"What do you mean? She's right—"

"BRING IT ON, YOU DAFT LITTLE BASTARDS!"

^By the phoenix's ashes.^

The moment the thief with the money was about to leave the scene with his ill-gotten gains, Alice immediately appeared in front of him and clotheslined him with an aether-enhanced arm.

Like something out of a cartoon, the would-be thief got smacked in the face and dramatically flipped backwards as she released the sack of money into the air.

In a moment of simultaneous whimsy, the bag of money landed in Alice's hand at the exact same time that the thief landed on the ground.

"Well, that takes care of act one," Alice proclaimed while securing the bag of money to her belt so it wouldn't get lost again. "Now on to act two."

Alice's actions were anything but subtle, so the moment she clotheslined the thief, the guys who helped to create the situation in the first place began to make moves to attack her. Of course, they weren't so brazen as to do so out in the open, where they would be immediately pinned as the culprits.

Instead, they made sure to make the situation even more chaotic.

^Shit! That bitch got Esteban!^

^What do we do now?!^

^Use that whistling trick of yours!^

^Right!^

In the midst of the current scavenging frenzy, one of the instigators channeled their aether into their mouths and began to release an enhanced whistle from their lips. This sound didn't stun or cause anyone to particularly notice the whistler. Instead, it enflamed the already high passions of everyone already involved and turned this moment of chaos into a full-blown riot.

Nobody knew who threw the first punch, but it was enough of a violent cover for the instigators of this moment to move in to attack Alice.

"Come on! We outnumber her six to one!" one of the instigators shouted as they moved in to take the bag of money from her.

Alice was all set to swing around a roundhouse kick to put a stop to this, but then a pair of knights in shining armor came in to save the day.

Well, to be more precise, Antonio and Olstenna intercepted two of the attackers in order to blow off some steam and boredom.

"Hey, they were my prey!"

"Oh come on, there's plenty to share," Olstenna chided.

"Besides, it looks like things are about to get even hairier from here on out!"

While all of this was occurring, off to the sides, two developments were occurring.

On one side, Hurricroak and the protokaijin twins were watching to make sure nothing went awry.

[Well, ain't this a hoot and a half.]

On the other, a group of men were making their way out of a hidden alcove in an alleway and into this riot.

"What the fuck?"

And the leader of this entourage was…mildly amused.

"Looks like the people of this city actually do know how to put on a riot without us being involved…wonder if there's anything to gain from this…"

…Okay, you can see where this is going so we're going to change back to the other scenes for the time being…

'It's just one thing after another today, isn't it?' Zhen Liu asked himself as he tried to process all of the information and new developments that were flooding his brain. 'Okay, I'm going to have to address this shit in a particular order before things go absolutely sideways.'

[Are you sure you don't want to just let us off the leash and handle it ourselves?] Hurricroak suggested. [I mean, what's the worst that could happen?]

'Well...'

…Meanwhile, in the place where Zhen Liu was muttering to himself…

"You know, I keep forgetting how much untapped funding that Xiao Liu sits upon with his kaijin at the library," Jinju Ren noted as she watched yet another auction conclude. "I've honestly lost track of how much money we've made from this endeavor."

"By my calculations, the auctions we have posted have made a little over two hundred million gold pieces despite being mostly from unknown creators or copies from the library," Zhong Wei answered for his student. "Assuming we don't attempt to buy anything in the next auctions after ours."

"Really? Damn."

"Are...are you sure we should be focusing on that and not the fact that I think I just heard the declaration of the sixth blood feud in a row down there?" Lythero asked as he felt the sheer bloodlust that was rising from the showroom floor below them. "Seriously, I can literally see some of them sharpening knives as we speak."

The auctions in the Carved Dreams Auction house were going...not necessarily peacefully, but profitably for him and his friends.

The main reason for this statement was because at this point in time, they had managed to sell off most of the aether treasures they had brought with them and had sold off all of the copied aether arts to parties that were incredibly interested in them.

Many of the aether arts that Zhen Liu provided were intermediate-grade Ethereal aether arts, with a handful of major ones and a couple of recently earned World aether arts for good measure. In other words, these were all aether arts that were already valuable by themselves.

However, what Zhen Liu failed to realize about these aether arts before submitting them to be auctioned off was that several of them were originally the "secret technique" from sects and societies that used to be great hundreds and thousands of years ago before inevitably collapsing due to internal and external influences.

And that these types of organizations had a tendency to spawn several dozen or so inheritor organizations that would love to get their hands back on these aforementioned manuscripts and reclaim their lost legacy.

However, that also meant that there were a ton of rival organizations that thought they were the better inheritor in comparison to their rivals.

In other words, especially during this particular auction, there were a lot...of let's say passionate words being thrown around.

Passionate was a more accurate term because if they said the words that they were actually feeling to say at this point in time, many of them would be tossed out and forced to surrender the goods that they so desperately fought over just moments ago.

Of course, that didn't stop them from verbalizing their hatred towards each other in more...elegant ways.

"I see the dogs of the Third Ancestor are just as vile and opportunistic as he was. Always stealing what rightfully belonged to others."

"Stealing? Stealing?! May I need to remind you that the great schism occurred because your ancestor tried to coup ours?! This isn't theft; this is simply a retrieval of something that belonged to us in the first place."

"Say that again to my face, you bastard!"

"I'll say it when I gut you like a fish!"

More than once security had to be called; more than once, people had to be kicked out of the auction house.

Either way, today was rather...unusual.

"Okay, I can see that some of the items we have auctioned have…inflamed some passion amongst our guests," the auctioneer commented with a soothing tone in an attempt to get people to stop murdering each other. "But keep in mind that we have many more exciting items that are about to be auctioned here today that will hopefully not cause any more feuds. So let's move on to our first aether treasure for the day."

"Yes!"

"Finally!"

While aether arts were well and good to have in one's arsenal, many of the foreigners came here today to get their hands on exotic aether treasures.

As such, the moment this announcement was made, practically everyone in the audience forgot about all of the feud declarations from earlier and focused solely on what was about to be auctioned.

Surprisingly, this first item was something that piqued even the interest of Zhen Liu and his friends.

"Our first item for the day is a Silver-tiered aether puppet provided by the Beautiful Marionette Society," the auctioneer announced as their assistants rolled out a glass case containing an exquisitely designed aether puppet that looked humanoid but unmistakably like a puppet as well.

The aether puppet in question had an androgynous build, a featureless faceplate with a pair of eyes made of gemstones, and a rather obvious indent in the center of the chest.

If one didn't make the rookie mistake of not checking the puppet with their aether, they would assume that this puppet was at the Bronze tier or lower.

"This puppet here is none other than one of the Beautiful Marionette Society's famed 'Growth-Model' Gem puppets. Famed for their modularity and their ability to gain power based on the aether gem embedded in their chest, these puppets are usually never sold to the public. However, as a special bonus for today, the Beautiful Marionette Society has promised to sell ten of them today!"

"Wooo!"

Most of the audience cheered at this announcement, but...a certain group of people in a particular privacy box had a very different reaction.

"Wait a minute..."