage and with great gusto declared the auction open.

They started small, with different kinds of Tier2 and Tier3 monster cores and stepped it up to higher level cores. Then they moved to Qi pills, cultivation pills and essence fruits. People bid crazily, especially the young masters from rich sects.

"Today we have a special entry, mostly because of its quantity. 100 blood essence fruits being sold in 5 lots of 20 pieces each. The bid starts at 2000 gold taels for 1 lot."

Luo heard people talking about the benefits of these fruits to the physique. There was excitement among people and then Luo heard someone bid 10,000 gold taels for 3 lots. Luo looked at the person who had bid this and he saw Xiao Wu.

Anger welled inside him, but he also saw that he was getting a lot of money , so he let it slip. No one competed with Xiao Wu and instead bid on the other 2 lots. After the bidding was closed, the 5 lots were sold for 16000 gold taels.

The branch master moved onto other items. "These are Qi stones, they can store the Qi of your attribute and you can extract them at will as well. We have 10 stones with us today. The starting bid for all of them is at 1000 gold taels."

Luo saw that not many people were bidding for it. He wondered why. 'It's because everyone here uses Tier 2 Qis and storing them in those stones is an advantage but not such a big one.' Master Yin said.

'Ohh. but I wonder….'

After a few moments of thought, Luo raised his hand to bid on them "1000 gold taels." Everyone looked at him as if he was wasting money and no one outbid him. Xiao Wu saw Luo and it took him a while to understand that this was the same Luo that was his punching bag in the Xian town.

The item was sold to Luo.

After the auction was wrapped up as Luo got up , Xiao Wu and his cronies made way to intercept Luo "Hey there, Luo the great garbage."

He looked proud of his remark and his cronies laughed and praised him. Luo silently moved away , but Xiao Wu still intercepted him. "What is with the new clothes and why do you have so much money to buy things at an auction?"

"It's none of your business Xiao Wu."

"You dare address me by my name? If I ask you then it is my business and you will tell me or perhaps you have forgotten the kicks and punches you used to eat in Xian town?"

Luo looked at Xiao Wu coldly and said in a deadpan voice "It would be best if you get out of my way, or else don't blame me if you are the one who lies under my foot"

Xiao Wu got red with anger and immediately one of his followers leapt to punch Luo in the face. Luo did not even dodge and the hand which punched him in the cheek broke.

Xiao Wu was shocked at this and just as he was about to order all of his followers to attack when Miss Ding Shu walked towards him and with all authority said "Young master Xiao Wu, The Golden Heart is a place of trade and not a place to take care of your personal vendetta. Please cease your actions and take your leave immediately."

They were reluctant but as they did not want to offend the Golden Heart organization, they left but not before warning Luo and making threats.

After they left Ding Shu looked at Luo and said "Well, you're free to go now. I see that you're not hurt now, but do take care when you step out of here. And as for the matter of compensation, I took the liberty of having it all transferred to the Golden Heart jade slip I gave you earlier. You can use it in most shops or directly redeem it with us to get taels of equivalent amounts."

Luo thanked Ding Shu and walked out of the place after collecting his purchase, thinking up ideas on how to use the Qi stones.

He spent the night spending some money on delicious food he had never had before. He bought a few brushes , parchment and ink and went back to the Inn after strolling through the marketplace. A lot of people from all over the province were here and Kumji town was bustling.

He settled in his room and started putting his understanding of all his techniques so far. He was doing this in order to solidify his understanding and as a way to potentially find new insights.

He slept after a while and woke up feeling well rested in the morning. He had a light breakfast of tea rice and soup. Then he made his way to the arena where the Summer competition was being hosted this year. As he reached he could make out a lot of nervous faces and some overly confident ones too.

As he was scanning the crowd for master Fu Lin and Xun , someone suddenly hugged him from behind. He immediately got tense as if he was being attacked but it was just Xun. He hadn't even sensed her approach.

"Big Brother Luoooo, did you miss Xun'er? I missed you sooo much. Do you see my new dress? Master Fu Lin bought it for me. I see that you are wearing a new robe as well. I like it. What were you doing these past few days? Did you find someth…."

"Ahhh..one question at a time Xun. I see you've become stronger. I couldn't even sense you approaching." Xun just laughed smugly and just then Master Fu Lin came behind her with 4 other Ancient Zither Abode candidates as well.

"Disciple greets master Fu Lin".

Fu Lin smiled warmly as she took him all in and said "Not much improvement in your cultivation. I had expected an improvement of at least a couple of layers for you Luo. Little Xun'er here broke through to the 6th layer of Gathering Qi and is now at its peak stage.

"Master, I cultivated my body instead. I will tell you all about it later."

"Hooo? Such confidence. You must have had some fortuitous encounter. Well, then shall I count on you for the top 3 positions? Hahahahahaa"

The other disciples showed irritated looks on their faces when she said this. One of them, a beautiful girl with long black hair with hazel brown eyes looked at Master Fu Lin and said "Master, the four of us here are much higher than him in cultivation. If there is a chance to grab the top 3 positions, it would naturally be among us three, not with this fellow. Why do you praise him so much?"

"Ohh, such promising youth I have as students. Well then why don't you show me who can get the top three positions, Cai Mingzhu?"