A few hours later, Pef had finished exploring the auction pagoda, and bought everything that seemed remotely useful and plenty that wasn't.

Then as he and Strella and Drake were descending the stairs, the previous auctioneer devil arrived.

"Lord Pef. If you are ready now, we can begin." the guy said politely, while eyeing the weapon maker with a risen eyebrow.

"Sure." Pef agreed and followed him to a warded room, inscribed with hundreds of defensive arrays.

'Scanning and logging these formations. Some of them are battleship-class shields!' the glove said as Pef patted a nearby wall.

"You know about inscriptions, Lord Pef?" the devil asked while laying out samples of every type of herb and pill.

Pef nodded sagely. "Not to this extent, but I can figure out what they do." he replied in a softer voice.

"A man of culture, I see." the auctioneer muttered to himself.

"Do you sell manuals for these?" Pef asked curious, while glancing at his newest dragon recruit, who was also fascinated by the arrays.

"Primers and intermediate levels, yes. Advanced arrays, no. Those five barrier inscriptions were donated by Lord Yama a million years ago." the devil sail proudly, pointing towards a poem written in five lines, and glowing violet warmly.

Pef blinked in surprise, and swiped his glove over the violet inscriptions.

'Tier 4 arrays. Copied. Analyzing. Protection from scrying, elements, soul attacks, sword qi and mind probes.' the glove announced proudly.

'Uh. If we could implement these for our armors...' Pef mused inward.

'Tier 3 protections should be possible. You'd need a Tier 4 maker to reproduce these correctly.'

"You sold Yama something truly valuable, huh? Perhaps a strong weapon that looks like a club?" Pef asked gently, without looking at the auctioneer.

He could hear the devil gulp in fear anyway.

"That's...not something I can reveal, Lord Pef. Armies are nothing compared to an Archdevil's might." the auctioneer muttered in a calmer tone.

Pef turned and began poking at the merchandise.

The pills were nice, and would provide sufficient qi boosts for fast ascensions up to Saint rank, though of course the glove called them low tier and trash.

"Okay. These pills are exactly what I need for my soldiers. You have anything stronger?" he wondered politely.

"Yes...but they are also dangerous. Dao pills can even kill someone without the required affinity." the devil explained while laying down a few more pills, with colored lines decorating their middle.

'Water qi, fire qi, earth qi, sword qi, devouring qi, slaughter qi, bloodline increase pill!. Our dragon pup could use one of them, I think.' the glove exclaimed in surprise.

'Shiara as well, I would say.'

"They look great. All of them, if you please." Pef demanded in a level voice.

The auctioneer nodded knowingly and set another storage ring to the side.

"Now the herbs. Problem is, once the storage jade container is opened, some herbs might flee, others dissolve or lose concentration..." the devil muttered as he lay down a dozen palm sized boxes.

Pef smiled and just patted each box with his gloved hand.

'Oh? They do have quite a selection of valuable things. Except the one in the middle with the black inscription. It's a Nether Death Mushroom. We don't want death qi...'

'We don't. But maybe Arden?' Pef asked inward.

'Him? Perhaps. He should survive and benefit, I suppose. Liches are not harmed by death qi.'

"All of them too" Pef decided after a second.

The auctioneer blinked confused then eyed the exact black jade box with wary eyes. "Oh well. If you say so. I do have a dozen more like the one in the black jade. Some explorer brought these mushrooms saying they would be hugely valuable, but nobody wanted to buy them. Til now."

"Death qi is indeed not easy to use. One needs to cultivate death qi, which is pretty difficult, after all. But I know someone who does." Pef explained in a mild voice.

"The universe must be large enough then. We collect samples from a hundred galaxies, and we never encountered such a being." the auctioneer said in wonder.

Pef nodded sagely. "Ghouls, liches, rock worms, necromancers, ghost shamans...there are some who use death qi. Not on this side of the universe though."

"Well, storing the death mushrooms isn't profitable anyway. You may have them all at half price." the auctioneer decided after a minute.

Pef smiled amused and nodded. Dumping unwanted stock.

A set of cultivation jade slips appeared next, placed on the table by the salesman.

Pef poked them curiously and let the glove simply copy them. "Low tier, all of them. Anything else?" he asked in a bored voice.

The auctioneer kept producing hundreds of rare items, from beast cores to bones and rare metals.

"Drake, you pick anything you want. Making weapons is your craft, right?" Pef asked in a teasing tone.

"Really, anything?" the boy exclaimed in awe and began purchasing megatons of various metals and gems.

The auctioneer watched in bewilderment as his inventory was being emptied by a young smith with unlimited funds.

"... And all the Deep Core Iron you have." Drake demanded after an hour of urgent shopping spree.

"All right...now I am rather empty. The auction will begin in 10 minutes anyway, if you fancy other items like slaves and treasure maps?" the devil said in a satisfied tone, while handing Pef a large invoice bill.

Pef scanned the bill in his glove, and had half of his own huge pile of wealth transfer into a dozen storage rings.

Then he just placed the storage rings on the table. "Nice trading with you. Remember to collect the same for me, over the next year. Keeping too much cash on me is not profitable."

After a quick check of the coins and jades traded, the auctioneer smiled widely and handed over a violet badge with 6 glowing inscriptions. "Of course, Lord Pef. You are now our best customer beside the Court."

Pef stored the badge and began heading towards the auction hall.

The hall was packed with nobles, although two seats were left free right in the front row.

"I'll wait on the side." Drake muttered in a low voice.

Pef thought for a second. "It's fine. We'll all wait here on the side. They'll probably won't have anything I want anyway."

As the auction began, various types of restriction enveloped the stage, and then the presenter began announcing the wares, from battle mounts to cultivation methods, rare crystals and cores, pets and slaves of strange species.

Pef just watched a bit bored, as he already had all of this and better.

"And now, the final item on today's auction! We will not divulge what it is, so you'll all need to decide for yourself if the price is worth it." the auctioneer yelled as a cage was brought to the stage.

'You want to buy her' the glove advised him before the cover was even lifted.

"One million coins!" Pef proclaimed in qi infused voice.

A thousand eyes focused on him, and immediately the rumors began.

"It's the new Magrave, the one who squashed Kontre!"

"The snot guy? Ewwww!"

"Can you see inside the cage?"

"He sells slaves, right? Perhaps it's a strong slave?"

After a minute, the auctioneer glanced around the hall. "Any other takers? If not item 566 will be sold for 1 million coins. Going once..."

"One hundred millions!" A gruff voice spoke from behind a loggia screen.

"Count Tarken? He buys slaves?"

Pef smiled widely at the news.

"Five hundred millions!" he said a bit amused. Now this was a proper auction.

"What is in the cage? I'm dying to know!" a fat lady said in excitement.

"Three billions!" the angrier voice spoke from Count Tarken's balcony.

"Fifty billions!" Pef added as if it was pocket change.

"We could buy high-grade weapons for all the ants..." Strella muttered in dismay.

Pef nodded sagely and patted her shoulder.

"Mere pocket change, my dear." he spoke a bit too loud.

"Sixty billions!" Count Tarken yelled furiously.

"One hundred billions!" Pef continued and giggled.

"One hundred and one billion! And you better not overbid me!" Tarkin growled in a cold tone.

"Uhhh. One hundred and fifty billions!" Pef said with a wide grin.

The balcony exploded in shards and debris, as the Count flew out in rage.

"You murderer! It's not enough you killed my son? Now you steal the precious fairy too!"

Pef scratched his cheek in confusion. "A challenge is not murder, under law. And here, it's an open auction. It's not my fault you're too poor to afford this item." he replied in a reasonable tone.

Rumors and whispers filled the hall as the nobles spoke to each other.

"That is correct.... the law is like this."

"A challenge? But then?"

"Count Tarken is a sore loser?"

As more rumors reached his ears, Tarkin grew red in the face and floated in front of the auctioneer.

"You will sell me this slave, or bear the brunt of Archdevil Yama!" he yelled with an apoplectic tone.

"Oh? But Magrave Pef has the higher bid." another voice spoke from somewhere.

"Who said that? Lord Yama will have your head!" Count Tarkin yelled looking around for a target.

The hall became suddenly too small, as an Archdevil's presence appeared inside.

"Is that so, Count Tarkin? My head?" Archdevil Yamon asked in a teasing tone.

The hall fell silent, everyone holding their breaths.

Count Tarkin bowed then rose straight. "Lord Yamon, I was instructed by Lord Yama to purchase that slave in the cage!"

"And nobody is stopping you, Count. Raise the bid." Yamon spoke in a deceptive voice.

"... I don't have enough." the Count muttered looking around desperately.

Pef grinned widely. "Auctioneer, why have you stopped?" he asked politely.

"Errrr. Right. Item 566 will be sold for 150 billions. Any other takers? Going once, twice, sold!" the devil proclaimed out loud.

Pef nodded and gestured for the cage to be removed from the stage.

"This means war!" Count Tarkin growled with hate in his eyes.

"Oh? War is nice too. Guess I won't sell you any soldiers then." Pef replied in a teasing tone.

Count Tarkin spit some blood and fled at speed.

Yamon turned towards Pef and nodded before vanishing as well.