Inside the Earth Character Pavilion.
Lin Changheng's tightly shut eyes opened at once, flashing like lightning as he looked through the spirit mist toward the stage below.
On the vast white jade auction platform, the female cultivator smiled and parted her red lips.
"This is the Five Elements Origin-Returning Pill Scripture, a mid-grade second-tier Pill Dao legacy. It comes from a fallen pill-refining lineage. Though the legacy survived to this day, none of their descendants had any talent for pill refining. What a lamentable loss! Now, faced with an urgent matter and short of spirit stones, they have put it up for auction."
While introducing the lot, the auctioneer even worked in a little of its history.
Lin Changheng knew this was merely a sales pitch meant to lend credibility. It also used the vicissitudes of life to stir emotions and draw attention.
"The starting price is one thousand low-grade spirit stones. Each bid must increase by at least one hundred low-grade spirit stones. Bidding begins now!"
No sooner had the auctioneer finished than bids rang out across the hall, one after another.
"One thousand one hundred!"
"I bid one thousand three hundred!"
"One thousand five hundred!"
The price climbed steadily, soon breaking past the two-thousand mark.
Lin Changheng sat quietly in the Earth Character Pavilion, tapping the armrest with his fingertips, his expression composed.
His gaze swept over the bidders below, passing across the cultivators calling out prices as he searched for his eventual rivals.
Soon, he noticed a clear female voice bidding persistently from a nearby Earth Character Pavilion.
That box was also shrouded in spirit mist, preventing him from seeing inside.
Lin Changheng assumed his rival was a female cultivator. What he did not know was that a thin male cultivator wearing a bronze mask sat inside