Show Me the Money

Chapter 258 – An Arm and a Leg

“What a pity. If only I were level 60, it’d be so much easier to control the maze.” Fatty sighed.

With his current strength, Fatty could only utilize a tiny portion of the tool’s functions. After all, this kind of Celestial item was extremely complicated with many functions and wasn’t as simple as using a sword. Otherwise, he could have controlled the mirror to suck the opponent inside instead of having to wait for the opponent to foolishly touch it.

Inside the mirror was just a gloomy stretch and the air of depression within made people extremely fretful.

Invincible East had just met that monster who killed over a thousand players of two guilds. One could imagine his terror. He frantically blended into the army of running monsters and fled very far away. As he ran away in panic, he entered a group of monsters without notice.

This monster pack was quite unique. Unlike the other monsters, they ran in a proper formation without fear. At the very front was an imposing mounted monster with a golden mask and a blood-red cape fluttering in the wind.

Invincible East caught a glimpse of this monster as he ran and felt a sense of familiarity. He took another look. Indeed, it was the Celestial boss Undead Marshal Lei Ting who killed several tens of thousands of players back in Mass Graves.

Therefore, Invincible East was sent on a free trip back to the city.

“What?! You died, Big Bro?!” DoWhateverIWish gaped in disbelief upon the news.

“Leave that place, fast! Don’t touch that mirror and think of a way to leave.” Invincible East wasn’t too angry. He secretly felt fortunate that the Violet Cloud Sword didn’t drop when he died.

“Then, do we let Cloud Dragon Sailing know?” DoWhateverIWish carefully asked.

“Just tell him you guys want to leave because I was killed by monsters. Don’t tell him how I died in detail,” Invincible East instructed.

While he didn’t understand what Invincible East meant by that, DoWhateverIWish still did as told, then led his guild members to find a way out.

However, the Crystal Maze’s tunnel system was very complex. This wasn’t a place one could freely come and leave as they wished.

“Money Grubber,” Invincible East contacted Fatty.

“What?” Fatty lazily answered the call. Currently, it was impossible for him to control the maze anymore due to the tremendous amount of required mana and because he had run out of supplies.

“We are in the wrong this time, so I sincerely apologize. I can compensate you, so I hope you can release the rest of my brothers,” said Invincible East.

“Hmm? This can be negotiated. Let me see how many people you have left.” Fatty instantly snapped into focus and carefully looked into the X-Ray Mirror. “There are 198 people, ten thousand gold coins each. Let’s round it up. Two million gold coins, what do you think?”

“One million!” Invincible East immediately bargained.

“Two million isn’t much. These players are all elites of your guild, right? Ten thousand gold coins for a level, you’re not losing out,” Fatty casually pointed out, then added, “Hurry up. I can’t guarantee they’ll be safe if this is dragged on any longer.”

“Fine. Deal. I’ll send you one million first. After they get out, I’ll send the other million.”

“No, no, I don’t trust you. Pay in a lump sum and I’ll release them.” Fatty instantly shook his head.

“I am a guild master. You think I’ll go back on my words?” Invincible East fumed.

“Who knows? That guy who had a deal with me, right, Cloud Dragon Sailing. He’s a guild master too, but look what he did.”

Last time, Cloud Dragon Sailing broke the agreement and took the Metalwalk Book that should have been Fatty’s, resulting in a series of events. For quite a while, it was the hot gossip topic in all four main cities.

Invincible East lapsed into silence. He actually regretted cooperating with Cloud Dragon Sailing now. After a long time, he said, “Alright. I’ll send you the money now. I hope you’ll honor your word.”

“Of course. Who is Lord Fatty? He’s a man of his word, he never nickel-and-dimes, and he treats everyone with sincerity!” Earning two million gold coins for no reason, Fatty smiled so wide the couldn’t close his mouth.

“Oh, there’s still the Cloud Dragon Gang. It’d be a waste to kill them.” After he watched the remaining Sun Moon players exit the maze, Fatty turned his gaze to the Cloud Dragon players.

“What? They paid to exit?!” Hearing the news, Cloud Dragon Sailing nearly fainted. He quickly contacted Invincible East.

“Brother Cloud Dragon, while it is a must to deal with them, we should never involve so many of our brothers in this.”

“F*ck it!” Cloud Dragon Sail furiously swung his sword and killed a monster.

“Money Grubber, ten thousand gold coins a person, let us out.”

“Nu-uh.” Fatty shook his finger. “Ten thousand gold coins for your members. For you? One hundred thousand.”

“Based on what?!” Cloud Dragon Sailing shouted into the communicator.

“You’re the guild master, of course, your life is more valuable than your underlings. How about this, if you kill yourself, I’ll subtract the cost for ten of your people?” Fatty tried to entice him.

One hundred thousand gold coins versus one level. Cloud Dragon Sailing started to hesitate.

“Boss, a person of your status shouldn’t care about such a little amount of money. Right now, levels are the advantage. If your level isn’t high enough, you can’t use this sword. Reputation is nothing but a floating cloud, only power is real,” Cloud Dragon Windwielder spoke up.

That’s right. Who am I? It’s only one hundred thousand gold coins. I can afford it!

Cloud Dragon Sailing felt much better after hearing Cloud Dragon Windwielder’s words. Excluding Cloud Dragon Sailing, they currently had 113 people trapped in there. One hundred and twenty-three million gold coins were quickly deposited into Fatty’s account. Then, Cloud Dragon Sailing and his underlings exited the maze, crestfallen.

“Aii…” Fatty sighed as he retrieved the Crystal Maze of Terror.

“What’s wrong?” Liu Lan asked.

“I shouldn’t kill so many people. Wuwuuu… That’s several tens of thousands of gold coins!” Fatty looked at the sky and whined.

“Split the money, split the money!” Xiao Jian shouted.

“You’re all rich people. Why do you still care about this meager amount of money?” Fatty sat on the ground and refused to budge.

“Peh.” Xiao Jian spat.

“Master, ahh! Even until now, your pitiful disciple still doesn’t have enough money to buy a house and marry a wife.” Han Shen clung to Fatty and wept miserably.

Liu Lan couldn’t stop laughing. Cheng Xiong stroked his bald head; he just didn’t have the shamelessness to do what the other two did.

“Come, just come. One miser, two misers,… It doesn’t make a difference.” Fatty stood up and patted the dust off his butt. “Let’s go back. After I sort out the drops we got from under the ocean, we’ll split the gains.”

After Fatty put up the Celestial items he got from the Holy Spirit Island for auction, he set out with the group to the East Ocean. Upon returning from the trip, he instantly ran out to test the maze, so he hadn’t had the time to keep tabs on his store. Now, as he returned, Fatty was instantly scared by the bustling crowd outside of the store.

“What’s happening? Why are there so many people?” asked Fatty as even he himself couldn’t weave his way into his own store.

“Well, well, aren’t you behind? Everyone is here to watch the auction,” a player next to Fatty scornfully informed.

“Auction? What auction?” Fatty asked, totally confused.

“Celestial items, of course!” Another player was extremely excited. “Several Celestial items, ahh! Just where did the owner get them? All the guilds in Black Tortoise City have been here bidding for a while now.”

“Everyone, please make way, please make way.” A player parted his way out from the crowd. It was East Gate Blowingwind.

“Fatty, you’re back! If you didn’t come back, we would have to go look for you. My heart really can’t take this anymore,” said East Gate Blowingwind as he pulled Fatty’s arm.

“What?” Fatty was still clueless about what was going on.

“It’s those Celestial items of yours! Don’t you know? Celestial items these days are very hard to get. Celestial bosses aren’t something we can kill just because we want to. Some big brass of various guilds want to get them. In order to boost your shop’s momentum, we all joined the auction. But it’s gone out of control. The bid on that shield has climbed to 45 million gold coins,” East Gate Blowingwind briefed.

“45 million gold coins?” Fatty staggered and almost stumbled on the ground. “How did it get that high? I remember that Lei Ting’s Demon Slayer Sword only sold for several hundred gold coins.”

Fatty set the starting bid prices of all Celestial items from ten million gold coins because he didn’t really want to sell them out yet. He never expected that the shield would reach 45 million.

According to the exchange rates, one gold coin is 20 RMB. Then, 45 million gold coins is…?

Fatty drooled. No matter how hard East Gate Blowingwind pulled on him, he stood rooted on the spot to calculate.

“Nine hundred million? No, ninety million? That’s not right. Just how much is it?” Fatty successfully confused himself.

“Minus the 10% fee, it should be 810 million RMB,” replied East Gate Blowingwind as he couldn’t bear to see Fatty continue like this.

“810 million RMB?” Fatty fainted. Even Liu Lan and the other guys were speechless by this price. This is what you call a real prodigal, ahh. Spending this much for just for a piece of equipment.

“This is nothing. The world never lacks wealthy people. Not to mention 900 million, even if it’s 9 billion, as long as they think it’s worth it, they can take out that much money for it,” said East Gate Blowingwind as he supported Fatty.

Fatty suddenly jumped, his voice hoarse, “Who offers 900 million? Lord Fatty will stop the auction and directly sell it to him, right now!”

The rest facepalmed. East Gate Blowingwind pushed Fatty away, acting as if he didn’t know this guy.

“This gentleman is the owner of the Treasures Galore Auction House, Money Grubber,” someone immediately introduced as soon as Fatty entered the store.

Everyone sitting in the not-so-big shop all turned to look. They were all famous figures of status in Black Tortoise City. There were even some people from the other three main cities.

“Hello, everyone.” Fatty cupped his fists and got behind the counter, where the shopkeeper reported the recent situation of the store to him.

Aside from the Celestial items, the other gears with decent stats were all sold, earning Fatty roughly one million gold coins. Moreover, there were players auctioning their items here, so the store also received a percentage from the sales.

Unfortunately, however, the gathering of inner cores had not gone very well. The store only bought two earth inner cores, all of the lowest quality to boot.

After sorting out the shop a little, Fatty turned to the players. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. Your presence brings light to my little shop. This humble me is truly honored.”