The group which was being guided by Valentina, soon reached the entrance to the auction house, the guards stationed at the foot of the stairs, slightly bowed their heads towards Valentina.

“Welcome miss Valentina, how can we help you today?”, said the guard at the right side, it’s worth mentioning that those two guards were actually early-stage Void Manipulation realm cultivators.

And they were just the gatekeepers, with a quick scan, Aster could tell that there were much stronger people guarding the fort, deep inside the auction house, which made him give his treasure girl, a quick gaze which she recognized on the spot.

‘Let’s play the usual game, a reward for each nice finding you discover and a little punishment for each decent thing that escapes your sight’, he said, since Camila isn’t a Star Maiden, nor she has stimulated a star enough to form a mind connection, like Kana did back at Esmeralda’s realm, then it had to be done this way.

That being said, they did have a certain connection, thanks to them sharing the Wolfstein lineage, Camila had one aspect while Aster incarnated the other one, but that’s beside the point.

‘Not fair, my senses have trouble with detecting things kept in spatial storage treasures, but those eyes of yours can see through that’, she said to which Aster grinned at her.

‘Well, it wouldn’t be training if it was easy, don’t worry, I’m pretty sure you’ll “like” it whether the result is a reward or a punishment, so you can try your best without any worries~’, he jokingly added, making Camila feel even more worried than before.

‘You bully…’, she cutely mumbled making Aster chuckle, of course that little exchange while unnoticeable to the other girls, the Star Maidens could practically listen to Aster’s thoughts, as long as he allowed them of course and he did, because he wanted to tease them, the result was that Camila ended up being gazed by the pair of dragon mother and daughter.

While Camila was having trouble enduring the though not ill intended, still intimidating gazes of Lilia and Alice, Valentina answered the guards.

“I want the private room which the Marius company reserved for me”, she said.

While the temporary city has been around for nearly a week at this point, between the big merchant companies reaching this place after being informed by the lucky bastards who were around and the auction house waiting until enough people arrived, the first auction was held until today.

Aster and the others weren’t the only ones who arrived at this place recently, they were the first ones from the Myriad Occupation sect only, but they Fey family and their subordinates had been arriving since a couple of days ago and only today they finished their travels.

In other words, the auction house basically held back until all the young masters with deep pockets arrived, to make the first auction night, of course they had to show Valentina some face, since they weren’t waiting for the disciples of the Myriad Occupation sect, so the merchant families in charge of the auction house told her that they will keep a special seat for her to attend.

However, judging by the stiff reactions of the guards, things weren’t going to be as they should be.

“Only the rooms number 1 and 15 are big enough to comfortably allow a group as big as miss Valentina’s one, to enjoy the auction, Lord Marius originally reserved room number 1 but…”, the guard stopped midway as if he was afraid to finish his sentence, until the other guard continued.

“Lord Teles gave the room number 1 to the esteemed guests from the Mountain Amber and Ocean Aquamarine families, without Lord Marius’s approval, they have been arguing about it, but the esteemed guests had already occupied room number 1, so we can only offer miss Valentina room number 15”, the guard bowed his head and made his companion do the same.

The previous might sound like nothing, but Valentina the appointed ruler was being sent to the last VIP room, the design of the auction house is made it so that the first and last rooms, on the second floor had the most space, the problem here is that it was not only disrespectful but the auction house was going against an agreement which Valentina reached with them, hence why the guards were worried, since they could end up being dragged into the mess.

The forces behind the auction house might be rich and high ranked enough to negotiate with the Fey family, but that only applies to the direct representatives of said forces, those “Lords” mentioned by the guards, but they, the staff could end up as scapegoats for the anger of those with high status and no one would stand up for them.

And while Valentina wasn’t that type of person, she was indeed angry that the auction house didn’t fulfill their promise and also at those trouble makers that shared her last name.

“Don’t pay attention to that, we are here to enjoy a nice dinner together”, casually said Aster, to which Valentina nodded.

“Mm, you are right, we’ll take room number 15, tell those old guys that I will come back for an explanation when I’m free”, she said to the guards, who finally relaxed as they thanked to all the stars that it was Valentina the one, they had to deal with, had it been other Fey princess, their fates would have been rather grim.

The guards then respectfully opened the gates for them and even guided the group through the corridor, the auction house was designed like a modern theater, there were many rows of seats in an open space in front of a stage, that was the common area, of course different seats had different sizes, space and views, those who paid more or had some background could enjoy a better treatment that’s a golden rule in the cultivation world, those seats were mostly occupied at this point by the way.

Then at the second floor, the real big shots, those who were affiliated with high ranked families and forces, were placed, just like the guard mentioned, the rooms at the two extremes of the second floor were larger than the other ones.

Since the auction house wasn’t as big as it would normally be, due to the space limitations of the temporary city, each meter counted, in fact there were people who were going to participate in the auction through communication talismans, since they couldn’t reserve a seat in time, roughly the theater could accommodate three hundred people on the first floor and around half of that on the second one.

Now don’t let such a small number of participants trick you, the insides of the auction house were quite luxurious, they didn’t lose when compared to Valentina’s mansion back at the Battle Planet, basically it was at the highest end of luxury that could be attained in a middle grade Stellar System.

‘I guess it makes sense, otherwise they wouldn’t have a half step Heavenly realm cultivator guarding their treasury, I wonder is Valentina is aware of that guy’s existence’, thought Aster as he remembered the strong aura he discovered hidden at the depths of the auction house.

The multiple merchant families that set up this auction house, for sure came from the high-grade Stellar Systems and they put up quite importance to this event, if they went as far as to send someone with the highest realm possible for middle grade Stellar Systems.

“Dear guests, the auction is about to start, a copy of the rules and other information is waiting for you at your private room, I wish you a successful night”, said the guard as he turned around to leave in a hurry along with his partner.

Aster smirked, since a while ago, he could feel the mocking gazes coming from the room number 1.

‘Let me give you something interesting to watch’, he thought, on the outside nothing happened, but inside his sword intent was split into two separate currents by a thin layer of annihilation.

Aster’s eyes glowed for a second and an invisible stream of soul energy imbued with his sword intent, accurately shaved a part of the frontal wall of the private room assigned to Valentina, so that the number “5” was eliminated, the result is that now there were two rooms number 1.

A “Clang” sound echoed through the whole theater, drawing all the present people’s attention, they turned around just in time to see the metallic golden number fall to the ground.

While Valentina and most of the girls were unaware of what just happened, Agnes who has seen Aster separate his sword intent first hand before, stole a gaze at Aster to then smile to herself, besides her the only one who noticed what just happened was Lilia who was giggling.

‘So, you indeed inherited the tendency to cause trouble from me, darling~’, she thought.

Ignoring the attention from all the other attendants, including the people in the other private rooms, Aster walked into the room assigned to them, followed by the others.

The private room was quite spacious, enough for everyone to relax on the multiple luxury couches and also sit at the large dinning table, while enjoying a perfect view of the stage down below where the auction will take place.

Aster grabbed a small booklet with the rules and dynamics of the auction and he was positively surprised, apparently even the dinner here was a part of the auction, snacks, regular food and complimentary drinks were offered for free.

In fact, the little girl and the little wyrm were already attacking them, but the main dishes were actually going to be auctioned, of course they couldn’t be regular meals, the list explained that they were dishes prepared by renowned Spirit Chefs, stored in spatial rings and brought here all the way from high grade Stellar Systems.

“Interesting right, this is how high ranked Spirit Chefs work, since they sometime take weeks or even months to prepare special dishes, well, at least the independent ones”, said Valentina.

Aster nodded, a Spirit Chef is a subdivision of an Alchemist, it might sound strange to wait for weeks or months for a plate of food, but if you think of it as an elixir or pill then it’s a regular waiting time, from gathering the ingredients, to refining them and lastly making the final product.

Of course, we are talking of the really complex and most beneficial dishes, those ordered by high ranked families and forces for special occasions, with advance notice.

Aster could feel Sarina’s curious gaze and he chuckled, while mother was interested in the making, the daughter is interested in eating the result, it was amusing.

“We’ll have to bid for a double portion of everything, one for dinner and the other for my Sarina to study as much as she wants”, jokingly said Aster, making Sarina cutely blush, she knew that he wanted to spoil her, since this is her mission so she didn’t refuse.

Unlike alchemy which was a well spread and known career even at low grade Stellar Systems, spirit cooking is more of a luxury, hence there isn’t any real guidance or way to learn besides self-teaching, Sarina was lucky that the old woman owner of that restaurant back then, had gathered knowledge about spirit cooking and compiled a list of recipes throughout her life.

Besides that, she hadn’t been able to find any other solid information regarding spirit cooking, so far, she has created a few new recipes with trial and error and some of Mylene’s help as an alchemist but she has hit a wall lately.

Of course, there are a couple of Spirit Chefs at the Myriad Occupation sect, but she can’t just go and say “Hi, I’m an aspiring Spirit Chef, teach me everything you know”, even if they were in good terms with Agnes and Valentina, to impart their teachings something of equal value was needed, not to mention that they were busy in their own research to take the time to teach others.

So instead, they taught Sarina the most used method for Spirit Chefs to learn, which was to examine finished products to learn from them, that’s how new recipes were created, taking inspiration from the dishes of other chefs, it was both a basic and really advanced technique, depending on the expertise and talent of the one using it.

The other method was to work for a high ranked family or force, they provide everything but the Spirit Chef has to cook exclusively for them for a certain period of time after they become proper Spirit Chefs.

Since Spirit Cooking is a relatively new thing in the four Heavenly Quadrants, it is still a rare path to follow with a tall paywall, in fact from what Lilia knows, the best Spirit Chefs can only make dishes of low Immortal grade, in other words, food that benefitted those up to the Heavenly Comprehension realm.

“Thanks~”, happily said Sarina as she sat down at the couch right next to Aster, while Lilia of course took the other side.

“Only the best for my Sarina, besides I bet those dishes will be helpful for others as well”, said Aster as he gazed at Lilia who pouted in response.

‘Humph, bullying me just because it’s Sarina’s mission’, she said through the mental connection that the Star Maiden’s shared with Aster.

Everyone found their seats and waited for the auction to start, of course in the meantime, they enjoyed the snacks, while Aster took the initiative to ask about Valentina’s interference in the conflict from earlier.

“So, why were those guys out of their greenhouse when they clearly lack experience and without proper bodyguards?”.

Valentina sighed before saying.

“The old fogeys of their families demanded me to be their babysitter, of course they knew I would refuse, they just used that as an excuse to send some half step Heavenly realm actives here, they are simply being used to stir up trouble between me, Agnes and that girl Fawn since she is the newest to awaken as a princess of the Fey family and her soul constitution is a new one… in other words she is bound to become the originator of a new main family”.

“You see, the Fey family is composed of ten main clans and many secondary branches, once a “princess” appears her branch becomes a candidate to join one of the main clans, namely my Lightning Amethyst family, Agnes’s Sun Diamond family, cousin’s Disaster Onix family, Forest Jade family, Blizzard Sapphire family, Ocean Aquamarine family, Mountain Amber family, Flame Topaz family, Heavenly Marble family and lastly the Blood Ruby family”.

“In the same order in which I mentioned them, the first five conform one faction which is leaded by cousin’s Disaster Onix family and the remaining five conform the other one, represented by the Heavenly Marble family, originally there were only eight main families but two new ones surged recently the Blizzard Sapphire and the Blood Ruby families to be more accurate”.

Aster could already tell what was the happening, that girl Fawn might be wearing a badge from the Mountain Amber family, but since her attribute isn’t earth and she is bound to make her own family branch, both factions want to win her over, since once she grows, the eleventh main family will be born and the faction that draws her to their side will have an advantage.

The previous is why both factions allowed her to leave the Fey family’s main grounds, as to why she was walking around with a loose protection, that’s a scheme.

In simple words, the Mountain Amber family wanted her to get in trouble in a place which was ruled by the opposition, to then help her and gain her favor, what they didn’t know is that Aster didn’t care about that, he was going to ruin that guy since he pointed a sword at him which is why Valentina interfered.

But just as she said, that was the only one time she was going to do it, since she isn’t interested in the conflict between the families, she didn’t help Fawn to gain her favor, but because she didn’t want her to be manipulated.

“I see, then why is that girl’s brother relevant, I thought only the female members of the Fey family could awaken those interesting soul constitutions?”, said Aster.

“That’s the case, however the male side of the Fey family isn’t weak by any means, they aren’t limited to train in the soul path unlike us, the body path is easier to advance in, so besides the princesses and their direct descendants, most Heavenly realm cultivators of the Fey family are men”.

“Fawn’s brother is one of them, a Heavenly realm cultivator from older cousin’s generation and the strongest among the young generation of the Mountain Amber family”, added Valentina.

Aster couldn’t help but steal a gaze at Lilia, that guy is from the same generation as those two godmothers of his, so she should have heard about him.

“You two really have one hell of a complicated family”, jokingly said Aster making Valentina chuckle.

“Yeah, it was thanks to cousin that we could grow without being affected by all those useless conflicts, so I wanted to give Fawn a chance to see the bigger picture, whether she appreciates it or not… but enough of that, why did you do that earlier?”, she said, referring to how Aster eliminated the number “5” from the 15.

Speaking of which, Aster’s actions were paying off right now, the staff of the auction house came and tried to take the metal number to put it back just for the thing to turn into dust the moment they touched it.

But that wasn’t all, the guy who tried to lift it from the ground, paled as he fell backwards with a terrified expression, he got to experience the dread of Aster’s annihilation since he left a faint trace of it on purpose.

The other members of the staff saw their captain, a Void Manipulation realm cultivator nearly wetting his pants over touching a simple metallic number and they took a few steps to put distance between themselves and the room where Aster and the others were.

Aster who watched everything from the inside, looked at the watch on the wall which signaled the start of the auction and he smirked.

“I just wanted to stir up trouble, don’t worry about that, remember to bid for any dish that catches your eye”, he casually said.

“Well said brother hahaha!”, exclaimed Eric whose stomach was rumbling, the lights on the theater faded and a pretty woman in her late twenties, wearing an elegant red dress went up the stage.

“Good evening esteemed guests and welcome to the opening auction night, my name is Terry Marius and I will be tonight’s auctioneer, all the bids must be done in middle grade spirit jades as per the rules for high ranked auctions in middle grade Stellar Systems”.

Many claps could be heard coming from the first floor, along some whistles here and there, mostly from the groups of rogue cultivators, the auctioneer didn’t care since she expected as much, also it’s not like she was wearing anything provocative, those guys were just shameless.

“Without further ado, let’s start with the opening dish, prepared by the famous Spirit Chef, lady Spring, her renowned “Four season salad”, said the auctioneer as she took out a tray with a transparent crystal lid on top of it, from her spatial ring.

The dish in question was a neatly organized salad with vegetables and fruits with colors and the order of the four seasons of a year, from the vibrant green related to spring, to a vivid yellow color for summer, a mix of orange and red for summer and light blue for winter.

“Leaving esthetics aside, this dish was prepared by lady Spring and has four different benefits that can be of help for anyone whose cultivation is below the Law Integration realm, there are forty portions available, the first thirty will be auctioned in three batches of ten portions and the remaining ones will be offered individually”.

“For the batches, the initial price will be of a hundred thousand spirit jades and each bid must increase the price for at least five thousand jades, the individual portions will have an initial price of ten thousand spirit jades and each bid must increase the price for at least five hundred jades, I wish good luck to everyone”.

Practically all the participants on the first floor were immediately left out from the bidding war for the three ten portion batches, if they were lucky, they might be able to get an individual portion from the remaining ten at the end.

In the meantime, the price for the first batch soared all the way to three hundred thousand spirit jades, in a matter of seconds, only then the biddings slowed down.

Inside of Valentina’s private room, Aster saw Kana who was sitting on her lap, being interested on that salad and he patted her head, earning a few giggles from the little girl, he hadn’t made a single offer so far, because it was easier to wait for the highest bidder to show up before acting, that and because what he was waiting for hadn’t happened yet.

The auctioneer who was about to start the countdown, seeing that there were no new bids, was taken by surprise by a calm voice echoing through the theater.

“Four hundred thousand spirit jades”.

“…”, silence fell on the whole area for a second, before the other bidder, whoever was in the private room number 3, said.

“Four hundred and ten thousand…”, that person hadn’t finished his sentence when Aster cut him off.

“Five hundred thousand”.

The auctioneer whose eyes were sparkling, since anything past two hundred and fifty thousand was pure profit for them, waited for any other sudden interference but there was nothing, half a million middle grade spirit jades for salads was crazy when paid out of one’s pocket, instead of being sponsored by one’s background after all.

“The first batch has been sold to the esteemed guest of room number one”, said the auctioneer as she sealed the deal, she placed a spatial ring on the podium at the stage and the thing was transported a second later when Aster placed the payment on the respective space designated for that.

It was a real time payment system, of course this was prepared for the food auction, since the amount of spirit jades won’t go pass a certain number, the treasures that will come later on will follow the usual method in which the payment is done face to face between the one who bid the highest price and the staff of the auction house.

Inside of Valentina’s private room, Aster handed the ring to the little girl who happily took out the content of it, ten portions of salad were placed on the large dinning table in the middle of the room.

But that wasn’t all, Kana had to wait a bit more since the second batch was being auctioned right now and Aster was planning to buy it as well, this time though, he was the first one to bid.

“Five hundred thousand spirit jades”.

The auctioneer who only a second ago realized that she committed a mistake saying that the one bought the previous batch was the guest in the room number one and was about to explain her mistake, swallowed her words on the spot, which made Aster smirk.

Especially since after a whole ten seconds there was no other bid, the auctioneer gazed in Aster’s direction, before sealing the deal.

“The second batch has been to the esteemed guest of room number… one”, while the auctioneer seemed to doubt for a second there, she still called Aster’s room the number one.

Imagine her surprise when the third batch was put up for the auction and Aster’s voice once again was the first to be heard.

“Five hundred thousand”.

This time however, the other interested bidder, in other words the ones in the room number three, didn’t remain silent.

“To the friend in that room, are you perhaps going to buy everything tonight?”, said a man with a slightly aggressive voice, to which Aster casually said.

“I won’t bid for the remaining ten portions, of course if you want to fight with me for this batch, I don’t care”.

The guys at room number three remained silent for a couple of seconds, but ultimately, they gave in.

“He can have this batch as well”, they said, of course that was only to save face, even if they wanted to go against Aster they couldn’t have raised the price of this dish that much, unless they were ready to give up on the chance to get some treasures later on.

And with that the auctioneer sold the third batch and now there were exactly thirty portions of salad, served at the table which was enough for the whole group and to have one plate and still there will be some for Sarina to study later on.

“Now, feel free to dig in”, with Aster’s green light, everyone sat at the table and started to eat, everyone was positively surprised by the nice taste and the refreshing sensation brought by the first bite.

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“This is delicious, thanks big brother~”, cutely said the little girl as she chewed a piece of a green vegetable from the spring part of the salad.

“Hisss~”, Espi tried a fruit from the winter part first instead, but the result was the same, both little girls were enjoying their meal.

Aster smiled as he accepted a bite of salad given to him by Sarina, only to be offered one by that jealous dragon mother of his.

“I can’t eat more than one plate of salad you two”, said Aster, still he of course accepted Lilia’s fork, making Sarina pout.

By the time the individual portions were auctioned everyone at Valentina’s room had finished their entrance, now it was time for the main dish.

The moment the auctioneer took out the dish and even before she explained what it was, Lilia cutely leaned her face against Aster’s to then say.

“I want to try that, darling~”, Aster was taken by surprise as he saw Lilia acting all cute and girly.

‘Is this also caused by mom returning to her young self, not that I mind though’, he thought.

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