The Shimmering Cardamom Pill was cheaper than the Seven Star Nightflower. Although it was useful and of high purity, it did not guarantee a rise of one layer when taken by a Sky Warrior.
As a result, Xue Wei purchased the pill at a price of five thousand and seven hundred gold coins.
Not many had dared bid when they heard that the bidder came from the Sky Room.
The only opponent he had had was the prince from Chengzi Kingdom. But when the price exceeded five thousand, he yielded and allowed Xue Wei to take it.
The next pill was a one-colored Rainbow Pill. Rainbow Pills were very special. They only existed in high purity and they had marvelous effects for the consumer, depending on who consumed it.
Rainbow Pills were not refined from herbs but instead from energies and elemental essences.
Rainbow Pills came in up to seven colors; the more colors, the more outstanding they were. But even a one-colored Rainbow Pill was enough to make Xue Wei widen his eyes and smile with glee.
One could never consume too many Rainbow Pills. Since they were refined from elemental essences and various natural energies, they contained no impurities. At the same time, the pills did not diminish in effect from repeated consumption.
A Rainbow Pill was a great treasure to Xue Wei and he did not hesitate when the bidding started.
“The opening bid is five low ranked essence stones. Remember that our Golden Chambers is willing to exchange one low grade essence stone for ten thousand gold coins.” The woman said. You could only buy normal items with gold. When it came to the more peculiar or the more outstanding ones, essence stones were the way to go.
Xue Wei decided he would later exchange his gold coins into essence stones after the auction.
“Ten essence stones,” Xue Wei called out. That was the equivalent of a hundred thousand gold coins, and it was the very first bid.
Instantly doubling the opening bid was enough to cause many to look at the Sky Room with curiosity. Who could be hiding within this room? Were they not the least bit interested in the formations later on, spending their gold on things so early?
“Eleven essence stones,” someone from the ground floor called out with a hesitating voice. Xue Wei did not hold back. “Fifteen essence stones.”
The man from the ground floor shook his head in dismay and refrained from further bidding.
Xue Wei had expected a massive bidding war since this was a Rainbow Pill, but contrary to his expectations it cost him only fifteen essence stones.
“That is some good stuff!” Bai Tianyi said with a great smile on his face.
“Although it cannot compare to the Rainbow Pills of more colors, this is not a bad thing at all. You guys, let’s draw lots to see who gets it!”
Seeing Bai Tianyi’s enthusiasm and impatience, Xue Wei laughed out loud and shook his head. “Later,” he replied dismissively.
The next item up for sale was a Fierce Beast that had been subdued by a Diviner. The Diviner was even present to hand over the reigns to the next owner.
Xue Wei had no interest in this item, but he noticed that the entire ground floor had gone insane, all bidding on top of one another.
Finally, it was sold for a hundred thousand gold coins, much more than the beast back in Tiankong City had sold for. It was no wonder that the Diviners preferred to sell beasts closer to the center of the continent.
After the beast, some more spiritual fruits were present, and Xue Wei won the bids on all of them. Afterwards, a lot of pills appeared and he did the same with those of high purity. He refused to buy middle or low purity pills.
The entire auction house soon realized that the ones in the Sky Room were very eager to get their hands on herbs, pills, spiritual fruits and other resources that benefitted cultivation.
Other than that, the items up for sale had no interest for them - or so they thought until the skills appeared.
Xue Wei bought every martial art and spiritual art technique that was high rank and above.
Among those were fist arts and sword arts. There was one movement technique that caused a large bidding war. Movement techniques were incredibly rare.
Xue Wei did not care and paid a full two low ranked essence stones for it.
By now, the entire auction house was swearing at the guests in the Sky Room.
He was taking everything. The people from the three great sects and the two princes were starting to get worried. What if they were as adamant on getting the formations?
The auction continued even though these prominent groups felt insulted and annoyed at the one-sided shopping spree by the Sky Room guests.
It was so bad that a manager from the auction house rushed to talk with the director. They needed to know what to do.
But to their greatest surprise, the director’s tone of voice was quite harsh when he ordered them to not bother the guests in the Sky Room.
In the end, they were an auction house and the highest bidder was the winner. The personnel of the auction house feared if Xue Wei and company had enough money to pay up, but the director snorted when they voiced their complaints.
“They are rich,” he said to the manager that voiced the complaint and ended the topic like that.
Xue Wei was unaware of the ruckus he had caused. He did not know that the audience was tired of him, or that the personnel feared that he was a fraud, and he would have laughed it off if he did know.
The items kept coming, and soon a stone of some sort was presented on the stage.
“This is called the Moon Stone,” the auctioneer started. “It looks like it could have been the fossil of an egg, but there is no life left in the egg itself.”
“It is mainly used as an ornament or a souvenir. But because it is as old as it is, we set the lowest price at one essence stone.”
Xue Wei had originally not had any interest in the egg, but suddenly the Azure Dragon Spirit in his dantian started to feel restless.
Xue Wei could not understand the spirit, but he could sense that something had agitated it greatly.
It even left his body and started to coil around his arm and looked fixedly at the egg.
“Do you want it?” Xue Wei asked. The Azure Dragon Spirit nodded its head.
“Five essence stones,” Xue Wei called out, raising the price so much that many started grumbling again.
But no one tried bidding over him. It was a useless stone. There was no reason to try and enrage some esteemed expert for the sake of a dead egg.
Xue Wei was content and so was the Azure Dragon Spirit. It quickly returned to his dantian.
Many interesting things had been up for sale on the auction, but a spiritual cultivation technique had not been one of them, and it seemed that it would not appear at the auction. It was time for the formations to be announced.
“Dear guests. I am sure you have all heard the rumors that have been circulating the last two weeks,” the auctioneer began her introduction.
“We had originally planned to auction off a Rebirth Pill, but things changed. Instead, we were given the chance to sell formations! And not just one formation – we have multiple formations up for sale today!”
“We will start with the one called the Spiritual Bomb.”
“The Spiritual Bomb is a beginner’s formation, but do not look down on the power it has! The formation requires someone to pour energy into it to trigger the explosion. The explosion is terrifyingly strong and can injure Heavenly Warriors and will most likely kill anyone below that.”
“The Spiritual Bomb is a formation that can open the path to becoming a formation master! If you manage to understand the runes and reinscribe them, you might become a formation master yourself!”
“We will start with the first of the fifteen Spiritual Bombs we have up for sale with a beginning bid at ten low grade essence stones.”
Xue Wei was ecstatic. Spiritual Bombs were not extremely useful for him anymore, so to gain ten low grade essence stones for each would already give him a massive fortune, but this was only the beginning bid.
“Twelve low grade essence stones!”
“Thirteen!”
“Twenty low grade essence stones! This daddy is going to get the formation and become a formation master!”
“Twenty-one!”
The bidding was ferocious. Every person in the hall wanted to win. The three great sects did not show any respect for each other. The two princes were also participating in the frenzied bidding. and only when the first formation had been sold at thirty-seven low grade essence stones did people realize the silence from the Sky Room.
“They ran out of money?” someone said in a gloating manner, but then an unknown person asked a question that made the entire auction house quieten down: “You don’t think it’s the formation master that’s in the Sky Room?”
The Cerulean Starlight Sect had long since reached this conclusion, but the others were stunned silly.
The two princes felt that only a formation master was capable of taking the Sky Room from them. However, if it was a formation master, and it was that independent cultivator from before, then had they not already insulted him and made a bad impression?
“Elder Qin, I have an idea.” A fierce light flashed in the eyes of the prince from the Chengzi Kingdom.
The elder looked at the prince and saw the crafty gleam in his eyes. “It will be beneficial for our kingdom to have a formation master so I agree that we should invite him.”
“If he says no, we will just have to use a bit of force,” Elder Qin nodded his head.
“Seems like our cover is blown,” Hei Gou said casually after seeing how the people in the audience looked at them with reverence.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bai Tianyi answered casually. “They won’t know what we look like and they won’t be able to do anything to us. I know the Cerulean Starlight Sect will keep quiet, because that’s most beneficial for them.”
“Maybe the princes will notice it,” Xue Wei said while shrugging his shoulders. “But they should not want to make an enemy of a formation master.”
The bidding became more and more intense. The three great sects had each bought one of the formations, and the princes had also acquired their own.
After they secured one each, the price dropped from late thirty essence stones to the beginning of thirty.
Every participant in the auction wanted to get one for their sect and faction. There were quite a few spiritual bombs, but when they were no longer in supply, attention turned to another type of formations. The golems were up this time, and there were only two of them.
The people from the three great sects and the two princes could not help but curse when they realized that it would be impossible for all of them to get one. It was time for the real bidding war to begin.