World of Beasts

by Tinalynge

  He was incredibly surprised to see that there was already a great line out the door trying to gain access to the auction house. But due to him coming from the VIP chambers, he was led into the auction hall right away.

  Chapter 17 - Beast Auction

  Having been led into the main hall, Xue Wei noticed that only those of certain status within Tiankong City were present.

  Although Xue Wei was a young master of Tiankong City, he was in fact not high enough a profile to be allowed into the Auction House that day, but he had been given a seat in the main hall because of his encounter with the monk.

  The Auction House had balconies with private rooms. There was a total of ten, and the ones who were allowed within the private rooms were either the most outstanding experts and families within the Tiankong City or their guests.

  One of the rooms was reserved for the monks. Usually, one would be reserved for Xiao Lei, but since Xiao Lei was not present, the balcony was given to a less prominent family.

  One was kept for the Li family and another for the Shen family. The other seven went to the seven most prominent families in Tiankong City that did not have a Heavenly Warrior cultivator.

  The main floor had around five thousand seats, a whole lot, but they were quickly filled with noble families and their entourages.

  Xue Wei was seated in his position when he spotted Luo Zhirou together with the Luo Patriarch and the rest of their family.

  He then looked around and found that all of the young masters and mistresses had arrived together with their families; even Li Jian was there in the balcony along with his family, and Shen Mu was there together with Shen Bingwen.

  Shen Mu noticed Xue Wei's glance and waved slightly to him with a relieved smile on his face, which also contained quite a bit of curiosity.

  No one knew exactly why the monk had called out Xue Wei, but it was without a doubt something beneficial. If they had known that he had been interrogated instead, they would have been shocked.

  Fortunately, neither Xue Wei nor the monk was willing to start any rumors about Xue Wei scaring the mammoth. The Black Horned Mammoth was equivalent to a Sky Warrior of the first layer, and it had gotten scared by locking eyes with a measly fifth layered Ordinary Warrior. If this were spread, then no one would be willing to buy the Black Horned Mammoth.

  Xue Wei was not willing to talk about it because it would just enhance the rumor about how strange and different he was. He was likely to become even more of an outcast than he already was. Also, he did not understand why the beast had feared him, and thus he did not want to talk about it.

  Soon, the entire auction hall was filled with people; a bustling and lively atmosphere was inside the hall, and everyone was chatting with their friends and family.

  Xue Wei was alone, and as a result, he did not chat with anyone in particular. All he did was listen to the ones around him.

  Next to him was a person with a big bamboo hat. The hat was so large and hanging from it was a cloth so that no one could see the face of the person. The figure was shrouded in a massive black cloak, but Xue Wei noticed said person’s hand and frowned.

  The body was big and seemed to fill out the black cloak, but the hand was elegant and slender. The skin was porcelain white, and the nails appeared to be shaped very finely.

  Sensing the glance that Xue Wei gave the hand, the person by his side withdrew it and hid it beneath the cloak again. The movement was like flowing water, so graceful and elegant that Xue Wei was almost in a trance.

  Shaking his head, he awoke from a daze and looked around the rest of the room. He recognized quite a few of the people present in the Auction House, but some had come from outside of town to participate in the auction.

  Suddenly, as the last seat was occupied, the light in the auction hall dimmed, and everyone quieted down. No one spoke, and there was an excited feeling within the room. Everyone held their breath and wondered which one of the beasts would be up for sale first.

  There were only two beasts this time, and both of them were excellent companions, but it was clear that the main families were here for the Black Horned Mammoth.

  “Before we start the auction, I would like to say a few words of thanks to the revered Diviners that have graced us with their arrival in Tiankong City.”

  “Although Diviners are all over the continent, they are very rare to see within our city. In fact, we are lucky if there are a group of Diviners that appears every hundred years. As a result, getting your hands on a Fierce Beast is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Do not hesitate, for if you do, it might take another hundred years before you get another chance!”

  "We will start today's auction with the Four-Tailed Scorpion," the auctioneer said as he glanced towards the monks that were sitting on the highest ranked balcony.

  He was worried that they perhaps had hoped for him to start the biggest bidding war first, and then the rest would be desperate to get their hands on the scorpion afterward. The Auction House was taking a gamble and hoping to be able to sell the Four-Tailed Scorpion first and then make the price for the Mammoth go so high that it would shock the city.

  The people in the audience were aware of his thoughts, but they could do nothing against his idea, and they knew that he would drive the prices up for the Black Horned Mammoth. But all of them wanted it, and they had no other option than to follow the rules of the auction.

  One silver was enough to pay for a family's expenses for three weeks, but everyone here was able to spend a tremendous amount of money for these beasts. They had taken all their liquid assets with themselves so that they had a chance at getting a Fierce Beast.

  "The Four-Tailed Scorpion is an offensive beast. It can assist you in the war against the Fierce Beasts and the Primordial Beasts. It will kill swiftly with its four stingers, and it will be deadly to even beasts at its own level."

  "This Four-Tailed Scorpion is equivalent to a ninth layered Earth Warrior in strength and can grow to become as strong as a Heavenly Warrior. Its potential is great!"

  "Everyone, we will start the bidding at a thousand gold coins. Every bid has to be raised with at least a hundred gold coins at a time."

  "One thousand and four hundred!" someone yelled, and soon it was followed by another person yelling "two thousand!", "Five thousand!"

  Soon, the price rose to ten thousand gold, an amount that far exceeded anything that the owner of the Auction House had expected. He gulped and swallowed his saliva; if the bidding war for the Four-Tailed Scorpion was as ferocious as it was now, then it was hard to determine just how overwhelming the bidding war for the Black Horned Mammoth would be.

  Finally, the bids stilled slightly. The ones who kept bidding were the Shen family and an unknown person who had come from outside Tiankong City.

  The members of Tiankong City dared not bid for longer against the Shen family as they could feel Shen Bingwen’s annoyance at being bid up all the time.

  Although they wished to purchase this Four-Tailed Scorpion, they knew that they had to stay within Tiankong City in the future and to annoy the City Lords of their city was simply suicidal. Only the Li family could afford to do so.

  Finally, the outsider gave up on the endeavor of winning the beast from the Shen family, but the Shen family's coffers had suffered quite a hit, losing a full fifteen thousand and seven hundred gold.

  This was the value of most of the smaller noble families, and they all felt their mouths go dry when they noticed how much money that had been spent on just one beast.

  The Four-Tailed Scorpion ended up with the Shen family, but although they had gained one beast, the Li family could not help but snicker. They had already dug this deep in their pockets for one beast, but they would have to dig even deeper if they wanted the second beast; and even if they were rich, they would be incapable of winning the bid.

  For some reason, Shen Bingwen looked completely calm as he saw the next beast being led up on stage.

  "This is a Black Horned Mammoth," the au
ctioneer began, his voice was filled with excitement, and his eyes shone as he knew that a desperate fight was about to ensue. "This Black Horned Mammoth is specialized in defense. As long as you use it as your mount during the war against the Fierce and Primordial Beasts, then you are safe. Although it is not very fast, it is as strong as a first layered Sky Warrior!"

  "We will start the bidding at two thousand gold, and each bid has to be raised with at least two hundred gold coins each!"

  Just as he said this, everyone got ready to bid. Everyone wanted to show their interest, yet before anyone managed to say something, a clear voice sounded through the entire room, "I bid thirty thousand gold coins for this Black Horned Mammoth."

  The bidder was the cloaked person next to Xue Wei, and the latter raised an eyebrow in surprise. The voice that had sounded out belonged to that of a woman, and although she had masked herself, everyone could hear from her voice that she was not someone who was easily bullied. It was firm and decisive.

  The Li Patriarch frowned when he heard the bid. He had expected that the Black Horned Mammoth would be more expensive than the Four-Tailed Scorpion, but he was not expecting that the first bid would double the price.

  He was quite unhappy that the price had been raised so much. He needed a beast if he wanted to stand a chance against the Shen family, but he also knew that if he ended up paying such a large sum of money, he would end up impoverishing his family.

  "Patriarch, we should get it no matter what!" one of the elders said with a serious expression on his face. "Our reputation will rise if we have a beast of this caliber in our family. Our shops and restaurants will be picked over the Shen family's places, resulting in us earning more money."

  "Although it is a large investment, we have no option; we cannot back down!" another elder agreed, and the patriarch clenched his teeth and thought for a moment. What the two elders said was right and he called out, "Thirty thousand two hundred."

  It was raised with the lowest amount possible to increase a bid with, and some people looked down on them for this, while others were just shocked that they decided to bid such an outrageous amount of money.

  Unfortunately for the Li family, the rest did not last long. The woman next to Xue Wei snorted and called out again, "Fifty thousand gold coins."

  Hearing this, everyone sucked in a breath of air. This lady was going against the Li family directly, and there was no respect shown.

  "We do not have fifty thousand gold coins," the Li family patriarch said with a pale face. He finally understood why the Shen family had paid such a high price for the Four-Tailed Scorpion. They were aware of this woman's identity and did not wish to bid against her. This alone showed quite a lot about the woman.

  "If it was a normal thing, we could rob her," one of the elders said with a little annoyance, but Li Fang's eyes turned serious. He shook his head. "We might be stronger than others, but we do not rob what does not belong to us," he said righteously.

  Although he was vying for the position of City Lord, he was aware of what was right and wrong, and he did not wish to stray down the wrong path in fear of it corrupting his heart for martial arts.

  Chapter 18 - Luo Zhirou

  Since they no longer had the capacity to continue the bidding, the Black Horned Mammoth ended up in the hands of the strangely dressed woman next to Xue Wei.

  The price for these two mounts exceeded a couple of years’ worth of value for the Auction House, but they would be getting nothing as all of it went to the monks.

  "No wonder monks live in fancy temples, where everything is properly looked after. The Diviners finance everything that has to do with the monks and priests. Even though it seems like a lot of money, there are not that many Diviners out there, but there are so many temples. I guess they just barely scraping by."

  At first, Xue Wei had been amazed by the sheer amount of gold that they had gained, but after thinking a bit further, he realized that this bit of gold was not a lot for an organization that spanned the entire continent.

  Having finished the sale of the two beasts, the light slowly returned to the auction.

  "Thank you all for attending the beast auction today!" the auctioneer called out. "We are very proud to have been chosen by the esteemed Diviners as the ones to handle their magnificent beasts. Now those two experts that made the winning bids, please wait to be lead to our office, and we will finalize the sale. Everyone else, have a pleasant day."

  Having said this, people started standing up from their chairs, and the doors opened. Everyone, except the Shen Family and the strangely dressed lady, began leaving the auction hall.

  "I guess Shen Mu is going to go with his father," Xue Wei thought. "When he is with his father, it will take some time for them to be handed the beast, and then I am quite sure that they will go back home right away to get familiar with the Four-Tailed Scorpion."

  "Since that is the case, I should return home and cultivate." Xue Wei was amazed by the beasts. They had truly looked overwhelming and powerful, even more so than humans at the same cultivation base. However, now that he had seen them, he understood that if he truly wanted to fight against Fierce Beasts, and one day against Primordial Beasts, then he had to increase his strength tremendously.

  Returning home, Xue Wei went to his room to change into more suitable clothes for training before he went straight to the back of the mansion where he started to train the Shattering Mountain Palm and the Forbidden Rush.

  He had gotten a good understanding of the Forbidden Rush skill and was now able to merge with the wind, almost teleporting around.

  There was almost no wind in Tiankong City, but Xue Wei was now able to sense even the tiniest changes in the air that could be considered a form of wind and merge with these. No matter how little wind there was, there would always be changes in the air, and these could be used just as well.

  As Xue Wei practiced the Forbidden Rush technique, he found that his senses were heightened and strengthened. He could see much further than before and hear even the smallest sounds.

  He knew that some of it was because of him finally becoming a cultivator, but he was also aware that his senses were heightened further than most Ordinary Warriors.

  Xue Wei also had a strength that was superior to other fifth layered Ordinary Warriors. As to how much superior it was, he still did not know.

  Xue Wei wanted to know, but he did not have anything to measure his strength with. He had heard about strength-measuring stones, but his kingdom was simply too small to have them.

  The Kingdom of Heping was a long stretch of land. It was placed all the way at the edge of the continent and followed the coastline from the cold north to the hot south. It was like a snake coiling its way down the side of the continent, and it was also the most impoverished and most underestimated kingdom in the entire continent.

  Xue Wei had read so many books about the vast world, and he knew that many kingdoms on the continent had great sects filled with martial art cultivators, martial art families, and so many other things that the Kingdom of Heping did not have.

  Many of the experts in the Kingdom of Heping were just frogs in the well. The Primordial Beasts in the Kingdom of Heping were also the weakest compared to the rest of the continent.

  Most of the experts within the Kingdom of Heping would never leave, and thus they would never experience for themselves what the vast continent was like.

  Xue Wei had let his thoughts wander while practicing the Forbidden Rush technique.

  He found that his speed had decreased and his accuracy was not as high as when he was focusing on his abilities.

  Since this was the case, he decided to focus fully on his techniques. He continued to train the rest of the day and the next couple of days without interruption.

  After a few days, Luo Zhirou came visiting out of nowhere, and Xue Wei took the time to accompany her.

  "I am sorry that I never treated you well before," she said as she handed him some sweets. "I was influenced b
y my friends and my family. You were incapable of cultivating and regarded as the most useless person in the city. And although I know my words won't change anything, I still wish to apologize."

  "I made these sweets myself. It is my hobby. If I could, I would become someone who made sweets for others, but I am afraid that I cannot become one of those people. I have my family's expectations on my shoulders."

  "Anyway, when I started speaking with you when you followed Shen Mu to see the Fierce Beasts, I could not help but feel that you were so different from how everyone described you."

  "You are really smart, and you seem to know about so many things that the rest of us do not know about."