"If I've answered all your questions, then you can begin picking stones now," the old president said with a louder voice than normal to initiate the competition.

The onlookers who had nothing better to do had their excitement's bubbling up as the old man initiated the beginning of the competition but to their utter dismay, the two contestants did not move from their positions even after hearing the old president initiate the competition.

Though both Davies and Lee Jung stood rooted in place, not moving even after they were supposed to, they were doing so for different reasons.

Davies's eyes swept across the floor looking at all the shops and a thought appeared in his head,

'How many stalls even are there?' 

The establishment didn't have more than a stall selling stones on this floor as they rented it to other people who sold stones and collected a certain percentage of the sale as well as rent for the stall.

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway," he sighed and turned over to look at Lee Jung, who surprisingly hadn't moved from his place,

"Why haven't you gone ahead to pick any stones?" Davies asked bewildered as to why Lee Jung was waiting behind.

"Oh me, I'd win the competition even with my eyes closed, so I decided to be magnanimous and give you a head-start,"

"It wouldn't even be a competition I didn't give you this much of a handicap," Lee Jung spoke condescendingly with a smirk on his face as he looked at Davies like he had the situation in the bag. He obviously looked down on Davies's ability to even present a challenge to him. This could be seen from the condescending look he wore on his face and the aura of confidence that unconsciously emanated from him.

"..." Davies was lost for words at what he had just said and covered his face with his right hand. Shortly after he began to shake, his body beginning to spasm.

The onlookers watched with stunned expressions, wondering what was happening, but before they could give much thought, the sound of bursting laughter filled the air.

"Pffffft, Hahahhahahahahahah," Davies was laughing so hard that tears could be seen at the corner of his eyes.

His laughter surprised everyone as they couldn't understand why he was laughing, after all, there was nothing funny about Lee Jung's mocking words to him earlier, but the only person that could understand the reason for his laughter was the one that was laughing so hard he had to hold on to his companion's shoulder to stay upright.

Lee Jung also didn't understand why Davies was laughing so hard as he had been trying to mock him with his words and not leave him in stitches. Davies laughing in response to being mocked rubbed him the wrong way. For now, he could not do anything, but he would make sure to show him who was boss by destroying him completely once he moved to pick his stones.

Davies's laughter slowly began to fade after a few more seconds of hard laughter and he looked at Lee Jung with a smile that was a remnant of his laughing fit earlier.

"Admirable effort for being able to undermine me this much…"

"You'll regret those words of yours in a bit," he continued, his smile morphing into a challenging one as he began to walk toward the middle of the stone stalls.

Since he didn't have a microphone to transmit his voice to the whole area for what he wanted to do next, he used the next best thing,

"Ahem," Davies's voice echoed across the room despite him speaking at his normal volume. This was the effect of using mana to project his voice and amplify it. Of course, it wasn't something that just any Mega could do, and it was only possible for him to do it because of his exceptional control of his mana.

"I hope everyone can hear me," he continued after clearing his throat, shocking the people present on the floor as he was somehow able to get his voice to be so loud without the aid of any sound amplification tools.

After looking around and seeing that everyone seemed to be able to hear his words, he continued,

"I hear that the price rate for the stones is a million powerstone dollars apiece… but as a representative of Imperium Technologies, I offer to buy every single stone from you all for two million per stone,"

No sooner had he finished his words than the whole floor had gone up in an uproar with the stone traders not wasting a second and rushing towards Davies with their card readers to quickly make the transactions.

Every one of them was focused on this opportunity to make double the profit, especially since the buyer was a representative of Imperium Technologies, an organization whose reputation preceded it.

Unlike the stone traders who were in a frenzy to sell their wares, everybody else in the room had been stunned into silence with thoughts like these going through their minds,

'Can this even be done?'

'Isn't this against the rules?'

'What in the absolute fuckery?'

'Da fuck?!' 

Lee Jung who was supposed to be competing with Davies could only watch in absolute shock at Davies's completely absurd move as it was beyond anybody's expectation. It was not even a move that could be classified as sane, yet Lee Jung himself had been acting confident and had given Davies a supposed head-start so that things could be 'challenging', not knowing that he had shot himself in the foot with such a statement.

That didn't mean he wouldn't complain about it and that was exactly what he did.

Lee Jung turned to the old president of Diamonds in the Rough, who was just as stunned as the other onlookers,

"Can this even be allowed?" he asked with bitterness in his voice as he understood that if Davies bought all the stones, then there was no way that he could even compete.

While he was thinking of what would happen to the competition if Davies managed to buy all the stones in the building, he had forgotten that according to the rules that had been laid out earlier, Davies had not broken the rules by deciding to buy all the stones even though it was a very excessive move that not many could even think up, not to mention having the capability to actually buy all the stones that were being sold, after all, there were well over a thousand power stones being sold in this place.

Davies would have to spend a few billion powerstone dollars on this move of his, yet he didn't mind as he had tons of money to waste away, but it was mostly because he didn't really have any other options to go against Lee Jung in this competition as it would be a waste to even try to compete fairly with Lee Jung. 

He couldn't come out on top unless he used this kind of extreme method. Luckily, he had prepared this much wealth and influence in case of situations like this.

He had succeeded in using money to slap fate across the face, but he was just starting as there was still a lot he had to do before he could come out on top.

The old president finally came out of his thoughts after hearing Lee Jung speak to him about whether the situation could be allowed. Deep down the old man knew that there was no rule against what Davies was doing, and it was because of this that he didn't take action immediately and try to stop Davies's actions.

That and the fact that he was greatly shocked by Davies's means were what had him rooted to the spot and gaping in absolute surprise like a goldfish, after all, what Davies had done was too shocking.

That said, he didn't want the opportunity for Lee Jung to gain the moonstone to disappear just like that, so he first stealthily sent a text that told the stall that belonged to his establishment to not sell any stones to Davies, after which he cleared his throat and wanted to try to talk Davies out of buying all the stones, but he couldn't even get through the crowd of stone traders that had crowded Davies's group.

Realizing that it would be a waste of effort to try to speak with Davies who was smack dab in the middle of the frenzied crowd, he decided to wait outside the circle and make even more preparations for Lee Jung to be able to win.

He sent another text to the stall and told them to bring out the stones with a high chance to have valuable power stones inside of them, hoping that Lee Jung could still defeat Davies with very valuable power stones.

After sending the text, he called Lee Jung over and in a low voice, told him about his preparations for him to still have a chance at winning the stone gambling competition. Lee Jung was thankful to the old man for his considerations and regained his confidence as he had the hope that he would still be able to defeat Davies as long as he was able to pick up a few stones.