571: Chapter 571 Immortal Crystals in Hand, Watching the Storm Ride

The auction began at the hour of Chen.

Jiang Shuheng, dressed in black with wide sleeves, stood in the center of the display stage, with a ten-foot-high spiritual light barrier suspended behind him.

With each item brought up, the corresponding Law fluctuations and origins appeared on the barrier.

The first item, the Crimson Rainbow Immortal Sword, a third-grade True Immortal Artifact, the guardian treasure of a certain exterminated major School.

The starting price was eighty million immortal crystals, and it finally sold for two hundred and thirty million.

The second item, the Nine Netherworld Lotus, which can assist a True Immortal Late Stage in tempering their immortal soul.

The bidding started at one hundred million and closed at three hundred and seventy million.

The third, fourth, and fifth items followed.

Shen Yuanmo leaned back against the rosewood chair in the Heaven Grade One private box, his expression composed.

These items would be enough to trigger a bloodbath in a remote Star Domain like the Tian Yuan Star Domain.

But at a Peak auction in the Central Galaxy, they were merely appetizers.

The people sitting in these Star Plucking Tower private boxes were here for the main course.

The ship spirit reported in his Sea of Consciousness: "The 117th item has been sold for 1.02 billion immortal crystals. It is estimated that there are three items left before the primordial immortal crystal fragment appears."

Shen Yuanmo held his teacup and did not respond.

His Divine Sense had already spread out before the start, covering the entire auction hall.

He knew exactly who was sitting in every seat, their cultivation level, and what they were thinking.

The seat in the middle of the front row was the most interesting.

Mu Taiyi, the special envoy personally appointed by the Immortal King Guyuan, with a Perfected True Immortal cultivation, his Daoist robe lined with the hidden pattern clan emblem of the Ancient God Abyss.

Four Perfected True Immortal guards sat on either side of him, each focused and disciplined, as motionless as clay statues in a temple.

Shen Yuanmo took a sip of tea; it was good tea, a Peerless Grade spirit tea from Jiang Shuheng's private collection, worth three million immortal crystals a pot.

The 118th item sold, the 119th sold, and the 120th sold.

The atmosphere in the hall began to change.

The old fellows in the front row stopped whispering, and the Cultivators in the back even began to control their breathing; everyone was waiting.

"Fellow Daoists."

Jiang Shuheng's voice was not loud, yet it could penetrate the noise created by the over ten thousand Cultivators in the hall, reaching everyone's ears clearly.

"The first grand finale item—"

The Restriction light shield in the center of the display stage slowly rose.

A fist-sized crystal floated within the light shield, completely colorless and transparent.

However, every facet reflected light that did not belong to this starry sky.

The light was not dazzling, yet it made one's pupils involuntarily contract.

The primordial immortal crystal fragment.

"This item needs no further introduction from me."

Jiang Shuheng gestured, and dense appraisal records appeared on the spiritual light barrier.

"Jointly certified by three Half-Step Immortal King-grade appraisal Great Masters of the Star Plucking Tower, the purity of this fragment reaches 97%, making it the highest quality primordial immortal crystal fragment to circulate in the Tianshu Star Sector in the last ten thousand years."

"The starting price is ten billion immortal crystals. Each bid must increase by no less than five hundred million."

The hall fell silent for three breaths.

It wasn't that no one wanted it, but that too many people wanted it, so no one dared to speak first.

For something like a primordial immortal crystal, whether one could refine it after buying it was one thing, but who one might offend during the process was another.

"10.5 billion."

The first bid came from a side room on the left, the voice old and carrying a heavy foreign accent.

"11 billion."

The private box on the right followed suit.

"12 billion."

A corner in the back row joined in.

The price was rising, but slowly.

Shen Yuanmo listened to the tentative bids below, idly swirling his teacup.

The difficulty of refining a primordial immortal crystal fragment was extremely high; a Perfected True Immortal wouldn't even dare touch it, and at least a Half-Step Immortal King was barely qualified to try.

Most of the buyers present were eyeing the profit from reselling it; very few actually had the strength to refine it.

When the price reached 13 billion, the scene cooled down.

Three top merchant guilds were in a tug-of-war, each bid increasing by exactly five hundred million, tentatively testing each other as if cutting flesh inch by inch.

Mu Taiyi in the front row had not moved the entire time.

Shen Yuanmo watched his formal, upright posture and set down his teacup.

"20 billion."

The voice was sent out from the sound transmission Formation of the Heaven Grade One private box, neither heavy nor light, with a tone similar to reciting a menu.

The bidding below came to a screeching halt.

Over ten thousand pairs of eyes simultaneously looked toward the private box at the highest point of the dome.

Heaven Grade One, the position that only those with the highest Star Plucking Tower Advanced VIP token could occupy.

20 billion immortal crystals.

A direct jump from 13 billion to 20 billion.

This wasn't called bidding; this was telling everyone present to stop competing.

Mu Taiyi's brow in the front row furrowed.

He had only one mission: to obtain the great void source breaking pill.

The Immortal King Guyuan had allocated 60 billion immortal crystals, and not a single one could be wasted on anything else.

No matter how precious the primordial immortal crystal fragment was, it was not on his shopping list.

But who exactly was sitting in the Heaven Grade One private box?

Mu Taiyi hesitated for a breath, then sent out a wisp of Divine Sense toward the dome.

He was very cautious, using only the finest wisp, as thin as spider silk, which theoretically should not trigger any perception.

That wisp of Divine Sense had just touched the edge of the private box's Restriction.

It was gone.

It wasn't bounced back, and it wasn't blocked.

Rather, the moment it touched, the entire strand of spider silk was swallowed clean by something.

Mu Taiyi's body stiffened, and a trace of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

The guard beside him noticed the abnormality and asked in a low voice, "Envoy?"

"It is nothing," Mu Taiyi squeezed out two words through his teeth, his hand beneath his sleeve trembling slightly.

That method of devouring was too clean, so clean that he didn't even have time to discern what kind of means the opponent had used.

An existence at this level was definitely not a Perfected True Immortal.

At least a Half-Step Immortal King, or perhaps even higher.

Mu Taiyi swallowed the bloody taste in his mouth and stopped meddling.

"20 billion immortal crystals, going once," Jiang Shuheng's voice echoed in the hall.

"Going twice."

"Going thrice, sold."

The primordial immortal crystal fragment was personally delivered to the Heaven Grade One private box by an Immortal Envoy of the Star Plucking Tower.

Shen Yuanmo took the fist-sized transparent crystal, weighed it, and put it into the Chaos Dao Palace.

20 billion immortal crystals was not expensive.

Once he refined and absorbed this primordial immortal crystal fragment, the improvement to his cultivation and the Chaos Return to Origin Profound Truth would be far beyond what 20 billion immortal crystals could measure.

Shen Yuanmo leaned back against the chair, waiting for the main act.

The spiritual light barrier on the stage flickered twice, and all auction records were cleared. Jiang Shuheng took a half-step back and made a gesture behind him.

Two Half-Step Immortal King guards emerged from the Void Realm, each holding one end of a Restriction chain.

They slowly lifted a white jade bottle, smaller than a fist, to the center of the display stage.

The bottle was plain white without patterns.

But when Jiang Shuheng personally uncovered a corner of the outermost Restriction, the atmosphere in the hall suddenly became heavy.

The gray Qi leaking from the bottle's mouth was only a single wisp, as thin as a hair.

Yet it caused all the low-level Law inscriptions attached to the objects in the hall to fall into disorder at the same time.

"Everyone."

Jiang Shuheng's expression was ten times more solemn than before.

"The ultimate grand finale of this session, the great void source breaking pill."

An appraisal image of the Medicinal Pill appeared on the spiritual light barrier.

A gray pill body with Chaos-colored pill patterns, a longan-sized pill lay quietly at the bottom of the bottle.

"After repeated verification by the Star Plucking Tower and five Half-Step Immortal King-grade appraisal Great Masters, the chance of a Perfected True Immortal breaking through to a Half-Step Immortal King after consuming this pill is—"

Jiang Shuheng paused for a breath.

"Forty percent."

The first person to lose control in the hall was not a Loose Cultivator, but a wizened old man in the third row of the front.

An old monster who had lived for an unknown number of millions of years, he had been stuck at Perfected True Immortal for at least ten billion years.

When he heard the figure of forty percent, his Immortal Dao dharmic power sprayed directly out of his pores.

The second to lose control was in the side room on the left.

The third was on the right.

The fourth, fifth, sixth...

Dozens of Perfected True Immortal-level auras erupted simultaneously, causing the Immortal King-level Restriction arrays on the auction hall's dome to hum and vibrate.

Jiang Shuheng's expression changed slightly, and the two Half-Step Immortal King guards behind him released their power of Laws together to suppress the scene.

"Quiet," Jiang Shuheng said solemnly.

"I'm sure everyone is more familiar with the rules of the Star Plucking Tower than I am."

The out-of-control auras were retracted one by one, but the eyes of those old fellows had all turned red.

Forty percent.

What did those two words mean?

It meant that a Perfected True Immortal who consumed this Immortal Pill would have nearly a fifty-percent chance of reaching the Half-Step Immortal King realm.

Such a probability had never appeared in the history of the Central Galaxy.

Those so-called realm-breaking Spirit Medicines were considered Peerless Grade if they offered even a five-percent increase.

"Starting price, 20 billion immortal crystals."

"25 billion!" The wizened old man was the first to shout, his voice cracking.

"30 billion." Left side room.

"32 billion!" Right side box.

"38 billion!" A raspy-voiced old woman in a corner of the back row shouted.

As she shouted, she pulled a stack of contracts from her storage ring; she was selling the property rights of three Resource Stars under her School on the spot.

"40 billion."

"43 billion!"

Within half a cup of tea's time, the price broke through the 50 billion mark.

Those reclusive old monsters had gone mad, bringing out Immortal Artifacts to be discounted on the spot and selling off their Schools' foundations.

Some even signed Great Dao Blood Covenants with the Star Plucking Tower to exchange for loan amounts, with conditions so harsh they required their Lifespan as collateral.

Shen Yuanmo watched this farce from his private box, already on his third pot of tea.

The ship spirit whispered in his Sea of Consciousness: "My Lord, how much did it cost you to refine this pill again?"

Shen Yuanmo did not answer.

Cost?

That pile of highly toxic defective products plus waste materials with conflicting medicinal properties had cost less than three million immortal crystals in total.

The price below was still rising.

51 billion, 53 billion, 55 billion...

The speed slowed down; it wasn't that they didn't want to bid more, but the old monsters present were starting to run out of funds.

Several reclusive old fellows who had just signed blood covenants had ashen Faces, their hands trembling as they held their bidding signs, each bid feeling like cutting their own flesh.

"57 billion."

The wizened old man spoke for the fourth time, his voice already hoarse.

The scene fell into a stalemate.

In the center of the front row, Mu Taiyi finally moved.

He slowly stood up and raised a Crimson Gold Storage Ring in his right hand. The moment his immortal power was injected, a golden phantom soared into the sky from the ring.

The phantom of the Immortal King Guyuan.

It was not the original body, but merely an Immortal King manifestation pre-sealed within the token, yet that pressure truly bore down on everyone.

The breathing of the thousands of Cultivators in the hall simultaneously became difficult.

"The Ancient God Abyss bids," Mu Taiyi's voice, bolstered by the Immortal King phantom, spread throughout the entire Star Plucking Tower.

"62 billion."

He scanned the competitors around him who were still holding their signs.

"Whoever dares to compete again will be forming a death enmity with the Immortal King Guyuan!"

His words were blunt but true.

The Ancient God Abyss had operated in the Central Galaxy for countless epochs and was a top-tier power with an Immortal King presiding over it.

If one offended them, they wouldn't even know how they died.

The wizened old man's sign hung in mid-air, wobbling three times before he lowered it.

the left side room fell silent.

The right side box fell silent, and the raspy voice from the back row also fell silent.

62 billion immortal crystals plus the Face of an Immortal King was enough to block all competitors.

Mu Taiyi retracted the phantom and sat back down.

His back was ramrod straight, and his chin was slightly raised, fully displaying the air of an Ancient God Abyss special envoy.

"62 billion immortal crystals, going once," Jiang Shuheng spoke expressionlessly.

"Going twice."

"Going thrice, sold."

Upstairs.

In the Heaven Grade One private box, Shen Yuanmo set down his teacup and gave a soft laugh against the back of his chair.

The laugh was very light and short, but the ship spirit heard it clearly.

"My Lord, what are you laughing at?"

Shen Yuanmo looked down at Mu Taiyi, who was self-satisfiedly receiving the white jade bottle.

The people of the Ancient God Abyss had spent 62 billion immortal crystals to buy a Medicinal Pill he had refined from three million immortal crystals worth of trashy medicinal dregs.

And they would turn around and respectfully deliver it back to that Immortal King Guyuan as a treasure.

"It's nothing," Shen Yuanmo retracted his gaze, his right hand tightening around the primordial immortal crystal fragment in his sleeve.