After waiting a while longer, the auction finally began. The auction was still being hosted by the black-robed Elder Xu.
The old man took out a jade box, and upon opening it, there was a blue, leafy grass that was over ten feet long. The grass had some purplish-red patterns on it and emitted a faint blue spiritual light.
“A millennium Magic Light Grass. This spiritual herb was a precious find from Wind Demon Island a few years ago. I don't need to elaborate on its value; it can be used to refine several types of third and fourth-grade magic pills that enhance cultivation. The starting price is thirty thousand magic stones. Interested fellow cultivators, don't miss out.”
With the first item being a millennium spiritual herb, the atmosphere was immediately ignited.
“I bid thirty-two thousand magic stones.”
“Thirty-three thousand five hundred.”
…
The bidding continued incessantly, and the once-stable venue became heated.
“This old man bids fifty thousand magic stones.”
Suddenly, a hoarse voice rang out, causing the crowd's enthusiasm to dampen, especially the Core Formation cultivators who were participating in the bidding.
After a moment of silence, there were no more bids. The voice belonged to Nascent Soul cultivator, Senior Wu Ling.
There were only three Nascent Soul experts present, and the other two didn't seem interested in the Magic Light Grass. Even if the Core Formation cultivators and lower-level cultivators could afford to bid, they were unwilling to offend a Nascent Soul expert, so they all gave up bidding after some thought.
“Haha, then congratulations to Senior for winning this spiritual herb.” The auctioneer, Elder Xu, chuckled, though it was a bitter laugh.
He placed the spiritual herb back into the jade box, affixed a spiritual talisman, and handed it to a serving girl, who quickly delivered it to Wu Ling Shangren.
“The second item is three pieces of Rock Essence, auctioned together with a starting price of thirty thousand magic stones.” Elder Xu immediately presented the second item: three yellow, fist-sized stones.
This time, no Nascent Soul cultivators bid, and the atmosphere livened up again.
Zhang Ling glanced at the three yellow stones. Rock Essence was a decent material for refining treasures, especially earth-attribute magical items.
Judging by the size, each piece would be worth thirty to forty thousand spirit stones if converted.
Soon, the three pieces of Rock Essence were bought by a late-stage Core Formation cultivator from booth number one hundred and thirty.
Elder Xu, in high spirits, presented the third item: two red, shimmering flying swords, seemingly identical, but one was longer and the other shorter.
“The Twin Red Fire Swords, a fine magical item crafted from fire crystal stones, flame jade, and other materials. The starting price is one hundred thousand magic stones.”
Many Core Formation cultivators immediately showed interest in the treasure.
In the end, a plump, red-faced young man bought the swords for two hundred thousand magic stones.
This was an early-stage Core Formation cultivator, who seemed to have recently formed his core. He excitedly paid the magic stones, took the flying swords, and began studying them on his own.
He seemed to want to refine the flying swords into his natal magic treasure.
Next, several bottles of rare pills for enhancing the magic power of Core Formation cultivators were auctioned off, naturally attracting even more attention.
Zhang Ling calmly watched everything, witnessing the auction of one item after another.
The first twenty or thirty items were treasures that were somewhat attractive to Core Formation cultivators.
Whether it was pills, magical items, or refining materials, the scale of this auction seemed quite large, with higher quality items than those typically found in Core Formation-level auctions.
The thousands of lower-level cultivators sitting on the outer fringes watched with burning eyes, but they were not qualified to bid.
However, after thirty or forty decent items were auctioned off,
the subsequent auction items were not very attractive to Core Formation cultivators. Instead, some spiritual herbs younger than a century old, magical artifacts, and the like appeared.
This left the Core Formation cultivators feeling unsatisfied. These ordinary items were naturally for the low-level cultivators to bid on. Core Formation cultivators rarely participated.
And so, the auction proceeded in a lively manner.
Time passed bit by bit, and in the blink of an eye, over a thousand items had been auctioned off.
Although most of them were only for low-level cultivators, every hundred items or so, there would be twenty or thirty treasures that were very attractive to Core Formation cultivators.
Therefore, the auction always maintained its heat.
Among them, seven or eight ancient treasures appeared, drawing the competition of many cultivators. The three Nascent Soul experts in the venue also participated.
At this moment, Elder Xu, who was conducting the auction, was holding a dark cloud in his hand, looking at the constantly bidding cultivators with a satisfied smile.
The cloud was constantly changing and flowing in his hand, very spiritual. If a cultivator's spiritual sense was strong enough, they could see a rhombus-shaped jade stone inside the black mist, which was the true form of this object.
This was a special ancient treasure that could transform into a black cloud. A cultivator hiding inside could use the black cloud to greatly increase their escape speed in a short period of time.
Zhang Ling was also very interested in this ancient treasure and participated in several bids.
Unfortunately, Wu Ling Shangren and a tall, sturdy man who was also a Nascent Soul cultivator also joined in. In the end, the ancient treasure was bought by the big man for over four hundred thousand magic stones.
So many magic stones were equivalent to over a million spirit stones. It was quite a bit of blood for a Nascent Soul cultivator's wealth.
Regardless of what other cultivators thought, the hunchbacked Wu Ling Shangren's expression was not good. As a fellow Nascent Soul cultivator, he could certainly afford to bid for this treasure.
However, he was not a cultivator from the Northwest region. Living in this place, he had some concerns. He didn't want to have conflicts with the Nascent Soul cultivators of the local tribes.
He had suffered quite a few losses in this regard before. After much consideration, Wu Ling Shangren had to give up bidding.
Zhang Ling was also quite depressed at the moment. He also had concerns.
He had exchanged for a lot of magic stones these past few days and was still qualified to bid, but he would inevitably attract the attention of the three Nascent Soul cultivators, so he had no choice but to give up.
During these few days, he had also gathered a lot of information about the Twelve Immortal Cities of the human race. During this time, there had been many conflicts between the alien demons and the human race.
If his identity as a human cultivator was exposed, it would definitely attract the pursuit of this group of alien demons.
Ancient treasures were magical items refined by ancient cultivators. Generally speaking, their functions were simple, but their power was one or two levels higher than the magical items refined by modern cultivators.
Some top-notch ancient treasures, if used well, could be a great help to Nascent Soul cultivators.
As cultivation and knowledge increased, ancient treasures were not only passed down from ancient cultivators. Some sects with inheritance had ancient treasure refining methods passed down.
However, the materials needed to refine ancient treasures were difficult to find in the current cultivation world. The refining techniques were also special. It was very difficult to refine, time-consuming and laborious.
But refining the same level of magical items was much simpler.
Therefore, even if one could gather all the materials, few people would use this ancient method to refine ancient treasures. Modern cultivators actually valued magical items with diverse functions more.
This was also one of the reasons why ancient treasures were rare. Of course, even so, the value of an ancient treasure was still much higher than ordinary magical items.
Especially ancient treasures with special properties such as flying and transformation, their value was even higher. These were all top-notch ancient treasures.
The water bubble that could transform into clones in Zhang Ling's hand, the purple-black bronze bell that had been destroyed, and the Thunder Spirit Shuttle that Ding Ruozhao and her sister gave him were all such special ancient treasures.
After another seventeen or eighteen treasures were auctioned off, the auction was nearing its end.
Elder Xu, with a smile on his face, cupped his hands in several directions and said.
“Thank you all for your support. Next, we will auction off the five finale treasures prepared by our Golden Goose Mountain. Before that, allow me to keep you in suspense. Please take a short rest. The finale treasures will be auctioned off in a quarter of an hour.”
After saying this, Elder Xu transformed into a beam of light and flew into the sky, passing through a golden cloud in a few flashes and disappearing. This caused dissatisfaction among many cultivators, and the scene was slightly chaotic.
But as a burst of immortal music rang out, several pairs of beautiful fairies began to dance and sing in the clouds.
“Hehe, there are so many tricks.” Zhang Ling couldn't help but chuckle.
This auction had really whetted everyone's appetite.
The discussions of the other cultivators gradually quieted down with the beautiful songs and dances. Although there was still dissatisfaction, Golden Goose Mountain was the organizer and had Nascent Soul cultivators sitting in town, so they could only complain in words at most.
At the same time, Zhang Ling also noticed that many cultivators had left the venue, especially the low-level cultivators in the outer areas, who had already left a small half. Of course, some Core Formation cultivators also left, but the number was not large.
This was originally an auction aimed at Core Formation cultivators, and the finale items were naturally not something that low-level cultivators could participate in. The low-level cultivators who remained were basically there to broaden their horizons.
In the blink of an eye, a quarter of an hour had passed.
Elder Xu reappeared, and everyone's eyes immediately fell on him. Feeling the countless fiery gazes, the old man no longer kept them in suspense, chuckled, and took out the first finale treasure.
With a flash of spiritual light in his hands, he held up a colorful ball of light, immediately attracting everyone's attention.
“A spiritual eye treasure nurtured in a medium-grade spiritual vein, a piece of spiritual eye jade stone. This item was found by our Saint Hall elders in the Forbidden Demon Area. The starting price is two hundred thousand magic stones.”
The colorful ball of light flickered a few times, revealing the item inside. It was a head-sized milky white jade stone, smooth on the surface and without any patterns, like an ordinary pebble.
But the jade stone gently shook, releasing a layer of faint white mist.
In the spiritual sense of the cultivators, the white mist released by the jade stone was shining with colorful light spots. This was the spiritual light transformed by pure heaven and earth spiritual power.
“Two hundred thousand magic stones.”
“Two hundred and thirty thousand magic stones.”
After a moment of silence, people began to bid. In an instant, the price soared to three hundred thousand magic stones. Zhang Ling's face sank slightly, and he also bid a “price of three hundred and thirty thousand”, participating in the bidding.
But he couldn't help but slander in his heart, I didn't expect so many people to bid.
He had previously guessed that this kind of spiritual eye object born in a pure spiritual vein was not very compatible with the magic techniques practiced by the alien demons, and there wouldn't be too many bidders. Now it seems that he was wrong.
With a wry smile, he had no choice but to waste a lot of magic stones and bid it down. Thinking in his heart, Zhang Ling reported a high price of more than four hundred thousand, and the number of bidders was much less.
After so much tugging, he finally reported a price of five hundred and sixty thousand magic stones, and no one added the price.
“Okay, congratulations to this fellow daoist for winning this treasure.” Elder Xu glanced at Zhang Ling with a smile on his face.
Of course, there were also other people looking at Zhang Ling. In the eyes of the alien demons, 500,000 magic stones had actually exceeded the value of this spiritual eye thing born in the middle-grade spiritual vein. Most people felt it was not worth it.
The spiritual eye thing born in the middle-grade spiritual vein is carried on the body, and for human monks, it is only equivalent to a small middle-grade spiritual vein, or even less. The value for alien demons will be reduced even more.
Alien demons can naturally absorb ordinary heaven and earth spiritual power and convert it into their own demonic energy for cultivation.
However, ordinary heaven and earth spiritual energy requires an extra refining step for them, which will waste a lot of time.
After all, they live in an environment where demonic energy is mixed all year round. Although a pure aura environment will not harm them, it will make them slightly uncomfortable.
Zhang Ling does not know about this special situation of alien demons. It was only after contacting more and more alien demons that he learned about this situation.
At this moment, Zhang Ling didn't care about the eyes of other people, and just sat silently in place.
On the auction platform, Elder Xu took out another finale item without stopping, which were three black long-necked jade bottles. When one of the jade bottles was opened, a cloud of black-purple mist emerged.
“Three bottles of Demon Essence Spirit Liquid, each bottle with a starting price of 100,000 magic stones. This spirit liquid is a rare spirit liquid specially condensed from a large amount of demonic energy by the Holy Hall. For us, it is no less than a top-grade elixir. After taking it, it can refine one's own spiritual power, especially for those who have cultivated to the bottleneck, it can also help break through the bottleneck.”
Zhang Ling also raised his eyes to look at the three jade bottles, because he found that this so-called magic essence spirit liquid actually contained a trace of true demonic energy.
Although it was very weak, the true demonic energy he had refined in his body actually circulated slightly.
“Hee hee, it seems that there are some strange people in this group of half-demons in your world who can dilute the true demonic energy to such an extent.” Suddenly, Lan Que's chuckle sounded in his mind.
“It seems that my feeling just now was right. There really is true demonic energy in this spirit liquid.” Zhang Ling's eyes also lit up, and he responded.
“What, are you interested in these spirit liquids?”
Zhang Ling was indeed a little interested in this magic essence spirit night, but Lan Que's contemptuous hum came over again.
“This thing is useless to you. You have already refined a few strands of true demonic energy. This kind of spirit liquid containing a little bit of true demonic energy can only make the true demonic energy you have refined stronger. The Myriad Spirit Transformation Technique I gave you can continuously strengthen the true demonic energy by absorbing ordinary heaven and earth spiritual power. You don't need this kind of spirit liquid at all.”
Hearing Lan Que's words, Zhang Ling licked his lips and didn't say much. After carefully sensing it, the magic essence spirit liquid was indeed as Lan Que said, it was not of much use to him.
But the people present looked fiery, and many Core Formation monks joined the bidding. It seems that this kind of spirit liquid is widely spread among the alien demons.
