“We are here,” after doing this for five more times, they finally felt the tunnel was going up the ground. The two of them didn’t know how come such long tunnels and paths were built under the narrow area of the central region.

“I bet these tunnels and mazes work for all buildings of other families,” Hye commented, and the merchant just stuck to his silence.

The tunnel they were walking in ended abruptly at a big hall. Unlike the gloomy dark colour inside the tunnels, unlike the rocky cold nature of rocks making these tunnels, this hall was totally different.

The first thought that flashed in Hye’s mind was that this was a palace main hall or something. Lots of gold colours appeared all over the place, with many statues and decorations, paintings on the walls, and even thick and expensive looking carpets on the ground.

The hall was hundreds of metres in length and width, with many big sparkling chandeliers hanging down from a dome shaped ceiling. Everything around told too much about how rich the owner of this place was, and he soon saw the owner of this place.

A big, thick wooden door opened like it was made out of thin paper, exposing a large group of vicious and strong looking guards. All of them got scars over their faces and exposed arms, armed up with heavy armour and wielding their weapons as if they were about to start a fight or something.

After a few hundred of these walked in, they surrounded Hye, the merchant, and the lady nymph in circular layers. And then more guards appeared, alongside a twenty year old young lady.

She wore a short dark blue gown, filled with shining fine scales like fingernails, wearing a long soft golden red cape that extended for metres behind her.

She wore a thin yellow veil, with sounds of metallic ornaments hitting each other while walking, alongside the sound of high heels knocking on the ground like a woodpecker.

Without the need to ask, Hye knew she was the person he came here to visit. He could see partially through that veil, seeing her beautiful features, shining blue eyes, with long and curly brown hair that expanded to cover up her shoulders.

And yet he wasn’t allured or tempted by any of that. To him, she was attractive in another way, seeing her as the gate towards climbing his way inside the ruling families of this world.

“I believe you are the human called Hye, right?” She stopped just fifty metres away from him, separated from him by ten layers of guards as if he was the deadliest villain in the world.

“It’s me,” Hye ignored such a crazy sense of insecurity this lady had, and didn’t care about any of the hostile gazes of the guards that were issued at him without any reason, “I’m here for business.”

“Hmm, I heard about what you did since coming to our world,” the lady paused, “you are indeed hungry for our crystals.”

“I just came out after ending my apocalypse,” Hye shrugged, and she gave him a deeper look, as if she was sizing up.

“I heard of many seeking the crystals, but no one ever managed to get as much as you in such a short time. Why do you want more then? They are more than sufficient to take you all the way up to the third stage.”

“It’s my business.”

“And they are my crystals!”

For a moment there, Hye felt like this young lady was acting a bit childish. And just before he’d turn around to leave, drop dealing with her family and look for others, the merchant who led him here cleared up his throat.

“My esteemed princess, he is here with tons of bones, ready to sell them to us in return for our goods.”

“He got enough crystals already,” the young lady still acted arrogant and stubborn, “I’m ready to negotiate about other goods, but not the crystals.”

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“That’s indeed true,” yet unlike what he expected, she blatantly admitted it, “you made our people go crazy, even Uncle Lam next to you went to empty our stores from crystals. If they already sold you everything we got, how do you expect us to sell you anymore?”

“That…”Hye never expected he’d be faced with such a situation. He asked everyone he met to bring all the crystals they could, never imagined he’d end up looting all the crystals, ending up empty handed when he met this young lady.

He wanted to make a scary deal with her, not to just impress her, but also to impress the ones standing behind her. Like this he’d secure his way to the top, forcing her family’s and other families’ higher ups to come and meet him.

But right now, he was met with such a tight spot, one that he couldn’t extricate himself from.

“Isn’t there a big auction happening right now?” the merchant this princess called Uncle Lam suddenly said, making Hye look at the young lady in expectation.

“Hmm… You want him to take part there? But you do know he has to pay a heavy fee to enter, without any guarantee to buy anything.”

“Oh, so this is what’s really happening here then,” Hye thought to himself, realising this little play this young lady was performing with him. Her family wasn’t running short on any crystals, he greatly doubted that.

Even if they ran short on them, a thing he never bought, then they could easily have asked him to wait until they replenished their emptied stores. Or better, they’d just buy all the crystals available in the market from other families and sectors, before selling them to him at a higher price rate or something.

Yet they weren’t after the little scraps of bones he was throwing to them, they wanted to make a huge deal including tons of his bones.