Auction, Qilin Horn Jade Dew

The private room on the second floor was a world apart from the clamor of the ground-floor hall.

A heavy solid-wood door shut out the noise. Thick cashmere carpet covered the floor, swallowing every footstep.

Facing the auction stage was a huge wall of one-way glass. Everything onstage was clearly visible from inside, while no one outside could glimpse the room.

Soft leather sofas stood inside. Chilled fruit drinks and delicate pastries waited on the long ebony table, and every detail spoke of extravagant luxury.

Huo Yuhao looked around with fresh curiosity in his eyes.

Whether in his previous life as an ordinary person on Blue Star or this one as a commoner boy who had come out of the Star Dou Great Forest, he had been poor through and through. This was his first taste of VIP treatment on such a scale.

Huo Yuhao dropped into a sofa and tapped the smooth tabletop. He could not help clicking his tongue. "Not bad. Shrek sure knew how to live. This place is more than ten times as luxurious as my dorm."

"What's so special about it? It's just a room." Ning Tian sat down beside him. Seeing his wonder, she asked curiously, "You've never been somewhere like this before?"

Neither she nor Gu Yue knew Huo Yuhao's true background. They only knew he was a commoner; they had not expected that he had never even entered an auction house's private room.

After all, as the young heir of the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, Ning Tian had attended occasions like this for as long as she could remember. They were as ordinary to her as a daily meal.

"No." Huo Yuhao made no effort to hide it. He picked up a chilled fruit drink and took a sip. His voice held a trace of reflection and a barely perceptible resentment. "It just struck me how absurd this world is. A handful of people sit in places like this and toss out thousands or tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins without blinking. Most commoner Soul Masters have to save for months to afford even basic medicinal herbs. As for ordinary people whose Martial Souls never awakened, they couldn't earn enough in a lifetime to pay for one drink here."

Ning Tian fell silent at once.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end no words came.

She was the young heir of the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, born at the top of the pyramid. She was one of the "handful" Huo Yuhao had spoken of.

Gu Yue leaned against the sofa's other side, her fingertip tracing the grain of the table without thinking. She raised her eyes, a calm born of seeing through the world in them, and spoke slowly. "The weak are prey to the strong. The fittest survive. From Soul Beasts to humans, from ten thousand years ago to now, it has always been this way."

There was no fundamental difference between how the human world distributed resources and the law of the jungle in the Star Dou Great Forest.

"The fittest survive?" Huo Yuhao smiled, with a little helplessness and a clear-eyed understanding.

He knew all too well how warped Douluo Continent's cultivation system was.

A Martial Soul all but decided a person's fate for life.

At six years old, when a child's Martial Soul awakened, an ordinary person with no Soul Power had the value of their life defined forever.

Their labor, intelligence, and feelings weighed less than dust against the absolute measure of "Soul Power." The entire continent's social order, its ethics, even its notions of good and evil, ultimately served one thing and one thing alone: the stability and expansion of the Soul Master system.

Whether it was Spirit Hall's attempt years ago to use centralized power to break the old nobility's monopoly on Soul Power resources, or the "new Order" later built by Shrek and the Tang Sect, the struggle was fundamentally over who had the right to define and distribute those resources.

In that game of power, commoners were forever moved from one system of control to another. They had never truly become masters of their own fate.

He could not change a system that had operated for ten thousand years, nor was he arrogant enough to think he could overturn the rules of an entire continent.

But Huo Yuhao wanted to try. Even if it was only at Shrek, only within the Lionheart Club, he wanted to hold up an umbrella and leave a path open for talented commoners like himself.

Some things had to be attempted, and someone had to go first.

Just then, the lights over the auction stage flared to life. A gentle woman's voice carried through the amplification array and into the private room. "Good evening, honored guests. Welcome to the Treasure Gathering Pavilion's quarterly grand auction. I'm tonight's auctioneer, Jiang Nannan."

Huo Yuhao looked through the one-way glass toward the stage.

The young woman wore a pale purple Shrek Outer Court uniform. Her long golden hair was pinned in a simple bun that exposed her slender neck. She was breathtakingly beautiful, every smile and glance full of charm. Even standing still, she had many Soul Masters below staring at her.

"That's Jiang Nannan, a senior from the Outer Court. They call her the Outer Court's greatest beauty." Ning Tian followed his gaze and introduced her casually, clearly giving it little thought.

Huo Yuhao nodded and took another careful look, but felt little stir of emotion.

He admired Jiang Nannan's resolve and courage in being willing to sacrifice everything to save her mother. That filial devotion deserved a thumbs-up.

But as for her decision never to go back and see her mother afterward, he could only say that everyone would judge it differently.

It was precisely her "absence" that had given Xu Sanshi the chance to slip in, shower her mother with attention, and eventually set the stage for the entanglement between the two of them.

Before he could dwell on it, Jiang Nannan raised a hand for the staff to bring out the first lot. Her crisp voice rang out again. "Our first lot tonight—a century-old natural treasure, the Heavenly Abyss Fruit."

A jet-black fruit marked with strange patterns lay in a clear crystal dish. Wisps of cold air spilled from it.

"The Heavenly Abyss Fruit is a century-old body-tempering spiritual ingredient. Its medicinal power is gentle rather than harsh. It can open the meridians, penetrate the bones, and refine the body, with excellent results for Power Attack System and defense-type Soul Masters." Jiang Nannan lifted one fair hand and smiled. "The starting price is five hundred Gold Soul Coins. Bids must rise by at least fifty!"

Huo Yuhao raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised.

He had always thought the concept of natural treasures was not widespread in Douluo II's system. Apparently, that had been an assumption on his part.

The Xuanming Sect could refine a top-tier pill like the Mystic Water Pill. Naturally, the system of spiritual medicines and natural treasures that went with it had long since become widespread.

At that thought, he could not help railing inwardly. Damn Tang San! Damn Shrek! You really have double standards down to an art! When the Sun Moon Empire uses pills to strengthen its foundations, it's forcing seedlings to grow and following crooked paths. But when Shrek stuffs its disciples with natural treasures and Immortal Herbs, they're extraordinarily talented with solid foundations. Ridiculous!

"Six hundred!"

"Seven hundred!"

Bids rose one after another from below, quickly breaking the thousand-Gold-Soul-Coin mark.

At last, a rough male voice called out, "One thousand Gold Soul Coins!"

The entire hall went quiet.

One thousand Gold Soul Coins for a century-old body-tempering fruit was far beyond its actual value.

Huo Yuhao looked toward the voice. In the front row sat a tall, handsome young man with his bidding paddle raised. His eyes were fixed on Jiang Nannan onstage, his face full of eagerness to please.

It was Xu Sanshi, the young heir of the Xuanming Sect.

Huo Yuhao shot him a sidelong look, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Well, damn. So this was the power of money?

He'd paid twice the going price for a useless fruit just to win a beauty's smile. That fawning-turtle reputation of his was well earned.

Wu Feng rolled her eyes beside him. "Pathetic."

Over the next half hour, another seven or eight lots appeared. Bids rose and fell throughout the hall, with prices reaching thousands or even tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins. It was enough to make anyone's head spin.

Huo Yuhao remained uninterested. He leaned back on the sofa, swirling his drink and glancing over now and then, but never raised a paddle.

It was not that nothing caught his eye. Anything that did cost over ten thousand Gold Soul Coins, and he did not dare dip into his meager savings recklessly.

The club's startup fund of a hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins belonged to the Lionheart Club; not a single coin could be squandered. His personal savings did not even reach ten thousand. At an auction where money was thrown around like dirt, they were nowhere near enough.

Huo Yuhao could not help thinking that this was less an auction than a showcase for top Soul Masters to flaunt their wealth.

Just as boredom was about to send him to sleep, Jiang Nannan spoke again, this time with a note of gravity. "Next is one of tonight's featured lots—Qilin Horn Jade Dew."

A staff member carefully carried out a white jade tray. At its center stood a mutton-fat jade bottle no bigger than a thumb, a faint glow playing across its surface.

Huo Yuhao's gaze sharpened. He sat up straight.

Even through the one-way glass, from dozens of meters away, he could clearly sense the extraordinarily rich light and ice elemental aura emanating from the little bottle. It was gentle and pure, without the slightest impurity!

"This bottle of Qilin Horn Jade Dew was formed over a thousand years from the heart's blood of a mutated ten-thousand-year Jade Qilin Dragon, supplemented by dozens of dual ice- and light-attribute spiritual medicines," Jiang Nannan said clearly. "Its medicinal power is gentle and full-bodied, with no side effects. It has two primary effects: first, it refines and strengthens a Soul Master's foundation; second, it greatly increases their elemental affinity."

A wave of low gasps swept through the hall.

What was elemental affinity?

On the Saint-Demon Continent, it was a supreme gift possessed by someone like Long Haochen, the Son of Light. On Douluo Continent, it was a privilege reserved for Soul Masters with Ultimate Attributes!

Increasing elemental affinity meant purifying one's Martial Soul attribute, bringing an ordinary attribute ever closer to an Ultimate Attribute!

For any elemental Soul Master, it was a treasure beyond their wildest dreams!

And this bottle of Qilin Horn Jade Dew had both ice and light attributes. It might as well have been made for a Soul Master who wielded both!

Huo Yuhao's breathing quickened slightly.

His Heavenly Eye Martial Soul centered on Ultimate Spirit and ultimate lightning, while the Reignbow Arbiter centered on Ultimate Light and ultimate wind. His Perfected Lord of Clear Origin and Wonderful Dao Martial Soul was compatible with nine Ultimate Attributes, ice among them.

This bottle of Qilin Horn Jade Dew could do more than reinforce the foundation of his body, tempered by the Nine-Turn Origin Art. It could further purify his affinity for light and ice.

"Qilin Horn Jade Dew! The starting price is fifty thousand Gold Soul Coins! Bids must rise by at least five thousand!"

As soon as Jiang Nannan finished speaking, Huo Yuhao looked away and sank back against the sofa. The heat in his eyes faded, leaving only resignation.

Expensive. Far too expensive!

The starting price alone was fifty thousand Gold Soul Coins, and the final price would only be higher. He simply did not have that kind of money. Even if he could use the club's startup fund, he never would.

The Lionheart Club's money was for its thousand-plus members, not for Huo Yuhao to buy natural treasures for himself.

"Sixty thousand!"

Just then, Ning Tian raised the bidding paddle beside him. Her voice was calm, without a ripple, as though she had called out six Copper Soul Coins rather than sixty thousand Gold Soul Coins.

Huo Yuhao whipped his head toward her, stunned. "Ning Tian, you..."

"It's fine." Ning Tian cut him off. Her golden hair fell beside her composed, delicate face. She did not even look at him; her eyes remained on the stage. "If it's useful to you, we should buy it."

She was the young heir of the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect. If there was one thing she had plenty of, it was money.

Never mind sixty thousand. Even if it cost six hundred thousand, she would not blink if Huo Yuhao needed it.

Huo Yuhao opened his mouth. Looking at Ning Tian's calm profile, he felt as though something had struck him in the heart, leaving warmth behind.

In the end, Huo Yuhao did not refuse again. He merely smiled and shook his head, silently adding:

Worst case, I can "sell" myself to Ning Tian to pay off the debt.

It's not like I'd be getting the short end of the deal.