Foreign Exchange Harvest
Li Aozi never expected the Crystal Tower to be so brazen, fully aware that White Candle Star no longer has any significant magic workshops, and that the most crucial "Identification Eye fragments" — two of them were seized by the Night Butterfly Federation, and the remaining fragment was long ago secretly relocated.
Anyone who shells out eighty million Anjin for the Identification Eye fragment would be the ultimate fool, and Li Aozi would have a good laugh at their expense.
"Seems I'll have to bleed a bit, but it doesn't matter. Even if I pay a premium, I can recoup the costs soon enough through my operations."
Unfortunately, everything's done by online auction these days. Li Aozi looked around and found no scenes of banter or tough talk among sellers, which was quite a pity.
The usual crowd-pleasing bid-raising is replaced here by cold, matter-of-fact numbers. You don't even know whether your fellow bidders are humans or digital beings.
Knock knock knock—
Someone knocked on the office door.
"Come in," Li Aozi said casually. Next moment, the door opened, and Nikita walked in with a stack of documents, plopped them onto Li Aozi's desk.
"What were you thinking, suddenly telling me to collect data on 'Substance Direction'?"
Nikita muttered.
"Just a personal interest." Li Aozi picked up one of the documents, with the translation software converting it to a readable language for him: ""Substance Direction: A Strange Authority Beast", "Star Abyss Bestiary: Entropy Sovereign, Substance Direction, Origin Beast, Law Oni"... I knew the magic civilization's fascination with these wondrous creatures far exceeds other civilizations."
"According to ancient Star Abyss legends, the Entropy Sovereign 'Idofeya,' the Substance Direction 'Enrike,' the Origin Beast 'Orijin,' and the Law Oni 'Leru' are four races older than the gods themselves. They are neither living organisms nor do they possess the concept of death. Even if the Destroyer invades, they simply observe Star Abyss with indifference. From their perspective, whether Star Abyss is destroyed or endures makes no difference to them."
Li Aozi flipped through it briefly:
"Among them, the Entropy Sovereign is a disastrous beast causing severe harm to the material universe. Whenever you find a juvenile form, you must eliminate it immediately. The Origin Beast is more enigmatic, rumored to have existed since the dawn of the universe. As for the Law Oni, it's probably the safest of the primordial races; its initial form is born from spirit larvae. They can still be utilized by the 「Temple of Annihilation」 as tools for growing Star Gods."
Interesting.
This part doesn't differ from what he remembers. Even in his previous life, with the recognition filter in place, information about these primordial races wasn't concealed.
Conversely, the Qiqiao Network is more focused on preventing players from learning about the [Secret Society], keeping them from acquiring supernatural abilities from the game, preventing them from climbing the path in reality.
…What would that be considered? A cognitive war? Or maybe the Terra Federation wants to preserve its rule and keep players from obtaining power through the game? But in reality, there's no real conflict, so is that necessary?
"Substance Direction is a weird thing. You can't exactly call it dangerous, but does it benefit living people? Who knows?"
Nikita rubbed his hands, saying:
"In any case, I pulled some strings. All this info is compiled for you, Mr. Mayor."
"Thanks for your trouble, Nikita." Li Aozi nodded. "These materials are quite useful to me. Name any reward you want."
"No need for that, Leoz. You've spent five years turning us refugees into respectable citizens with security and economic stability. There's nothing more I want."
Nikita shook his head and reminded him:
"So you're participating in this planet auction?"
"Yes, it's started already, but my target is the finale, so I'm not in a hurry." Li Aozi turned the screen. "Here are a few planets on the list."
"Let me help you check. If you can get some enclaves or satellites, that'd be nice. If we land a resource planet, we can work on transfer payments."
Nikita perked up; in his younger years, he was also a Zeta-tier (6) powerhouse, having traveled widely with Vanlenkov's army:
"Robbie-2, Verdant Star—I know those two. Their civilizations are both idiotic and belligerent. They've reached a capitalist era but can't get into space, basically worthless losers. It's not that they lack resources, but they're constantly fighting. The key is they can't unify into a single empire. Whoever buys them is a fool!"
"Valecor Planet? That one's worth considering. It's suitable for atmospheric beings, though it has too little land and overly thick atmosphere. If you have dragons, griffins, or elemental creatures, this is a great place to nurture them. The plus side is it can accommodate biological limits up to Kappa-tier (10). But it's too expensive—damn, 40 million Anjin! With that much money, I could hire four hundred thousand Zeta-tier (6) mercenaries and just seize the place!"
"Huh? Flame Demon Star! They're even putting such a treasure planet up for sale. Listen, although it's on the galaxy's edge, the residents there are descendants of demon civilizations from the Age of Gods. Its volcanic environment yields fertile soil, and there's quite a bit of ocean area. It produces expensive rare elements in high quantities, crucially featuring top-notch mineral regeneration—on average, every 300,000 years, a new deposit forms. The ecosystem can handle up to Iota-tier (9). Looking for drawbacks? None! The only downside is the price: 200 million Anjin! It's got no flaw except I'm not rich enough!"
Nikita glanced at the auction list, offering comments to help Li Aozi dodge pitfalls.
The auction proceeded, with bids of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of Anjin. At first, Nikita was amazed, but he soon adapted. Then he just lamented that Li Aozi's wallet wasn't bigger.
"Hey, Leoz, can't you spend a bit more?"
"A chunk of my assets is tied up in trust funds or investments—I can't touch them."
Li Aozi spoke calmly:
"My budget this time is only 120 million. If I mortgage some assets, that's another 37 million, for a total of 157 million. White Candle Star might go several tens of millions over estimate, so I need to be fully prepared."
"Indeed, White Candle Star is the main event."
Nikita nodded. Just then, a new item went on auction. He squinted and gasped:
"That's…Ister Star! Damn, it's only 8 million Anjin—quick, buy it!"
"What's that planet?"
"Looks like a simple rock planet, but few people know there's an ancient stargate worth 50 million there, which might lead to some Age of Gods stronghold. Even if you find nothing, you've still gained a free stargate—a free extra lifeline. 8 million for a lifeline—worth it or not?"
Li Aozi's eyes lit up, and he quickly joined the bidding: "Bidder 077, 8.2 million—"
"Bidder 016, 8.9 million."
"Bidder 190, 12 million."
"Bidder 122, 38 million."
Not long after, that planet sold for 56.09 million.
Li Aozi felt stifled. He turned to Nikita:
"Clearly, everyone else knows about that stargate too."
"Tch! What a pity." Nikita clicked his tongue. "A stargate is a backup route. Especially if it's from the Age of Gods, the gods would have scouted the area, so it wouldn't have extreme conditions. You might stumble on a few artifacts—just the historical value alone is more than that auction price…"
"Maybe they have their own information channels," Li Aozi said, undaunted. "Let's keep watching."
"Sotre Planet, only 2 million! Buy, buy, buy! They have a shape-shifting machine race—absolute profit!"
Nikita urged in excitement.
Before Li Aozi could place a bid, the price had already increased tenfold.
"Glacier Star, it's rich in magical crystal fuel. Going for just 9 million. We must nab that…"
"Fengyue Star—the civilization there is on the verge of leaving their mother planet, yet it's starting at only 1.2 million. My god, not buying that would be insane!"
"Darya Ring—this planet comes with an ultra-powerful geomagnetic shield. Buy it, and orbital bombardment becomes a joke, selling at 10 million. Haha, clueless officials, we'll take it!"
...
By midday, both Li Aozi and Nikita wore increasingly grim expressions.
"Nikita," Li Aozi said gravely, "something's off."
"All those seemingly cheap planets ended up getting snatched away." Nikita rubbed his head, baffled. "Surely they aren't all more experienced than an old mercenary who's roamed the world all his life?"
Multiple times they'd tried to snap up a treasure planet at a bargain price, only to find everyone else also knew its value.
"Once or twice, fine, but all morning, two hundred plus items and not a single successful purchase. That's not luck."
Li Aozi narrowed his eyes.
"True, but you have no proof, right?"
"I've been keeping track."
Li Aozi switched windows, pulling up a spreadsheet:
"There are 360 participants in total. We're #077. Since it's an online auction, we know nothing about anyone else's identity."
Gaze fixed on the bidding frequencies, Li Aozi continued:
"Whenever we bid, #016, #190, and #122 also bid. Otherwise, they don't participate at all. They only go for these 'bargain find' planets."
"#014 is decent at acting, occasionally calling out a few times. #262 half-acts, half-buys. Indeed, they purchased a few normal planets. #355 is just dumb, not even trying to hide it—always offering a single highest bid right away."
"From the looks of it, we're not being targeted specifically; it's that all these cost-effective, high-value planets are pre-claimed by someone."
"And whether they know about us or not… who's to say."
"You suspect the authorities colluded with someone to leak the buyers' identities?"
Nikita was astonished:
"Isn't that a bit much for an interstellar civilization?"
"The Philosopher-King of the Empire of Heroes once said: Don't underestimate a civilization's upper limit, nor overestimate its lower limit."
Li Aozi did a quick calculation:
"The total value of goods in this auction is about 12.2 billion Anjin. For the Crystal Tower, a third-rate cosmic civilization outside the interstellar alliance, that's 16.8% of their foreign-exchange holdings. If I were the Crystal Tower, I'd do the same to claw back foreign currency from my own people."
"No wonder… they're even selling major planets like Flame Demon Star. The Crystal Tower seems to want a large store of Anjin, the interstellar currency, to boost their standing in the cosmic market?"
"Considering the ongoing war, maybe they need the extra currency supply to stabilize their domestic economy."
Folding his hands and crossing his legs on the desk, Li Aozi grew increasingly certain of his reasoning.