“Oh, my lord…”

“Forty freaking thousand essence cores!?”

“Holy mother of god. Demons are fucking rich!”

The crowd dropped their jaws. They used their fingers to count how many digits it would be if they were to convert that into raw spirit stones, refined stones, or gold coins.

1,000 gold coins could be exchanged for one raw spirit stone.

1,000 raw spirit stones were equal to one refined stone.

1,000,000 refined stones were equal to one essence core.

For commoners, one gold coin was enough to buy a year’s worth of food for their entire family.

As for weak cultivators and disciples from a small sect, earning one or two raw spirit stones a month from doing odd jobs was already considered a good wage as it could be exchanged for gold coins for their daily necessity supplies.

Meanwhile, disciples from 1st-rated sects, such as Silver Phoenix Sect, Myriad Cauldron Sect, or Jiangdong White Tiger Sect, had an average income of 1-20 raw stones a month, depending on their contribution and talent. Hard-working disciples could even earn one or two refined stones every month while Inner disciples and core disciples could easily get more.

The wages of clan employees, elders, soldiers, and freelance mercenaries were a lot higher than the income of the disciples. It ranged from 50 to 1,000 refined stones per month.

Small clan leaders or small sect leaders also had a good career. By swearing allegiance to a bigger clan or a more powerful organization, they could enjoy their annual stipend, paid by their bosses. A subsidiary clan’s income was between 2,000 and 50,000 refined stones per year, depending on their military strength.

Orthodox city lords, top sect leaders, major clan leaders made money from their local businesses and gained taxes from the local territory. However, they didn’t necessarily bow their heads to other clans or the emperor as they usually stayed independent, working as freelance mercenary groups.

These powerful organizations enjoyed the annual salary of 200,000 refined stones per year at the minimum. That amount hadn’t included the perks of having various natural resources, such as mineral mines, lumber forests, monster beast dens, fishery, or even better, a spirit stone mine.

Alchemist Sects, however, had a special ability. They had a lucrative job of converting raw spirit stones into refined stones, so they could simply collect every raw spirit stone in the market and turn them into refined stones, printing the money for themselves. Someone like Ju Shoufen and Zhang Junyi could easily convert 500 raw spirit stones into one refined stone instead of trading 1,000 for one!

These alchemists had the potential to turn 50,000 refined stones into a million if they kept selling refined stones into raw spirit stones while they kept converting the raw ones into the refined ones. Of course, this amount of income hadn’t included their earnings from selling pills, which could add a few zeros to the total sum.

Meanwhile, unorthodox sects, clans, or demonic organizations made a lot of money from illegal trades. Human trafficking, assassination, murder, robbery, smuggling, drug trafficking, and ransom were their main sources of income. Their average monthly earning was between 20,000 to several million, depending on how well they operated their crime organizations while not getting caught by orthodox sects.

As such, a demon clan leader like Xu Lanying had the overwhelming advantage in her source of income. Prostitution was one of the most lucrative businesses for succubi, so she had collected quite a sum of money for herself.

The people around her, such as Xia Dun and Fu De, also understood that.

“Haiz. Being a woman is nice. You can just sell your body and earn a few thousand refined stones instantly. We, men, have to work our ass off just to a couple stones,” Fu De sarcastically laughed.

Xu Lanying also giggled, “I heard Tang Deming is selling an interesting pill that can temporarily change your gender. Why don’t you try being a woman and use your ass for once? It will be fun.”

“Tsk!”

Fu De clicked his tongue and sat down on the couch behind him. He gave up this session, saving his mental strength for the next items.

Xia Dun also shook his head and gave up. He didn’t have enough essence cores or refined stones to compete against this rich succubus.

However, someone challenged the impossible.

From the eastern wing of the theatre, Zhang Junyi’s feminine voice was audible, “45,000 essence cores!”

Xu Lanying widened her eyes in shock, “WHAT!?”

Xia Dun and Fu De, who was sitting behind the succubus queen, burst into laughter, “That’s the top alchemist for you. You’re not the richest person on this continent, Lanying.”

Xu Lanying turned to the two demon lords. She glared at them, “Lend me some of your essence cores.”

Xia Dun grinned, “50% interest rate, pay me back everything next month!”

Fu De burst into laughter. He copied the cyclop king, “Same rate! Must be returned next month!”

“… You fuckers.”

“HAHAHAHA!!”

…

Cao Mao almost couldn’t hold back his laughter. Just as he had envisioned, the pill-making job was such a lucrative business.

He had read several webnovels, but most alchemist protagonists never acted like a proper businessman since they never stayed in one place for too long. Cao Mao didn’t understand why those stupid protagonists were so obsessive about abandoning such a good job for the sake of a new adventure.

‘Damn! I should have made more. That demon and tranny are goddamn rich! 45k times 50k… Damn! I might be able to condense a small sea with those essence cores! This is too good.’

While Cao Mao was calculating the sum of life essence he would get from this auction, Xu Lanying had borrowed essence cores from both demon lords to compete with Zhang Junyi. She made another bid.

“50,000!”

The bidding price became so high that everyone sucked in their cold breath.

Zhang Junyi was also astonished to the point that he stopped bidding. But after a moment, he giggled, “Oh dear, what was I doing? I forgot that I’m also an alchemist. Isn’t it wiser for me to make those pallets myself? Oh dear, oh, dear… I’m so sorry, Lanying. I give up.”

The voice was soft, but it was audible to everyone.

At first, everyone thought that Zhang Junyi lamented that he couldn’t compete for the pallets. However, after they had carefully noticed the hints and his tone, everybody in the theatre started laughing.

Zhang Junyi was right. It was illogical for an expert alchemist to bid for someone else’s pills for an extremely high price since every alchemist was aware of the production cost. Even if they sometimes bought someone else’s creation to study, they never paid a lump sum for a few samples.

Just now, Zhang Junyi had definitely trolled Xu Lanying. He had intentionally raised the bid to empty the latter’s pocket, so he would have one fewer opponent to compete for the next items.

“DAMMIT, YOU SISSY! DON’T BID IF YOU DON’T WANT THE ITEMS!”

Xu Lanying, who was usually calm, lost her temper. She yelled at the alchemist tranny without caring about her reputation or face.

But as soon as the succubus queen had finished yelling, another competitor surprised everyone.

“60,000!”

The voice came from the eastern balcony next to Zhang Junyi’s box seat.

Sun Wentai finally decided to compete for the pallets. However, the price he called out was double the market price.

Everyone was astonished at how Sun Wentai had managed to accumulate such wealth. But a few gurus from the first floor had figured it out.

“Come to think of it, Sun Wentai used to work for a pirate group. He must have gotten his dirty money from that time.”

“Not really. I think Sun Wentai has sold a portion of the divine white tiger’s corpse from back then. He must have profited a lot from that hunt.”

“Are you sure? I heard he captured so many monster fishes from the southeastern coast and traded with the merchants from the holy land. There was a record in the Red Sun City that Sun Wentai got about 100,000 essence cores and 1st-grade spirit veins fifteen years ago.”

So much new information confused Cao Mao and the eavesdroppers on the first floor. Many spectators were amazed by the intel, but smart ones were skeptical about it.

Meanwhile, the succubus queen was frozen in shock. Xu Lanying had known that Sun Wentai had a family business on the southeastern coast, and he was the only one who could come and go between the Aves Continent and the holy land, aka the Mist Continent. Therefore, it wasn’t strange for him to possess this much money.

Xu Lanying opened her mouth and planned to continue bidding, but she stopped. Since she didn’t have enough money, it wasn’t wise to compete against the sea king, “You can have them. I give up.”

After saying that, Xu Lanying rushed back into her VIP room and told something to the other demon lords.

…

Cao Mao couldn’t see or hear clearly what the demon group was doing. Still, he was glad that he would get more money from the new guy.

But for some reason, his right eyebrow had been twitching for a while now. Something wasn’t right.

Trusting his mysterious instinct, Cao Mao hugged the cat in his cloth and ran toward the exit even though he hadn’t claimed the essence cores from the bidding yet.

“Hey! What are you doing-MFUU!”

Cao Mao covered Mao Xueyan’s mouth as he ran. He didn’t have the time to explain.

By the time that Cao Mao had reached the theatre exit, Tang Deming had concluded the session and sold the items for Sun Wentai for 60,000 essence cores.

Yet, Cao Mao didn’t look back or celebrate. As soon as he could get out of the theatre building, he saw a dozen airships and flying cultivators in the sky.

‘Has that motherfucker already started!?’

Liu Bian had warned him to leave the city after the morning session had ended. However, Cao Mao didn’t think that the prince would act so soon.

And now, the crown prince’s forces were already above the city.

As Cao Mao was still in shock, one of the flying warships fired their cannons.

BOOM

The cannonballs hit the hexagon barrier dome, which had been erected before Cao Mao got out of the building. The array barrier successfully prevented the cannonballs from landing in the city for now.

Still, the scene had confirmed one thing – The attack had started!

Cao Mao gulped. He picked up the phone and called Ma Moxi.

Toot

Tooooot

‘Come on, come on. Pick up the phone.’

As Cao Mao was waiting for the ex-protagonist to pick up the phone, he activated his stealth skill and flew away from the theatre building. However, he stopped and stood on top of a concrete house five blocks away, looking at the auction house from a distance.

Click

The ex-protagonist finally picked up the phone.

[Yes, boss?]

“Where are you?”

[I’m trapped outside the city. There are these freaking barrier arrays and a killer array formation. I can’t get closer to the wall, or I’ll be zapped to death. Where are you, boss?]

“I’m still inside the city.”

[Well, shit. Have you seen the battleships in the sky? They are attacking the city now.]

“I can see that.”

Cao Mao looked up to see the combat scene.

The hexagon-shaped barrier dome fluctuated and shook by the cannon impact, but they were still firm. Also, Cao Mao could see several cultivators with the uniform of the Qiang Clan flying toward the battleships. Even Qiang Han was among the people.

Currently, no one inside the building had come out since the barrier dome was soundproof. The battle had started, but the people in the auction house hadn’t noticed!

‘I should have enough time to collect my money if the barrier is sturdy. If possible, I should be able to steal some items…’

BOOM

One of the cannons broke through the hexagon barrier and punctured through the center of the auction theatre rooftop.

Cao Mao didn’t need to imagine what might have happened inside as the screams from the cultivators in the theatre could be heard from his position.

‘Welp! Too late for that.’

Cao Mao looked up to see the crack in the barrier array. The dome slowly restored itself, but the attacking warship captains should have already noticed the array’s weakness. More cannonballs would probably rain from the battleships soon.

“Moxi…”

[Yes, boss.]

“Can you sneak into one of the warships?”

[I can. What do you want me to do there?]

“Okay. Here is your first mission…”