Chapter 194 - Auction
Liu Ming sat in one corner of the hall and coldly watched the many cultivators in the hall. His face was without emotion but there was an extra grey cloak on his head that covered most of his face.
The reasons for him to appear here was partially because of a couple of items on auction. The other was due to receiving Owner Qian’s orders to stay here, to prevent accidents.
The off chance of people making a ruckus is infinitesimally low.
This was because the whole Auction Hall had already been covered with layer after layers of runes by the Hundred Spirit House Formation Masters. Even if a Spirit Master appears and gets confined, one wouldn’t be able to escape such heavy confinement easily.
In addition, for this auction, Owner Qian not only took out guests from the branch shops, he even borrowed over a dozen of Spirit Apostles along with four teams of Shadow Guards from the Third Marquis.
Of which, some of them were like Liu Ming and mingled within the crowd. However, most of them were stationed around the hall in order to act as a warning for others.
After time slowly passed by, when a thin and long incense stick at the front of the hall was about to burn out, someone gave an order and the numerous exits to the hall slowly closed.
At that time, Elder Mian smiling brought Bai Qinghai and three other guests from a side door behind the rock stage. They leisurely went atop the stage.
The old man’s sleeve only shaked and with a flash of white light, the incense disappeared. At the same time, a wood table that was over a dozen feet long appeared on the stone stage.
Seeing this, some of the cultivators made a light “chi” sound in surprise. However, more people remained expressionless.
Although Storage Glyphs and other things like those glyphs needed someone that was above a Spirit Master to operate, there were still some storage things that didn’t need such a high Fa Li cultivation. It was like the Sumuru Conch which had some restrictions.
As for the other four, they stood at various corners of the stage. No matter who wanted to rush onto the stage would be stopped by them.
For normal auctions, the host needed to be someone who had a way with words. However, for this auction which was entirely attended by cultivators, the host needed to be someone with impressive strength. Thus, Owner Qian chose Elder Mian.
Originally, Owner Qian wanted Liu Ming to take care of this auction since his fame in Xuanjing was at its peak. However, Liu Ming declined instantly.
“I’m sure that many of you attending know who I am. However, even if you don’t know me, that’s alright. Just call me Old Mian. The auction that the Hundred Spirit House will be hosted by me. Although this is the first time that our Hundred Spirit House has hosted an auction, I believe that everyone will leave satisfied. Alright, I think that everyone is a little edgy from waiting. I’ll announce that the auction starts now.” After saying a couple of sentences, Elder Mian coughed and announced the start of the auction.
Although his voice wasn’t loud, with the underlying Fa Li, it was clearly transmitted to everyone in the hall.
At the same time, the side door behind the stage opened. Three pretty woman walked forward and each of them held a silver plate that had red silk covering the contents of it. They respectfully placed the plates on the desk after climbing atop the stage.
Elder Mian walked forward without hurry. He opened up the silver plate that was the top most. It revealed a stack of light yellow small flags.
“The first auction item will be these Four Element Varjas Formation Flags. Hehe, I believe that some of you fellows have heard about this. Our house’s guests were ambushed while guarding our auction items to be sent here. In the end, these guests were able to use these formation flags to defend against enemies a couple times their size until the reinforcements arrived. Thus, they were able to leave unscathed. Thus, these formation flags have a special meaning and were thus taken out as the first item for the auction.” After saying such words, Elder Mian’s words paused and looked at the audience with some meaning.
Once these words were said, as expected, it caused quite a few people to whisper among themselves. Many of them showed expressions of interest.
After all, these formation flags were tested with real battle. Although it needed quite a few people to handle it, many forces were still quite interested.
Elder Mian saw this and showed an expression of satisfaction.He believed that this could get quite a good price so he opened his mouth again:
“The Four Element Varjas Formation Flags have a bottom line of ten thousand Spirit Stones. It must be raised by one thousand Spirit Stones each time.”
“Ten thousand Spirit Stones!”
“Twelve thousand!”
“Fifteen thousand!”
The old man’s voice had just dropped but quite a few people had already yelled out prices.
In an instant, the formation flags’ price had neared twenty thousand Spirit Stones.
With this, the people who were still yelling out prices decreased and only four to five people were still yelling.
“Twenty five thousand Spirit Stones.” A slightly hoarse voice finally pushed the price to a new high.
Those that were still trying to raise the price immediately closed their mouth.
The Four Varjas Element Formation only had a defensive power and needed quite a few people to manipulate. This price point was extremely high.
Even though they felt a bit of regret, the auction had just started and they could only forfeit.
“Is there anyone giving a price? No one else? Alright, one...two...three, the Four Varjas Element Formation belongs to this person. Fellow can now go to the back desk to pay the cost for the item.” Elder Mian had obtained a dark green crystal small hammer and hammered down on the table. This determined the owner of the formation flags.
From the place in the hall that the last price was called, a man with a white mask stood up. Under the lead of a waiter, he left the hall via a side door.
“The second auction items are three huge wolf puppets that were originally of the Nine Enchantment Sect. If a person familiar with puppet techniques was using these, each of the puppets could exhibit a strength that is not lower than a Middle Spirit Apostle.” Elder Mian had raised the silk cover to the second plate. He then pointed to the three silver balls at the middle of the plate with a smile.
Then, he clapped his hands and an unfamiliar man that was already waiting behind the stage came up.
The moment the man stepped atop the stage, he didn’t waste another word as he grabbed one of the green balls. He then threw it at the ground and started pointing hand signs at it.
“Ga beng!”
The green ball transformed into a large green wolf that was over ten feet tall. One could even see the bloodshot eyes of the wolf. These details made the wolf look as if it was alive.
Under the control of this unfamiliar man, the huge wolf produced an agility that was beyond the imagination of most people. Whether it was its pounce or bite, it was extremely vigorous and at the end, it spit out several wind blades from the air.
The loose cultivators originally did not have any much interest but as soon as they saw this, their expressions were moved.
However, for Liu Ming who had seen a true Nine Enchantment Sect disciple using a puppet, he only saw the man’s puppeting skills as normal and wasn’t able to be compete with those disciples.
After performing, the unfamiliar man pointed at the huge wolf again, transforming it into a round ball. After placing it back onto the silver platter, the man descended the platform quietly.
“The three Large Wolf Puppets will be auctioned separately. The starting bid will be 3 thousand Spirit Stones with each increase must be above two hundred Spirit Stones!” Catching this moment of awe, Elder Mian started the auction for the three wolf puppets.
“Three thousand Spirit Stones!”
“Three thousand and two hundred!”
“Three thousand and four hundred!”
Due to the excitement from the previous performance, the three puppet beasts were all under extreme popularity, sold at the price of 3600, 3800 and 4200 Spirit Stones each.
Elder Mian, pleased about the rise in price, slowly took off the veil covering the third plate, revealing twenty or so strange looking ashen tokens.
“Twenty Spirit Opening tokens, given by the organization in charge of a Spirit Opening ceremony. If any fellow wishes for his descendants to be a cultivator but are unable to enter the five great sects, then this will be your best bet. But I must be clear, the Hundred Spirit House has only been in contact with this organization once and we are only in charge of helping them auction these tokens, as well as inform each of you the location and time of the ceremony. We hold no responsibility over anything else. Every token’s starting bid will be at 500 Spirit Stones, the minimum bid is an extra 100 spirit stones. May the auction begin!” Elder Mian briefly described the tokens and immediately started the auction.
But it was obvious, the people in the hall are familiar with these tokens, as everyone showed expressions of jovial ecstasy. As the auction started, the prices rose exorbitantly, most being auctioned off at around 1000 Spirit Stones.
Liu Ming didn’t feel that this was strange.
The Spirit Opening token is the same as the token he had used for the ceremony to join the Opening Spirit Ceremony of the Barbarian Ghost sect and it represented a spot in the ceremony.
But the tokens on this auction don’t originate from the big sects. They are held by loose cultivators with their own resources and performed away from sight.
These kind of Spirit Opening Ceremonies were held with a lack of resources and the people performing the ceremony had lacking Fa Lis and experience. Thus, the number of participants and the chances of success were much lower than the rituals from the other great sects. But they were at a low price with a chance for success. The ritual is still sought after by many and were the cause of countless loose cultivators.
At least in this hall, nine out of ten people became Spirit Apostles this way.
As the twenty tokens were auctioned off, Elder Mian’s smile appeared to be even brighter. As he clapped his hands, three maids walked onto the platform.
But this time, the plates in the maid’s hands weren’t covered and instead showed 3 small red bottles.
“The next auctioned items, I believe are yearned by many in their dreams. These three bottles all originate from the same Demonic Pit, Pure Aura Qi!” Elder Mian glanced at the three small bottles. His eyes showing burning hot passion.