Super Gene Immortal Chapter 12

Lux walked up to the gate of the Shelters Martial Hall and placed his hand upon the smooth metal. A number appeared, representing his contestant number in the tournament. 88888, meaning that he was the 88888th person to enter the martial hall since it opened. All people who entered the building were automatically registered as contestants whether they intended to fight or not. One could easily just throw a match and then spectate if that was their intent. But everyone wanted to be the winner of the tournament because of the prize.

 The interior of the massive metal structure that was the Martial Hall was like the roman Colosseum. The one that everyone thinks of at least. But it was larger still. This was actually the first day of the competition, and it would go on for days. The preliminary rounds had already started, and Lux's group was going to be the last to fight their prelims.

 The preliminary rounds were fought in groups of a thousand. A battle royale style and the last man standing won the right to move onto the next round. There were slots for up to 100k contestants in any given shelter. But the majority of Shelters had a population of around 90 to 95k people. Steel Armor Shelter only had a few thousand people who weren't participating.

 Obviously thousand-man battle royales took a while to complete. So the prelims were pretty long. At max each shelter would have a hundred individuals going into the actual tournament style fights. But usually, it was between 80 and 90. After the number one was decided of the shelter. The shelters number one contestants would then be pitted against the number one fighters from other shelters. This was a sanctuary wide tournament.

 Seeing as how Lux was currently scheduled to fight in the 88th preliminary round he was going to be waiting for a while. Probably a few days at least. But that gave him time to put his salesman plan into action. Not only was he going to sell off the Mutant creature corpses, he was going to speak to Qin Xuan in private an maybe start selling off Beast Souls directly to the military through her.

 "Holy shit its Lux!!"

 "What? Lux let me have your babies!"

 "Ahhhhh!!!"

 "Lux will you sign my picture of you?"

 Lux was jerked out of his musings because of course he had been noticed in his shiny golden armor. And he had forgotten that he was a bit of a celebrity for his actions against the Shura. He had forgotten how stupid and crazy fanboys and girls could get. And within moments of walking into the Martial Hall he was surrounded by hundreds of people who either just wanted to see him or wanted him to sign a picture or their boobs or something. At least a few of the women that were literally asking for him to impregnate them were hot enough that if it wouldn't expose his identity, he'd do it. The babies would be gorgeous, obviously, because he would be the father.

 Anyway, Lux was entirely out of his element and being crowded. He didn't actually know how to get out of this situation without resorting to physical violence.

 "Alright everyone move along!" a familiar female voice rang out before a group of people from the Bullseye gang started shoving people out of the way. And through a mixture of minor physical violence and screaming at people they managed to disperse the crowd enough that the original person who yelled managed to make it through to stand before Lux.

 Lux almost forgot to use his batman voice as he spoke but caught himself just in time, "Thank you Qin Xuan. I wasn't sure if I was going to have to fight my way out."

 "Lux, I have been looking for you high and low. You are a hard man to find." She said, eyeing him up and down.

 "That is on purpose. Not everyone turns around to find out that the military is looking for them. And those that do tend to disappear if they are known and easy to find." Lux said.

 "We don't want to make you disappear. We want to know your secret. How are you getting so many beast souls? We are not trying to take your secrets though we are fully willing to pay, and I have been given authorization to negotiate within certain bounds."

 "Well, I don't have a secret for getting beast souls. I just kill creatures, and I get beast souls. Pure luck. If I had a way to guarantee beast soul drops I would have distributed it freely on the Skynet, not sold the method to the highest bidder, or just keep it to myself. Humanity could really use something like that to turn the tides against Shura. I am just incredibly lucky. That's it." Lux explained.

 Qin Xuan looked extremely dissatisfied with his answer, "Name your price." She insisted.

 "Look, I just told you that I don't have some amazing method to get ahold of beast souls, they just drop for me much more often than other people. I don't have a secret or method to share, but I can offload my excess beast souls through you and the military if we agree on an adequate price." Lux said, "And I assure you that I will be more than reasonable."

 Qin Xuan looked doubtful for a moment, "that depends on beast souls and how many you can get for us I'd imagine. What are we looking at?"

 Lux thought for a moment before manifesting a Mutant Scarlet Wasp beast soul arrow, "This is a Mutant Scarlet Wasp arrow, I exterminated a large hive of them this week. I have 152 of them that I can offload to you right now." Lux dismissed the arrow and manifested another, "This is a Primitive Yellow Wasp arrow… I have 23,875 of them… all from the same hive I exterminated. Again, I can offload all of them to you right now. I also have a variety of other beast souls but only in ones and twos."

 Qin Xuan's jaw went slack, and she sputtered, "How often do beast souls drop for you?"

 "It depends, but it seems like I have at least a 75% drop rate. Maybe better. But it's hard to tell. Again, I have no idea why, it's just like that for me. The thing is, I don't want to just sell these to the military for cash. I'll sell a few here and there to private buyers to make my money. What I want from the military is a guarantee that you all wont target me, and the highest class of untraceable licenses to the to the Saint Hall. That is my price. If you all want sacred-blood beast souls which I'm sure you do, it can be arranged, but that will require more." Lux laid out his terms.

 Yang Manli was beside Qin Xuan scribbling stuff down on a notepad as fast as she could before she turned to one of the men. "Take this and go to the commander immediately." She said, shoving the paper that she just tore off the notebook into his hands.

 "What is that all about?" Lux asked.

 "We need to report this up the chain." Qin Xuan said dismissively, "Will you be here for the whole tournament?"

 Lux nodded, "I intend to stay here and sell off some of my useless beast souls, and the corpses of some mutant creatures as well. But the prices are going to mainly be licenses to the Saint Hall."

 Lux turned to make his way deeper into the Colosseum like structure when Qin Xuan spoke up again, "Is there any way to convince you to join the Bullseyes? You could be an amazing archer with your wings and armor. And the Bullseyes are my personal force, they are only tangentially related to the military."

 Lux shook his head, "No. I'm not looking to join anyone. No one cared about me when I was a nobody. You've even seen me and passed me by before. You all are out here doing everything to put others down and raise yourselves up at any cost. Not caring about the misfortune that you bring others. Look at what you did to Ass Freak over a simple mistake. You destroyed that poor man's life for what? To get your rocks off? Do you just enjoy stepping on those that can't defend themselves? People like you are the problem with this world. I have no intention of ever being under people like you and Son of Heaven who think that the universe revolves around them. A very wise man once said this: With great power comes great responsibility. You and your gang take no responsibility for your actions. Yet you have great power and misuse it. I will admit that you are not as bad as Son of Heaven. But that is no excuse."

 With that Lux left the speechless Qin Xuan standing there looking like a fish out of water. He felt good after that last little interaction. His Han Sen persona was in a pitiful state. Qin Xuan was trying to take advantage of him at every turn. She wasn't as bad as the young mast of the starry group for sure. But she still went around acting like a young master from them cultivator novels that Lux had read during his past life. She needed a wakeup call, and Lux was not averse to being that wakeup call.

 About two hours later, Lux was seated in the audience watching the preliminaries going down. The range of beast souls being used was actually surprising. The people of Steel Armor Shelter only had access to so many different creatures. But that didn't stop them from trading with people on their home planets who were located in other shelters. So there was a large number of beast souls on display that were not native to the local area at all.

 "Lux! I heard that you were here and selling some stuff?" A familiar, if irritating voice called out.

 "Hey, we got here first" a voice that Lux didn't recognize said gruffly.

 Lux turned his attention away from the people fighting in the pit and to the newcomers. Son of Heaven and his gang's higher ups were there. Along with the legendary Fist Guy and his gang. Lux hadn't really had any interaction with Fist Guy, but he knew about the man and knew what he looked like. Lux wasn't sure what to think of him.

 "It doesn't matter which one of you was here first." Lux said, interrupting their petty squabbling, "I have Mutant creature bodies to sell, and two people who want to purchase am I right?"

 Son of Heaven looked offended. But from his face Lux could tell that the guy was like, professionally offended by everything, he was a Kyle. He was that guy that held up the line at starbucks because they weren't using the brand of almond milk he liked. This guy weaponized being offended because society made a big deal about caring. Care, the origin of all evil. Lux shuddered mentally. Caring is why the holocaust happened, Caring is why wars happen, Caring needs to stop!

 Lux pointed to Son of Heaven, "For you the prices are 5 mil per corpse. No exceptions, no arguments, no negotiations. I don't negotiate with petty brats that think who their parents are make them special and have no accomplishments of their own." Looking to Fist Guy he spoke, "I don't know you as well as I know Son of Heaven, and Qin Xuan. But your gang has never bothered me as far as I know. So, I am open to negotiations with-"

 "Do you know who I am!" Son of Heaven yelled.

 Lux turned back to the guy and made the whiniest voice he could possibly make, "Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Do you? Do you?" he stopped and returned to his batman voice, "You realize that's exactly what you sound like right? And sense you don't seem to know who you are let me tell you. You are a petty tyrant running amok with your family's fortune thinking that because you were lucky enough to be born into one of the wealthiest families in the Alliance that you are superior to other people. A selfish little bitch that obviously didn't get beat enough as a child. I would bet you are also a mini-Jeffry Epstein and engage in all manner of those things that rich people get up to. And just because of your little outburst the price for you has doubled, you can afford that just fine, right?"

 "I'll give you a million per corpse and take twenty of them." Fist Guy cut in before Son of Heaven could get over his rage.

 "Done." Lux said and took Fist Guy's hand in a firm shake, "Now, I also have a couple of beast souls for sale. A Mutant Night-Seeker, its manifestation is a Katar, and a Mutant Shallows-Lurker with an Axe manifestation."

 Lux really didn't expect to get much for the Katar. As cool as Katar's looked, they were very impractical and required one to learn specific martial arts dedicated to wielding them. The Axe, however, should be quite popular. Lux had contemplated selling the mount too. But then he'd remembered that Mounts seem to be special somehow and he was curious as to what would happen if he brought a bunch of them with him as he ascended.

 As infuriated as Son of Heaven was, the bidding for the axe and katar was fierce between him and Fist Guy. Then it got even fiercer when Qin Xuan showed up and started bidding herself. In the end, Lux sold the katar to Fist Guy, and the Axe to Qin Xuan. Netting himself a cool 35 million just on the beast souls 45 million with the corpses that he sold to Fist Guy. Lux's monetary position in life was leagues beyond what Han Sen had had at this point in his life from Lux's memory of the story. Han Sen had been pretty poor for most of the first Sanctuary if he remembered correctly.

 "So, did they order you to capture and torture me for information? Or did they decide to just buy my beast souls?" Lux asked Qin Xuan when they moved to a private area.

 "We got word back. For the beast souls you have now, we are willing to part with 15 licenses that will give you or whoever you give them too completely unrestricted access to all Hyper Geno Arts in the Saint Hall. In the future we will give you a single license per thousand primitive beast souls of the first sanctuary, and one for every hundred Mutant. If you wish to trade Sacred-Blood beast souls we will have to negotiate on them individually." Qin Xuan explained the terms.

 "That actually sounds decent to me." Lux said with a nod of his head. 15 Geno Arts would probably be more than he could really practice anyway. But he could easily hand out the license to his family, friends, and possible lovers in the future. He could even auction off the licenses for enormous profits.

 It took a day for Lux to exchange everything with Qin Xuan. Mainly because they had to wait for someone to deliver the licenses to them. Qin Xuan then purchased the rest of the corpses that were still in Lux's pack. Bringing Lux's total gains from the sales up to 15 licenses, and close to 200 million dollars. Yep, he was rolling in the dough now.

 Just as Lux was about to part with Qin Xuan he paused. There was technically a secret to increasing beast soul drop rates at least temporarily. He hadn't really thought of it before.

 "Qin Xuan, hold up." Lux said as she was about to leave, "After our first talk I was thinking about what may have caused by beast soul drop rate to increase so much. It may shock you, but I was normal for a long time. It all changed one day seemingly at random. I was trying to remember if I had done anything that day that could explain it. The only thing that I could think of was that I tried to kill myself by eating some of the berries and mushrooms of the plants here in the sanctuary. I don't remember what kind they were, and it wasn't near the Steel Armor Shelter, but in a swamp. I didn't die obviously. But ever since that day I have had extreme luck with beast souls." Lux decided to make the story at least believable.

 "Thank you, if you had a sample of the same things you ate, would you remember which ones?" she asked.

 Lux shook his head, "not at all. I was already poisoned by a creature that had attacked me, and I was trying to end the pain faster. I was delirious and running for my life, the pain was so great that I started bashing my head against a stone just for some relief, then I spotted berries and mushrooms nearby and figured I should speed everything up. I ate them all, passed out, then woke up."

 Qin Xuan looked excited by the knowledge and rushed off after thanking him. Lux didn't want to spread this particular piece of information publicly, because indeed people are idiots. If others went around eating random plants from the Sanctuary they would die without question. Lux was an exception to that rule. The fact that these buffs existed at all meant that humanity could probably science the shit out of the plants here in the sanctuary and figure out how to replicate the effects or possibly just farm and create some alchemy stations and shit. Lux didn't know. But now that the military would be getting some intel about the possible benefits of plants, he would bet that an entire division at least would be dedicated to pulling the secrets of horticulture from every gardener in existence.

 With all the sales done, Lux returned to watching the matches and waiting for his turn. But he soon got bored of that. He had overestimated how quickly the prelims were going to pass. He'd gotten into the building on the first day and it was looking like he was going to have to wait for at least a week before his round came up. So, with some new licenses burning a hole in his pocket, Lux decided to head home and buy a bunch of Geno Arts.