Dominating the Entire Auction

Qin Nanyue and Lin Ying, who were beside him, both turned to look at Lu Yang when they heard his words.

"Junior Brother Lu, you want to bid?" Qin Nanyue was somewhat surprised.

She knew Lu Yang had deep pockets, but these were supreme-grade pills, and all five bottles were being auctioned together. The bidding would probably be fierce!

Lu Yang nodded, his gaze still fixed on the white porcelain bottle in Liu Yaoyao's hand. "Yes, I need to raise my cultivation as quickly as possible right now. Yellow Dragon Pills are already the best cultivation pills for the Qi Refining Realm, and these are even supreme-grade. Now that I've come across them, I naturally can't miss the chance."

Qin Nanyue raised her heroic brows. "You've got that much money, kid? All five bottles are being auctioned together, so the price won't be low. It'll be at least ten thousand-odd low-grade spirit stones."

Lin Ying sat quietly to the side, but a trace of disappointment stirred in her heart when she heard Lu Yang.

She had recently been learning to refine Yellow Dragon Pills.

Ever since she got the Purple Cloud Pill-Nurturing Robe, her alchemy had improved rapidly. She could now just barely refine Yellow Dragon Pills, though their quality was ordinary.

She had planned to replace Lu Yang's Qi Nourishing Pills with Yellow Dragon Pills once she had more practice and could produce better-quality pills.

But now Junior Brother Lu was going to bid on Supreme-Grade Yellow Dragon Pills.

She pursed her red lips and silently encouraged herself.

Lin Ying, oh, Lin Ying, keep it up!

Study the Yellow Dragon Pill carefully. Even if I can't refine supreme-grade ones, refining more high-quality ones will do.

There's only a limited supply of Supreme-Grade Yellow Dragon Pills. Junior Brother Lu will run out of them someday, and when he does, I can give him the Yellow Dragon Pills I refined myself.

By now, the sound of bidding downstairs had drawn Lu Yang's attention back.

"Three thousand!"

"Three thousand five hundred!"

"Three thousand eight hundred!"

The cultivators in the first-floor hall called out one after another, their bids rising and falling in succession.

But the cultivators sitting in the general seating couldn't even get VIP Tokens, and the spirit stones in their pockets were limited after all.

Once the price reached five thousand, the bids noticeably thinned out. Several Rogue Cultivators who had raised their hands silently lowered their arms.

Just then, an even male voice came from a private room on the third floor. "Ten thousand."

The moment the number landed, the first-floor hall fell silent, as though someone had pressed a mute button. Not a crow or sparrow could be heard.

The Rogue Cultivators who had been arguing red-faced moments ago stood with their mouths half open, their voices caught in their throats.

Yet that bid was like a switch that set off a second round of competition.

A gentle female voice came from a private room on the second floor, carrying a leisurely hint of laughter. "Hehe, these pills are good. I'll buy them for the younger generation. Twelve thousand!"

An aged voice promptly followed from a third-floor private room. "What a coincidence. I also want to give them to a junior. Thirteen thousand!"

"Fifteen thousand." The even male voice from before spoke again, his tone unruffled.

"Hmph, sixteen thousand," the aged voice said with a cold snort.

The price jumped by the thousand, leaving the Rogue Cultivators in the first-floor hall dumbstruck.

Someone gave a bitter smile and shook his head, lowering his voice as he remarked to a companion, "It's laughable how hard we were fighting just now... We can't even dream of getting our hands on these Supreme-Grade Yellow Dragon Pills."

"The big shots on the second and third floors all have VIP Tokens. They're either powerful themselves or have forces backing them. What do we have to compete with them?"

The sighs downstairs had yet to die down when the bidding upstairs reached eighteen thousand.

"Nineteen thousand." The aged voice on the third floor rang out again, sounding somewhat pained. "That's my highest bid. If either of you goes any higher, I won't follow."

The auction hall fell quiet for a moment.

Everyone held their breath, their gazes sweeping back and forth between the second and third floors.

Only those two parties were still competing.

Qin Nanyue looked at Lu Yang and saw that he was still leaning back in his chair, utterly relaxed. She couldn't help urging him, "Weren't you going to compete? Why haven't you made a move?"

Lu Yang picked up his teacup and took a sip, chuckling. "No hurry."

On the raised platform, Liu Yaoyao saw that no one was bidding further. Her alluring, peach-blossom eyes shifted slightly, and her voice turned seductive. "VIP number fourteen on the third floor has bid nineteen thousand—is there a higher bid? This is a whole five bottles of Supreme-Grade Yellow Dragon Pills~ If a young fellow Daoist in the Qi Refining Realm uses them, they could save a full five years or even longer~ Time is something no amount of gold can buy~ It would be such a shame to miss out. I'll start the countdown now—three!"

It had to be said that Liu Yaoyao was truly eloquent.

In just a few seemingly effortless sentences, every word had struck at the hearts of the cultivators present.

What was most valuable to a cultivator?

Not spirit stones, but time!

Trading nineteen thousand low-grade spirit stones for five years was naturally unrealistic for penniless Rogue Cultivators, but for wealthy cultivators, it was more than worth it!

Sure enough, as soon as Liu Yaoyao finished speaking, the woman's voice rang out from the second-floor private room through gritted teeth. "Twenty thousand! This is my bottom line!"

The expressions of the Rogue Cultivators in the hall were more colorful than the last.

Five bottles of pills had fetched the astronomical price of twenty thousand low-grade spirit stones!

That was four thousand per bottle, enough to take them years to save up.

"This is too crazy. Isn't money still money to these seniors...?"

They even had the illusion that they and the people upstairs lived in entirely different worlds.

Hearing another bid from the second floor, Liu Yaoyao curved her lips slightly and turned her smiling gaze toward the third floor. "Any higher bids?"

Before she could begin her sales pitch, the male voice from the third floor sounded again. His tone was no longer as calm as it had been, and the end of his words carried a barely perceptible tremor. "Twenty thousand five hundred."

Just over twenty thousand was evidently no small sum for him either.

Liu Yaoyao's eyes lit up, her smile growing even more radiant. Her voice rose a little without her noticing. "VIP number nine on the third floor has bid twenty thousand five hundred—is there a higher bid? If not, I'll start the countdown—"

"Twenty-five thousand."

A clear voice came from a private room on the second floor.

Liu Yaoyao: "????"

Even though Liu Yaoyao had presided over auctions many times, her expression froze for a moment.

Everyone else in the auction house was even more stunned.

The cultivators in the first-floor hall all raised their heads in unison, looking in the direction the voice had come from.

Gazes also turned that way from behind the gauze curtains of private rooms on the second and third floors, and even the fourth.

From twenty thousand five hundred to twenty-five thousand—it had jumped nearly five thousand in one go!

The leap was so great that they thought they had misheard.

In the private room where Qin Nanyue and the other two sat,

Qin Nanyue and Lin Ying stared at Lu Yang in bewilderment.

They had thought Lu Yang had already given up.

After all, paying more than twenty thousand low-grade spirit stones for five bottles of Supreme-Grade Yellow Dragon Pills was no longer worth it.

Neither of them had expected Lu Yang to make such a huge move at the very end.

Qin Nanyue's expression changed. She lowered her voice and said, "Junior Brother Lu, have you gone mad? The VIP on the third floor was already close to his limit at twenty thousand five hundred! If you really wanted to buy them, twenty-one thousand should have been enough! Why bid so high?"

Lin Ying looked at Lu Yang with some guilt and said, "Junior Brother Lu, it's all my fault for not knowing how to refine Supreme-Grade Yellow Dragon Pills. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had to spend so much bidding for them."

Lu Yang was happy at the moment. Hearing Qin Nanyue's words, he cheerfully waved a hand. "Twenty-five thousand isn't expensive. It's well worth it."

You've got to be kidding. I'm using a Rebate Card for this transaction.

The less I spend, the less I get back.

He happened to have just over twenty-five thousand low-grade spirit stones left, so naturally he would use them all!

That was how he could maximize his profit!

As for Lin Ying's words, they made Lu Yang pause.

He looked at Lin Ying tenderly.

He hadn't expected that his purchase of pills would make this gentle senior sister feel guilty, as though it were her fault she hadn't refined Yellow Dragon Pills.

Lu Yang couldn't help reaching out to rub Lin Ying's head.

He smiled gently. "Then I'll have to trouble you for my Yellow Dragon Pills from now on, Senior Sister Lin."