Chapter 409: Chapter 375: Such a Huge Bait
For Lin Miao, this thing is just a furnace. Apart from being made of some special materials, it doesn’t have much of a special function.
Okay, he doesn’t know much about alchemy, but he knows a bit about preparing medicine. Depending on the material of the container used to boil the medicine, the medicinal properties can vary somewhat.
This is easy to understand.
But whether there’s such a big difference in using a pill furnace for alchemy, he doesn’t know. Anyway, he hasn’t seen it with his own eyes, so he won’t comment.
However, the appearance of this Celestial Fire Furnace at the auction is definitely unusual, and the fact that the Heaven-Dominating Tower accepted such a commission is also quite significant.
Someone wants to use this furnace to draw someone out, but with everything so obvious, will that person willingly reveal themselves?
Or is it to filter out those who shouldn’t get involved?
Indeed, this is a method, because anyone with a bit of sense can realize it’s a trap — a step in could easily lead to death.
So if you wish to take advantage of the opportunity, sure, you can try, but you better have a life to spend.
For such an exquisite item, the price of the materials alone exceeds it. Everyone knows there’s something fishy here, so when this price was announced, the entire auction hall fell silent.
The auctioneer continued, "This is a consignment for auction. The seller just wants to find a suitable owner for it. As for the price, it’s not the priority. Even if someone really buys it for one or two silver coins, it’s fine."
Dongguo Sun’s face became more conflicted.
He prepared a million, not expecting the opponent to go against norms and set a starting price of one or two silver coins. How could he make a bid?
Moreover, many people know of his million-dollar fortune earned from stone gambling today. A simple analysis would clearly reveal he’s here for the Celestial Fire Furnace.
Now he’s in trouble.
But the Celestial Fire Furnace is a treasure of his sect. He expended great effort to gather information about its appearance. If it fails to sell and is reclaimed by the people behind the scenes, recovering it will be much harder.
The Celestial Fire Furnace is a gem for alchemy. The people behind the scenes set the price at one or two silver coins, obviously not intending to sell it.
They’re using it as bait.
But isn’t he also intending to use the Celestial Fire Furnace to find those behind it...
Exposure is exposure, then.
Just as Dongguo Sun was about to raise his sign to bid.
Lin Miao suddenly extended his hand, raised his sign, and said, "I’ll add one silver, a total of two silver coins. That’s not against the rules, right?"
The entire venue was stunned. The starting price is one silver, and you’re bidding two, are you playing around?
Doesn’t he know that in the final auction, each bid should not be less than five thousand silver as an unwritten rule?
Now everyone looked at the auctioneer for a response. Either way, a bid violation isn’t much; at most, the participant is disqualified from future bids.
But since you’ve started with a base price of one silver, and someone adds your base price in one go, that isn’t low, right?
However, the auctioneer indeed didn’t state how much should be added each time. People assumed it should at least be five thousand silver.
But since it wasn’t stated, no violation can be claimed.
After all, each lot has a different base price, and so do the increment rules. You can’t say, when your base price is one thousand, that each increment can’t be less than five thousand; who would play then?
As long as there’s a bid increase, and no violation, then the bid stands.
The pressure shifted to the auctioneer.
He wiped his forehead, looked over the front at his young master Nie Yang, who showed great composure, giving him a slight nod.
The auctioneer suddenly gained courage and loudly said, "This gentleman offers two silver, no violation. Any more bids?"
There is a bid.
And it’s an increment of one silver, which was recognized as non-violating.
Now there’s an uproar, so someone shouted a higher price of "Five silver"!
Thus, the year-end auction of the Heaven-Dominating Tower saw its most dramatic moment: a lot valued at least fifty thousand silver was being bid up by increments of one silver.
The people behind it probably didn’t expect this, huh.
Now the bids, fueled by the uproar, gradually increased to one hundred silver.
But if this keeps going, the auction might run until tomorrow morning before it’s finished, with three more precious items still in line.
Lin Miao knew that as the originator, he would offend some people, but if he truly belonged to the Huichun Valley lineage.
There was no escaping this matter, and besides, after shouting once, he never bid again, at least indicating to those behind the scenes that he wasn’t interested in the Celestial Fire Furnace.
As for attracting attention to himself, that’s fine. He also wants to see who the people behind the scenes are, so he would know when facing an enemy.
...
"This young man is usually steady and cautious. Why is he acting so boldly and loudly this time?" Baili Bingyun secretly wondered.
The Celestial Fire Furnace is an artifact of Huichun Valley. Could he be somehow connected to Huichun Valley?
A Huichun Valley that has been extinct for a hundred years — though there might have been a suspicion of wrongful killing back then — could someone be using this Celestial Fire Furnace for schemes, revenge, or something else?
But seeing that he hadn’t placed any further bids, she thought, could this have been a fleeting whim to deliberately cause trouble for the Heaven-Dominating Tower?
The issue is, he doesn’t seem to have any grudge against the Heaven-Dominating Tower either...
...
"Who was that kid who just made a bid?"
"No idea, probably from a small family, doesn’t know the heights of the sky or the depths of the earth. But by doing that, he’s offended both the person behind the consignment of the Celestial Fire Furnace and the Heaven-Dominating Tower."
"Those people who egged him on are probably also fed up with Heaven-Dominating Tower’s arrogance and presumptuousness. Chances are, their names have been taken note of."
"So what if they are? Anyway, once the auction is over, they’re gone. Can the Heaven-Dominating Tower really go out of Li Hen City to retaliate?"
"That’s true, just shout and run, what can the Heaven-Dominating Tower do to me... Five hundred taels!"
Just as this fellow shouted "five hundred taels," the entire room fell silent.
Because he didn’t notice that the auctioneer had just mentioned a new rule: According to the auction rules, a bidding ends after the burning of an incense stick, and whoever makes the last bid wins the item.
There’s no choice; if bidding was unrestricted, the subsequent auctions wouldn’t be able to proceed, so a new rule had to be introduced temporarily.
Fortunately, this fellow made a high bid of five hundred taels just at the last moment of that incense stick burning!
As a result, this Celestial Fire Furnace fell into his hands, something worth at least five hundred thousand taels was bought with just five hundred.
This fellow could hardly believe it; he was stunned by the immense fortune that had fallen on his head.
In a flash, Dongguo Sun’s legendary windfall of earning a million taels by striking big time in the Raw Stone Hall was pushed to the sidelines.
This guy really has the luck of the devil.
But more people were looking at him with sympathetic eyes; while this was an enormous fortune, it was also a hot potato. It all depended on how he handled this Celestial Fire Furnace next.
The farce was over.
Finally, it was time for the main event.
The third-to-last auction item was a sword manual called "Exorcism." Lin Miao almost bit his tongue when he heard the name.
How could such a martial art exist in this world? From the looks of it, it’s an exceptional sword manual.
It’s not just a sword manual, it also includes a heart method.
Compared to that "Nine Transformations of the Spirit Snake," it’s much stronger. Each appearance of the "Exorcism" sword manual brings with it blood and storm; everyone who obtains it becomes an elite warrior in the martial arts world, so this manual is particularly renowned.
Logically, a martial art that’s spread so widely should no longer be a secret, yet each time it appears, it seems to choose only one person.
After the sword manual is passed on, it disappears for a while, and when the previous inheritor dies, it appears again, as if someone is controlling it.
The reappearance of this sword manual indicates its previous owner has passed away.
It’s said to be a sword manual, but in fact, it’s a key.
By obtaining this key, one can follow its guidance to find the sword manual and gain its legacy.
The starting price for this key was not cheap, thirty thousand taels, eventually bought by a Purple Card VIP for sixty-two thousand taels of silver.
The identity of the Purple Card VIP was kept confidential by the Heaven-Dominating Tower, so no one knew who it was for the time being.
The second-to-last auction item appeared, a plate covered with a red silk cloth. From underneath, it seemed to be a small box, likely containing a small item.
What exactly it was still depended on the auctioneer to reveal.
With the red silk removed, there it was, a finely crafted box made of purple sandalwood, and the auctioneer opened it with shaky hands.
The true face of the item inside finally appeared.
A fruit.
Brownish-yellow skin, somewhat resembling a lychee, with two leaves underneath, still green, probably picked along with the leaves.
Could this be the Celestial Essence Fruit?
Like many people with doubts, Lin Miao also expressed his strong skepticism, having never seen the Celestial Essence Fruit before.
"Distinguished guests of tonight’s auction, what we have before you now is the second-to-last item in tonight’s auction.
I believe everyone is guessing, is this the thing you have in mind?"
"Yes, you guessed right, it is the Celestial Essence Fruit, capable of giving those in the Great Perfection of the Meridian Realm a thirty percent higher chance to break through and advance."
With those words!
The entire room erupted.
It truly was the Celestial Essence Fruit.
You could clearly hear many people breathing heavily; this single Celestial Essence Fruit represented a chance to break through to the heavenly essence.
Those who originally had a thirty to forty percent chance suddenly saw it boosted to sixty to seventy percent, a qualitative leap.
And many present tonight came specifically for this Celestial Essence Fruit. Although the competition for previous items was intense, none compared to this Celestial Essence Fruit.
What astronomical price this Celestial Essence Fruit would fetch was anyone’s guess.
Baili Bingyun mentioned before, a Tianyuan tree only bears two Celestial Essence Fruits. Although the Heaven-Dominating Tower obtained two, one matured and was eaten by Nie Tian, while the remaining unripe one was put up for auction due to timing and other reasons.
No one really knew the efficacy, or whether the unripe Celestial Essence Fruit was poisonous.
Anyway, consuming this didn’t guarantee a breakthrough, and there were instances where people failed after eating it, as the power of true breakthroughs ultimately needed to come from one’s own solid foundation.
It was surprising that the grand finale of tonight’s auction wasn’t the Celestial Essence Fruit, so what could it be?
This sparked Lin Miao’s strong curiosity.
Comments