Out of the available twenty batches of five monoliths, Aster and Camila quickly did their own evaluations, so far nothing caught Aster's interest, at most their contents were worth bidding around fifty thousand middle grade spirit jades, with a possibility to double that as the benefit.
It wasn't bad but for Aster who honestly lost track of how many middle grade spirit jades he has been "donated" by the enemies he has killed, was nothing to get excited about, what's more if his soul energy did its work properly, they contents of the first half of batches, were considered slightly expensive but not hard to get.
Aster was sure there were some of them in the inventory of the store, he would not be interested unless, it was a hard to get resource, or something that his family could use to improve.
Because with his current wealth, at least at the level of the middle ranked Stellar System, he could buy anything that is offered publicly by any store, that's also why he was more interested in auctions, where strange things would pop out from time to time, of course the prices are also higher.
Aster noticed that one of the batches has had almost all the people going by it, which was strange, since with so many participants, unless they simply discarded it as a scam.
"Let's go check that one", said Aster to Camila.
"Mm", with a small nod, Camila held onto Aster's arm, ignoring the envious gazes they received from others, they approached the 13th batch.
Though they were using masks that made them look like body cultivators while hiding their faces, Camila's beautiful body shape didn't change, the mask only made others feel curious, about what kind of fairy was hidden behind of it, it's also worth they were the only ones who seemed to be a couple in the whole room.
There were female disciples grouping with male disciples, but none seemed to be that close, so of course they outstood, and since outsiders couldn't enter the Treasure Planet, Camila was sure to be part of the sect, in other words, they were seeing one of the very few male disciples, who were lucky enough to have a lover in the sect, of course they envied him.
Aster and Camila repeated their process, once they started inspecting the batch in question, they let go of each other and used their own means to try and guess what was inside the monoliths.
Soon it became clear for them why this batch was ignored, four of the monoliths were literally empty, well not exactly, they had some worthless stuff inside them, like a gold coin, a thing only used in the most isolated Star Clusters in low ranked Stellar Systems, the other three contained random things as well, a button, an empty bottle and lastly a wooden stick.
'This godmother of mine is surely quite something...', thought Aster, on the other hand this indeed fit the description Lilia gave of her sister from the Fey family, someone who completely ignores anything that is of no interest for her.
But then Aster frowned as he looked at the last monolith of the batch, the others had the form of white marble statues, they looked quite well made, in fact probably as decorations they were worth way more than what they contained.
The fifth one was totally different though, it was a small pitch-black vase, that also seemed to be empty, but that's because the materials of which was made had isolating properties, how did Aster notice it, because this time not only Camila, but even him, were having trouble discerning what was inside of it.
Aster's eyes glowed, he touched the vase and then practically used all the soul energy he could, without putting a strain on him, to peek inside the vase, even then he could only manage to bypass the fake front of the vase and reached the inner layer, which allowed him to see what was inside.
'A spatial ring... that's cheating', thought Aster, even with soul energy if he were to spy into the ring, then the spatial fluctuations will alert the core elder, as Void Manipulation cultivator and above are far more sensible to space laws, than those in previous realms.
Maybe if he was a Void Manipulation realm himself, he could suppress them, but no one who surpassed the Sea of Manifestation realm could participate in the Monolith of Prosperity, and elders weren't allowed to participate in the auction directly, this auction was for the benefit of disciples.
In other words, being able to know what was inside that ring without buying it and being able to pull for it were mutually exclusive, so in this case, he actually had no other choice but to trust in Camila's evaluation, because trying to judge his Fey godmother with common sense would be a bad idea, so all this mystery might be just a trap.
Aster turned to see Camila who was walking around the black vase with an indecisive aura surrounding her, for the first time she actually changed her strategy.
"Is it fine if we go see the other batches and then return to this one?", she asked.
Aster nodded in response.
"Sure, this date is ultimately for you, so let's follow your plan", said Aster with a playful voice.
Camila giggled and then they went to inspect the other batches, they actually made some decent discoveries, which made Camila happily hum, as Aster expected, the monoliths didn't follow any pattern, because the most valuable things they found were all in the 18th batch, grouped together.
They weren't even that hard to spot, the monoliths were shaped like golden statues, they outstood to begin with, not to mention these monolith were made so an almost unnoticeable trace of the aura of the treasures inside, could be detected as long as one had sharp enough instincts and experience when dealing with resources.
Just as Camila asked, once they finished inspecting the other batches, they returned to the 12th batch, since no one else was paying it any attention, then they had it for themselves, or more accurately Camila had it for herself.
She placed her hand on it and closed her eyes, making her best effort to try and discern if it was the jackpot, or just a trap.
Without noticing the minutes passed and apparently everyone else but Aster had finished inspecting the batches, so Aster found himself in the strange situation, of being looked at, by all the other participants, since only they were still on the stage, still, there were still about five minutes left of the time that the core elder gave them to inspect the monoliths, so they weren't breaking any rule.
That being said, this wouldn't be a cultivation world if others didn't try to mess with you, or at least that's what Aster thought, when he heard an annoyed voice coming from one of the people that were wearing masks.
"Oi, why are you slowing us down, get the hell out of the way so we can start bidding at once!".
"Yeah, everyone else has finished, so we are just wasting time right now".
And similar comments came from the crowd, mostly from the people that came from the skyboxes, who already had selected which batch of monoliths wanted, in their eyes, the batch Aster was inspecting had nothing, and he was making them wait for such trash batch, of course they were annoyed.
Aster noticed Camila was getting distracted by the noise, so he turned to see them and then coldly said.
"Shut up at once", he didn't raise his voice or anything, but Aster's words were filled with authority... and disdain, these flies were interrupting Camila's training after all.
Naturally the response was that the other participants felt insulted, but they noticed Mikaela eyeing them, since Aster didn't break any rule, but interrupting them on purpose would be considered getting in the way of their right to inspect the monoliths in the period of time, they were given.
"Tsk, count yourself lucky, but I'll watch out after leaving the auction house", said the first guy who complained earlier.
Aster completely ignored them, he instead focused on Camila, from behind he could see the eyes of the wolf's head tattoo she had on her upper back, glowing for a fraction of a second.
Camila remained there in silence until they had a few seconds left, the auctioneer approached them to ask them to leave the stage, but Camila stood up a second before and they jumped out of it, she whispered something that only Aster could hear an then the last part of the auction finally started, or that should have been the case, if Aster didn't turn to see the elder Mikaela before saying.
"If I remember correctly, one can make a base bid in advance and the others that wish to participate, have to compete with that right?",
Mikaela raised an eyebrow, but she still nodded, the base price set by the auction house meant nothing honestly since it could be a fake item anyway, so if someone wished to increase the starting prince, that was also okay.
Aster smirked in response, and his next words sent chills through the spines of practically all the people present, Camila included.
"In that case, I bid 50,000 middle ranked spirit jades, to each batch of monoliths".
"...", as one would expect, a sepulchral silence fell on the room, the people did the math in their heads, 20 x 50,000, that was 1 million of middle ranked spirit jades, it was an outrageous amount of money, even converted to high ranked stones, it would be around five hundred of them, no one would casually throw that amount in a gamble kind of auction like this.
The auctioneer who was froze until a moment ago, turned to see Mikaela just to see her nodding.
"T-The initial price has been changed thanks to this honorable guest, does anyone have an offer for the first batch?".
The people remained silent, those who had zero idea of what was inside of the monoliths, which were the vast majority had a low limit they were willing to bet, so of course Aster's bid directly made them give up.
And so the batches from 1 to 8 were directly sold to Aster without anyone doing any bid, but then for the ninth 9th batch, one of the people from the skyboxes did an offer.
"The current bid is of 55,000 middle grade jades, does anyone want to increase it further...", the auctioneer couldn't finish her sentence, when Aster's voice nearly made her fall on her ass.
"80,000 middle grade spirit jades", the auctioneer bitterly smiled, she turned to see the other party interested just to see them deny with their heads, 10th and 11th batch, were sold at Aster's initial bid, but the 12th one, actually received a bid.
It was that guy who complained first, which apparently just wanted to rise the price to mess up with Aster, so he directly made it go from 50,000 to 80,000 middle grade spirit jades, but Aster casually made another bid.
"150,000, middle grade spirit jades".
Listening to such an outrageous number, the guy who was just trying to messing up with him, gritted his teeth, he wanted to increase the price, but what if that was the limit that Aster had, then he would spend all his funds and also end with a bunch of trash, instead of being able to bid for the 18th batch, which everyone was eyeing, so he swallowed his anger and didn't continue.
The batches from 13 to 17 were sold at 50,000 middle spirit jades each, then the turn came for the only one everyone wanted to pull for, the 18th batch, and so the bids started coming one after another, and soon they reached the 140,000 mark, it was then when Aster made his offer.
"200,000 spirit jades", but this time he was met with more resistance, the bid actually went up all the way to 350,000 jades, the tension was palpable, at this point only the groups of five that came from the skyboxes were bidding, as a group they were allowed to gather their funds, since probably no one alone had more than 150,000 middle ranked jades, and that is for those who had the support of elders from their own factions.
"500,000", Aster's voice once again filled the room, making the people present, believe they were going to hear it in their nightmares.
"That friend there, shouldn't you leave something for the rest of us?", asked one of the female disciples who was wearing a mask, from a group of five.
Unfortunately for her, Aster simply shrugged.
"Why should I, I don't know you nor owe anything to any of you".
Another of the masked disciples, added.
"You are offending all the presents friend, one shouldn't be so selfish".
Aster wrapped his arm around Camila, before saying.
"That would bad... if I cared, but since my girlfriend here wants all these statues to use them as decorations for our bridal room, then I'll get them, bid higher than me or shut up".
Naturally that answer angered the others, the guy who earlier raised the price for the 12th batch, snorted.
"Fellow disciples, seniors and juniors, why don't we join hands and teach this arrogant idiot a lesson, this batch is the best, my group alone can put the initial 500,0000 middle grade spirit jades, the rules state we can ask up to 500 middle ranked spirit stones to each of the other participants, I can make an oath that I will pay them back to each of you", he said with a righteous voice.
The other participants looked at each other and one by one they all accepted, which made the guy who organized them, laugh.
"That makes it 1,000,000 middle ranked spirit stones!", he triumphantly said, he refused to believe Aster could increase the price so much, just from the other batches, what he had to pay surpassed the million, since others also increased the price, so unless Aster had more than two million middle ranked spirit jades with him right now, he had no way to win this batch.
"1,100,000, middle ranked spirit jades, even if you sell yourself, I will get all the 20 batches anyway", said Aster with a disdainful voice.
The guy's face paled, he had no way to get more funds, so that was it, he turned around and left without saying anything else.
After such a display, the others didn't even bother to try and get the remaining two batches, and so just as Aster declared, he bought the 20 of them, after directly transferring around 2,300,000 middle ranked spirit jades to the auctioneer, the auction finished, and most of the people left, but the ones from the skyboxes stayed as they heard Aster saying.
"Elder Mikaela, can you open all the monoliths for us please".
The elder naturally frowned, no one flaunted what they got from the monoliths in front of others before, that was the idea of the masks, if others knew what the winner got, then he would just become a walking target.
But since she was asked, she nodded, this whole auction house was set with the idea of teaching many lessons to the young generation after all, so she didn't interfere as long as the rules were respected.
So she did as she was told, and naturally the result wasn't even near the amount Aster paid for, at most there was 1,800,000 middle spirit jades worth in different resources, meaning he lost around half a million.
The people laughed at him and then left one after another, but Aster was smiling from ear to ear behind his mask, he looked at Camila and after absorbing all the things in his spatial ring, she grabbed his arm and they left together, as soon as Aster set a foot outside of the auction house, he felt tons of gazes on them, but he just used his authority and they disappeared from the nearby area, leaving all of them behind.
Aster and Camila appeared in front of an inn, in this outpost there weren't any permanent residents, so private houses didn't exist, still for those who could afford it, there were luxury rooms that were empty most of the year.
Of course on the way to this area they took off the masks, Aster then approached the counter and directly paid for the best room available, not because of the luxury but because it was the most spacious one.
They went upstairs and calmly entered the room, only then Camila finally couldn't hold back her laugh, remembering the reaction on the other party after he just increased the price without any worry on the world.
Aster also smiled but for a different reason, her laugh carefree laugh was quite a delight for the ears, this relaxed Camila was rather cute.
Once Camila recovered she pouted at Aster.
"What was all that about a bridal room, by the way, who would want those strange statues", she mumbled.
Aster laughed this time, he then took out all the objects they got from the monoliths, as well as the things he bought from the regular auction.
"It was all acting, mentally unstable opponents are easy to deal with".
Camila sighed, his expression clearly didn't match his words, she could tell he was just teasing her on purpose, but she didn't say anything.
"Well, then shall we evaluate the results, I have to admit that you took me by surprise earlier, I want to see if you will get a reward, or a punishment", playfully said Aster.
That's right, once Camila finished inspecting the black vase, the couple of words she whispered to Aster were "buy everything", and so he did, the money he spent was nothing for him, Aster was more interested in seeing whether her ability made them win more than what they spent, which was the condition for her to get a reward, or not, leaving aside the things from the monolith, they still needed to evaluate the items they from the regular auction, as well as that strange ring which was in the black vase, as Aster didn't want to use his soul cultivation in public, since he was posing as a body cultivator.
"Hey, I don't remember you mentioning a punishment", cutely complained Camila, to which Aster smirked.
"Oh, maybe I forgot to mention it, but isn't it obvious that if you succeed you get a reward but fail leads to a punishment, in any case I have trust in you, so why are you worried", he said with a bright smile.
"T-That's not fair, this is bullying!", exclaimed Camila, but Aster didn't pay attention to it, and instead grabbed the things they bought from the auction to inspect them with his soul energy enhanced spirit sense.
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