At this moment, aside from the alchemists still refining pills, practically every cultivator gathered in Pill Emperor City had converged on the plaza and the surrounding mountains.
Having personally witnessed this extraordinary auction, not a single person could remain calm.
Billions upon billions of top-grade Yin Stones—apart from a handful of cultivators in Pill Emperor Pavilion, even among the top Mahayana cultivators of the Ten Halls, or the Supreme Ancestors of super sects, few had probably ever seen such wealth with their own eyes.
Yet now, several cultivators were frantically raising their bids, pushing the price into the heavens.
Even those seated atop the stone platform felt their minds roar and their blood surge in their chests, deeply shaken by the spectacle.
The bidding did not stop. The bids continued to rise with savage fervor.
"Thirty billion... thirty-two billion... thirty-five billion... thirty-seven billion..."
As wave after wave of competing bids rang out, the plaza of Pill Emperor City seemed to echo with rolling thunder. The booms struck everyone's hearts and shook their minds.
Watching cultivators frantically call out bids from within the crowd, Jin Tian wore a brilliant smile, the muscles on his face seeming to have slipped beyond his control.
Yet as the bidding continued, the smile on Jin Tian's face suddenly turned ugly.
It was an eerie expression, as though the muscles in his face had stiffened, losing their natural softness and vitality.
No one noticed Jin Tian. The voices of those bidding below the platform never ceased—one side had barely finished calling before another immediately took over. Jin Tian did not need to speak at all.
Suddenly, a cultivator in the crowd collapsed onto the ground. His body sprawled out with a heavy thud.
As this cultivator's sudden, strange fall occurred, successive thuds began ringing out across