The people in the central city regions all predicted that another brand new supreme power would soon rise up. In addition, they rose up by relying on their transaction grounds and had no aristocrat clan acting as their backing. There was only one man supporting this, he was Grandmaster Di Tian.
Time flowed by, the Emperor Pavilion expanded again and more and more experts joined it. Their territory grew by ten times, and right now, when one stared down from the sky, they could see rows of majestic buildings dotting the landscape which was controlled by the Emperor Pavilion. The human flow was endless and many people came here to participate in transactions. The atmosphere was extremely lively, but the events that drew the most people, were undoubtedly the auctions held there.
Currently, countless people came to the Emperor Pavilion daily to seek out treasures.
Today, Di Tian was walking through the transaction grounds and he had a faint smile on his face underneath the mask when he saw the bustling crowd. He also didn't expect the development to go this well. In just a few short ten years, the Emperor Pavilion had already reached this scale. In fact, he could already stand equal to some auctions organized by peak powers in the central city regions. The popularity of his business wasn't inferior to the Han and Wei Clan's auctions.
"During these years, it has been tough on you and the grand supervisor." Di Tian spoke in a light voice. There was a beautiful woman walking beside him, it was none other than Mo Junyi.
During these years, the main operations were run by Mo Fei with Mo Junyi as an assistant. As for himself, he spent the majority of his time on cultivation and weaponsmithing. He wasn't really involved in the management or operations.
"Don't need to thank me. If you are not at the back supporting the Emperor Pavilion, it would be impossible for the Emperor Pavilion to have developed up till this scale today." Mo Junyi smiled. Her beautiful eyes had a hint of reverence in them when she looked at Di Tian. She was truly impressed by him. Right now, the divine weapons forged by Di Tian wasn't restricted merely to sealing-types. There would occasionally be other unique divine weapons forged, all these would maintain the anticipation of the customers with regards to their Emperor Pavilion's auctions.
That rule set by Di Tian in the past, the strategy of auctioning high-grade emperor-ranked weapons periodically, was extraordinarily effective.
"Hahaha, I left all the hard work to you two." Di Tian self-mockingly laughed.
"Don't forget, back then those years ago when our Emperor Pavilion encountered danger and was about to close down, we actually reversed the situation when everyone felt that we were helpless. Although I don't know what you did, but you pulled strongly against a crazy tide and we managed to find a path of survival in the end. I'm sure that the serving lady of the Lifire Empyrean came here because of your efforts." Mo Junyi laughed. After that incident, she and Mo Fei had many guests but they still couldn't be sure of what Di Tian did exactly.
"Alright, you guys should stop overly praising me. Let's hope the business of our Emperor Pavilion will be better and better." Di Tian smiled.
...
The Lifire Palace, was one of the nine world-palaces within the Lifelong Realm. Under the Lifire Empyrean, there were still nine monarchs helping to manage the territories as well as to control the cultivation resources.
However, the Lifire Palace itself also directly controlled some cultivation mines. In addition, the ones under their control were the most important ones, much higher grade compared to those under the nine monarchs control. If not, the Lifire Empyrean wouldn't have bothered to control them.
The Nibblesun Mine was one of the main mines under the direct control of the Lifire Palace. The Lifire Empyrean would only use those he trusted to supervise the collection when the mine opened. The Nibblesun Mine was located within a mountain range at about ten thousand miles away from the border of Lifire City. The landscape here was extremely complex and the entire mountain range was heavily guarded with many protective formations. If there were people who dared to barge in, they would definitely die without a burial place. Just the power of the formations alone was sufficient to ensure that immortal emperors can enter, but they cannot exit.
As for bandits, even for those supreme great bandits, they didn't dare to casually make a move against the Nibblesun Mine. Not only were the defensive fortifications extremely strong, there was also teleportation arrays connected to the Lifire Palace. Bandits who dared to target this place were simply courting death.
Also, despite the strong defensive aspects, there were also many immortal emperors acting as guards here. The leader of the guards was someone that the Lifire Empyrean had absolute trust in, he was the Lifire Empyrean's wife's younger brother.
In the mountain range, there naturally were also secret spatial gates that led directly into the mine.
The airspace above the Nibblesun Mine was like a stretch of starry skies, flowing with terrifying law energy. The entire atmosphere was tinged a dark red and radiated heat. The temperature here was very high and could be considered extremely dangerous because only characters who were immortal kings or stronger were permitted to enter here.
If one stood in the air and glanced downwards, they could see a vast dark red ground with black flames occasionally appearing from the earth. There would also be frequent bursts of resplendent light that shot up into the skies. These were all emperor lights, the indication that emperor-ranked stones had appeared.
In this mine, emperor-ranked stones were considered common. Nothing was rare about them appearing.
Currently, Qin Wentian was in the air space above the Nibblesun Mine.
The Nibblesun Mine wasn't the same as the mines controlled by the Jialan Monarch, where one could only enter once every ten years to collect the harvest. This mine was opened once every year because the resources within were simply too valuable. The yearly harvest had an extremely terrifying value and no mistakes were permitted to occur. Hence, Qin Wentian need not worry about missing the once-per-ten-years tribute collection gathering at the Lifire Palace even if he came here.
In truth, during these tens of years, other than using iron-blooded methods to slay the three vice governors, he was extremely low profile in all other aspects. There were even people saying that he was the same as the past governors, mediocre and only wanted to live out his tenure peacefully as he didn't want the Jialan Clan to make trouble for him. This was why he was constantly in closed-door seclusion within his governor's manor.
In truth, he did spend the vast majority of his time and effort on his cultivation during these tens of years but it wasn't completely true that he spent all his time in closed-door seclusion. He would often head out to temper himself. This was precisely the reason why he was here today, he wanted to enter the Nibblesun Mine as today was the opening day. Naturally, he didn't come here with his true identity, he was using a false one.
Right now, he was walking about in the airspace above the mine. Whenever he saw the bursts of emperor light, he would speed there to seize the emperor-ranked stones. His entire being radiated an extremely cold aura.
"Mhm?" At this moment, Qin Wentian felt something. He inclined his head and glanced in a direction only to see a resplendent beam of light shooting up into the sky. Qin Wentian's eyes flashed and shot through space with incredible speed as he soon arrived at the area.
The beam of light was dark red, but it was extremely bright. Up ahead, he could see a piece of dark-red stone that was absorbing the essence of the heavens and earth. This was none other than the source of light he spotted earlier. The power of the terrifying light it emitted was enough to destroy everything, akin to energy currents flowing from hell.
More and more experts moved towards this direction but they all maintained a respectful distance from it as no one dared to get near. Those who approached the stone earlier, had all already turned into dust.
"BOOM!" A powerful immortal emperor stepped out, moving towards the zone of destruction where the dark-red stone lay in the center. A tyrannical burst of law energy enveloped his body as he resembled an indestructible rock. Emperor light cascaded unceasingly from the sky. He brimmed with confidence and moved closer and closer to the stone.
With a flash of light, the dark-red glow from the stone shone against his indestructible body of laws. A strange projection of a dark-red flower imprint immediately appeared, piercing right through his body. That immortal emperor roared in pain and wanted to retreat, but how could he still have a chance to escape? The flames produced from the dark-red glow instantly shrouded him. In a mere instant, black smoke rose up into the air. The body of the immortal emperor had already vanished completely.
Nobody dared to get any closer. They were all staring at that dark-red stone as though it was a devil.
Qin Wentian also had a face full of shock. Was this a supreme mine in the Supreme Ancient Immortal Realms? Many unusual treasures would be born occasionally, so terrifying that it caused people to despair. An immortal emperor expert that has cultivated for countless years actually couldn't even be compared to a single stone. He was destroyed so easily.
"It must be an empyrean stone!" Someone at the side spoke as his heart pounded rapidly.
Qin Wentian's gaze was filled with heat. He had to obtain that for sure.
However, this terrifying treasure clearly would cause even interspatial rings to melt from the heat. How could he obtain it?
There was an expert who blasted out a palm imprint, wanting to use law energy as a coating to take the stone away. However, the palm imprint instantly got destroyed the moment it neared the stone.
With an intention of his will, spatial energy gushed forth from Qin Wentian, moving towards the reddish zone of destruction around the supreme emperor stone. He wanted to separate the stone from its surroundings but the moment his spatial energy got into contact with the stone, it was also directly dissipated.
More and more experts gathered in the airspace above the mine. These people were the guards of the Nibblesun Mine and they were all clad in dark-red armor, appearing extremely imposing. There were immortal emperors whose eyes glowed with a terrifying light.
"Should we inform the outside?" Someone asked.
"Let's try to get the empyrean stone first. If we are unable to do so, it wouldn't be too late to inform the palace lord." The man in the lead had a sharp expression on his face. He stared at the terrifying zone of destruction that seemed akin to an apocalypse. The reddish light from the zone around the stone continuously expanded, corroding everything. Such a stone was extremely tough to obtain, only existences on the level of the Lifire Empyrean would have the qualifications to enjoy such cultivation resources. For people like them, they couldn't even tell what was the grade of this stone!