Chapter 0101 - Beastkin Market
There was still one more stop on the way. The day was considerably busy for the pair as they made the journey from the Inn to the Forge.
Gefest was waiting outside.
They had been staring at the pages of the Forging Manuals whenever possible, there was not a lot that could be done about the speed that they could read or contextualize the information. When they were not reading, eating or shitting, the two of them would be practicing or traveling to the next place to practice.
"Brother Wu. When we reach the point where travel is lighter, I'd like to see a battle between us. I don't want a fight to the death, but I really want to spar." Mike spoke to Wu Hai while he stared at their Teacher.
"We don't have to wait, we can spar whenever. I'm more concerned with the differences in our power level. I've gone up in power at least a dozen times, but I think I've only seen you grow in strength six times." Wu Hai was crushing Mike with his analysis and the facts spoke for themselves.
The strange golden glow only seemed to apply to the transmigrated, Darkwing and even Jiao Jiao had gone through transformations or strengthening of their cores. Each time the Beastmen gained something from the light, but theirs was silver.
"Seven times.. but close enough, I understand what you mean. I don't want to be dead." Mike hung his head down and fiddled with his ring.
Wu Hai knew from his previous life's memories that this world resembled gaming way too much for it to be sheer coincidence, a lot of the things he had in his possession were proof of that. The Gygax for instance were a huge broken system, that might not even be limited to just the Prince.
Mike knew it as well, after the first time he had the golden light appear, he noticed that he had grown distinctly stronger in some areas. The situation wasn't as convenient as a game, he was not able to do things like distributing stat points or seeing a list of skills. there was a feeling that Mike just felt more than what he had previously. The emotional turmoil of knowing and yet not knowing was a tedious part of being one of the other worlders.
Their curiosity was unending.
The slave auction was about to start, neither of them had any time to waste but there he was.. wasting it.
The previous night before had passed quickly while getting the first batch of girls into the tower and before the first sun came up they were already standing in the forge explaining a plan to Gefést.
"Things could go pretty badly but we're going to wear disguises and will probably need a few days to return. We cannot pass this opportunity." Wu Hai pulled out the Creators Crusher and sat it down in front of Gefést.
"What....?" Gefést couldn't help but drop his jaw.
The Forgemaster had his own ideas about what needed be done over the next week but he had already noticed the strangeness of the duo since their arrival. He knew there was little that he could do to change the outcome of the situation. There was only one choice for him at the moment and that was to wait for their return, or news of their deaths.
"I'm leaving this here. I doubt you can manipulate it or rob me, I'll come to retrieve it myself. This is the promise I give, We will return in less than one week." Wu Hai walked to the back room with the weapon and placed it gently on the floor in the study.
The weapon was slightly immovable and bound to him, sort of.
Wu Hai presumed that a pure hearted person could potentially clean his inventory out, but.. those were not the actions of a pure hearted person. So the worry dissipated and the Prince remembered the time.
"We have a lot to discuss, Teacher. I hope that after looking at this weapon you will decide to follow us as our Teacher rather than to holding up in this slave trade city." Wu Hai tried to swing below the belt, it didn't seem to go as planned.
"I see, well.. lofty ideas lead to deaths in all places. Lets see what you have to offer when you come back, otherwise I'm just as well off here." Gefést was a stone wall but kept a straight face.
No one would force him anywhere.
֍ꟷꟷꟷꟷ֍
The monthly large scale slave trade day was about to begin, it was still some distance away to the main square. The duo were in full disguise and riding as fast as they could.
The Market would be open in a bit, but with their VIP tokens they had a chance to inspect the inventory beforehand. They had to remember that prices could be drastically different depending on each person.
They were not interested in just the Humanoids and Beastmen.
The street was surprisingly cluttered with random people. Most of those present were retainers of lords and title holders who were looking for new housemaids and sex slaves. They were quickly disappointed because the amount of buyers present was not a small number. The competition would be relentless for many of the traders.
In the past, arguments or even fights had broken out during the monthly slave trade. It wasn't always the same merchants, sometimes kingdoms from very far away would make their sales in the Yunnan rather than in their own territory. It was always easier to move slaves in distant nations and a lot less questions.
The biggest problems were always transportation. There were flotillas on the river, processions of slaves like trains. Some came in cages, some came by air. Most of the slaves were malnourished or dying. Rows of men were stranded together like garbage, some were tied to terrifying beasts and many others were left in the large cages that were stacked like cordwood. Several species of humanoid were present and there were a lot of animals.
Mike soon realized slavery was not a practice solely from Earth.
All the animals were mind blowing for Mike and Wu Hai to view. A vanishing monkey, A Flying Donkey-headed Leviathan, Craig spiders and Molten Men.. there was even a green glowing mass that Wu Hai thought was the iconic death ooze. There were an abundance of species they couldn't identify. The sight of a brown nosed beagle caught Mike's eyes, It could speak.
"Under no circumstances are we to reveal ourselves and you can spend whatever you want. Sky's the limit, but.. try not to piss everyone off. They hold this thing every month and this City seems to be built for this.." Mike understood Wu Hai and nodded quickly.
It was of no concern for the Prince if he just wiped out the city as long as they looted it, if it ever came to such a conclusion.
Mike looked down at his Tattoo that had appeared and its glow was brighter than ever. Quickly wrapping it with a glove, he saw the frost start to appear on it. Mike tried to calm his nerves, it would not be okay if he lost control of himself or his powers in a crowd of slavers. It was strange, Mike had never had an issue with the Tattoo but it was acting up while he was attending the event.
'Is it the slaves?' Mike had many thoughts on his mind, but dismissed them fast.
It was time to buy.
Looking around Wu Hai saw many Slave Merchants that were marching their merchandise out to the road. They would be constantly looking for buyers.
Some people stopped here and there, overall the sight was less than encouraging for those without VIP tokens. However, guards stood between the public and only allowed those with VIP Tokens to approach. they both thought that it was probably because people could steal, but shoplifting a slave seemed a bit more difficult. The majority of the slaves were either wearing slave collars or had slave contracts. Even if they wanted to run originally, they were unable to do so after becoming slaves.
Getting an up close view of the slave trains was a privilege created by the event organizers, and the guards knew it well. They could figure out which batches were better by inspecting or even buying them early. The whole practice felt like backdoor deals, but the whole practice of slavery was mostly backdoor. It was a bit odd to appreciate the VIP token to a slave sale but they had a much easier time because of the Manager's help.
A group of Beastmen and Beast women were for sale across the Square. There was a man standing beside the merchant arguing with to get a lower price. He raised his voice, calling the Beastmen trash.
While Wu Hai didn't understand a budget, he did have a wonderful appetite for collecting things.
When he saw opportunity, he jumped at it.
"Excuse me, I'll buy them. What's the price, If its acceptable I will buy them all." Wu Hai passed a gold bar over to another merchant on the way and bought a stack of standard slave contracts.
They weren't cheap, for a thousand of them he had given up the entire bar and that was the asking price. He was prepared to go back and get more if he needed them but a thousand seemed like a good start.
"What are you doing? Scram, these belong to me." The other buyer was pretty furious.
The unpleasant man was a Bastet like Qu, most of the Beastmen at the show were other Nyankin, Poochi or Lizardmen. The Best groups among the beastkin slaves was a family of large eared Rabbit Men.
"500 gold pieces each. I have 40 Beastmen. The Jacks will cost 2000 a head." The merchant saw Wu Hai buying a stack of contracts, it was easy to raise the price up a little.
"Give me a total." Wu Hai took a chance at the guys bad math, but he wasn't losing out either way. Wu Hai could conjure up more gold any time.
"32 thousand." Wu Hai handed the man 32 gold bars and the man quickly put them away in his bag.
Noticing the man had no storage ring he asked. "Do you not have storage rings?"
"Storage Rings are expensive. These Beastmen were all I could afford to trade, perhaps in another 10 trips I can afford a ring." The merchant didn't look all that pleased at his own comment and looked gloomy.
Wu Hai pulled a ring from his bag that had a small amount of space, he would probably never use it.
"Here, use this ring and don't get robbed. It doesn't have a whole lot of space, the price is that you stop selling slaves" Passing the ring to the merchant, Wu Hai saw anger welling up in the mans eyes.
"Forget it." Wu Hai felt he had underestimated the value, the merchant rejected it.
"Fine, its of no consequence to me. If you have more slaves or captured prisoners, please seek me out first. I'll pay your fair price. If you can agree to that, the ring is yours." Wu Hai walked away and up to the slaves. It took a bit but he had each one sign the contract before following him to the next vendor in a line.
"Think about it." Wu Hai looked off in the distance and saw Mike haggling with another merchant.
A Group of women were hosting one sale, there were approximately 500 captured prisoners of varying types. Noticing the lack of attention they were getting, Wu Hai walked up to the group of women and asked what the deal was with the prisoners.
"So, why are most of these men here?" One of the leading women sneered at Wu Hai and came up to answer.
"They attacked us, we caught most of them and killed the rest. They seem to be a clan. You can have the whole clan for six thousand." She really didn't seem interested in small talk, but Wu Hai didn't care very much. He came for numbers and variety.
Wu Hai could figure the rest out later.
"Six thousand sounds fair, will you provide the contracts or no?" Wu Hai tried to save a buck, but these women didn't care about the prisoners.
Most of them didn't have a contract, they were docile and broken spirited. The cruelty of the women who had captured them was apparent.
"No, that's your problem." She replied with another annoyed expression and started looking to the guy behind Wu Hai.
Wu Hai pulled out 7 bars of gold and said, "If you get more, look for me. I'll buy them all."
The woman was startled by his paying for all of them without more haggling, moreover he even gave more after asking.
"Are you building a slave army for fodder?" She delicately asked.
Wu Hai didn't really know how to explain him building a clan up without bringing up his clan.
"No, I'm just looking for a bunch of people to work in the mines back in my homeland. We chanced upon these sales, so far it seems like we might just come back and do this again next time. This is why I gave you the extra bar, If you get more.. just look for me. I'll buy them for a fair price to you, Beastmen are also okay." Wu Hai made sure to remind himself about looking for non-humans.
"Why Beastmen?" she continued to ask and Wu Hai was starting to get annoyed himself.
"They work harder and longer.. We feed them well enough but who wouldn't want stronger work forces?" Wu Hai waved his hand and produced the stack of contracts and slowly all 500 contracts were completed.
Wu Hai's finger was getting tired of being bled for contracts but wound always healed up quickly.
Mike was patiently walking beside the merchant slave trains.
They had already picked up 540, Wu Hai had enough for thousands. The Prince wasn't going to ask the slaves for personal details during the purchase process. He could cure defects and the evil ones would be dealt with already by the slave contract.
All that Wu Hai had to focus on was numbers, but he was merciful and it was hard to just see people in pain. The prince tried looking for as many as he could to buy, but there were too many places and too many people in the way.
Wu Hai got annoyed from walking around and made a platform in the middle of the square.
He was prepared to create a scene.
Shouting, he yelled "Buying all slaves, state your price. I don't have a whole lot of time to go around to everyone, but I'll probably buy all of them."
Wu Hai sent Mike to go buy a few more stacks of contracts, if they didn't use them now they would always have them for later.
"You can't do this, you have to go to each merchant individually." One buyer was annoyed that he didn't think of it first.
Wu Hai had literally stolen the stage.
"5000 for 100 humans, 20 thousand for my beasts. 800 for Beastmen, 1000 for Beastwomen." One of the recently arrived merchants wanted to go home and a buyout was just what he was looking for.
Wu Hai paid the man 61 bars instantly and took possession of the slaves. It caught the attention he wanted, Mike had them line up and accept the contracts. The beasts were left in the cage carts and the slaves were made to pull them. The process took about 8 minutes, Wu Hai was getting really fast at signing the contracts and made larger cuts to flow the blood across multiple pages at once.
Wu Hai used one hand to sign the contracts and the other to pay the next vendor who sold him another 60 Luftkin.
They were crammed into cages, their nature was rather mischievous. Wu Hai laughed when he thought about how he might have a crazy pixie force down the line. Luftkins were known to be quite vicious when provoked. The best part was that they were very smart and able to accept the slave contract.
Vendor after vendor came up to Wu Hai directly, he stood in the middle of the square for nearly 5 hours accepting new slaves. Many of the buyers were discouraged by the dwindling number of slaves. Wu Hai had accumulated a force of about 16,000 slaves. The number was far higher than he had wanted to buy but he wouldn't stop if he had the chance to bolster the Sect.
Mike was astonished at Wu Hai's conviction to Zao City and his family. The Prince looked like he would die from the amount of blood he had to loose for the contracts, but it was just his nerves that created the pale faced expression. It was a good thing that Wu Hai had been masked and hooded the entire time, someone was absolutely going to try to kill them for the slaves that they had just purchased.
"Brother, we should take our leave." Mike was just about to start walking to the predesignated place when he saw a group of Furries.
Mike's jaw dropped, beastkin girls were mike's kryptonite.
Every single one of them was absolutely adorable. "Brother, One last group and then we can go."
Mike pointing to the cat and dog eared group, it was a little gawky as he gestured.
They looked like the bastard half-blood offspring of beastkin. Most of them bore the humanoid exterior with animal ears or tails, many of them had fur.
Wu Hai also noticed a few winged humanoids that were not Qilinkin, instead they looked more like classic angels from Earth. The coincidence was uncanny, but there was no light aura coming off. It left Wu Hai a little disappointed in his own perceptions.
"How much for all your Beastkin?" Mike approached the merchant and asked.
"3000 each. I have 100. Each of them was a choice purchase on my part, I came to make money." The merchant didn't look cruel, just greedy.
There were no marks from whips or anything on the slaves and all of them looked fed.
"Fair. Here are 40 Bars. Bring me all your slaves in the future, I will be here next month too." Mike tossed 40 bars to the man, nearly knocking him off his chair.
Mike didn't even wait for Wu Hai and lined up the Beastkin for the contracts. The duo left the City with a procession of slaves. They would have to march 14 kilometers to the tower and then figure the rest out.
The Suns were hung high in the sky, there were no shadows. With nearly 17000 slaves in tow the march looked more like an army, the ground rumbled.
Wu Hai felt ridiculous, the guards nearby were nervous as well. This many slaves under one owner took up a lot of room on the streets. Still, so he didn't have guilt...
It was surely a site for any onlookers to see the myriad of soldiers, sex slaves, and workers that were followed by a pair of Hooded Men. The Blacken Phoenix flying overhead left everyone nearby feeling a dark omen, rumors started to spread. Wu Hai called Lu Sha down from the skies. They were attracting the wrong sort of attention.
It was time to raise the Tower. Escorting everyone to the location was a breeze, the hard part would be leaving the location now that the tower had been discovered. Mike and Wu Hai were not blind.
They knew quite well that they had been followed.
The Tower was packed with personnel. Wu Hai and Mike had Qu and his Secretaries take everyone's details while Wu Hai tried to hide the tower's location with some earth magic, sinking it into the ground. A buried tower wouldn't be found easily, the trackers would only find a freshly plowed field and soft soil.
Inside of the Tower, Mike and Wu Hai had a talk.
"So, You've been a Dragonkin for a few years, its okay that you've been becoming more and more like a Dragon. At least you're a good Dragonkin." Wu Hai knew Mike's soft spots..
Neither of them wanted a conflict of interests and Mike didn't do anything wrong either.
"I've been human for the past few weeks, I don't make the same correlation but okay. I can see what you mean, perspectives are not so easily changed." Mike reflected a bit but shrugged it off.
"It would have been nice not to pay so much for the slaves and what was with that tip at the end? 10 bars.." Wu Hai was still laughing.
"Eh.. I wanted to look sincere. Slavery breaks my heart man, that gold would have done a lot on Earth.. but, I don't like talking about it. I miss my family." Mike looked at the Tattoo on his hand. then up at a mural he helped paint on the walls.
It was a map of Earth.
"Do you regret coming?" Wu Hai wanted to know.
"Not even a bit. I just miss them, that's all. I was prepared to never see them again, its just that.. I just gave away more gold than I left to my family. Even if I gave the Money, it isn't anything that will save the next generations. Its a bit sad." Mike and Wu Hai sat silently for a moment..
"I swear, I'll work on ways to go back. I also left a family there." Wu Hai was in agreement, and now.. the promise was struck.