20 **Chapter 20: Buy, buy and buy!**

The people have spoken; there will be chapters on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

Also, sorry for the late chapter, but today was just a long and shitty day.

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Here I was on this beautiful Saturday evening, back in the silent auction as I had been every day for the past week. As I looked through my mask, trying to make my way to the familiar exchange of Gu, I noticed that most of the slots for the silent auction were empty.

"They are ending this silent auction, as the real auction will start tomorrow morning."

The slots that were not yet empty had remaining times like 01:23:32 or 00:30:50; the longest I had seen was just under two hours. This meant that the silent auction was nearly over and would end around 10 in the evening.

There were also very few people here; the party was over. As I got closer to the exchange center, there were more people. About half of them had disguised themselves as I did.

This was actually something that surprised me when I learned about it a few days ago. For some reason, I thought that people were more open here, but no, this disguising was actually commonplace.

In the last week, I had heard too many horror stories of people offending some Elder, just like Fang Yuan did in the novel by buying the liquor worm, or friends and family begging and mooching off people just because they learned of their financial status through seeing them with a rank 2 Gu.

"Exactly the kind of annoying things that happened to lottery winners and rich people in my past life. There is a big difference, though; in my past life, money equaled strength, and in this one, it does not."

There were 5 mortal attendants, each responsible for 2 of the small exchange centers that looked a little like Dixie toilets connected to a wall.

"Another thing I learned is that they use mortals for this to avoid getting into a situation where a potential Gu Master attendant could investigate the disguised guests and profit from them, by robbery for example. It is mainly just a way to appease the paranoia of the Gu masters they are serving."

There were 5 lines, each very silent and orderly in front of one of the attendants. I just picked the shortest line and stood silently at the end. At this point, about 80% of everyone here was wearing a disguise, all of them just black robes without any identifying information as well as a white mask and gloves.

This did not come as a surprise to me as this exact outfit is sold nearby by a clever rank 2 Gu Master for one primeval stone. A very smart money-making method to be honest, as once enough people use it, he can charge the outrageous 1 primeval stone for a simple outfit.

There were 19 people in front of me, more than there had been on any other day this week. The line was moving at a moderate pace that I had already experienced. One person would come out of the little cabin every 2 to 3 minutes, silently replaced by the next one.

Even if the wait time was 40 minutes to an hour, nobody made any trouble. In fact, most of the ones waiting in line did not even make a noise, to avoid being identified by their voice.

As the boredom from waiting took over, I couldn't help but think about the list of goals that I had set for myself. Out of the seven I had set, how many had succeeded?

I did get that Red Steel Relic Gu I bid 8,000 primeval stones for. The liquor worm that I wanted to buy on the first day was bought by someone else, but I did manage to buy three other ones over the course of this week.

The funny thing was that I bid only 500 primeval stones for each of them. With this, I definitely have enough liquor worms for the rank 2 version, and if I get the refinement right on the first try, even for the rank 3 version.

I also took the risk and tried to put up my Delayed Hunger Gu for the silent Auction. But the guy there convinced me to try to put it up for the real auction that will be held on the big ship instead. And to my surprise, they actually took it in; food path Gu must be worth even more than I imagined.

The negative effect of this is that I will only be able to get the money once it is auctioned off.

Another goal I had was to purchase a slave for myself, but I have given that up. The second goal I failed was to invest the money I have left. The reason for that is simple: I have spent all my money on poison and refinement path Gu, Materials as well as any and all Gu that I saw potential in.

By that, I mean the potential in itself, as well as the potential to refine them into poison path Gu.

"Hehehe… I am convinced that some of those Gu are just made to be turned into evil… or why else would it be so easy?"

The goals of finding a Gu to store poison were pretty easy; the Poison Belly Salmon, I did not find these at the silent auction but at a store. I was ecstatic and bought all 4 of them for 200 primeval stones each. They were only this cheap because they were not popular and I bought all 4 of them.

To find a Gu that was poison path and defended from long-distance as well as energy-based attacks was a task I unfortunately failed miserably.

"It is as they say, if you want something done, do it yourself…"

I was pulled out of my thoughts by the man before me leaving into one of the two small cabins.

"It seems that it is my turn soon."

Not even a minute later, the same person who had just entered the cabin came out again.

"Must have lost all of his bids, Sucker…."

"Please enter, Lord Gu Master."

I did not have to be told twice; I opened the door to the little cabinet and stepped in. As soon as I closed the door behind me, all sounds disappeared. And not like with a normal door, where you could still kind of hear what is going on on the other side, no.

This was definitely the effect of a Gu, or more likely of a Gu formation.

This was a small room; it was maybe 2 ½ square meters in total area. And as this room was divided in half by a small counter in the middle, I only had about a square meter to stand on.

"Lord Gu Master, would you please give me your password?" came the sound of another mortal asking me from the other side of the counter.

In return, I just gave him a small piece of paper with the numbers: 485729103. This was the password I had used to bid on Gu the past day. Every day I used a different one, just to be extra careful.

He looked at it very carefully and opened the book that lay on the counter and with practiced ease looked through the pages one by one. And he was fast, only taking about 10 seconds to look at a whole two pages.

From glancing at the book, I saw that the majority of entries were already crossed out.

"This explains how he can be so fast."

After about a minute, he looked up and said: "You have won one bid; it was 300 primeval stones for the Scattered light Gu. Please pay up, so that you can receive it."

I handed over the 300 primeval stones; it was a pleasant surprise that I had won any Gu at all. On the last day, I had barely bid on anything as I could not afford to accidentally win too many Gu.

The Red Steel Relic Gu cost me 8,000, the liquor worms cost 1,500, and the four poison belly salmon used for storing Gu cost 800. Then, I spent 500 primeval stones on Gu Materials, as well as another 6,500 primeval stones on my bids on Gu over the weeks.

That left me with precisely 624 primeval stones, that is, before I paid 300 for the scattered light Gu. If I had bid on, for example, 3 Gu, there would have been a possibility of me winning too many and being unable to pay for them.

As I thought of the 324 primeval stones that I had left, I couldn't help but pray that the Delayed Hunger Gu sells for a lot of money.

"I will have to start actually making money with refinement if I want to go through with my plan for rank 2. Maybe I could get some more money out of my father, but definitely not the 8,000 primeval stones I will need in the next half a year. At least not without explaining myself in detail."

With my plans for the next few months of my life decided, I made my way home.

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*At home*

I had barely opened the door and taken off my shoes before I saw a servant walking in the hallway connecting to the entrance.

"You! Come here!" With a surprised expression, the servant hurried his way over to me.

"Young Master, how may I help you?"

"Where is my father?"

"The Master is eating dinner in the living room."

"You can go."

With my goal located, I made my way down the hallway and into the living room where, sure enough, I found my father sitting and eating.

"Greetings, father! I was searching for you."

"Oh, Wei, there you are! I was wondering when I could talk to you, but you go first."

"Well, I wanted to ask you if you would accompany me to the auction that will start tomorrow morning."

"Hahaha… I guess we were having the same thought then. Must be some kind of father-son connection…"

"Now that those plans stand, tell me, did you buy any interesting Gu or Materials at the Merchant Convoy?"

"Materials, yes, I found a lot of cool poisons. Gu, on the other hand, I only managed to win the bid for one Gu."

"And which one did you decide to buy?"

"I bought Greed Toad Gu. I got it for only 350 primeval stones."

"Well done, so that means you have a Water Bullet Gu, a Liquor worm, and a Greedy Toad Gu. It covers Attack and Storage already…"

"We will see if we find anything you like to cover Defence, Healing as well as Movement at the auction tomorrow."

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