The Sect Leader System-Chapter 290 - Sold

Jia Xueqin paused the auction for a moment, indicating to the audience that the break was for him to grab a drink of water. His actual reason was that he’d noticed an incoming message on his device. Since his staff was instructed to hold all but the most crucial communications during an auction, he knew it had to be important.

Chao Su wishes for the next qi-rich material put up to be Fire aspected if possible.

He took another sip of water, thinking hard. Normally, the Premiere Jade Treasures Auction House did not allow any interference in the order of items to be put up for bid. That selection was purely in the control of the auction manager—him.

Jia Xueqin chuckled. That was the auction house’s official position.

In reality, it was quite common to perform small favors for important clients, and Chao Su had earned the house over a quarter of a million greater spirit coins in fees already even though only forty percent of his swords had yet made it to the block.

And the favor was very minor. There were seventeen more such materials. Substituting one for another made little difference to Jia Xueqin.

He decided to hold off on making the call until after the next sword was sold. If it did as well as he hoped, the favor would be no issue. No issue at all.

“In all my years of managing auctions,” Jia Xueqin announced, “I can honestly say that I’ve never had an item on the block more interesting, more unique, more powerful, more paradigm breaking, and potentially more valuable than the next set of swords. In one way, the blade is much like the first set that utilized a user’s input to form a qi attack. In another, it breaks the mold of such a common array in a way that the two cannot even be compared. First, the qi element of the attack does not have to match the input qi of the user. I’ll say that again in another way. Any cultivator can use this sword. Input any qi element into the hilt, and an array converts that qi to the type used for the attack.”

He paused, letting that impossibility sink in.

“It’s an impressive feat of formation creation, worthy of a true Formations Master,” Jia Xueqin said. “Just that one facet of the sword alone would have made it almost priceless. But there’s more.

“The Esteemed Cultivators watching are probably asking, ‘What could possibly be better?’ The elements used in the attack, my dear friends. The element makes the difference. For our first of the next five swords for bid, This lowly one presents … the Gravity Blade.”

Even though Kang Ya-Ting knew of the blade and that it would be auctioned, his heart was still thudding with excitement at the auction manager’s presentation. That sword was one that would be treasured by the sect that won it for centuries, perhaps millennia.

He glanced at Elder Dai, who nodded her consent.

“The bidding starts at two hundred fifty thousand greater spirit coins,” the auction manager said.

Kang Ya-Ting was ready, matching the opening bid and getting it in before his competitors. He and Elder Dai were only authorized to spend a half a million for one of the blades, and he doubted he’d get the first one offered, especially given the starting point.

Two seventy-five. Three hundred. Three twenty-five. Three fifty. Three seventy-five. Four hundred. The price kept climbing with no signs of stopping or even slowing down.

Four hundred twenty-five. Four fifty. Four seventy-five.

Kang Ya-Ting entered the bid for half a million and held his breath.

Five twenty-five.

The number went up, surpassing six hundred fifty before slowing to ten thousand coin increments. Bidder 8461, presumably the prince, won it for seven hundred fifteen thousand greater spirit coins.

Yikes.

“I didn’t expect us to win that one, but seven hundred fifteen thousand?” Elder Dai said.

“Maybe the novelty will wear off,” he said, “and the price for one of them will slip down to half a million.”

Kang Ya-Ting didn’t have a lot of hope that would happen, but he had some.

Mao Biya clenched and unclenched her fists. Chao Su’s latest sword had gone for almost three quarters of a million greater spirit coins. One. Sword.

She was beginning to wonder if her attempts to squash the sale had actually had the opposite effect.

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“What do I do?” she said. “That man gave the Swift Blizzard Sect no face. His actions cannot go unpunished. The prices that we’re seeing after all the messages that I sent… The loss of face from this auction will be just as bad as his insulting threat, maybe worse.”

“Do nothing,” Teng Wuying said.

The coward. The honorless cur.

“I will say it again. Slowly.” Mao Biya snarled at him. “I. Cannot. Tolerate. This. Loss. Of. Face. Understand?”

“You will pay him back for this indignity and more. At the tournament. When we have six Nascent Souls attack him, and the formations are in our favor.”

“Months from now? I have to live with the stain of this day on my reputation for months? Not acceptable.”

Teng Wuying sighed. “You should let it go. I’m almost positive any action on your part at this point will just make things worse.”

“Not. Acceptable.”

“What can you do?” he said. “You don’t have the strength to attack him. His sect is being guarded by a Nascent Soul and a Grand Defensive Formation. Even if you got past those two formidable obstacles to move against his juniors, Chao Su can Teleport there in an instant. Any attack on his home turf or without overwhelming force is doomed to failure. Literally, all you can do is try to make him pay a bit more for his purchases, and even that carries more risk than I’d be willing to take on.”

It had been a long time, centuries, since she’d felt so impotent. Advancing to the Golden Core realm and forming a Concept had been such an amazing boost in power that it had felt like the entire world had to bow before her martial prowess. To be brought so low as to feel as weak as a mortal by that man, Chao Su, was intolerable.

She had to do something. Anything.

“I’ll make him pay,” she said. “I’ll squeeze every coin that I can out of him.”

It wasn’t much, but it was at least something.

Benton grinned happily at the price his Gravity Blade sold for. He’d been off in his thinking of the price by an order of magnitude, hoping to get seventy-five thousand for it.

“Heh. I guess I overshot the mark by a bit.”

It was truly cool to see everyone go wild over his crafts.

The next words out of Jia Xueqin’s mouth only improved Benton’s mood further. The auction manager put a rank ten Fire-aspect beast core on the block.

Benton actually laughed out loud. He had a very similar one in his ring that he’d harvested from the cyclops that he’d killed.

The fact that he had absolutely no need for the core didn’t change his bidding at all. Not at first, anyway.

The price advanced quickly to sixty-six thousand greater spirit coins, and as was his habit, he immediately jumped it by one thousand. Then, as he expected, his wannabe foil jumped in, escalating the bidding. Which soon reached one hundred forty-five thousand.

As was his wont, he increased it to one forty-six.

His opponent immediately raised to one fifty.

And Benton remained silent, his hand still. He made no move to increase the bid.

“Going once for one hundred fifty thousand…” Jia Xueqin said from the stage. “Going twice…”

Mao Biya stared at the auction manager with wide eyes. What was happening? Why wasn’t Chao Su upping the bid?

“Going twice…” the auction manager said.

She turned to Teng Wuying. He shrugged at her. Shrugged.

“Sold!” the auction manager said. “Bidder 4615 wins the item for one hundred fifty thousand greater spirit coins.”

Bidder 4615. She looked at her device. That was her number. One hundred fifty thousand greater spirit coins had been deducted from her account, leaving her with only those granted from her line of credit with the auction house. She’d taken the coins she’d just, somehow, spent from the branch sect treasury. They weren’t hers. They were the sect’s.

And she’d spent them.

Gone. They were gone.

To purchase a rank ten Fire aspected beast core that neither she nor the sect had any legitimate use for. And she’d overpaid by close to two and a half times its worth.

The sect leader would be livid. She’d be called back to the main sect to answer for the debacle. The addition of her loss of face due to her failure to prevent Chao Su’s swords from selling at a high price would only add to her problems.

She might have to face the Punishment Hall.

Mao Biya turned to Teng Wuying. “You! You did this.”

“I did nothing but warn you against your actions. Your failure helps me none at all.”

“Leave my sight. Now. Or you will taste my blade.”

Teng Wuying quickly cupped his hands and scurried off like the rat that he was. As soon as the door shut behind him, she sank into one of the provided chairs and tried to think of a way, any way, out of her dismal situation.

Teng Wuying, safely ensconced in his own private viewing room, shook his head. The problem with conspiring with hotheads was that occurrences like what just happened were not only possible but likely. Luckily, he’d already figured a way out.

With the enormous loss of face the Swift Blizzard Sect had just suffered, they were, somewhat, in the same position as the Jade Chameleon Sect. Oh, the Swift Blizzard’s loss of face was lesser by orders of magnitude, but it was still severe. They’d been threatened by a nothing sect and, after openly conspiring against that sect’s leader, had suffered a complete failure. In public.

By that evening, the specifics of what happened in the auction house detailing exactly how Chao Su had outwitted and outmaneuvered the branch head of the Swift Blizzard Sect would be on every tongue. Teng Wuying would make sure of it.

Sect Leader Dong Qiao would hate the risk he’d incur by providing all four of his Nascent Souls for the ambush, but he would have no other choice. The continued existence of Chao Su would be a constant drain on his sect’s face and a testament to his personal impotence.

Teng Wuying might even get the man to contribute enough greater spirit coins to hire mercenaries. Unaffiliated Nascent Souls didn’t exist, but some of the smaller sects on nearby continents were willing to sell their members’ services for the right price as long as there was a guarantee of safety.

Six Nascent Souls plus the right formations should be good enough to kill Chao Su, but eight would be even better. And when the Jade Chameleon council of elders found out that the Swift Blizzard Sect was going all out, they’d be pressured to hire their own mercenaries.

If Teng Wuying played things correctly, he could end up with a dozen Nascent Souls in opposition to Chao Su. No more underestimating the man. No more letting the man live, much less win.