Chapter 182: 182

Walking out of the passage in the Red Velvet House, Michelle hummed lazily. What she got to hear was quite satisfactory.

She didn’t find out anything about the Sloan family, but the stories she heard about the two big families of the city were quite interesting. And she also heard something about the city lord.

There was one conversation which especially interested her.

When she first noticed the room, it seemed like two men with extreme tastes were taking out their frustration on two very young prostitutes, but something didn’t seem right even from the sound.

The sound of beating was intense, filling Michelle’s ears from all sides as it echoed through the passage. But the voices of the two young prostitutes were nonexistent. One could think someone gagged them, but Michelle didn’t think so.

She had a guess that there were no conscious prostitutes in the room. The two men must have knocked them out to have privacy while conducting deals. And in case someone was listening, they kept making sounds, probably even beating the unconscious girls.

Though Michelle was highly disturbed by the sounds, she leaned on the wall, listening in.

The situation was strange. The two men didn’t speak, so it couldn’t be called a conversation, but there was clearly communication present. The sound of the strikes on the unconscious girls was way too rhythmical for them to be coming from someone frustrated or pent up.

With a frown on her face, Michelle started recognizing patterns in the rhythm of the strikes. She couldn’t comprehend them, but she understood that the strikes were a way the two men used to communicate. It probably worked similarly to Morse code.

Since Michelle wasn’t able to tell anything else by the sound, she walked to a different part of the passage. She was already disgusted by the sound of the beating.

Walking through the passage, she was quite surprised how many people had meetings in the brothel, not caring that the prostitutes by their sides were listening to every word they said. It seemed they all believed that the brothel wouldn’t want to anger the guests, so they made sure their workers kept their mouths shut.

After coming out of the passage, Michelle leaned against the wall, taking a moment to sort the information in her head. Some things she heard repetitively, while in some, she had loopholes which made her a bit confused.

But she understood the most important thing. How the city worked.

Just as she and Ivona had guessed, the two big families were only putting up the act of being on bad terms. In reality, in the past, the city lord was the true head of the two families, and they submitted to him.

But a few years earlier, a young man appeared and overtook the city lord’s position. He didn’t meddle in the two families’ business, so they continued to put up the act of being on bad terms.

And the former city lord remained in the city, commanding the two families. Because the new city lord let him act as the highest-ranking officer in the city lord’s mansion, he was still able to communicate with the people above him. It turned out to be true that the two families were a part of a large sect.

While Michelle and Ivona were gathering information in the city with the two big families, Kieran and Anastasia were entering an underground auction in a different city.

In the short time they were in the city, they found out that the Sloan family was one of the three powerhouses of the lower realm, and they were the ones who held the reins of the black market. So that meant involvement with the black market was necessary to get to the Sloans.

The two thought the auction would be within the spectrum of normality since no tickets were needed for entry, and anyone was free to come. But once the first item to be bought was displayed, the two understood why only rich people came.

Illegal drug and potion auction.

All the items that were brought forward were either extracts of animal venom, poisons, elixirs with suspicious effects, or even a few skills—quite cruel and crude.

For example, one potion was able to temporarily change a person’s skin to that of an animal whose blood he added into the potion.

Or another one could alter one’s eyes to see the flow of spirit energy. That one came in two forms. One which gave a temporary effect, and one with the effect being permanent.

Many people bid for the elixir, thinking it could help them with their cultivation. Even Kieran and Ivona thought for a moment it could be like that, but Snow shook her head at them.

She had accompanied Michelle for quite a while, so she here and there gained some understanding of human cultivation and elixirs. “If the elixir had such an effect, the auctioneer would have said so.”

“Also, just because you could see the spirit energy doesn’t mean you would be able to sense it. Those are two different things,” she added.

Kieran and Ivona glanced at the white fox resting on the ground and then at each other. It made sense.

Anyway, they weren’t planning to bid for anything, so they just observed the auction.

Usually, in auctions, the most valuable object was put up last, and Kieran and Ivona couldn’t guess what it was because all the items brought out until then were quite shocking. For something to top that, it would have to be considered a legendary item in the lower realm.

But they knew one thing. Before the auction started, every guest was given a list of items to be auctioned off. It wasn’t stated what the last item would be, but there was at least a small description.

Well… description. Just two words. “Skill book.”

The auctioning lady got off the stage and a skinny old man replaced her. The head of the branch house. That showed just how great the skill book had to be.

Upon the stage, the old man spoke up as he rummaged through his wide sleeves. “As you all already know, the last item will be a skill book!” His voice boomed through the hall as he pulled something wrapped in a worn-out cloth out of his sleeve and put it on the stand next to him.

Anticipation filled the guests as they stared at the book wrapped in the cloth.

Slowly, the old man came behind the stand and started unwrapping the book under the gazes of everyone.

The book looked quite plain. It was probably originally white, but from being used for a long time, and from being old, both the cover and pages took on a yellow-brownish shade.

But one thing remained as if it was new. It was preserved by the little spirit energy coursing through the book. In the lower realm, skill books which possessed their own spirit energy were few and far between.

The presence of the spirit energy instantly caused an uproar in the hall. Before the old man could even announce the initial price of the book, people already started shouting prices.

Quickly, the price rose from a few thousand to millions. And when the bids overtook a billion, the richest men present started bidding with spirit stones of the highest grade available in the lower realm. One like that cost at least half a billion.

When the first person bid with three spirit stones, momentary silence fell upon the hall.

That was used by the old man: “Ladies and gentlemen, please calm down for a moment!” His voice carried powerful spirit energy which forced everyone to stop what they were doing or planning to do.

Even Kieran and Ivona felt the pressure deep in their bones, even though they were quite far from the stage.

The old man continued his speech. “The initial bid is 10 spirit stones of highest purity, and every increase has to be by a spirit stone.”

Instantly, people started raging. No one would be willing to pay 10 spirit stones for a single book.

But the old man’s next words once again shocked everyone: “Ladies and gentlemen, this book is definitely worth the price!” With that, he trailed his fingers over the forever-young part of the book—the title.

The intricate golden words were quite eye-catching, but because of the frenzy caused by the presence of the spirit energy, no one bothered to read them. But when the old man reminded them of their presence, everyone’s eyes moved there.

“Beast Taming by Dark Arts”

Just the two words “Beast Taming” were enough to make everyone reconsider. Ten spirit stones were really a good deal for such a book.

In the history of the lower realm, few people were able to become Beast Tamer Masters, and they all achieved heights none of them could dream of. And since the book also had its own spirit energy, its worth skyrocketed.

The bidding started once again. At first, people increased the bids by five or more spirit stones, but slowly, the number of bidders decreased, and the last three kept increasing just by one spirit stone.

Finally, the book ended up in the hands of a middle-aged woman, who bid 63 spirit stones for it. That was probably her whole fortune.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep