For the next hour or so, the atmosphere on the auction stage remained enthusiastic, but Su Yueli watched with little interest.
Most of the auction items brought onto the stage were high-grade vital flying swords, protective spiritual shields, or top-grade spiritual elixirs used to enhance immortal cultivation mana.
To the lofty cultivators, these things were treasures worth fighting over, but to Su Yueli, they were truly no different from stones on the ground.
She had no spiritual energy fluctuations within her body, so she wouldn't even be able to activate these immortal items if she bought them.
Besides, as a martial artist, she didn't have the deep resources to go red-eyed and recklessly throw spirit stones against those wealthy cultivation clans.
An hour quickly passed, and the ordinary auction items on the stage were all sold out.
The gold-grade auctioneer's face was slightly flushed; he was clearly highly satisfied with the revenue from the first half of the auction.
He took a deep breath, suddenly raised his hands, and shouted at the top of his voice:
“Fellow Daoists, up next is the first grand finale item of this auction!”
As his voice fell, the defensive formation in the center of the auction stage activated with a roar, and a pillar of golden light shot into the sky.
Within the pillar of light, a divine alchemy furnace slowly floated into view.
The moment the divine furnace appeared, a medicinal fragrance instantly swept through the entire hall, and the faint sounds of dragons roaring and phoenixes crying could even be heard from within.
“This furnace is called the Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Furnace, the personal spiritual treasure of a grandmaster alchemist from five hundred years ago! Refining pills with this furnace not only increases the success rate by twenty percent, but it also has a chance to cause the pills to mutate!”
Amplified by spiritual energy, the auctioneer's voice was deafening:
“This item will not accept mid-grade spirit stones! The starting bid is four hundred high-grade spirit stones! Each increment must not be less than fifty!”
Four hundred high-grade spirit stones!
The moment she heard this price, Su Yueli's eyelids twitched violently inside VIP Room Number Eight.
In this cultivation world, a chain of wealth bound everyone.
One high-grade spirit stone was equivalent to a hundred mid-grade spirit stones, and a whopping ten thousand low-grade spirit stones!
Su Yueli silently calculated her own wealth.
Having just carved a chunk of meat off the Cangyun Sect, she had accumulated at most three thousand five hundred and fifty mid-grade spirit stones.
Converting this massive sum, it turned out to be a mere thirty-five point five high-grade spirit stones!
She had thought she was a bit of a new-rich, but now it seemed her entire net worth could not even meet the starting bid of this first grand finale item.
The hall had gone completely mad.
The major sects on the second floor and those hidden, high-status old monsters instantly tore away their disguises and began an almost insane display of wealth.
“Four hundred and fifty high-grade spirit stones!”
“Five hundred!”
“Five hundred and fifty!”
The numbers flashed wildly on the screen. Each increase represented centuries of wealth accumulated by a mid-sized martial family in the mortal world.
Sitting on her mahogany chair, Su Yueli was deeply shaken.
This was her first time so directly witnessing the terrifying heritage possessed by these great cultivation sects that had endured for thousands of years.
In front of these giants, mortal martial arts were indeed pitifully small.
Finally, after a nearly suffocating round of bidding, the white-haired Elder Zhao on the Blue Moon Sect's balcony pressed the final number with an arrogant expression.
“Eight hundred high-grade spirit stones!”
Once this terrifying price was announced, the surrounding VIP rooms instantly fell into a dead silence.
Eight hundred high-grade spirit stones was already the entire expenditure of many mid-sized sects for a whole quarter. Although the others were highly displeased, they could only grit their teeth and give up.
Elder Zhao of the Blue Moon Sect laughed triumphantly and cupped his hands toward the surrounding balconies. “Thank you for letting me win, fellow Daoists. Our Blue Moon Sect's Young Sect Master is currently in seclusion and happens to lack a good furnace. This old man will accept it with thanks today.”
The red-bearded elder of the neighboring Chiyang Sect snorted coldly, his expression rather unsightly.
The members of the Cangyun Sect looked even gloomier, not bothering to pay attention to the Blue Moon Sect's showing off.
Su Yueli had no interest in the overt and covert struggles between these sects. She merely leaned back in her chair, slightly dazed.
The Blue Moon Sect was so vast and wealthy that they could casually throw eight hundred high-grade spirit stones to buy a treasure for Shen Huai'an. Yet back then, Shen Qing'an... had truly been nothing more than a rag that could be discarded at will.
The difference between immortals and mortals was truly cold to the bone.
Right then, a soft knock sounded on the door of the VIP room.
The sweet-looking female receptionist wearing a long dress walked in quickly, respectfully holding a white jade box in her hands.
“Pardon the interruption, guest. The Cangyun Sect just utilized their internal miniature spatial wormhole. Through a short-distance teleportation array, they sent someone to rush back and forth to bring the items you requested. The Wanbao Merchant House has verified them to be correct. This is the item to be handed over to you.”
Su Yueli's eyes flashed sharply.
She reached out to take the white jade box and opened it.
Instantly, three high-grade pills, about the size of longans, dark red in color with faint arcs of bloody lightning rippling across their surfaces, lay quietly on the jade cushion.
A terrifying physical blood qi force, as if an ancient beast was awakening, rushed over her.
Refined from the essence blood of a top-tier Eighth Realm wild demon beast—the Divine Vitality Blood-Generating Pill!
Su Yueli let out a long breath, her anxious heart finally settling down completely.
With these three divine pills, along with that hundred-year-old Blood Essence Grass, she could finally attempt to tear through the fog of cultivation that had troubled her for decades, and touch the barrier of the Eleventh Realm of the martial path.
“Thank you.” Su Yueli placed the jade box into her storage bag, her voice calm.
The receptionist bowed slightly, then walked over to the crystal wall, her expression appearing somewhat mysterious and fanatical:
“Guest, up next is the final, absolute grand finale item of this Wanbao Merchant House auction. This item is highly peculiar. Perhaps... for a high-level martial artist like you, miss, it will have unexpected benefits.”
Su Yueli raised an eyebrow, turning her gaze below.
By now, the gold-grade auctioneer on the stage had assumed a solemn expression.
He did not even cover it with a common red cloth. Instead, four Fourth Realm cultivators jointly carried up an ancient stone platform sealed by countless spiritual energy chains.
Suspended in the center of the stone platform was a broken, pitch-black stone fragment.
The moment this stone fragment appeared, the air in the entire hall seemed to be sucked dry in an instant, and an ancient pressure boomed outward.
“Fellow Daoists!”
The auctioneer's voice even trembled slightly: “This is the peerless divine item that our Wanbao Merchant House went through untold hardships to bring out from a primordial god-fiend forbidden zone—the True Spirit Dharma Form Jade Fragment!
“According to the appraisal of our merchant house's powerful experts, this item is a core true intent fragment used by ancient mighty figures to cultivate the supreme divine ability, the Law of Heaven and Earth! As everyone knows, the Law of Heaven and Earth is an immortal grand divine ability that only supreme figures of at least the Tenth Realm of the immortal path can barely touch!”
As soon as these words were spoken, all the old monsters in the second-floor VIP rooms stood up abruptly.
A dharma form true spirit fragment that only Tenth Realm experts could cultivate!
If they could take this thing back and comprehend even a fraction of it, breaking through their current bottlenecks would be just around the corner!
The auctioneer continued, “However, when our merchant house's patriarch was studying this stone fragment, he discovered a highly peculiar characteristic.
“What is contained within this stone fragment is not pure immortal spiritual energy, but a pure source of spirit and physical body. The patriarch speculates that this item is not only useful to cultivators, but also possesses an unimaginable resonance for mortal Ji Dao martial artists!
“It is said that this item can stimulate a certain spiritual transformation within a martial artist's body, condensing the legendary Martial Soul that has not been seen for thousands of years. Of course, so far, no martial artist in the mortal world has ever successfully cultivated a Martial Soul, so this is merely our patriarch's speculation and comes with no guarantees.
“This item is incomplete. The starting bid—five hundred high-grade spirit stones!”
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