Chapter 161 Ancient Documents

  Two days later, Han Ming followed Xiao Qi and the others back to the Borderland City. Once in the city and assured of Xiao Qi's safety, Han Ming deviated from his route to find a small auction house to exchange for magic crystals.

  Maren had given him a few small items, which were quite different from Xiao Qi's dagger that looked good but was useless. These items were all top-notch weapons.

  Although general grocery stores or magic equipment shops would sell magic crystals, the quantity available at those places was far too little for Han Ming's needs.

  This was a rather inconspicuous small auction house.

  "Sir, how may I assist you?"

  An auction house attendant welcomed Han Ming respectfully.

  Han Ming looked around. The small auction house seemed a bit dilapidated, and he wondered how much water-type magic crystals they had in stock.

  "Do you have water-type magic crystals?"

  Han Ming asked directly.

  Magic crystals were sometimes more sought-after than gold coins. As long as there were still magicians in the world, the value of magic crystals would not decline. People said that antiques were valuable in prosperous times, while gold was precious in chaotic times. In an era of turmoil, the most valuable and secure thing was gold, but in this world, the most secure and reliable thing was magic crystals.

  Almost everything consigned to the auction house or auctioned off by oneself could be purchased with magic crystals, and then the magic crystals could be resold at a high price. This was quite common.

  The attendant replied respectfully, "Yes, we do. May I ask how many you need?"

  Han Ming asked with a smile, "How many do you have?"

  Hearing this, the attendant became even more respectful, thinking to himself that a big customer had come this time.

  "To be honest with you, sir, you've really come to the right place for water-type magic crystals. Except for here, the stock at other places is quite limited." The attendant clearly looked a bit proud.

  Han Ming smiled and said, "Just tell me how many you have."

  The attendant said, "At present, we have a stock of three thousand small water-type magic crystals."

  Han Ming shook his head slightly, "Not enough."

  "Not enough with three thousand!?" The attendant was taken aback upon hearing this. He had originally thought that Han Ming would at most want a few hundred. Generally, very few prestigious magicians came to this place. Even if they did, if they wanted to buy magic crystals, at most they would buy around one hundred, or at most three hundred, which would be enough for those magicians to use for two or three years.

  He didn't know that Han Ming himself was a bottomless pit for consuming magic crystals. After all, how many people were like him, absorbing four or five small crystals every day? Ordinary magicians usually absorbed one crystal every three days. For someone of Han Ming's rank, it was probably one every two days, and when intensively cultivating, it was just one a day.

  "Well... then we can temporarily transfer a batch from other shops, and we can probably gather about five thousand." The attendant quickly said, afraid that this big customer, Han Ming, would leave.

  "Five thousand..." Han Ming thought for a while. It was probably enough. In the future, when he had to deal with the demon army, he didn't know when he could return to the human world. It was always good to prepare more. According to his own plan, five thousand magic crystals should be enough for him to use for two or three years.

  "Name your price."

  Han Ming said leisurely.

  "Please wait a moment, sir." The attendant complimented Han Ming with a smile and hurriedly pushed open a small door and went out.

  After a while, the attendant led an elderly man into the room.

  The old man introduced himself, "Respected guest, hello. I am the owner of this auction house. Do you need five thousand water-type magic crystals?"

  Han Ming slowly nodded.

  Seeing Han Ming acknowledge it, the old man was overjoyed and quickly said with a smile, "The market price is eight gold coins for one water-type magic crystal. Wind-type, earth-type, and wood-type magic crystals are worth ten gold coins each, while fire-type magic crystals are worth twelve gold coins each. But you also know that not long ago, the demon army invaded the Mont Empire and looted a large number of magic crystals reserved by the Mont Empire, which led to the scarcity of magic crystal production. As you know, most magic crystals are produced in the Demon Beast Forest and the Wild Forest, and now the Mont Empire is under the rule of the demon world... You see..."

  Han Ming nodded slightly and said, "Are you trying to say that with these two major areas producing magic crystals being occupied by the demon world, it has become increasingly difficult for humans to obtain magic crystals? Tell me, how much do you want for them?"

  The old man smiled embarrassedly and said, "You are really understanding. Well, I won't ask for too much. Twelve gold coins for each water-type magic crystal. For five thousand, that's a total of sixty thousand gold coins."

  Upon hearing this, Han Ming frowned slightly, but then thought that what the old man said made sense, so he didn't make things difficult for him.

  "What is the hardest thing you have here?"

  The old man was somewhat confused by Han Ming's sudden question and mumbled in reply, "Well, the table in front of you should be considered quite hard. Its material comes from a type of agarwood from the Wild Forest, and its hardness is even greater than steel."

  Han Ming nodded with a smile and took out a delicate dagger from the storage bag at his waist. He stood the dagger up and held it at a height of about one finger's length above the tabletop.

  The old man and the attendant looked at Han Ming inexplicably, not knowing what this generous young man was going to do.

  Han Ming smiled slightly and said, "Watch carefully."

  After saying that, Han Ming gently released the dagger. The dagger immediately fell vertically. When the blade of the dagger just touched the tabletop, there was a "puchi" sound, similar to the sound of a hot knife cutting into cheese. The entire blade of the dagger completely sank into the tabletop, leaving only the handle stuck on the tabletop.

  Hiss...

  Both the old man and the attendant sucked in a breath of cold air simultaneously.

  "What a sharp dagger!!"

  Before the old man could react, a middle-aged man strode into the room. This man had a straight nose and a square mouth. His big face was slightly red, and there was a slow flow of fire-type magic energy around him. Obviously, he was a fire-type magician.

  "I'll take this dagger!"

  The man snatched the dagger from Han Ming's hand.

  "This... Lord Bolt... look..."

  The auction house owner clearly dreaded the fire-type magician in front of him, but seeing that this sharp top-notch dagger was obviously something Han Ming intended to return to himself, he felt extremely reluctant inside.

  The red-faced man glared and angrily said, "What do you, a businessman, need such a high-quality treasure for!? I am a magician. The weakest part of a magician is close combat. Do you understand? With such a good weapon, it means having the ability to defend oneself during close combat."

  Han Ming laughed and said, "Then, my friend, how much are you willing to pay for my dagger?"

  The red-faced man looked down on Han Ming and thought to himself that this water-type useless magician dared to call him a friend. Without any mercy, he said, "This dagger is good, but I think it's only worth a thousand gold coins."

  Upon hearing this, the auction house owner almost fell to the ground in shock.

  Han Ming laughed and said, "Eighty thousand gold coins. Not a penny less, or you won't be able to take it away."

  "You might as well rob!" The red-faced man was very angry upon hearing this.

  Han Ming didn't pay attention to him and asked the old man with a smile, "Boss, will you take eighty thousand gold coins?"

  The boss looked at the red-faced man with a difficult expression and said softly, "I... I can take it... but I'm afraid..."

  Han Ming shook his head slightly, took the dagger from the red-faced man's hand, and placed it in the old man's hand, saying, "Go ahead and raise the magic crystals I need. I'll wait for you here."

  The old man looked at the red-faced man with a difficult expression again, but found that the red-faced man, who had been glaring at him at first, rolled his eyes a few times and then laughed. He no longer made things difficult for him and sat down on the chair opposite Han Ming in a big and unconstrained manner.

  The old man heaved a sigh of relief and quickly ran out.

  In the reception room, Han Ming leisurely sipped tea, his eyes slightly lowered. The red-faced man smiled coldly and glanced at Han Ming from time to time. The attendant stood awkwardly beside them, not daring to make a sound.

  Half an hour later, the auction house owner led a group of servants carrying two large wooden boxes to the door.

  Han Ming walked out smilingly, counted the magic crystals in the boxes, and was satisfied to put all the magic crystals into his storage bag.

  Seeing Han Ming's storage bag, the red-faced man's eyes lit up.

  "Respected guest, the crystals you need are all here. Would you be interested in taking a look at the auction items in our auction house?"

  Usually, auction items are not shown to private individuals. One must go through procedures and bid for them at the auction to obtain them. But Han Ming was the "god of wealth" in the eyes of this old man, so he used this method to please Han Ming.

  Han Ming originally wanted to refuse, but then he thought that maybe he should get one or two things to give to Xiao Qi, that little guy. So he nodded in agreement.

  The old man led Han Ming to a warehouse with a stone door, and the red-faced man also followed big and unconstrainedly. The old man didn't dare to refuse and could only pretend not to see.

  This was a huge warehouse made of stone, divided into hundreds of small compartments. Each small compartment was made of flame stone, famous for its hardness. The small doors of the compartments were also made of flame stone material. At this moment, all these small compartments were tightly locked.

  The old man led Han Ming and the red-faced man directly to a small compartment at the end and opened the door with a key.

  He wasn't worried at all that Han Ming and the other person would have evil intentions and rob him. Because almost all the precious materials needed by experts in the world were obtained from auction houses everywhere. Some people even stared at an auction item for several years. Therefore, robbing an auction house had become a big taboo in this world. If you dared to rob an auction house, you didn't even need the auction house owner to take action himself. The experts in the world would jointly surround and suppress you to ensure that the auction house could operate normally and provide them with all kinds of precious materials they needed.

  After pushing open the door of the compartment, the old man smiled and led Han Ming and the other person into the room. After inviting the two to sit down, the old man took down several small wooden boxes from a wooden shelf.

  These small wooden boxes clearly hadn't been touched for a long time, and there was a thin layer of dust on the surface of the boxes.

  The old man blew away the dust in one breath and opened the boxes one by one, saying, "To be honest, I don't know the origin of these things either. Judging from their appearance and practicality, they really have no special features. But these things were dug out by some explorers from the Ghost City, and their age is very ancient. So they have been kept all this time. If you two like them, just bid. If you don't like them, just consider it entertainment."

  Han Ming smiled kindly and reached for a small wooden box in front of him. Unexpectedly, the red-faced man, as if he was determined to oppose Han Ming, snatched the small wooden box first. He took out a piece of parchment-like thing from it, with many small characters engraved on it.

  "Eh? How could this parchment be preserved for such a long time? It's really strange. What are these numerous small characters? They don't look like our characters at all."

  The red-faced man flipped the parchment in his hands for a long time but couldn't figure it out, so he threw it back into the wooden box resentfully.

  Han Ming took out the parchment and also flipped through it for a while. Except that he could tell that this parchment-like thing was very old, he gained nothing else. And the characters on it were just as the red-faced man had said; he couldn't understand them at all.

  "How much is this thing?"

  Han Ming asked.

  The old man quickly replied respectfully, "This thing, judging from its appearance, should be a large ancient document, and this is just one corner of it. But what it specifically describes is unknown. I won't lie to you. Such documents have indeed been unearthed on the North Alliance Continent. Among them, some have been deciphered, and they are nothing more than some ancient historical records, or even family genealogies of certain families, or some ancient poems. These things are basically worthless. But there is also a very small part where what is recorded are some ancient magic skills or secret manuals of fighting qi. Then their value is immeasurable. So before this thing is deciphered, it's really hard to say what its value is."

  "You are quite honest." Han Ming laughed.

  What the old man said was indeed correct. Han Ming had read some books about unearthed ancient documents before. Buying such things was actually riskier than gambling. After all, among a thousand pieces, if there was one that recorded magic and fighting qi, it would be really extraordinary. And there was also a very important point. Even if you were lucky enough to buy an ancient secret manual of magic and fighting qi, it was very likely that you would not be able to translate it throughout your life. It was like having it in your hand but having no way to deal with it at all. Moreover, the small piece in front of him was just a fragment. Judging from the shape of its broken and missing corners, it was probably only about one-tenth of the original complete document.