"I need a what, now?" he stared blankly.

"The Nine Dragon Jade Cauldron." Professor Qin smirked. "Buy that for me, and I'll give you the cipher."

That cipher, incidentally, was the fruit of Professor Qin's thirty years of research into the ancient formation's symbols. It was practically a dictionary and covered the remaining one third of the symbols that Remian hadn't managed to decipher with the other professors' help.

Well, fine. The man wanted payment for his work? Remian could accept that. "Where would I buy something like that?"

"That's the thing. It's only available in a students auction, and teachers are not allowed to partic.i.p.ate." Professor Qin explained. "Otherwise, I'd have bought it myself."

"Can't it be found elsewhere? Another city, or some global delivery service?" Remian asked weakly.

"A what?" Professor Qin blinked, then shook his head. "This cauldron and all its kind were made by Professor Chan himself, and he absolutely hates my guts, so… no. There's nowhere else, and no other way."

Remian paused. "This is going to be really troublesome, isn't it?"

"Very likely." Professor Qin agreed.

"It would likely make me a lot of enemies, wouldn't it?"

"Almost definitely."

"There's some arrogant, hostile, unreasonable high status students who is going to swear vengeance on me and try to rob me afterward, isn't there?"

"Six of them, at least."

"And if I fought them in a bidding war, the cost is likely going to be all I could afford or more, isn't it?"

"For sure."

Remian let out a long, long sigh. "Where and when is the auction?"

"Tomorrow night, East Market Square, Golden Chariot Hall."

"And who are these six in question?" Remian asked.

"Why?"

"I was rather hoping not to run into them at the auction." Remian shrugged. "Wouldn't it make things a lot simpler for me if they simply… didn't turn up?��

***

That night, hoa.r.s.e screams rang out in dorm after dorm throughout the campus.

"What's going on? Are we under attack?" A worried guard shouted.

"It… it's fine! Just a nightmare. A nightmare…" someone sheepishly called back.

Remian frowned and redoubled his efforts.

Bloodcurdling screams rang out throughout the night, and the next morning, more than half the student body showed up at the cafeteria with pale faces from lack of sleep.

"What happened to you?" A particularly sound sleeper asked.

"Some guy next door was screaming his head off. Couldn't sleep all night."

"And you?"

"Got interrupted during cultivation. Internal damage."

"What about you?"

"Was so frightened by the screams, I stole my roommate's ear plugs, and he beat me up when he found out."

As the day went by, Remian kept an eye and an ear on those particularly troublesome six people.

We could spend a whole chapter on how bad these people were, but frankly speaking, they weren't actually important or anything so let's just skip all that.

Goodness, they really were arrogant, bullying, trouble-raising brats. Even after such a horrific night, they were swaggered around blatantly robbing, cheating, hurting, and in one case almost killing the less privileged students around. Four were guys, two were girls, and all six said they were still going to the auction tonight regardless of their strange dreams last night.

Not good. Remian frowned, and upped his efforts some more. He went out and got some special herbs, and then set to work.

Another entire chapter could be devoted to the tension and sneakiness and preparation of Remian's, but again, not important, so never mind that.

This time, he targeted the kitchens and kept his psionic senses on the cooks and kitchen staff. Then, during an opportune moment when they were all away, he slipped in and added a little something to a few dishes.

Within an hour after lunch, no less than forty percent of the sleepy students decided to take a nap. They slept well that afternoon, surprisingly well, even considering the sleepless night before. In fact, they slept like they had been drugged or something…

Four of those six arrogant brats were still asleep when the auction doors opened. The fifth barely woke up in time to rush to the auction as it started. The sixth had eaten lunch outside and hadn't slept at all.

Even more amazingly, one of the four sleepers had a few of his henchmen drag him to the auction even when he wasn't fully awake.

"Not good." Remian grimaced. Time was running out. The Nine Dragons Jade Cauldron was set for lot 17, and was the third last in the list. Scanning the thoughts of the three arrogant brats who made it, all three of them were eyeing the cauldron as a 'must buy'.

Yet more chapters could be spent on the environment of the auction and the tension building up and how these brats swaggered and boasted among themselves and looked down on that poor-looking chap who kept sneaking glances at them likely out of jealousy…

But again, not important.

Suffice to say that by the time Lot 09 ended, the bids were running as high as 20,000 Black, as each item was more valuable than the last, and prices were already beyond what about half the students in the hall were able to reasonably afford.

As for Remian, he was sitting tight with a little over 200,000 Black in his account. In a private room at the back and on the left, Chen Ho, one of the six brats, had roughly half a million Black in pocket money to spend at this auction if he wanted. Ming Ye, on the right, wasn't planning to spend more than 100,000 Black, but if something interesting popped up, he could go as high as one million. Wu Tian, in the room directly behind Remian, had 600,000 ready but was tight-fistedly not spending anything yet.

All three of them were waiting for the good stuff to come up at the latter parts of the auction. At this rate, when lot 17 came up, any of those three could easily outbid Remian and take away the prize.

There was no way Remian was letting that happen. That cauldron was practically his ticket home. Remian was dead set on acquiring it by hook or by crook, and right now, crook seemed to be the way to go.

When lot 10 appeared, Remian detected a heightened interest from Ming Ye and immediately pounced. Psionic power whirred, bolstering that interest, making the Spiraling Fires Fist in Lot 10 seem more and more appealing in Ming Ye's mind.

"Fifty thousand Black!" Ming Ye bid, doubling the previous offer.

Sudden suspicion and jealously bloomed in Chen Ho's mind…

Remian pounced, stirring up that jealousy.

"Fifty-one thousand!" Chen Ho shouted.

Sleepily, Wu Tian was actually wondering if all this was worth getting dragged out of bed for. He didn't have interest in fist techniques at all…

Remian quietly slipped in a peaceful notion and the nice, soft enjoyment of the couch… slowly, Wu Tian started to drift off…

Outside, Chen Ho and Ming Ye were bidding against each other.

"Fifty-five thousand!

"Fifty-six!"

"Fifty-nine!"

"Sixty thousand black!"

This was already triple the auctioneer's expectations. Much to his delight, the two sn.o.bbish boys kept fighting each other.

"Seventy thousand!" Chen Ho's cry sounded enraged by that time.

But Ming Ye wasn't of mind to give up. Remian was still stirring up his thoughts. "Seventy-five thousand Black!"

Suddenly, Chen Ho's thoughts came to a jarring stop. As much as he wanted to stomp on Ming Ye's pride, the auction still had many more things for sale and there were things out there that he actually wanted. This fist technique simply wasn't one of them and wasn't worth spending that much upon.

"Seventy-five thousand Black, going once! Going twice! SOLD!" the auctioneer roared.

With a grin, Remian watched as Ming Ye forked out 75k of his 100k intended budget…

But in his mind, Ming Ye raised his spending limit to 500k, and reserved some of it for taking Chen Ho down a peg.

"Lot 11, Five Elements Crysal, starting bid 30,000 Black!"

Wu Tian suddenly woke up despite Remian's mental lullaby. "Thirty-thousand!"

"Thirty-one…" someone in the crowd yelled.

"Forty thousand!" Wu Tian instantly shot back.

"Forty-one…" Chen Ho called.

"Fifty thousand!" Wu Tian was insistent. This crystal meant a lot to him, it seemed.

Grinning, Remian added oil onto fire, boosting the importance of that crystal until it totally filled Wu Tian's mind.

"Fifty-one thousand!" Ming Ye said.

"Sixty thousand Black!" Wu Tian stood tall.

There was a short silence.

Remian's eyes narrowed and slipped Chen Ho a little suggestion. Abruptly, Chen Ho brightened. He didn't actually want this crystal for himself, but since Wu Tian seemed so keen on it, perhaps he could make the guy pay a higher and higher price… "Seventy thousand!"

"Eighty thousand!" Wu Tian shot back immediately.

Ming Ye, too, suddenly got the idea, and abruptly, the two rivals of the previous bidding suddenly became co-conspirators in depriving Wu Tian of his money. "Ninety thousand!"

"One hundred thousand Black!" Wu Tian didn't hesitate for a moment.

"One hundred ten thousand!" both Ming Ye and Chen Ho voiced at the same time.

There was a moment of confusion, but then Wu Tian made a bid that rendered the point moot. "One hundred fifty thousand!"

At that point, Ming Ye was starting feel a bit bad. Even for him, paying that sort of price for a five elements crystal was going to hurt. But Chen Ho kept at it. "One hundred sixty thousand!"

Abruptly, Wu Tian's thoughts s.h.i.+fted and anger blazed. "Fine! Take it!"

Chen Ho froze. Ming Ye froze. Even Remian froze. None of them had expected Wu Tian to suddenly quit on the item he'd been so insistent on earlier.

Remian checked on Wu Tian's thoughts.

So that was why. Wu Tian was thinking he could buy that crystal at the First Qilin Pavilion for a little over a hundred and twenty thousand when he went back to Crimson Dawn City next week. Also, the look on Chen Ho's face had clued him in; all this had merely been to make him bleed. Therefore, Wu Tian decided clear and early on to make Chen Ho bleed instead.

It was a fierce, and effective move. Chen Ho immediately paled, but a bid was a bid and had to be honored.

With that, Chen Ho's available funds dropped by another hundred and sixty thousand.