The auction hall was shaped like a wok, with the auction platform at the central base. There was no bidding array, only a single display screen showing just the price, nothing else.
In this auction, bids were made by shouting, with the highest final price securing the item. This was quite different from the auctions Lan Xiaobu had attended before, where bidders wrote their offers at their seats, filtered through an array.
In other words, this auction reverted to a primitive format. But for those attending, no matter how large the venue, the distance was negligible.
Half a day passed quickly, and a graceful fairy stepped onto the auction platform. The hall, already quiet, grew utterly silent upon her entrance.
Those attending such an auction came with specific goals. Unlike ordinary cultivators, they wouldn’t buy items they might merely find useful. For desired items, they’d bid with everything they had. For unwanted ones, even if offered for free, many wouldn’t take them.
The fairy, without any preamble, held up a red bottle and said, “This is a supreme dao pill, the Jiqing Dao Pill, solely used for Creation Realm cultivators to break through to the Fourth Step of the Great Path. The base price is five high-grade dao veins. You may now bid.”
Lan Xiaobu knew the dao pills here differed from those he understood before. These served the Great Path directly. Dao pills had seven grades, but since arriving, Lan Xiaobu had only seen high-grade ones. A supreme Jiqing Dao Pill was entirely new to him.
Above supreme dao pills were post-chaos dao pills, then chaos dao pills.
However, a dao pill for the Fourth Step held no interest for Lan Xiaobu. It was quickly bought for seventeen high-grade dao veins.
Seventeen high-grade dao veins for a pill to reach the Fourth Step? If Lan Xiaobu were still at the Creation Realm, he wouldn’t have bothered. With his path and seventeen high-grade dao veins, he could have crossed into the Fourth Step without needing such a pill.
Though the supreme dao pill was impressive, it didn’t catch Lan Xiaobu’s eye.
The fairy then retrieved the second item from the void, wrapped in a hazy restriction. Unless one forcibly tore through it with divine sense, only its extraordinary aura was discernible, not its identity.
She raised the item, her face expressionless.
Lan Xiaobu was unimpressed. If you’re going to have a beautiful woman host the auction, at least let her smile. This blank expression might as well belong to an old man.
“This is an origin-opening treasure, named the Karma Lock. The base price is one thousand high-grade dao veins or high-grade dao veins plus a metallic saint-grade dao fruit. Bidding starts now…”
Lan Xiaobu was stunned. The value gap between the first and second items was staggering. An auction selling origin-opening treasures? Could there be post-chaos supreme treasures?
Bidding began, and the Karma Lock’s price soared, soon reaching one thousand six hundred high-grade dao veins plus a metallic Zhiyin dao fruit.
Lan Xiaobu sighed inwardly. Had he not dealt with Chen Huangzi, he might only afford something like the Karma Lock before being tapped out. Everyone here was wealthy. High-grade dao veins, beyond setting up dao fields, were of little use to them.
In the Great Universe, cosmic vital energy was abundant. At low cultivation levels, dao veins weren’t needed. At high levels, they were barely useful.
“The next item for bidding is a Chaos Nirvana Heart,” the fairy said, raising a jade box wrapped in restrictions. The flowing restriction’s dao charm hinted at the item’s significance.
This was what Ce Ku Huisheng needed. Lan Xiaobu perked up, curious to see how Ce Ku Huisheng would bid.
Just as he expected her to announce the base price, the fairy said, “Many know the Chaos Nirvana Heart’s value, but I’ll reiterate: it gives a Sixth-Step cultivator a thirty percent chance to reach the Seventh Step. To my knowledge, one appears perhaps once in a million years. The base price is one thousand high-grade dao veins or a treasure that excites the seller. Bidding starts now.”
Lan Xiaobu frowned. She hadn’t explained the uses of previous items, yet lingered on the Chaos Nirvana Heart. What was her angle?
A flurry of bids erupted, initially chaotic as voices competed, but soon they clarified as the price hit two thousand high-grade dao veins plus half a supreme dao vein. At this price, few could afford to continue.
This wasn’t Ce Ku Huisheng’s bid. Lan Xiaobu clearly heard him offer three thousand high-grade dao veins, ten spatial dao fruits, and ten temporal dao fruits.
But this was clearly less competitive than two thousand high-grade dao veins plus half a supreme dao vein. Ce Ku Huisheng knew his bid lacked edge; piling on more high-grade dao veins was pointless when others could do the same.
At this level of auction, quantity didn’t matter—value did.
For someone at the Fifth Step or above offering the Chaos Nirvana Heart, thousands of high-grade dao veins might not outweigh half a supreme dao vein. It wasn’t that the former’s value was less, but half a supreme dao vein could boost cultivation, while thousands of high-grade veins improved it slowly, often serving as mere currency.
The bidding paused briefly. The fairy, sensing the price had peaked, raised her voice, “The current bid is two thousand high-grade dao veins and half a supreme dao vein. Any higher bids? If not, this is the final price. Three… two…”
Lan Xiaobu knew if she said “one,” the item was sold. Before she could, he called out, “Two thousand one hundred high-grade dao veins, half a supreme dao vein, and five Five Elements dao fruits from the same dao fruit tree.”
Five Elements dao fruits were common in the Great Universe. Ce Ku Huisheng had casually offered ten top-tier spatial and temporal dao fruits—saint-grade fruits—yet they couldn’t compete with half a supreme dao vein.
But Lan Xiaobu’s Five Elements dao fruits were different: they came from the same tree. Only one tree could produce such fruits—the Five-Needle Pine dao fruit tree.
The Five-Needle Pine was a spiritual root of the Great Desolate Universe. Though that universe was low-grade, and its fruits weren’t top-tier, they came from one tree. Transplanted to a mid-tier universe, the fruits’ quality would rise. In a high-tier universe, they could yield saint-grade dao fruits.
Lan Xiaobu’s only complete supreme dao vein was a cyan vital energy vein. But he had two incomplete supreme dao veins from crossing into the Fourth Step in the Jiuyuan Chaos Zone. Half was buried under a dao fruit tree in the Longevity Realm; the other half he offered now.
The auction’s highest bid screen updated to Lan Xiaobu’s offer, and the hall fell briefly silent. After a dozen breaths, another bid came: two thousand five hundred high-grade dao veins, half a supreme dao vein, and eight saint-grade dao fruits of gold, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, and ice attributes.
This bid clearly outvalued Lan Xiaobu’s, and the screen updated. Though dao fruits and saint-grade dao fruits differed by one word, their grades were worlds apart. Lan Xiaobu’s only edge was that his Five Elements dao fruits came from one tree.
The hall remained quiet. On the surface, eight saint-grade dao fruits of different attributes outvalued five ordinary Five Elements dao fruits.
But the cultivators here knew what they needed. Eight saint-grade dao fruits with different attributes were hard to obtain but not impossible. Five Five Elements dao fruits from one tree? That was far rarer.
The fairy didn’t rush to count down, waiting a few minutes before saying, “The owner of the Chaos Nirvana Heart asks: for the bidder offering five Five Elements dao fruits from one tree, what are the fruits’ colors?”
Lan Xiaobu’s divine sense fell on the Longevity Realm. With his cultivation at the Fifth Step, the realm’s cosmic rules matched a mid-tier universe. Having buried half a supreme dao vein, the Five-Needle Pine’s fruits bore a faint golden hue. Though Five Elements dao fruits had five colors, each carried a trace of gold.
“My dao fruits bear a faint golden hue and are freshly picked,” Lan Xiaobu said promptly.
The crowd immediately realized Lan Xiaobu had at least one dao fruit tree producing Five Elements dao fruits. These gold-tinged fruits surpassed ordinary dao fruits, akin to those nurtured in a mid-tier universe. Though not yet top-tier saint-grade, they were more valuable than a patchwork of eight attribute dao fruits.
“I choose the five Five Elements dao fruits from the same tree. However, I have a request: can the buyer exchange contact dao laws with me? I may wish to purchase five saint-grade Five Elements dao fruits in the future,” a deep male voice said, not the fairy’s.
