Mittel

A teeth-grating crunch of shattering bones rang out at once, and the two four-star Dou Zhe lay flat on the ground.

Under the crushing weight of gravity, every bone in their bodies broke inch by inch. The longswords in their hands had twisted into scrap iron.

They wanted to scream, but their chests had already been crushed inward.

Not a sound could escape. The boulder fell.

Splat!

Two bloody, mangled imprints sank deep into the earth.

From beginning to end, he had been no more than a three-star.

Jia Lie Shan's legs went weak, and he dropped to his knees with a thud. His crotch was already soaked.

The stench of urine spread as he stared at the human-shaped meat patties that had once been those two swaggering four-star Dou Zhe.

His mind went completely blank.

"What kind of monster are you?"

Jia Lie Shan's voice trembled like a fallen leaf in the wind.

"I'm Jia Lie Bi's own nephew! If you dare kill me, the clan leader won't let you off! The first elder will tear you into ten thousand pieces!"

Lu Ze walked up to him and looked down at him.

"Kill you?"

Lu Ze shook his head. "Killing you would be letting you off far too easily."

He raised a finger and, under Jia Lie Shan's terrified gaze, lightly tapped the spot over his dantian.

With a soft pop, the Dou Qi inside Jia Lie Shan poured out wildly, like air escaping a punctured balloon.

Under gravity's crushing force, his dantian shattered completely, and his meridians snapped inch by inch.

From that day onward, he would be a cripple worse off than even an ordinary person.

"Aah!"

Jia Lie Shan let out an utterly heartrending scream.

"No! I still have to earn Grade Jia!"

"I still have to become the best of the family's younger generation!"

"I..."

His entire body curled up on the ground like a maggot with its sinews pulled out.

Lu Ze crouched down, pulled a stack of banknotes and several bottles of pills from Jia Lie Shan's robes, and slipped them into his own pocket.

He stood and brushed the dust off himself.

"Take your time savoring this pain."

With that, he turned back toward the mine tunnel entrance and began arranging the scene.

An incense stick's worth of time later, the clearing outside the mine tunnel had changed beyond recognition.

Lu Ze had blasted several enormous, deep pits into the ground with [Great Wilderness Heaven-Imprisoning Finger].

He had also used [Grass Character Sword Art] to leave more than a dozen fierce streaks of sword Qi on the surrounding rock walls and tree trunks.

Finally, he stuffed the Xiao Clan's high-ranking command token he had searched off Xiao Ning's corpse into the hand of one of Jia Lie Shan's dead confidants.

The whole scene looked as though a Xiao Clan expert and Jia Lie Shan's men had encountered an ambush outside the mine tunnel, and a vicious battle had erupted between the two sides.

In the end, both sides had perished together.

As for Lu Ze?

He was merely cannon fodder swallowed by a magical beast. No one would care whether he lived or died.

"Jia Lie Bi, I hope you enjoy this generous gift."

Lu Ze changed into a close-fitting black outfit stripped from one of Jia Lie Shan's confidants, used Dou Qi to partially conceal his presence and outline, and strode brazenly away from the South City Mine Vein.

Wutan City, evening.

Sunlight scorched the bluestone streets. Crowds thronged the markets, and vendors' cries rose one after another.

Lu Ze walked along the busiest main street, carrying banknotes worth over a thousand gold coins looted from Jia Lie Shan and Xiao Ning, along with more than a dozen mid-grade magic cores obtained from killing Ironclad Flame Rats.

He had come to Wutan City with a clear purpose: the Mittel Auction House.

Not only did it have the materials he needed for deduction, but more importantly, there was the power behind Mittel.

At the end of the street, a magnificent, glittering three-story building came into view.

A gilded plaque hung above the entrance, bearing six large characters written with the soaring flourish of dragons and phoenixes: Mittel Auction House.

Two rows of guards in matching uniforms stood at the entrance. Every guest coming and going was either wealthy or noble.

At a floor-to-ceiling window on the auction house's second floor, a woman in a red qipao leaned languidly against the window. Her figure was voluptuous, so seductive that it set one's blood racing. Holding an account book, she leafed through it absently, occasionally raising her eyes to look down at the masses below.

The manager of the Mittel Family's Wutan City branch was a formidable figure who had been sidelined by the family's direct line, yet had single-handedly made the auction house's business the best in the city.

And in the original story, he had even made the Mittel Auction House the foremost auction house on the continent.

Lu Ze stood across the street, his gaze passing through the crowd to settle on that red figure. She took a gold coin from her robes and rolled it between her fingertips.

The gold coin reflected the sunlight, flashing across her eyes.

The Mittel Auction House, the Jia Ma Empire's largest commercial machine.

And Ya Fei was that machine's sharpest gear in Wutan City.

Lu Zhe casually flicked the gold coin into the air, caught it in his fist, and strode toward those magnificent doors.

"I hope this brilliant manager of the Mittel Family has a big enough appetite."

The Mittel Auction House's doors were made of heavy brass, their surfaces carved with intricate magical beast patterns.

Lu Zhe pushed the doors open and entered. Warm air suffused the lobby, and the scent of expensive incense mingled with a faint whiff of filthy lucre.

The hall was brightly lit, its floor covered in expensive plush carpeting.

Most of the guests coming and going wore lavish clothes, elegance evident in their every movement.

Lu Zhe looked down at his close-fitting black outfit. Though clean, it bore no family crest.

Among these merchants wearing jewels and silk, he looked decidedly out of place.

He walked straight to the counter.

"Sir, how may I help you?"

The receptionist was a young girl. Her eyes swept over Lu Zhe, and though her tone was smiling, a trace of perfunctoriness entered her gaze.

"I'd like to meet the manager of your Wutan City branch."

Without wasting words, Lu Zhe took an Iron Box giving off a faint fragrance from his robes and placed it on the counter.

The receptionist paused for a moment. Her smile grew fainter instead, and she said softly,

"Sir, what is this? Our auction house receives many guests every day. If you have an item you need appraised..."

"This is beyond what you can handle."

Lu Zhe interrupted him and tapped the Iron Box twice with his finger.

"Open it, receptionist."

Her delicate brows furrowed slightly, but she still reached out and lifted the Iron Box's lid.

The next second, a thick smell of blood spilled out, mingled with violent fluctuations of energy.

Inside the Iron Box lay a fist-sized magic core covered in grayish-brown scales.

The perfunctory expression on the receptionist's face instantly froze. She stared at the magic core in disbelief, her voice rising several notches.

"This is a Tier 2 Magical Beast's magic core?!"

A Tier 2 Magical Beast was an existence comparable to a human Da Dou Shi. The mercenaries around Wutan City struggled to hunt even tier 1 magical beasts and had to attack them in groups.

But this boy-where had he gotten a tier 2 magic core?

"Go fetch the manager."

Lu Zhe put the magic core away and closed the lid again.

"Tell him I have a steady supply of high-grade goods. He'll certainly regret missing this."

The receptionist bit her lip and gave Lu Zhe a long look, then turned and hurried toward the second floor.

In less than half the time it took to drink a cup of tea, light footsteps sounded on the carved staircase leading down from the second floor.

The woman who appeared wore a red brocade robe. Her figure was seductive, her curves breathtaking, and her oval face radiant and captivating. As her eyes shifted, they held an utterly natural allure.

Ya Fei.