Chapter 415: Chapter 353: The Matrix’s First Auction Conference Begins
Li Zheng, who was soundly asleep at night, suddenly awoke with a start, his eyes snapping open as he stared at the soft light on his ceiling, his face puzzled: "Why do I always feel like there’s something I forgot to do, but... somehow it feels like I’m at peace with it?"
He turned over, tossing that feeling aside, and fell back asleep.
Shortly after he drifted off again, someone spoke in the world channel: "So... it’s this late, and Boss Li hasn’t announced the potion sales. Should we stop waiting?"
"Damn... I thought I was the only one staying up late waiting, but turns out I have company. I’m not alone!"
"You misunderstood, I just took a nap and woke up to pee and thought I’d ask. Seeing your reply, I realized I haven’t missed this batch of genetic potions, so I’m going back to sleep."
"... Are you polite?"
The whole previous day was spent bouncing around activity dungeons, and Li Zheng completely forgot about selling the genetic potions, causing some people to stay up all night in vain.
God knows how this guy’s brain works.
Early the next morning, Li Zheng was full of energy as he got out of bed amid Xiao Sakura’s noise.
After washing and eating, he changed into his combat suit and walked out of his residence, feeling refreshed, while Kuro and Yis, as expected, went into standby mode due to lack of energy.
"Another beautiful day."
He put away his residence, the blood-red robots, and the true maze, checked several metal doors, and confirmed no wandering monsters had entered overnight.
After doing some stretches to loosen up his muscles, Li Zheng picked up the mysterious declaration and prepared to begin today’s exploration.
"Hmm? Why are there so many private messages?"
He hadn’t walked a few steps when the notifications for private messages suddenly increased dramatically, quickly exceeding 99+.
Opening them, he found they were all from players he knew but wasn’t too familiar with.
"Aren’t these the players who previously bought potions from me? What’s up so early in the morning... wait!" Li Zheng paused, finally remembering what he’d forgotten.
"Did I, goddammit... not sell those two hundred sets of potions yesterday?"
He skimmed through a few private messages.
Oh boy, they were all players recommending friends to buy potions, asking why there was no sale yesterday.
What could Li Zheng say to that?
Tell them he forgot? Not a chance!
A real expert must stay calm in such situations.
Li Zheng rubbed his forehead and decided not to reply one by one but instead used today’s small loudspeaker in the world channel: "Today’s potion sale is advanced, a total of four hundred sets, priced uniformly at thirty portions of bronze blood per set, first come, first served. By the way, here’s an ad: too many words, see the next horn."
"The auction is open for pre-registration. Players with interest and capability can PM me to register, and proof of assets is required. I will select suitable candidates to receive an invitation to the auction. The live auction will be held at 5 PM today, and only those who have been invited can participate."
Using another loudspeaker, Li Zheng gave a brief overview of the auction items, then lifted private chat restrictions and waited for the bursts of messages that were sure to come.
As expected, private messages exploded, overwhelming him.
There were those buying potions, inquiring about auction participation requirements, and some fawning over him.
Just dealing with these private messages took Li Zheng nearly three hours. After selling two days’ worth of potions, he selected two hundred qualified players from a sea of people to participate in today’s auction.
Many of them were familiar faces.
For example: Tang Qianzang, Wu Hao, Qian Bu Gou, Misaka Tsuchiemon.
And some known organization leaders, like Banquan Longma, Cheng Tianpu, General Liu Qi.
Initially, Li Zheng wanted to reject participants from Mud Furnace.
But then he thought, it’s business, who cares who you do business with?
No shame in that.
Alright, mainly because Cheng Tianpu and Banquan Longma made a scene on the world channel yesterday, making Li Zheng see an opportunity and changing his mind.
This time, Li Zheng wanted to emulate war merchants, selling to two or even several parties to profit from the chaos of war.
Re-enabling private chat restrictions, Li Zheng wiped the nonexistent sweat from his forehead, slightly fatigued: "Man, this is more tiring than a fight. Never doing this again!"
At this point, Li Zheng’s work was far from over.
He still needed to contact Li Chun, Chu Xiao, and Xiao Siyuan to acquire some "specialties" from them as auction items.
In addition, he wasn’t idle, preparing some tools in advance to avoid scrambling during the auction.
By the time everything was ready, it was almost lunchtime, and the bored Xiao Sakura had long been dozing off beside him, resting her head on Pink Poli.
So, he decided to eat early, then spent four hours quickly going through nine exploration chances with the mysterious declaration, obtaining a supply of platinum and diamond blood materials.
Finally, almost right on time, Li Zheng sat at the entrance of his residence, opened the live stream, set it to a mode where only specified players could watch, and invited those he selected in the morning.
With a thirty-minute entry time, it took less than ten minutes for the clean chat to become chaotic with the barrage of comments, with people squabbling in the live stream room.
Leading the charge were Banquan Longma and Cheng Tianpu, bickering as if they’d never finished last night’s argument, each retorting enthusiastically.
The spectators were no help, egging them on in the chat to fight it out.
Particularly a few Russian organization leaders, jeering in the chat, called them weaklings for all the back and forth.
Which triggered female leaders from several Western European countries, who launched their own verbal battles.
The scene left others exclaiming: this auction is worth it!
Then...
Then someone realized their arch-nemesis was also selected, and threw some sarcastic comments their way.
Inevitably leading to yet another chaos.
If Li Zheng hadn’t had to, enacted a blanket gag order, he suspected these participants could verbally lash out at each other until the auction ended.
"First, welcome to this, and possibly the only, Matrix Auction." Li Zheng ceremoniously began with an opening statement, "In this auction, each item’s starting price is different; some require pure blood materials, others need power cores. Please do not deliberately disrupt when bidding, or else..."
At this, Li Zheng grinned, his bright teeth chilling everyone’s hearts.
Li Zheng’s single-handed assault on an organization last time was still fresh in everyone’s memories like it happened yesterday.
"Not much else to say, to start, here’s something exciting to spice things up."
Li Zheng waved, and a flying device soared from his residence to the door, where he grabbed it and introduced its features.
"Hover Propulsion Device, although it’s just a gold-level item, it’s easy to use. Simply wear it to easily perform, an aerial combat treasure. Have it, and you have battlefield control."
"Many of you are here just for it, right? This round of auction is for ten Hover Propulsion Devices, with a base price of..."
Announcing a set of materials as the base price, Li Zheng lifted the blanket gag order, and the auction officially began.
"Each bid must increase by no less than one set, now... start bidding!"
First was Banquan Longma, eagerly bidding: "I bid 15 sets of materials for all 10 units!"
Li Zheng’s auction style wasn’t like a professional auctioneer’s constant chatter to hype the atmosphere, he just let the barrage run.
Cheng Tianpu followed closely: "18 sets!"
"20!"
"22!"
"25!"
"30!"
The two kept escalating bids, and in just thirty seconds, the price reached Li Zheng’s direct sales price.
At this moment, another person joined the bidding, catching Banquan Longma off guard.
...
(Just to let everyone know, the updates might be a bit unstable in the coming days because an elder in my family passed away, and I need to attend the funeral. I’ll probably be too busy to write. Hope for your understanding.)