Chapter 920: Auction 2
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The auction will take place in a remote mansion deep within the mountain forests of the Blackboard Region.
On the surface, it was just a lonely white private vacation home, but five hundred meters underground, there was a huge square underground s.p.a.ce.
The s.p.a.ce was like a giant opera house, with thick red carpets adorned with gold patterns, and neat lines of white seats arranged compactly. On the two sides, there were many floating box seats, they were just suspended light golden spheres, with the fixed number of each box carved on the outside.
Just then, the lower seats of the auction were almost completely packed with people, most of them properly dressed, the so-called upper cla.s.ses. There were also others who did not sweat the details and dressed like the normal people on the street. The sounds of whispers and the buzz of voices kept echoing through the whole area.
The important guests on the two sides were also beginning to enter their boxes now.
Garen and Celine appeared at the leaping point to enter the room on the left, and they followed the path, walking towards one of the boxes.
There were quite a few VIPs like them, and all of them were walking along the walls on the sides to enter their boxes now.
“Looks like the organizer of this auction is a pretty big deal.” Garen swept his gaze across the area. The people in front and behind him were all the sort of hotshot characters you saw on the television. There was a constant stream of celebrities and public figures as well.
Some of the young students with considerable backgrounds that they were familiar with were here as well. Of course, he was also one such student with a considerable background, so he was no different from these prodigies and elites.
“Are you going to use your alias Garen, or your real name to bid?” asked Celine in a low voice beside him.
“My real name, I guess, quite a few people know me here.” Garen smiled. These past two years, Celine also knew that his alias was Garen.
“Nono.” Suddenly a voice came from not far ahead, it was a beautiful woman dressed in a black c.o.c.ktail dress who turned around to smile at them, while standing with two men. The voice came from the beautiful lady.
“It’s Vivienne and Wade.” Garen smiled as he greeted them. These two were the people he worked with for the Rainbow Stone business. At first, they did not get along so well because they were just business partners, but after that, they began to familiarize with each other, and their relations.h.i.+p grew better. Even so, they were barely just normal friends.
Vivienne was pretty calculative for a woman, back when they were haggling prices, she showed that she had considerable business ac.u.men. These two years, she had been developing very nicely as well and was getting hold of more resources and channels within the family.
The Sina family that Vivienne belonged to had wide connections and influences in Blackboard and even several of the regions around it. Although their higher-ups were not particularly powerful, their influence was spread extremely wide. They were a large-scale power, just beneath the peak-level factions.
Garen looked at the last person. He was dressed in a normal grey suit, with short grey hair, and looked like a very young, pretty boy.
“This is?”
“My friend, Penton.”
Vivienne introduced with a smile.
Penton reached out his hand to shake Garen’s lightly.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, nice to meet you too,” Garen replied with a smile, the latest information instantly appearing in his head. Rumor had it that Vivienne fancied a regular young man with no background despite her family’s objections and nearly broke it off with her family members. Looking at it now, this young man called Penton was standing beside Vivienne, and their stances seemed to be hinting that they were dating, so this could likely be that rumored boyfriend.
Although Garen did not know why she would bring a normal man with no background or talent here, he still greeted them politely.
Seeing Garen’s actions, grat.i.tude flashed through Vivienne’s eyes.
She had already taken Penton to meet several young talents and young heirs from the upper cla.s.ses, but the only one who treated them equally without contempt was Garen.
“Celine, you are very beautiful today.” Vivienne looked at Celine beside him. The whole Blackboard Region knew about the relations.h.i.+p between Nonosiva and Celine, those busybodies mostly arranged the two of them into a couple, and they were considered to be very well-matched. However, the two people themselves had no such intention.
“You’re very pretty too, Vivienne,” Celine nodded and said with a smile. She was wearing a large white knitted coat, wrapped tightly around her like a jacket, and her hair was plaited into an intricate, elegant lady’s style. On one side, her green hair was tied into small, uniform braids and pinned to her head, whereas the other side was a simple bun. Two white pearl studs stood out on her earlobes. She looked magnificent and cold.
“I went to the Polar Region’s Wellforest Mountains a while ago, and found a pretty decent project regarding Frigid Stones, are you two interested?” Beside them, Wade never stopped talking about business.
“I think I’ll pa.s.s, if you’re not doing business with Vivienne, I wouldn’t dare to invest haphazardly,” said Celine relentlessly.
Garen, on the other hand, just laughed.
“Give me the market report after some time, I’ll consider.”
Wade was instantly overjoyed and began to talk endlessly about his business plan with Garen.
“Vivienne, it’s been a while.”
They were about turn around and walk towards their box seats when someone else greeted them from behind.
Turning around, Vivienne’s expression turned cold.
“Brenforst.”
The blonde man behind them held a folding fan in his hand as he smiled, two middle-aged pilots following behind him. Waves of Level Three Willpower spread from them slowly, both of them were actually Level Three pilots.
To normal people, a Level Three pilot was already a very formidable presence, and Vivienne’s family was not a peak-level one. Her own bodyguards were only at the same level, so this guy was obviously equal to her in standing.
“I wonder, how are your preparations going for the exchange meeting this time? The man beside you is your so-called beau, right?” Brenforst was a genius among the Blackboard Region’s business circles.
Actually, even though the circles were extremely large in the Blackboard Region, the people inside at a certain level were still the same familiar old faces.
“You don’t have to worry,” said Vivienne with a cold laugh. “I won’t disappoint you at the exchange meeting.”
“That puts my mind at ease.” Brenforst smiled as he nodded, and walked past their group. He did not know Celine or Garen, perhaps he had heard of them, but he had never met them in person. Celine and Garen actually belonged in a circle one level higher than theirs.
“The people here are all heirs from powerful families, or else they are elites from large factions with considerable backgrounds. I wonder, this boy that Miss Vivienne has brought today, what right do you have to join our circle?”
Someone else spoke from behind, as they walked out of a leaping point and came out of a room.
The voice made even Brenforst, who was about to leave, turn around to watch the show.
The one who spoke was dressed in a white suit, and his eyes were piercing, giving off a sharp aura.
“Jacht, since when have you had the right to speak in my matters?” said Vivienne icily.
The man in the white suit, Jacht, laughed coldly.
“Vivienne, get that boy to speak for himself, what kind of a man hides behind a woman?”
Vivienne’s expression was freezing cold, and she was about to speak, but Penton, who was standing beside her, reached out his hand to stop her. He stepped out instead.
“And what right do you have to speak to me? Other than your family background, you’re just a piece of trash.”
“Trash?” Jacht’s expression changed.
“How dare you!” A middle-aged man stepped up from behind him, and reached out his arm fiercely, pressing for Penton’s head.
His fingers were sharp, and actually seemed to glow slightly blue, they had evidently been strengthened by some mutated genetic liquid. They even left a sweet fragrance in the air as they sliced through, making those who smelled it feel dizzy.
“Scram!!” Penton did not give way at all, blocking with one hand in front of him. His arm suddenly bulged, his whole hand growing one size larger. Like a monster, his skin turned green-grey, the green veins popping.
Bam!
The two arms crashed into each other, and the middle-aged man was actually forced back, taking three steps back before he could steady himself.
“What strength!” someone gasped in admiration.
Everyone looked towards his feet and saw that the middle-aged man had left three clear footsteps in the hardwood floor. It was evidently the marks left behind by his trying to divert the momentum.
“Martial arts powerhouse!” Jacht’s eyes narrowed. Clearly, he was angry for real this time.
Garen and Celine stood at the sidelines and watched, with no intention of interfering whatsoever. For one, this conflict was completely meaningless, and even boring, in their eyes. Also, Jacht’s own status was not at the same level as theirs.
“Nono.” Suddenly, Celine yanked Garen’s sleeve. “Over there.” She gestured with her eyes and looked towards the opposite direction of the corridor.
Garen followed her gaze, and saw, on the corridor to the box seat opposite them, Fila looking back at them calmly, dressed in white. There was someone beside him, skinny and pale, short in stature. He seemed to be young, and looked like a drug addict, weak and powerless, and completely unenergetic.
This young man frowned as he looked in Garen’s direction, and saw Garen and Celine as well. His eyes lit up slightly when he saw Celine, but other than that, he just hugged the pretty woman beside him and walked into the box seat, as though completely disregarding Garen’s and Celine’s statuses.
“Who’s that person next to Fila?” Garen frowned slightly.
“I’m not sure, I’ll get someone to investigate right now.” Celine sensed something amiss as well. Although Fila did not dare to make a move against Garen directly due to the pressure from Black Flood, that guy had plenty of tricks up his sleeve, so they had to be careful.
The group entered the box seats, and by the time Garen and Celine left, the conflict between Vivienne and Jacht had escalated slightly. That young man called Penton actually went toe-to-toe, not allowing Jacht to get back at him at all, and was somehow keeping his own against the two bodyguards.
Shockingly, this young man was actually a Level Two pilot. Although his Willpower was not very strong, he could still take more than a hit from Level Three Willpower. Add that to his powerful martial arts, and he never backed down, from the start to the finish.
This gave Garen and the others a fairly good impression of him, but it also angered some of the other upper-cla.s.s heirs that some kid from a regular family would actually look down on them as a whole.
That guy just kept saying that you upper-cla.s.s boys were all tras.h.!.+ You’re nothing without that layer of skin, and he insulted them from all aspects, instantly inviting all of their hatred!
Even Celine, who was sitting beside them, occasionally felt like punching someone. The sounds from outside kept coming through the open door, but soon enough, things slowly calmed down. Vivienne’s older brother, her cousin Azeria appeared, and calmed down the conflict between them. Plus, the auction was about to begin, so both sides entered their boxes and said no more. The grudge remained, however.
“Previously Vivienne’s Cina family and Jacht’s Duncan family ran into some arguments regarding economic distribution, and tempers ran high on both sides. That’s why Jacht also wanted to attack them using the unsavory fact that Vivienne was dating a commoner,” explained Celine nonchalantly as she sat down and took a gulp from her drink.
“There have been a lot of changes within the region lately, the military items market keeps on expanding, and our collaborative business is doing better by the day. If it weren’t for the fact that the benefits from her project with you keep increasing, she would surely have been pulled down from the position of manager a long time ago. Looks like it’s all thanks to you,” said Celine with a laugh.
“T’was just a coincidence.” Garen shrugged and pressed a b.u.t.ton, the room door instantly closing automatically. “The auction this time might be slightly troublesome, I only have one and a half billion in mobile a.s.sets, so I might not be able to get what I want.”
“I can provide a billion on my side, if that’s not enough, I can use my ident.i.ty to pay a certain portion in advance. I’m just worried Fila will probably try to make things harder for you!” said Celine in a low voice.
“Yeah, I can’t possibly give up the Ring Light Silver, and Fila probably knows that too. We can’t underestimate his intelligence division.”
Pak pak pak!
Suddenly, a row of blinding white lights was instantly switched on outside, s.h.i.+ning down on the main stage.
“The auction has officially begun, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Earth’s Heart Auction Center!” A high man’s voice rose suddenly, his tone as though singing.