Chapter 199: Greedy Guildmaster
199 Greedy Guildmaster
"Buy my pills?" Cao Mao tilted his head and frowned.
"Yes. Didn\'t you leave several pills at our guild for inspection? The inspection result is out, and we\'re pleased to inform you that we would like to buy all of your pills."
"So, you\'re not putting my pills in the auction?"
"T…That\'s our guild master\'s idea. I\'m just a messenger, sir."
Cao Mao had been releasing his killing intent after he had heard that the Tang Clan wanted to buy his items instead of putting them in the auction.
In novels, sometimes, auction hosts negotiated with main characters to buy their wares at a cheaper rate than the potential selling price in auction events.
Here, an auction host was about to do the same. Cao Mao didn\'t need to verify the buying price since many auction participants would surely buy them at a higher price.
Still, Cao Mao had many ways to take advantage of the greedy guild master.
"Do you know how much your boss is willing to pay to buy my wares?"
"I don\'t know, sir."
"Wow, you\'re a useless messenger. Fine. I\'ll go see him myself," Cao Mao turned to Ju Chen, Ju Shoufen, and Pang Lingming, "I\'m going out for a bit."
"I\'ll go with you."
"Me, too."
Ju Chen and Ju Shoufen wanted to tag along. On the other hand, Pang Lingming waved his hand, "I\'ll stay to guard the manor."
Cao Mao nodded, "I guess it\'s time to pay them a visit."
.
Ju Chen and Ju Shoufen covered themselves with hijabs and face veils. They dressed as women from desert clans to hide their beauty and avoid complications.
The girls followed Cao Mao and the butler to the Tang Merchant Guild.
When they arrived, the butler guided them to the VVIP room on the top floor of their guild building. The butler told them to wait for their guild master in the room.
The VVIP room was unique. Their waiting lounge interior was made of white wood, which emitted a soothing aroma. The furniture, such as tea tables, chairs, bookshelves, and cabinets were made of the same mysterious white wood.
The flowery and earth-like scent made Ju Shoufen\'s mood brighter. She sometimes laughed even though she was just looking around aimlessly. However, Ju Chen and Cao Mao, who were experienced with abnormal status effects, sensed something in the air.
Strange yin Qi was influencing their mind and their mood.
Ding
\\u003cWarning, you are in the middle of a hypnosis array.\\u003e
\\u003cYou have resisted against a hypnosis spell.\\u003e
Cao Mao snorted and smirked. As he had expected, the guildmaster of this merchant organization decided to play dirty. He took out a record orb and activated it before he turned to his followers.
"Chen\'er, grandma, don\'t breathe and don\'t digest the Qi in the air. We\'re under a hypnosis array."
Ju Shoufen smacked her head for letting her guard down. She circulated her fire element Qi from her dantian to her brain and other parts of her meridians.
Strange yin Qi was driven out of her body or burnt to nothingness. The elder\'s mind was clear, reverting back to a stubborn grumpy grandma.
After waiting for 10 minutes, the array ran out of its energy, and the sweet aroma was gone.
As soon as the hypnosis array stopped working, a 150cm-tall chubby elder ambled into the room.
The elder\'s round face was similar to Tang Fan, but his eyes were so small that no one could see his pupils. His long braided black hair wiggled and swiped his round butt as if he farted and the hair was fanning away the smell.
His robes were glittering in white light. Aside from the normal clothes, his outer robe was made from white jade threads. It was a sky-grade treasure with defensive properties against mind attacks.
Thinking that his three guests were under the influence of the hypnosis array, the guildmaster rubbed his hands and laughed, "Welcome, welcome. My name is Tang Deming. I\'m the guildmaster of Tang Merchant Guild."
Ju Shoufen and Ju Chen glared at the shorty. Before they could unleash their killing intent, Cao Mao waved his hand and gestured them not to stand down.
The two women retracted their killing intent. They waited to see what this perverted sicko planned to do in this situation.
Cao Mao turned around and laughed. He cupped his fist to greet the guildmaster.
"I thought that I would meet a broker, but I get to meet the guildmaster instead. What an honor! This junior, Mao Miaomiao, greets Senior Tang."
"Good, good!" Tang Deming grinned. He assumed that he could take advantage of this hypnotized young man, "You have deposited several pills to our guild for inspection, right? I\'ve come here to inform you that you\'ve passed the test."
"Oh! That\'s nice!"
"That\'s nice, indeed. Because you\'ve passed the test, we would like to buy pills from you."
"Very good. How much will I get?"
Seeing that Cao Mao didn\'t bring up the auction topic, Tang Deming sneered, "We\'ll buy the superior orc strength pill for 100 refined stones."
Cao Mao still had his fake smile, but he inwardly cursed the merchant for being too greedy. He had expected that the upgraded aphrodisiac pill\'s market price should be higher than that.
"I see. What about my other pills? How much will I get?"
Cao Mao referred to five other pills that he had deposited to the guild.
Yang Gu Pill
Origin Yin Recovery Pill
Origin Yang Recovery Pill
Steroided Marijuana Pill
Sexy Pill
Four of the five pills were the new mutated medicines that Cao Mao managed to obtain during his experiment. Aside from Origin Yin or Yang pills, which were beneficial for human cultivators, the rest was dangerous drugs.
Origin Recovery Pills were self-explanatory as they could replenish energy for cultivators. Because they were made from Cao Mao\'s life essence, they were more effective than common recovery pills in the market. Still, many high-grade pills had the same effect as Cao Mao\'s, but they were made from rarer herbs.
Steroided Marijuana Pill was made by an accident as Cao Mao processed the wrong ingredient. He picked a marijuana flower instead of a bloodsucking flower when he was trying to create a stronger yin recovery pill. As a result, a silly creation was born.
Normally, smoking marijuana by using joints, buds, or bongs could potentially damage one\'s brain. However, this STEROIDED Marijuana Pill was a dangerous drug, which could trick the drug consumers that their strength increased. But in reality, they got weaker, and they would eventually fall into a deep sleep for weeks, months, years, decades, or the rest of their lives, depending on their resistance against the drug effect.
Lastly, Sexy Pill was made with the system shop\'s [Blood Essence] as its core ingredient. Instead of consuming the [Blood Essence] and completing the Incubus Bloodline Quest, Cao Mao bought the blood essence from the system shop and used it in alchemy for fun.
The fun experiment got more hilarious when he made the pill. The system revealed its effect, warning him not to consume it, or he would turn into an opposite gender.
Cao Mao had fun feeding the pill to random male clones to see its effect. As he had expected, all of them changed into sexy women. However, the pill effect only lasted 10 minutes for the first consumption, and the duration got shorter after the second pill onward.
Of course, Cao Mao didn\'t dare enough to dual-cultivate with temporary women.
Cao Mao simply had fun with the pills when he had free time in the ITS. He used to summon two male clones at once and fed them aphrodisiac pills. Then, he fed one of them the sex-change pill. After that, Cao Mao let the two horny clones banging each other until the effect wore out.
When the sex-changed clone reverted back to its male form, the D of another male was still inside him. The scene became gory and disturbing as the D melted and merged with another clone\'s body, connecting the two clones as one. When the D was pulled off, blood and guts splashed everywhere like an episode of Happy Tree Friends.
The sexy pills were interesting, but they were useless for Cao Mao. At best, he could use it to prank protagonists or other villains, or they could be used to temporarily disguise himself and his allies.
Now, Tang Deming obtained one of each pill from Cao Mao as samples. He wanted to buy more.
"I\'ll pay 5 refined stones for the Yang Gu Pill, one refined stone for each recovery pill, 3 for Steroided Marijuana Pill, and 10 refined stones for Sexy Pill."
Tang Deming dumped the price to point that Ju Shoufen and Ju Chen\'s faces distorted in disgust. However, Cao Mao was still smiling.
Cao Mao clapped his hands, "Then, I would like to take my pills back."
"What?" Tang Deming was surprised. Nobody refused him whenever he used this array room to discuss businesses, "Why? My offer is absolutely generous! You won\'t get this price somewhere else!"
"Please," Cao Mao\'s smiling face slowly darkened. Yet, his eyes curved up as if he found the conversation hilarious. "You are very good at cracking a joke, Guildmaster Tang. You should work for a circus somewhere rather than being a guildmaster of a financial clan. But hey, we\'re talking business here. Please be serious."
While smiling, Cao Mao unleashed his killing intent. An illusion avatar with the appearance of a muscular orc appeared behind him, sending a death glare at the fat shorty.
Seeing that Cao Mao wanted blood, Ju Chen and Ju Shoufen followed suit. Ju Chen summoned her pseudo avatar, a female monster ghoul, while Ju Shoufen had her real flame crow ready.
The killing intent of the 4th-stage, the 5th-stage, and the 6th-stage cultivators resonated. They locked on to Tang Deming.
The fat merchant fell from his chair. Since his cultivation strength was merely at the bone refinement realm, he got scared and wet his pants.
"S-S-Sixth stage expert!? But the intel said you were just a lone traveler!?"
Cao Mao maintained his smiling face. He walked toward the fat man and sat next to him. Then, he tilted his head to the side while staring into Tang Deming\'s eyes, "So, if I were a lone traveler, you would have just simply tricked me into selling expensive pills for a cheap change? That\'s an interesting way to do business, Guildmaster. Now, let\'s be civilized and continue our talk. We\'ll let you start over and correct your mistakes. If you can\'t, you know what\'s gonna happen."
"Y-You dare threaten me!? I\'m the guildmaster of Tang Merchant Guild! We are under the protection of a 7th-stage expert! You dare offend us!?"
"Meh, you won\'t live very long if you keep this up. Are you going to correct your mistakes and start over, or do you want to see a magic how I make a pen disappear? Oh, we\'ll make sure to spread the words about this room and your action so far. We have everything recorded in this orb."
Cao Mao took out an orb from his clothes. It was an expendable artifact, which could record everything in the room as if it was a 3D camera. This item was one of many gadgets that he had looted from dead 5th-stage experts, who had come to steal Cao Mao\'s Hell Tribulation reward.
Tang Deming got cold feet. At first, he thought that he could trick this na?ve youngster into selling all his pills by using this hypnosis array, prepared by a 6th-stage expert. However, with so many strong cultivators by Cao Mao\'s side, it changed everything.
The fat merchant prostrated on the ground, "I-I\'m in the wrong! I\'m s-so sorry!"
"Good. Now, can we discuss the actual price and how we can put our items in the auction event?"
"Y-Yes, young master Mao."