A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality

Chapter 1339: Surprise at the Auction

When Han Li arrived, it was nearing noon. In just a moment, he used a secret technique to transform himself into a large man with long facial hair and entered the Profound Zenith Hall.

The people at the entrance were already enhancing spirit stones for concealment pendants to enter the hall.

All of them were at Deity Transformation-stage and above.

Han Li even spotted three Spatial Tempering cultivators entering.

After some thought, he also walked in and gave the guard a pouch filled with spirit stones. The guard swept his spiritual sense past it and nodded, handing him a jade pendant and opened the way for him. He promptly said, “After you enter, head left.”

When Han Li heard this, he was stunned and he hesitantly walked in.

After they entered the passage, he astonishedly discovered that the straight passage he originally took was now exceptionally twisted and split down the middle.

It was like the Profound Zenith Hall was completely different.

It seemed the restrictions in the hall had changed as well.

Nevertheless, Han Li did as the guard advised and headed down the left side.

Soon, he entered the dark passage and vanished.

After the time it took to finish a meal, he found himself in a pitch-black stone room.

The room was three meters wide with walls to all sides apart from a spacious opening. There were a jade table, a bamboo chair and a table with a red spell plate.

There were many of these stone rooms densely packed spread across three hundred meters in the air. They were flying stone rooms.

The entire hall was three thousand meters wide and nearly had a thousand stone rooms floating above it.

Faint azure talisman characters glowed from the surface of the stone room. Each room had a considerable distance between the two as if they were floating lamps.

Han Li sat down in the chair, looked down at the auction below and clocked his tongue.

In the instant he entered the large hall, he entered an odd spell formation and teleported to the room. Under examination, he discovered the room wasn’t only suspended in air, but it also blocked spiritual sense. With the addition of the light pendant concealing them, it would guarantee the animosity of the bidders.

It appeared the master of the auction knew that cultivators feared arousing envy and spent much time on how to solve this.

Han Li leaned back in his chair and rested his eyes for a short time. Soon, another several hundred cultivators entered the hall, nearly filling it to its brim.

Han Li widely opened his eyes and took a breath.

When one normally entered the auction, they needed to be at Deity Transformation-stage at the very least. But this small auction managed to gather nearly a thousand Deity Transformation cultivators.

This was something that couldn’t even be imagined in the mortal realm.

However, this was also impossible to happen unless it occurred in the other cultivator cities in the three human regions, barring Deep Heaven City.

Suddenly, melodic rings range through the hall. The hall’s open gates slow closed with a creak and a clack.

The dim hall now became completely dark.

Immediately, several head-sized moonlight stones appeared above the auction. The appearance of their soft white light caused the cultivators to unconsciously looked down.

On a thirty-meter-tall platform, a spell formation suddenly appeared, followed by a flash of white light. A white-robed old man made an appearance.

As soon as he appeared, the cultivators became restless. A few even uttered the old man’s name in shock.

“Grandmaster Chi!”

“Why would he appear here? Could it be the auction...”

...

Whispers continued to echo through the hall.

When Han Li heard the disturbance, his heart stirred and he curiously examined the old man.

He only possessed mid Deity Transformation cultivators, but his headful of silver hair and his friendly face gave him a bearing expected of a dignified cultivator. When he heard others address him as grandmaster, he reckoned the title should come from astonishing attainments in either pill refinement or some other art.

The white-robed old man coughed and spoke with a gentle voice, “It seems I don’t need to introduce myself to you. Many of you do recognize me. Normally, I wouldn’t appear at such an event, but this auction has things that I’ve personally appraised. Furthermore, I am greatly interested in these items and took the initiative to act as the auction host. It appears that none of you have any objections!”

“Chi Lao must be joking. Having a tool refinement master to host the auction is exactly what we would want!”

“Not bad, not bad! Brother Chi’s personal appraisal can’t be wrong. We’ll be more at ease.”

...

Praise repeatedly sounded through the floating rooms.

Although many of the cultivators didn’t say anything, they also raised no opposition. It appeared that the white-robed old man was quite famous.

The old man continued, “In order for everyone to know what’s going on, I’ll give you a preview of what to expect. There will be three items of extraordinary value. They were rarely seen in the last several hundred years. Among them are top quality items from the wilderness, and a spirit treasure that has rose up to the primal myriad spirit rankings. As for the last item, it is an entire set of cultivation arts that was left behind by a late-stage Body Integration Senior that shook the worlds of both humans and demons.”

The cultivators were greatly alarmed as if they couldn’t believe what they just heard. The entire hall was filled with silence.

The item from the wilderness wasn’t much as it was unknown, but a spirit treasure on the primal spirit rankings and the primary cultivation art of a Body Integration stage cultivator were incredibly rare treasures. If any of those items appeared on the outside, it would provoke a massacre.

As the hearts of these cultivators heavily thumped, the atmosphere became extremely grave.

“Brother Chi, since there are such important items at the auction, why wasn’t it advertised so we could prepare more spirit stones? Why was it kept hidden?” An odd childlike voice sounded from one of the stone rooms.

Having already anticipated this question, the old man smiled and answered, “Fellow Daoist, don’t worry. The reason why the auction was kept a secret is that the owner of these three treasures are the same person and had personally made this request to the auction. As for why, I do not know, but the auction didn’t refuse it. However, I can guarantee that these treasures are genuine. Of course, since these headline treasures may have arrived on short notice, but you may trade for these treasures using items of equivalent value. The items will be priced a tenth below the value that three of the market’s appraisal grandmasters and me, so feel at ease!”

When they heard his reply, the cultivators felt a sense of amazement. Feeling overjoyed, they felt no further need to ask any questions.

Old Man Chi saw there were no more objections and promptly announced the start of the bid with a clap of his hands.

Over ten various colored lights promptly flew out onto the stage.

After the light faded, ten beautiful palace-robed women appeared from behind him.

Each woman possessed Core Formation cultivation and held a box of varying size.

“Following convention, we will begin the auction with finished goods and then move on to materials and secret techniques. The headline items will be auctioned last. For the first item of the auction, we have three bottles of the Brightheart Pills, cultivation progression medicine for Deity Transformation cultivators. Starting bid is three hundred thousand spirit stones with each increase being at least fifty thousand.” The white-robed old man waved his hand.

Suddenly, one of the women gracefully walked in front of him and raised her hand, opening the box to reveal three small jade bottles.

The old man waved his hand in front of the bottles and summoned one into his hand.

He skillfully opened it and tilted it, dropping a pure white crystalline pill into his hand.

Its dense medicinal sense immediately scattered.

The white-haired old man promptly held the pill in two of his fingers and waved it towards the cultivators.

An inconceivable event occurred.

The shining pill’s surface immediately released an azure and red glow. They were dazzling as if they were gems. And the air filled with its medicinal scent became several times stronger.

“I’ve already demonstrated the Brightheart Pill’s characteristics to you. I’m sure you don’t have any further doubts. You may begin the bid!”

“Three hundred fifty thousand!”

“Four hundred thousand!”

“Four hundred fifty!”

Suddenly, a large and a small ball of purple light appeared above the platform. It lit up to show the number of spirit stones on the current bid and which room the bidder was in.

From the start of the auction, the price surged. It appeared that these Deity Transformation cultivators had great uses for these spirit stones.

This was to be expected. Although the headline items were temping, a majority of cultivators couldn’t hope to acquire time. It was better to take advantage of this opportunity to grab smaller items while the rich were distracted.

After Han Li returned to his abode, he would be able to refine the Clear Jade Pill and wouldn’t need to bid on similar items. He simply watched the bid until the pills were won for six hundred thousand spirit stones.

At that moment, many others had the same thoughts as Han Li: to quietly wait until the auction of the three headline items.

To tell the truth, Han Li was somewhat interested in the spirit treasure and the divine materials, but he wasn’t going to participate in the auction.

However, the main cultivation technique of the late Body Integration stage cultivator greatly tempted him.