Chapter 365 - Slavery In The UVR Era.
Six days had gone by quickly...
Felix had ended up purchasing only a couple of useful potions and an expensive body artifact that cost him 5 billion SC!
But it was totally worth it since its defenses were capable of holding against even peak 4th stage bloodliners and had other utilities that were too perfect for him.
Naturally, this artifact was using rechargeable engraved Futhark, making it possible for Felix to continue using them for a long time.
Sadly, he didn't get his hands on the Elemental Potion since its final price had climbed to 9 Billion SC!
Felix felt that it was more worth it to commission it as he did previously than get spend that amount on one.
However, since the concoction wasn't 100%, Felix was risking losing all of his materials when its fails.
So, this method could end up costing him even more if he had an unlucky strike and failed three times in a row.
Still, Felix spent four billion SC to secure an entire batch of materials in the Materials Auction. He preferred holding into his game points whenever he could buy anything with coins.
In those six days, Felix had spent a total of 16 billion SC and was left with another 25.
The reason it got increased by 5 billion was due to his Ancient Ruins Maps getting auctioned at a higher price than the minimum estimate.
He was given 20 billion SC at the start by Sir Hecarim and after they got auctioned, Felix received 25 billion SC.
Obviously, the Aquatic Auction had deducted the 20 billion SC that they owned plus 1% fees for each auctioned map.
If it wasn't for this yearly auction event that was packed with filthy rich lords from all corners of the Galaxy, Felix would have merely gotten 15 billion SC off those five maps.
That's because he didn't have the necessary channels to get it into the hands of those high echelons members.
Thankfully, It all worked well and now he still had enough capital to join the biggest Auction in the galaxy while still having secured all of the marked items and materials that he needed...Well, not all of them since he was missing one last thing.
Currently, Felix was walking with Princess Bird towards that auction.
She seemed quite embarrassed as she kept blushing at what Felix was saying.
"Are you sure about coming with me to this one?" Felix stressed, "They are auctioning slaves from multiple races and they would be all nude. Even humans!"
"You are lying to me." Princess Bird replied while lowering her head, "They are not slaves but servants. So, I doubt that the auction would strip them out of their clothes."
"Hehe, you are too naive for your own good." Felix insisted, "Servent is just a nice term to describe slaves in our modern Era to make it morally justifiable to buy and sell people who signed a slave contract." He chuckled, "Do you think that the Auction would dare sell them without showing their assets?"
"So...so what!" Princess Bird stuttered with her ears turning red, "I am old enough to see people naked and I don't mind doing so!"
"Old enough my ass." Felix scoffed, "You are barely 13 years old."
"I am not 13 years old!" Princess Bird yelled in agitation, "I am 16 years old! In my tribe, I am already an adult!"
"I see." Felix shrugged his shoulders, "I guess it's fine then to see other people's genitals together."
Upon hearing so, Princess Bird's heartbeats started accelerating after imagining that sight.
She might be 16 years old and considered as an adult in her Tribe but she was still a child in her heart due to her father spoiling.
For a child like her who still didn't even grab hands with a man, it was a giant leap to straightaway look at nude people with a man.
She tried to toughen it up to not appear like a child but on second thoughts, she realized that she would die out of embarrassment if attended this auction with Felix.
"Cough, my father is calling me." Princess Bird glanced at her bracelet and swiftly took off. However, she didn't forget to leave behind a snarky remark, "Just to let you know! I would have totally gone with you if it wasn't for him! I am not a child!"
'Heheh, finally I got rid of her.' Felix smirked in his mind while increasing his speed towards that auction.
Felix was always planning on buying two or three servants that were loyal to him and could ease up some of his burdens.
However, he never had the capital or the network to buy strong ones either in the 4th stage of replacement and above. As for below? He never considered them as a worthy investment.
After all, he wanted to help his servants continue their integration and it was better if they were higher, making it possible for him to push them into peak 6th stage of replacement.
Felix even had plans of giving them a primogenitor bloodline at their 6th stage of replacement, making them be the strongest bloodliners below Origin Realm!!!
There were hundreds of elements and this meant there were hundreds of primogenitors!
Felix couldn't use all of their bloodlines and it was going to be extremely foolish to not take advantage of the rest.
He had far-reaching plans of creating a loyal platoon of Primogenitor bloodliners that could accompany him and always be on his service!
Naturally, to avoid awakening the primogenitors' consciousness Felix wasn't going to make them reach even 90% in their integration.
After all, he was 100% certain that none of them would betray him or make a move on him due to the Queen's existence supervising every small disloyal thought they had.
However, if the primogenitor woke up and actually possessed their bodies unlike what the Jörmungandr did, those contract restrains would break since the consciousness would die.
Felix would be left to fend for himself against a primogenitor in his servant's body.
With that being said, Felix was only thinking about those matters for now and it wasn't going to happen until quite a long time.
At least until the servants that he was going to buy reach the 6th stage of replacement.
He chose that stage specifically because it was impossible to replace the primogenitor's bloodline without Asna's presence or the owner of the bloodline.
Even using another primogenitor bloodline wouldn't get the job done but make it even worse since those bloodlines would fight it out when there was oppression on them!
That's without considering the fact that the primogenitor would end up waking up before the bloodliner even reached 99% of integration to replace it.
All in all, the 6th stage of replacement was the best stage for other humans to utilize the primogenitor bloodline, unlike Felix's situation.
...
In a short while, Felix could be seen chilling inside a room that somewhat resembled the one he was previously at.
The only difference would be its size as this one was quite bigger. However, there were still just two chairs in it.
In front of Felix, there was a glass window that was peeking into the holographic image of the Queen.
But unlike before, there was a floating circular white stage that could be seen by every window in this auditorium.
"Let's begin." The Queen said expressionlessly while pointing her finger at the center of the circular stage.
Felix paid close attention to the gathered light particles that were shaping up to a human body but had a weird head and a tail.
After the lights went off, Felix exclaimed in shock, "They actually forced one to sign the contract! How??!"
It wasn't just him who reacted this excessively after seeing a pale white boy with furry grey legs and arms. He had a thick fluffy grey tail as well.
Yet Felix's attention was on the boy's face that resembled a fierce winter wolf with his long ears that were on top of his grey hair. He was wearing only his underwear, hiding his sensitive parts.
He appeared like he was dozing off as he could barely keep his eyes open.
"This is Liliam from The Winter Wolf Race in The Bloodstream Galaxy. The Starting Bid is 800 million SC." She carried on indifferently, "His full details are on your screens. You have 10 minutes to read them properly before we begin bidding."
"They really got one from that race." Felix truly had his eyes opened after seeing a member of the Winter Wolf Race who was widely known in the UVR for being impossible to enslave due to their uncompromising dignity.
They had no issues dying and seeing their closed people dying with them if it meant keeping their dignity intact. This made it impossible to make them willingly sign the slave contract.
Naturally, there were other ways to turn one into a slave but none of them would be as good as using the AP bracelet and the Queen.
After all, chips and such that forcefully manipulate the thoughts of the slave were going to bring down the quality of the slave.
Meanwhile, using other ways to threaten their lives like an electrical collar or such wasn't any different than using the AP bracelet.
Those willing to die before signing the contract would also not hesitate to get themselves killed by betraying their owners. Thus, AP bracelets and the Queen were the best of the best when it comes to those immoral matters.
There was also a good advantage of using the slave contract.
That was secrecy!
No one would know if someone was a slave or not since he would be wearing just an AP bracelet like everyone else!
If he was ordered to lie about his slavery, he was bound by the contract to do so!
This would leave anyone wondering if the person they were speaking to was a man of his own or just a slave.
That's quite sickening actually.
The fact that people could get enslaved to keep their lives but no one would ever know about it or try to help them out of their plight...Besides the Queen who could only send an emergency protocol at the first time.
She couldn't do it anymore when someone signs the contract as it makes them property without rights.
This was quite ironic as everyone assumes that with the advancement of technology those immoral issues would be destroyed once and for all. But in reality, they just got even more prevalent.
In this current Era, slaves or 'Queen's Servants' as they were referred to by anti-slavery activists in the UVR, had been already embraced by the majority whether they liked it or not and became a part of the Universal society.
Just like them, Felix also was forced to embrace it after being in contact with the UVR for more than 20 years in his previous life.
He felt disgusted by it at the start, but year after year of seeing his clanmates taking with them their 'Queen's Servants' to missions and surviving only due to them, Felix stopped going against the stream.
If even the SGAlliance didn't want to stop slavery by simply adding a new rule forbidding slavery contracts, why would Felix keep rejecting it when it was going to stay when he was alive and after his death?
Right now, he was merely spectating indifferently those bidders fight tooth and nail to buy that Winter Wolf boy.
He had no intentions of joining the fun as he wasn't interested in raising that kid.
He wanted useful servants and that kid still needed years of effort and resources to turn him into the killing machine his race was known for.
Plus, it was too high profiled to own him as Felix couldn't just keep him hidden in his basement or something.
Lastly, any race besides humans couldn't really utilize the bloodline system since they had their own paths of cultivation and systems.
Felix wanted humans servants for those two reasons.
Bam!
In the end, the Queen struck the gavel after calling for the 3rd time and no one seemed willing to raise the price.
It was a steep price even for Felix who had 20 billion in his pockets.
'8 Billion for a winter wolf kid.' Felix sweated a little bit, 'Hopefully, peak 4th stage bloodliners would remain under 5 billion just like I read online.'