CH 30.1

Seeing these conditions, Bai Jing wasn’t impressed.

There was no such thing as free lunch, one had to pay for what one wanted to get, and with such an offer, afraid there would be all sorts of strings attached.

Moreover, since he had already agreed to work with Star Ocean Auction House, he wouldn’t consider anything else.

[Bai: Thank you for your kind words, but I will not be considering this offer for the time being.]

After replying briefly to each of the messages, Bai Jing lay down on his bed and slept well all night.

Early the next morning, Lu Meng put the energy fluid sent by Bai Jing into the detector and was shocked to find that,

This time it showed a purity of 39.65%, the very highest grade of grade 3 energy fluids, even higher than yesterday’s.

And the purity was less than 1% away from reaching the standard of a grade 4 energy fluid!

Lu Meng paused for a rare moment. In his impression, no energy master seemed to be able to reach such extreme purity.

Would the next energy fluid that the Master send break through the limit and just leapfrog a grade–

No, it wasn’t possible!

What the hell was he thinking? How could the Master cross to another grade? This was against principle!

Lu Meng hurriedly stopped his thoughts and started to focus on identifying the other items.

If he had known that these grade 3 superb energy fluids had been extracted from a grade 2 jadeite, which meant that it had nearly crossed two grades, afraid he would have been so shocked that his soul would have left his body, right?

At 10 o’clock, over a hundred items hit the shelves and were neatly arranged in a transparent window.

The moment the items went live, the five grade 3 energy boxes consigned by Bai Jing went into a one-minute countdown at the same time, and the numbers above the auction price changed frantically.

Lu Meng and the person in charge, Huang Jiu had dumbfounded expressions on their faces as they watched from the background. Was it the same tycoon who had purchased the energy boxes twice in a row?

No, there was no need to compete if it was only one person. There were other people competing for it!

Swish, swish, swish. Ning Yuchen touched the light screen faster and faster while the other person wasn’t far behind, seemingly determined to compete with him to the very end.

Unfortunately, much to Ning Yuchen’s annoyance, the damned price quoting machine couldn’t keep up with the speed of his hand.

[Ding, transaction successful, current auction price is 190,000 starcoins, congratulations on winning item 13.]

[Ding, transaction successful, current auction price is 200,000 starcoins, congratulations on winning item 14.]

[Ding, transaction successful, current auction price is 210,000 starcoins, congratulations on winning item 15.]

Ning Yuchen frowned slightly. He had only managed to get three of the five energy boxes, making him short of two. This was all the slow-reacting machine’s fault.

Hmph. He glared at the blurry-faced man next to him coldly then went offline.

The two men in the background were once again shocked by the price of the sale.

Lu Meng: “Damn, damn, a grade 3 energy box fetched the price of a grade 4 energy box. Am I dreaming!!!”

Huang Jiu, equally excited exclaimed: “No, you’re not! The master’s energy box has made a name for itself!!!”

Five grade 3 extreme energy boxes had been swept away in under a minute, with an average price of 200,000 starcoins, four times the price of a standard grade 3 energy fluid!

The two men couldn’t help but want to cry tears of joy.

After Ning Yuchen went offline, the other person who had purchased the energy boxes stood in place, wanting to cry.

It was over, over. He hadn’t completed the task the minister gave him, was there no hope of a promotion or a pay rise?

The man’s name was Zhong Hong, a senior data analyst under Minister of Information- Liang Heng of the Gu Conglomerate Gambling House, who had tens of thousands of quantum computers on hand to keep running.

He had been processing data yesterday morning when he noticed that the speed of several of the computers had slowed down significantly, and upon examination, discovered that the grade 2 energy fluids in them was insufficient and needed to be replaced.

Because he didn’t need to make a bulk purchase, Zhong Hong didn’t contact his previous energy dealer, planning to try his luck at the online auction houses just to see if there were any other new items worth buying.

This was also a hobby for researchers.

First he went to the top-ranked online auction house, Skybound Auction House which had a good range of bids and even low-level mechs, but they were all middle-of-the-road stuff, nothing unique.

As a data analyst for the Gu Conglomerate, he had been to auction houses large and small, and was in regular contact with many of the major energy dealers, hence if he had just wanted to buy something modest, he wouldn’t have come here.

Zhong Hong browsed through three shops in a row, but didn’t find anything new and so a bit depressed, planned to look at one more shop and then leave.

Then he went to the fourth-ranked online auction house, Star Ocean Auction House and when he saw the items on the shelves, his eyes couldn’t help but brighten.

It was true that the items here weren’t as high class as the first three shops as evidenced by the auction reserve prices.

However, there was a wide range of new and varied products here, an absolute treasure for a researcher like him.

Hmm, this light particle camera looks good, not much worse than holographic technology and it’s easy to carry.

And this anti-particle storage device. What a great idea– maybe it can replace the current spatial button!

Zhong Hong went on to look at the items in succession and couldn’t resist bidding for two or three of them.

On top of that, he found that the appraiser at the shop was very good. The reference price he had set for each item didn’t differ by more than 10% from his own mental estimate!

With the way he had set the prices, there was absolutely no way that those who were opportunistic would be able to cause trouble.

Having satisfied his hobby, Zhong Hong didn’t forget that he had the task of buying grade 2 energy boxes.

He wasn’t worried though, because low-grade energy boxes were common and were sold in every shop. He just had to pick up a few medium-grade ones and above.

There were more than thirty energy boxes on display, all with purity markings on the side so that one could see the color of the energy fluid.

However when he reached the end of the row, Zhong Hong’s pupils shrunk when he saw that the area where the grade 3 energy boxes had been placed was empty, and that the last auction price was 100,000 starcoins each.

That was twice the price of a grade 3 energy box!

Walking through the crowd of onlookers, Zhong Hong went to the display shelf where he saw the standard purity level: 37.18%.

En, this was indeed a high grade among other grade 3 energy fluids, but it wasn’t so high as to exceed twice the standard price, because even the very best rarely fetched this amount.

If a High Level Energy Master, was extracting energy fluid from a grade 3 jadeite, such as a jadeite of the luminous green variety, then there was a certain chance of him extracting the best grade 3 energy fluid, but even then, it wouldn’t be comparable to a lower grade 4 energy fluid.

The difference between grades was like a rift in the sky, because it wasn’t only a question of purity, but also about the natural differences brought about by the grade of jadeite.

If the grade of a jadeite was lower, with poorer seed water and more impurities, even the very best energy fluids extracted from it couldn’t be compared to inferior quality energy fluids extracted from jadeite of a higher grade.

So what on earth could make a mere high-grade grade 3 energy fluid fetch such a high price at an auction?