The Thousand Treasures Pavilion was a treasure merchant under the direct control of the You Mountain Empire. Its branches filled every major city, and it held a complete monopoly over the empire's treasure market. It alone was permitted to sell treasures to the public.
The Thousand Treasures Pavilion had just about everything. Its wares ranged from True God Level Supreme Treasures to rare and precious wonders from across the Origin Continent, even Supreme Treasures fit for God Kings. If you could pay the price, you could buy almost anything.
Branches throughout the empire took turns holding grand auctions every ten thousand years. Each auction was a feast for the eyes, with one rare treasure after another appearing on the block.
Beyond the branch auctions, an even more frenzied grand auction was held in the Imperial Capital once every Era of Reincarnation. Every lot was said to be enough to drive an Eternal True God wild, and some treasures even drew the envy of Saint Realm experts.
The depth of the Thousand Treasures Pavilion's resources was unimaginable.
In every city, the Thousand Treasures Pavilion drew the largest crowds.
Azure City's Thousand Treasures Pavilion was an unusual nine-story tower. From outside, it looked much like any other building, standing only around a thousand kilometers tall and covering a modest area. But as Luo Feng stepped inside, he felt as though he had entered another space entirely.
That space was probably tens of millions of kilometers across.
Tall display stands lined up in neat rows, some holding three-dimensional projections, others displaying the real objects.
"There's so much," Luo Feng exclaimed.
The goods on the first floor were relatively ordinary and inexpensive. It was generally where Venerables and those below them, Lords of Laws, and True Gods browsed for bargains. Only the seventh floor and above held genuine rarities, each enough to tempt a Void True God. But only Void True Gods or those stronger could enter.
Luo Feng did not linger. He headed straight for the Ninth Layer.
At the Thousand Treasures Pavilion, access depended on two things: resources and strength.
The greater one's resources, the higher one could go. The greater one's strength, the higher one could go as well.
The seventh and eighth floors were generally open only to Void True Gods and above, while the Ninth Layer was reserved for Eternal True Gods and above. Of course, sufficient purchasing power could make up for insufficient strength and grant access to a higher floor.
The treasures on the Ninth Layer were all capable of tempting Eternal True Gods.
The Ninth Layer was much smaller and more open. Almost no one was there.
There were few items, perhaps several hundred at a glance. Physical displays were rare; most were three-dimensional projections. Yet even the projections reproduced the treasures' auras perfectly. Without an Eternal True God's keen senses, one might mistake them for the real thing.
The projections were a product of technology!
In the Primal Universe, the Machine Race's technology had ranked among the best. Compared with the Origin Continent's, though, it lagged far behind.
Every one of these is a treasure. This Supreme Treasure... Luo Feng stared in shock at an arm-like item. Its aura was so powerful that it nearly rivaled the Chaos Golden Wings. It was clearly an Eternal Level Mechanical Flow Treasure.
What Eternal True God would not be tempted by even one of these?
Luo Feng could not help drawing a sharp breath.
And this floor held only a fraction of the Thousand Treasures Pavilion's treasures. What level of items would appear at its even more extravagant auctions?
"Master, there are so many treasures I want to devour," Morosa said. Even he, usually so reserved, could not hold back.
"I don't have the money. Come on, let's take a look first."
Luo Feng walked to the nearest display stand.
There was not even a salesperson to explain the wares on the Ninth Layer. The Pavilion simply let visitors look for themselves. The treasures needed no sales pitch, and the Pavilion had no fear that anyone would dare steal or rob them.
"Primary Time Heart."
Luo Feng stopped before the display. The three-dimensional projection showed a smooth azure crystal, oval and about the size of a football. Countless tiny facets covered its surface, each traced with golden secret patterns. Faintly, time itself seemed to flow at a different rate across the Time Heart than in the space around it.
"The Star Sand River? The Star Spirit Race? So this is a Time Heart from the Star Spirit Race." Luo Feng caught the key details.
The Duandong River Lineage had records of them as well.
The Star Sand River was a wonder of the Origin Continent, as extraordinary as the Sun Star and Taiyin Star. It was not a true river. It only looked like one: a celestial river suspended high above the continent.
The Star Sand River was a trillion light-years wide, made up of countless strange streams of Spatial Quicksand and planets, and hung high above the eastern Origin Continent. It seemed endless. No one knew where it began or where it led. Its length, like the vastness of the Origin Continent itself, was unknown and impossible to record.
Within the Star Sand River, Spatial Quicksand was the strangest phenomenon of all. Some stretches were death traps, the weakest capable of annihilating True Gods and the strongest even God Kings. Other stretches carried planets that nurtured the wondrous Star Spirit Race and still more marvelous treasures.
The Star Spirit Race was among the Origin Continent's most wondrous races. Its members were born beloved by space, time, or even both.
Every member was nurtured by a planet within the Star Sand River, and each planet could nurture only one. At birth, they gained the recognition of the Space Origin, the Time Origin, or both, and already possessed the strength of a Lord of Laws. By adulthood, they reached the Void True God or even the Eternal True God Level.
Once a planet gave birth to a member of the Star Spirit Race, it entered that being's body and became their heart. As they grew, the "heart" slowly changed. Upon reaching the Eternal True God Level, it transformed into a Space Heart, Time Heart, or Spacetime Heart. Each possessed an incomparable affinity with the Laws and the Origin.
Refining a Time Heart, for instance, could increase one's speed of comprehending the Time Law and Time Origin a thousandfold or even ten-thousandfold.
The stronger the original owner of a Time Heart, the greater its benefits and the higher its price.
A Saint level Time Heart was enough to drive Saint Realm experts wild. A God King Level Time Heart could unleash a bloody storm; even God Kings would fight for one. But killing a God King Level member of the Star Spirit Race within the Star Sand River was virtually impossible. Such a Time Heart was almost impossible to find.
Luo Feng gazed at this Time Heart. Though it was only a Primary Time Heart, he wanted it badly.
After fully comprehending the Laws, one had to grasp the Origin Mystery. Most who became Eternal True Gods had merely mastered all the basic Laws and could not perceive the Origin Mystery at all.
Anyone who became an Eternal True God through comprehending the Origin Mystery could be called a genius.
Thus, anything that gave an Eternal True God a chance to comprehend the Origin Mystery was an immense treasure. Any Eternal True God would be tempted by a Time Heart.
"That price... is brutal." Luo Feng saw the tag and immediately put the thought out of his mind.
This Time Heart cost a staggering 2,000 Qiankun Units of Source Crystals. One hundred trillion cubic units of Source Crystals equaled one Qiankun Unit, putting the price of this Time Heart at two hundred quadrillion cubic units. Spending that much for the slightest chance would give even the most eager buyer pause.
Besides, Luo Feng did not have the money!
He had seized nearly all the Meng'an Tribe's liquid assets, but they amounted to only around a trillion cubic units—not even one two-hundred-thousandth of the price of this Time Heart.
An ordinary Eternal True God had assets worth around a thousand Qiankun Units. Wealthier ones had between five thousand and twenty thousand. Those with more than twenty thousand were generally old monsters who had lived through countless Eras of Reincarnation.
"I'll come back for it when I have enough money." Luo Feng shook his head and set the Time Heart aside for now.
He went to the arm-like Mechanical Flow Treasure he had noticed upon entering.
"Star-Seizing Hand. High-grade Eternal Level Mechanical Flow Treasure. In the hands of an Eternal True God of the sixth order or above, it grants invincibility in close combat beneath the Saint Realm."
That brief description took Luo Feng's breath away.
Invincible beneath the Saint Realm—what did that mean? It meant invincible among Eternal True Gods, a distinction normally reserved for those who reached the Ninth-Order Eternal True God level.
Luo Feng could now create a sixth-order Eternal True God Blade Technique. Even with the Blood Shadow Blade, his God King Origin Embryo, he could only unleash Peak Seventh Order power. Yet this single Eternal Level Mechanical Flow Supreme Treasure could lift a sixth-order fighter across three whole orders, all the way to the peak of the ninth.
That showed just how powerful the Star-Seizing Hand was.
The Fifth Layer of the Chaos Golden Wings should be able to do the same, Luo Feng thought.
The Chaos Golden Wings were also an Eternal Level Mechanical Flow Supreme Treasure. Their Fourth Layer secret pattern was One Thought Universe, which could be activated at the Void Level. Luo Feng believed the Fifth Layer, which required Eternal Level power, would grant him even greater strength. But he had still been unable to activate its secret pattern.
"And the price..." Luo Feng looked at the tag.
108,000 Qiankun Units of Source Crystals!
The price left Luo Feng stunned. It was more than fifty times the cost of the Time Heart. Could an Eternal True God really possess that much wealth?
"Good thing I have the Chaos Golden Wings." Luo Feng shook his head and walked away.
He reached the next display stand and checked the price.
"Can't afford it."
"Can't afford it."
"..."
Luo Feng visited several more displays. Every price was outrageous. The cheapest item cost 1,000 Qiankun Units of Source Crystals, while the most expensive cost 200,000—and it was only a fragment of black metal.
Quite a few items that could help Morosa evolve to Saint level were on sale, but not one cost less than 2,000 Qiankun Units. At those prices, Luo Feng would probably have to sell the Chaos Golden Wings to afford one.
"So expensive!" Luo Feng shook his head. He had thought the wealth he took from the Meng'an Tribe was a decent sum. Only after coming here did he realize how wrong he was. He had less than even the poorest Eternal True Gods.
I should've killed that fellow from the Four Divine Heavens when I had the chance, Luo Feng thought with a pang of regret.
Only now did he realize how badly he needed money.
There were plenty of ways to earn money in the city, but the quickest was probably the "wagered combat" popular in Azure City, which was somewhat like paid sparring. A challenger set the stakes and issued a challenge. If the other party accepted, they fought, and the winner took the agreed wager.
Winning a hundred matches in a row earned a fighter the right to challenge the regional lord. The lord could not stall and had to answer the challenge as soon as possible.