Book 3: Clear River in Turmoil - 133: Sea of Clouds Auction 5
Book 3: Clear River in Turmoil - 133: Sea of Clouds Auction 5
Chapter 133: Sea of Clouds Auction (5)
After obtaining the Algae Thread Coral, Su Chen made five more bids, obtaining a golden bracelet, a set of throwing knives, an Inferno Beast Origin Crystal, a Frost Beast Origin Crystal, and a weapon.
The golden bracelet was a defensive-type Origin Tool, but it wasn’t a barrier defense or a physical defensive item. Rather, it could be tossed out into the air, and it would float there, blocking all attacks. Once it reached its limit, it would automatically fall to the ground.
Each knife in the set of flying knives contained complicated Origin Formations. After striking a target, they could unleash the power equivalent to the full-power attack of a Light Shaking Realm cultivator with five Lotus Platforms. They were incredibly powerful, but each throwing knife could only be used once.
The Inferno and Frost Beast Origin Crystals were used to supplement fire- and ice-type Origin Skills. They would be useful for boosting Su Chen’s Ancient Arcana Techniques.
The weapon was a Grade Six Mountain-Beheading Blade, a powerful offensive Origin Tool weapon. Even though its attributes didn’t quite measure up to what Su Chen was expecting, it was still worth using.
Each item of these five was an incredibly rare and precious treasure.
Su Chen had basically swept the floor of this auction; everyone else there was quite helpless.
After buying these items, the top-quality Awakening Medicine that Gu Qingluo and the others were waiting for finally appeared. Again, there was no minimum bid.
Just as Gu Qingluo had said, there were a ton of people who needed this item as well. As soon as it appeared, they all began to call out prices. The top-quality Awakening Medicine very quickly reached a selling price of 1.8 million Origin Stones.
This was extremely shocking to Su Chen.
A top-quality Awakening Medicine was a Master-tier medicine. According to medicinal tiers, they should only cost a few hundred thousand Origin Stones, and definitely no more than a million.
During this auction, however, this vial of top-quality Awakening Medicine shattered those limitations, breaking into the millions. At the very least, in terms of price this medicine was already beginning to reach the legendary tier.
“Why is this happening? It’s just a vial of medicine,” Su Chen said.
“It has too many uses. As soon as an ancestor’s powerful bloodline is awakened, a person’s latent talent will increase by a ridiculous amount. Medicine price is typically determined based on the cost of raw ingredients and the difficulty in manufacturing, not the uses it will have. The effect of a top-quality Awakening Medicine, however, far outstrips the cost of its ingredients. When you factor in the difficult refining process, the price it sells for easily breaks through the normal limits. There are a lot of “rules” that are common sense, but there are also many exceptions to those rules in the real world.”
Su Chen understood now. For instance, Yang Opening Realm cultivators were stronger than Blood Boiling Realm cultivators – that was common sense. But what about in the real world? There were many cultivators with powerful bloodlines that could surpass these limitations and defeat those of a higher cultivation tier than them.
Even he himself was the same.
If there wasn’t the restriction that anyone who awakened an Origin Beast Bloodline needed to go to the Empty Mountain, then people might even be willing to pay 1 billion Origin Stones for a vial of top-quality Awakening Medicine to awaken a dormant Origin Beast Bloodline within themselves.
If that was the case, then wasn’t this Awakening Medicine quite a good means of making money?
Su Chen suddenly realized something.
Before, Su Chen had felt that refining medicines to make money wasted too much energy, so he was unwilling to do it. But if there was a medicine that he could make a profit ten times or a hundred times the original cost of the ingredients, it was worth looking into. After all, he had now experienced the sweet benefits of having money himself.
When he realized this, he raised his hand and said, “Three million!”
When the Awakening Medicine’s price reached 1.2 million, Gu Qingluo no longer called out any prices.
That was because the amount of money the elder had given them was already no longer enough.
Since they didn’t have enough money, the mission was a failure. Thankfully, it was just a matter of a single elder, not the whole clan. In other words, this mission was one issuing out of duty. Nobody really paid it much mind.
As such, when Su Chen called out that price, Gu Qingluo stared at him in shock. “I told you already that you don’t need to help with this.”
Su Chen laughed. “I know. I just want it for myself.”
“To do experiments?” Gu Qingluo understood him quite well.
“Yes.” Su Chen nodded. “If there’s any remaining, I can give it to your clan’s elder.”
Gu Qingluo covered her mouth and laughed. “Then I thank you on behalf of Elder.”
Three million for a top-quality Awakening Medicine was an extravagant number. When factoring Su Chen’s earlier flaunting of his money, no one called a price higher than his. Su Chen claimed the Awakening Medicine for himself.
As soon as the medicine was delivered to him, Su Chen opened it and took a whiff. “Embroidered Silk Grass, Quartz Blood, Black Fox Origin Essence, Red Sea Cuttlefish Scales......”
He listed out the ingredients of this medicine one after another as if he was very familiar with it, causing everyone around him to stare in shock.
However, just knowing the ingredient composition wasn’t enough. He also needed to know how to process and combine them. This would require some trial and error on his part. Su Chen wrote out the list of ingredients and handed it to Gu Jintang. “When we get back, help me look for these ingredients.”
“Got it,” Gu Jintang nodded enthusiastically.
Wait a minute, when had he become Su Chen’s errand boy?
But upon further consideration, he realized that being an errand boy wasn’t a bid thing. Hadn’t the maidservants besides them even been given the Nightmare Snake Cane? If he was a good errand boy, he would definitely benefit handsomely.
Unwittingly, this arrogant Young Master had totally set aside any airs and had been completely subdued by Su Chen. Anyone who met a friend that could spend three hundred million Origin Stones in the spawn of a few days would kneel automatically.
Anyone who didn’t kneel was an idiot.
The next item for an auction was a block of Pure Stream Tea1.
Pure Stream Tea was a well-known type of tea, with mellow and rich flavors and a lingering aftertaste. Most unusual was that drinking it for long periods of time could prolong a person’s lifespan, and it could even elevate a person’s consciousness power.
Su Chen knew that Shi Kaihuang lived a plain life. He didn’t have any hobbies other than drinking tea.
If he gave Shi Kaihuang anything else, Shi Kaihuang might not like it, but he would definitely like this Pure Stream Tea. As such, he snagged it, planning on using it to be a good disciple.
After buying the brick of tea, the auction began to reach its conclusion.
The final item being auctioned was brought to the table. It was a weird wooden box with an animal hide inside.
The host of the auction said, “We received this beast hide thirty years ago. We don’t know what kind of Demonic Beast it came from, but can only confirm that it is very old, likely the remnant of an ancient era. This hide is tough and durable, resistant to both fire and water, and it can automatically reassemble if it is cut apart. It’s quite the treasure, but it has one huge flaw, which is that it cannot be separated from this box. If it leaves the box, it will quickly begin to decay. We once tried to cut it off and thought of many different ways to use it outside of the box, but they all failed. This beast hide was originally about thirty square feet in size, but after we researched everything we could about it, all that remains is this little bit that you all can see here.”
Everyone at the auction chuckled. The remnant of the hide was roughly the size of a washbasin. The Sea of Clouds Pavilion had spent thirty years researching it, but all they had done was turn a mysterious treasure into something basically useless. Finally, they had brought it out, unable to do anything more with it.
“Because of this item’s unique attribute, we don’t know its price or how you would use it, so we will auction with no minimum bid. If any friends are interested, please feel free to bid.”
“A hundred Origin Stones.” Someone already called out a price.
The Sea of Clouds Pavilion had spent thirty years researching this hide but couldn’t make any conclusions, and only a small bit remained now. No one thought that they could successfully get anything out of it.
However, since the hide could resist fire and water and was hard to destroy, and there was the story of the Sea of Clouds spending thirty years struggling with this item, getting a historical relic like this wasn’t a bad idea.
Quite a few people had this kind of thought. They began to call out bids one after another, quickly reaching ten thousand Origin Stones.
The people attending this auction were not poor by any stretch of the imagination. Spending ten thousand Origin Stones to obtain a historical relic to play around with was totally normal.
However, if the price went up any more, they would have to consider things more carefully.
Su Chen raised his hand. “Thirty thousand.”
Gu Jintang was stunned. “Brother Su, you want this hide?”
“Yes, I’ll use it as a cushion,” Su Chen replied calmly. Unlike the others, Su Chen had his microscopic eye, allowing him to see through many different kinds of profound mysteries. As such, he really liked things that others could not understand. Furthermore, this was a relic from the Arcana Kingdom era.
With that old man Patelocke, Su Chen basically had a living encyclopedia with im.
In any case, auctions were few and far between. If you didn’t get something for a great deal, did you even attend the auction at all?
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PS: I made a mistake earlier. Grade Six Origin Tools should be useable by Yang Opening Realm cultivators as well as people in the higher layers of the Blood Boiling Realm. I miscalculated.
Origin Tools are distributed this way: Grade Nine tools can be used by Qi Drawing or above, Grade Eight by high-layer Qi Drawing or low-layer Blood Boiling. Grade Seven are by low-layer to high-layer Blood Boiling, Grade Six by high-layer Blood Boiling to low-layer Yang Opening. So on and so forth.
I made a mistake, so I will publicly announce it. As for the items that Su Chen had bought that didn’t correspond with his cultivation base, look at them as special Origin Tools that could be used by individuals with lower cultivation bases.
Thank you, Toad Jumping Into Shoes, for pointing this out.
1. A lot of times, tea is sold as a block in China. See here: http://www.puercn.com/uploadfile/201703/20170308111843589.jpg