Mediocre Master: I Can See Your Hidden Potential! (A Xianxia Sect-Building LitRPG)

62. A Sect Leader’s Guide to Insider Trading

by inkadmin

I meet Shen Qiao at the usual alley. His ledger is open, his scarred nose wrinkled in concentration.

“Silver Hall first,” he says. “That’s the mortal side. Qi Condensation bracket only. Mortals can’t follow Foundation Establishment fights, so the hall doesn’t bother offering what they can’t judge.”

He flips a page.

“Bets are in silver. Low-grade stones are accepted, but they convert them at poor rates. Silver Hall takes a bigger cut. Early rounds use bucket betting.”

“Bucket betting?”

“Drop your coins in a bucket for the fighter you want. End of round, they count the buckets. Winners split the loser’s pot, minus the hall’s cut.”

It’s primitive but effective. It shares the same logic as horse betting on Earth.

“Top eight becomes fixed odds,” Shen Qiao continues. “Before then, there are too many matches, too many fighters so the clerks don’t try to set odds for every early round.”

“Reasonable.”

“I don’t know how accurate the counts are,” he admits. “Most of what I learned came from servants, kitchen boys, and gamblers who had already lost money. They complain more honestly than winners. One of the stable hands said the Silver Hall gets loud enough that the clerks stop caring about small mistakes. Another said if you win too much in silver, they just pay you and forget you. If you win too much in low-grade stones, they remember your face. One of the servants here got spooked when a cultivator kicked them out after winning big a few months ago.”

“Good to know.”

“Servants place bets for cultivator masters,” he adds.

I look up from the ledger.

“Allowed?”

“No.”

“Enforced?”

“… Only when the sums get large enough for enforcement to be profitable.”

Of course. Some principles transcend worlds.

“What does that look like?” I ask.

“Small bets are ignored. A servant placing ten silver on behalf of a young master? Nobody cares. A steward placing fifty low-grade stones across six counters? Someone starts asking why a mortal has that much money and who gave it to him.” Shen Qiao taps the page. “People say the Silver Hall dislikes schemes more than cheating.”

“Difference?”

“Cheating embarrasses one clerk. Schemes make the entire hall look stupid.”

I consider that. The Crimson Dragon Alliance bankrolled both halls. That meant they could afford small leakage. Small leakage created volume, which created noise. Noise hid ordinary corruption, servant bets, drunken wagers, and small mortal hustles. But anything large enough to imply organization would be treated differently.

“And the Jade Hall?” I ask.

Shen Qiao’s expression flattens slightly.

“Harder. Cultivators only. I can’t get inside. Most mortals only know what they hear from their masters complaining afterward.” He glances down at his notes. “Spirit stones only. Lower cut. All brackets. More complicated bets. But I don’t trust the details enough to report them as fact.”

I close the ledger and hand it back.

“You did well.”

“I did little.”

“You learned what you could, noted what you couldn’t confirm, and didn’t lie about the difference.” I meet his eyes. “That is more useful than a confident liar.”

“… I’ll keep asking.”

“Carefully.”

“I know.”

It’s no surprise he can’t gather as much information. How many cultivators are willing to explain how the Jade Hall works to a mortal who can’t even use it? I make that my goal for tomorrow.

The next day, I walk the shopping district. A shopkeeper selling mid-grade pills. A formation master between commissions. A wandering cultivator who has been in the city for three months and is already down thirty mid-grade stones on bad bets. I buy things, I haggle, I chat. I ask about the tournament, about the fights, about who looks strong this year. Most are happy to talk. Cultivators love to talk about themselves.

The picture of the Jade Hall forms slowly.

Cultivators only. There were specialty bets available. Win condition like knockout, submission, ring-out, death. Even breakthroughs mid-battle, a fighter advancing a stage during a match is rare but not unheard of. The odds change accordingly.

“Saw it once,” the wandering cultivator says. “Foundation Establishment Fourth Stage, losing badly. Then he broke through to Fifth mid-fight. Turned everything around. The payout was enormous—no one had bet on it. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.”

By the time afternoon arrives, I have what I need to confidently draw my plan. I continue shopping, seeing it as a chance to find what I need. Bloodline awakening manuals, specifically. The results are insulting. The first shopkeeper shows me something called Tiger Blood Awakening Manual, bound in red leather and displayed behind glass like a priceless inheritance. The cover has a roaring tiger stamped in gold, which is always a bad sign.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The Gaze flickers.

Tiger Blood Awakening Manual – Grade: Low

Type: Body Refinement Manual (Qi Condensation)

Contents: Aggressive breathing exercises, meat-heavy diet recommendations, three drawings of tigers. No bloodline theory.

Verdict: This awakens nothing except indigestion.

I close the manual.

“How much?”

“Fifty low-grade stones,” the shopkeeper says, smiling.

I stare at him. He lowers it to forty. I keep staring.

“Thirty-five?”

I put the manual back.

The second shop has a Dragon Marrow Resonance Scripture. For one brief, beautiful moment, hope rises in my chest. Then I read the first page.

It is a collection of vague statements about “feeling the dragon within the bones,” followed by a marrow-strengthening exercise copied from a common soldier’s body-tempering drill. Someone has replaced every mention of “spine” with “dragon spine”.

Dragon Marrow Resonance Scripture – Grade: Trash

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