501 Room No.0
"The Auction Attendant No.19-213 just made the first bid of 10,500 Qi stones!"
Everyone looked at the attendants standing behind them in bewilderment.
Lilly elaborate, "As everyone knows, our attendants are all honorable members of our association, and even though they are on duty, this didn't mean they can't take part in the auction.
"Don't forget, we all have the equal rights to bid as much as everyone. Even I can bid for an item using my unique auction number, so there isn't anything startling about it."
Everyone thought this made sense since the life demon association members were all very rich and they had every right to join the auction as long as they can pay. It wasn't a problem.
They weren't servants but life profession experts, and their wealth was no joke.
This made many in open stands and VIP stands frown because they completely forget about the existence named; Alchemists, Rune Crafter, and Crafter Smiths.
Until now, the items were all from the association, so no one bothered to bid, but since this old book came from a different source, and as long as it piqued their interest, they can bid as much as wanted.
The other nine Auction Attendants looked at Peterson, who had a small glowing array plate in his hand. They knew he was the one who bid just now since they all had the same bidding arrays.
"Sir Peterson, do you know anything about that book?" An old demon standing a few meters away asked with curiosity.
Peterson shook his head. "No, but I have a habit of collecting such things."
The others looked at Peterson, including VIPs, as if he was a wastrel, but none of them said anything since it was his money he can waste as much as he wanted.
After clearing everyone's misunderstanding, Lilly smiled and start counting, "10,500 going once…
"10,500 going twice…
"Last chance folks…"
She was about to sell when a new bid appeared.
"Room NO…" Her expression changed slightly when she saw the room number and she continued, "Room No.0 bid 100,000 Qi stones!"
Everyone was confused and curious when they heard this number. Because they all knew the VVIP room number started with 1 all the way to 5,000 and the lower the number, the higher the status of a VVIP. That's why they were curious about who could be in this room.
'So, someone can tell. I wasn't wrong to choose this book.' Ace's lips curled slightly, and bid again.
Lilly's smile stiff slightly as she spoke, "The Auction Attendant 19-213 made another bid of 100,500 Qi stones!"
'Why are you bidding?!' She wanted to slap this ignorant attendant right now. She knew what kind of demons were in that room, but she was helpless. They didn't tell those attendants about them.
Inside the room no.0,
The masked demoness had an array plate in his hand as she increased the bid directly to 1 million.
"Oh, your highness, do you know the origin of this book?" Instructor Alden asked curiously.
Everyone looked at her. They were all curious about that mysterious book as well.
She coolly replied, "No, but that writing seemed fascinating. You know, I like collecting these kinds of things."
They all could relate to her and didn't ask any more questions.
However, the masked demon on the side wanted to take out his own bidding array plate when the bid increased again and he was stopped.
This time, the bidder directly raised it to 10 million!
Ewan's eyes slightly narrowed. If it was someone else, he wouldn't care, but this person was from his side and he didn't want any trouble with these people. He was about to contact the level managers to have this demon back down when the demoness chuckled lightly.
"It seemed someone is more eager to acquire this piece of history. I give up." the demoness said as if she lost interest.
'Well, you can keep it for me for now. If I keep bidding, this brother of mine might get in my way.' She thought.
When everyone saw the bid of 10 million, they couldn't help but exclaimed because it was the peak grade-2 Qi stones, not high-grade-2. If covert into high-grade-2 Qi stones, the number will reach 100 million!
This price for an unknown book was really out of everyone's expectations. They also started to see those attendants in a new light. They were just too damn rich.But they didn't know that even those attendants were speechless by this guy's wealth and wondered if he was a life master.
Lilly was the same. With a stiff smile, she started counting and to her relief, room no.0 didn't bid this time. But she vowed to give this ignorant fellow a piece of her mind once he came collecting this treasure.
Ace, on the hand, was secretly excited because he could clearly read what was written in that book, unlike everyone else, and that's why he didn't hesitate to raise the bid so much.
While it also served another purpose!
Even if he had to a hundred million, he would've done so.
Lilly announced, "Everyone, we'll be back in two hours for the second round!"
She quickly left the stage.
The arena turned extremely lively as everyone started to chat about the auction and some started to stroll around the arena halls.
Ace was about to find a quiet location when a beautiful demoness approached him. She said, "Life Master Ville wanted to see you. Please follow me."
Ace's lips curled. 'That was fast.'
He followed the demoness quietly under many watchful eyes.
Ville's had his personal chamber where he can observe the auction and bid.
When a knock sounded on his door, he coolly said, "Come in." When he saw Peterson, he frowned slightly.
"Are you the one who was bidding at the end?" His eyes narrowed. He had a pleasant expression of this demon, but this has to be done for his own sake.
Peterson lowered his head. "Yes, life master. Did I do something wrong?"
Ville take a deep breath and sighed, "Although you have done nothing wrong. But the person you just bid against can't be offended, no matter what. I want you to hand over your item ticket and 10 million peak-grade-2 Qi stones so we can salvage this situation, or even the President can't do anything if they took action against you."
Ace felt the greed in Ville's eyes, and his lips curled into a wintry smile. He said, pretending to be frightened, "If that's the case, then I'll have to thank you. B-but can I look at the book at least? I have spent all my life saving to buy it. Please grant me this favor!"
Ville's eyes slightly narrowed, but he felt this made sense and Peterson didn't say he won't give up on his demands so he can let Peterson take a look at the book before he could hand it over to the President and get into his good graces.
Every life master and demon with equivalent ranks knew who was in room no.0.
Albeit he didn't receive any order to stop Peterson from acquiring that book, he knew Ewan would not be pleased because of it.
So, he decided to strike first and got the ticket from Peterson, while he would also take those ten million peak-grade-2 Qi stones for himself.
Although he didn't know how can someone like Peterson had this much wealth. Since Peterson knows what was good for him. He won't make it hard on Peterson.
He said, "The treasures are in the treasury and can only be collected at the end of the auction. Once the auction end, I'll let you see it for 5 minutes. That's all I can do."
"Thank you for this favor, Life Master. The ticket and Qi stones are in this ring." Peterson had a grateful expression on his face as he suddenly took out another storage ring and moved toward Ville as if wanted to give it to him.
Ville suspected nothing and let him come closer, while his eyes were fixed on the ring as a greedy glint flashed past his eyes.502 Stealing a memory?
Ville was a bona fide 6th intermediate stage soul embryo realm cultivator, if he was paying attention and was alert for a soul attack, Ace might not even break past his defensive.
However, Ville completely regarded Peterson as a harmless junior who was only at the silver soul river cover realm, and he would never have dared to sneak attack him because it was virtually impossible to even break his defense as long as he wasn't in the same realm as him.
But Ace's soul-piercing bullet was a heavenly skill, and it had reached perfection rank, which made it quite scary for even an intermediate soul realm expert if used correctly.
Nevertheless, it was still only enough to give Ace a few second advantage over his opponent, and if he didn't deal with them within this small-time frame, the opponent will not fall for such a trick again.
That's why he came as close to Ville as he could before he used his soul skill on the defenseless Ville, which was a complete success.
Ace's sharp sword instantly pierced through Ville's neck as blood splashed on the floor.
Ville's windpipe was completely cut off as he couldn't make any sounds, and his eyes were filled with disbelief and abhorrence while gawking at smirking Peterson.
However, Ace knew as long as Ville had breath in him, he can't let his guard down because he was a soul cultivator, so he used more soul-piercing bullets while his lightning Qi ran amok in Ville's body.
When Ace saw Ville stop struggling, he still didn't move back because he was waiting for…
======
[Killed a 6th Intermediate Stage Soul Embryo Realm, Demon]
[Reward: 1,000,000 SP]
---
[Martial Cultivation: Heavenly Dark Sea [Stage-9]]
[EXP: 5,120,000/10,000,000]
[Soul Cultivation: Orange Wind Soul Core [Stage-9]]
[SP: 6,120,000/10,000,000]
[Elemental Orb: 0/1]
======
'Nice.' Ace smiled before he finally relaxed his grip and put away his sword.
But he wasn't done. He suddenly used a soul probe!
Although Ville was dealing, he still wanted to see what will happen because it was only a second since he died, so he was curious.
The biggest reason was, he was at the dead end of the job mission. Even though the system gave him a clue, it was too subtle, and he did not know where to go with it.
So, he was trying everything.
Since he had killed someone, he won't let this chance pass to test his theory.
One thing he was clear about was that the soul probe was the key to all this.
Just as he used the soul probe, he frowned the next moment because he could feel the memories were there but can't get them because of some resistance.
'What is this?' Ace's expression turned solemn as he put more force.
Abruptly, Ace felt like he was pulling something from a vacuum. Beads of sweat started to form on his forehead, and his head started to hurt.
But he didn't let go of whatever it was as it kept pulling.
At this moment, the system's clue suddenly surfaced in his mind again.
'Memories are like fish in the Knowledge Sea, and if one wanted to fish, they need a Fishing Rod!
'Did I catch a fish? Did this mean my soul probe is the fishing rod?' Ace suddenly thought of this, while at this moment his soul probe was successful.
======
[Host has stolen a memory permanently.]
[Analyzing the memory fragment…]
======
Ace was gobsmacked by this sudden notification, as the memory, he just probed entered his knowledge sea.
However, unlike anything before, this memory was like a glass fragment, and he could see everything through that glass fragment.
He was thrilled all of a sudden when he comprehended what had just happened.
======
[Analyzing complete!]
-Result: The memory does not meet any requirements of the Job Mission.
-Final Assessment: Try Again!
======
Ace didn't mind this notification, since he had seen the memory fragment he stole; it was Ville's last moments before his death, so it wasn't useful to him.
However, he was delighted, since he had unknowingly stolen a memory.
Although he still didn't know how that happened, he clearly remembered that feeling of pulling something from a vacuum.Memories are like fish in the Knowledge Sea, which means I can gain access to this sea with the Soul Probe and fish out the memories as long as I know how to use my soul probe like a Fishing Rod!
'It's just that I never tried such a thing because I was probably using the soul probe to see what was inside the knowledge sea. I never try to take it or don't know how to infiltrate it.
'Until now, since this guy was dead and his sea was destroyed, the memories were also not protected by the knowledge sea as well. They were vanishing, but I used the soul probe and discovered its other function, which was to use it like a hook of a fishing rod to pull the memories out.
'If my theory is right, I just have to find a way to infiltrate this sea now, and I'll be able to do this without anyone even knowing!' Ace's heart beat wildly as he wanted to find someone to try this.
He quickly tried using it on the unconscious Peterson in his thief's space. However, no matter how much he took a memory fragment as he had previously done, he failed, though.
'I'm still missing something?' Ace wasn't discouraged at all.
Now that he knew which way he should move, it was a matter of time before he'll figure it out.
However, first, he had to clear this bloody mess in front of him. He was still in the life demon auction, and he had many things to tend to, so, he would think about the soul probing after he was done here.
He quickly saved Ville's face before he stored his dead body in an empty storage ring.
After cleaning everything up, he looked inside Ville's storage ring. The old man was quite rich, not as rich as a life grandmaster like Gatlin. But he was still greedy for ten million Qi stones and died because of them.
Nevertheless, Ace found a list that he was looking for all this time.
It was the list of every person sitting in the VVIP rooms on the 20th level. Lastly, he also saw an envelope between this list, and when he opened it and saw the content, his lips curled upward.
'Royal VVIPs Room No.0!'
Although there wasn't anything else, he could guess that Room No.0 was for the royal zone or someone from the royal zone. He had already done his research in these two months.
Although these demons never appeared in public, their traces were all over the place. With Freya, it wasn't hard to know what they were up to.
Ace also disguised himself as Ville. He was now a Level Manager from the Auction Attendant. But he didn't have Ville's memories, which could be a problem.
However, he had to take this risk for his real purpose.
Peterson also can't disappear right now, or it might raise some suspicion after what Peterson has done in the last bid.
He sat in Ville's place and waved his sleeve before unconscious Peterson appeared on the floor.
Ace pointed his finger and dark lighting flashed into Peterson's forehead before his eyes snapped open.
Peterson had a bewildered look on his face when suddenly he felt a sting on his back, and he glanced around with killing intent.
"Bastar…"
However, before he could curse, his word caught in his throat as he looked at Ville's cold visage.
"L-life Master?!" He was now flabbergasted about how he appeared in front of Ville, and his expression went pale.
Ville coldly said, "Someone tried to impersonate you. I had to say I'm disappointed."
Peterson's expression was ashen when he heard it, and quickly try to explain, "T-that… it was that bas…"
However, Ville raised his hand to make him shut up. He coldly said, "I have taken care of him. Do you think it's that easy to infiltrate our auction? You may return to your post now.
"But the president has some instructions for you. If you accomplished them, your previous gaffe will brush off."
"P… President?!" Peterson's breathing turned rigged as his face almost turned white with sheer horror.
He knew what kind of existence President Ewan was, and if he had instructions for him, this means he also knew about his gaffe. It made him nearly lose consciousness again because of sheer fear.
Ville didn't mind his overdramatic reaction and stated, "First, you can't tell anyone about it. Second, if someone asked something you have no idea about, just say I don't want to talk about it. Lastly, if someone asked you about an item ticket, you'll tell them you handed it over to me, and they can find me if they want.If you did well, you will not be punished, and I might even reward you. Is that clear?"
Although Peterson did not know what was Ville talking about, as long as he can walk scot-free, he will do anything. So, he quickly nodded solemnly and left!