“The auction shall now start!”
Following the announcement from the auctioneer, the auction which was filled with various murmurings suddenly became quiet while the lightings above dimmed, leaving only the spotlight above the auction stage.
On the stage, there calmly stood an elderly man. As he became the focus of the whole auction house, his voice resounded throughout the auction.
“The first item we will be auctioning is a perfectly intact skin of a Thunder Beast.”
Following his words, a woman elegantly stepped on to the stage from the side while pushing a cart with a cloth covering it. When she reached the center of the stage, she reached out and took off the cloth, revealing a bundle of golden skin which occasionally released a charge of lightning.
After a few moments, the elderly auctioneer continued, “This skin was harvested from a Thunder Beast residing within the depths of the Thunderstorm Mountain. Furthermore, this Thunder Beast was at the peak of the Dan Stage!”
Following the announcement, the whole auction house was filled with uproar. Seeing this, the auctioneer seemed satisfied as he continued saying, “We will start with a base price of ten thousand gold coins.”
Soon following the announcement, a voice called out from one of the VIP booths.
“Twenty thousand gold coins.” As if those words were a fuse to start the auction, more bids started to be called out.
“Twenty-one thousand gold coins!”
“Twenty-six thousand.”
“Thirty thousand!!”
…
“Fifty-five thousand gold coins!!!” After one of the people within the VIP booths called out his bid, the whole auction house quietened and no following bids were called out.
Noticing this, the auctioneer smiled, knowing that the original estimated price of fifty thousand gold coins has long been broken through. He then announced, “Peak dan stage Thunder Beast skin, sold to the bidder in the fifth VIP room for fifty-five thousand gold coins, congratulations to our VIP customer.”
Following those words, the woman pushed the cart carrying the skin away while another woman entered the stage while pushing in a different cart.
“The second item we have today is an Aquatic Pearl.”
As the auctioneer spoke, the woman revealed the item hidden under the cloth, an ocean blue pearl at the size of a fist.
“The aquatic pearl was found in a recent exploration of an underwater ruin. It is a perfect core material to forge a weapon with the water attribute, or even to be used as a source of water attribute energy. The base price is one hundred gold coin.”
Unlike during the auctioning of the Thunder Beast skin, few of the participants seemed excited, but with a bit of influence from the excitement from before, some of the participants threw out their bids. In the end, the aquatic pearl was sold for 850 gold coins.
And so, various items started being auctioned with their pricing progressively rising up.
Yet out all the items that have been auctioned off, none caused Yvette to bat an eyelid. When the attendant girl noticed this, she could not help but to take a closer look at this veiled young lady and doubt whether she was actually here to buy anything.
But then, following the appearance of the next item being auctioned off, Yvette squinted her eyes as she gazed carefully at the stage.
“The next item we have is a Chaos Stone, a rare material containing a chaotic property. As most already know, a material containing the chaotic property is one of the rarest kinds of material. Although chaotic energies are hard to control and hardly stable, with the energy being in its primordial form, it is also in its strongest form.
Today, we are going to be auctioning off five pieces of chaos stones with them being sold together. The starting price is set at fifty thousand gold coins!”
Following those words, bids started being called out by some of the participants.
“I bid Fifty thousand gold coins.”
“Fifty thousand five hundred gold coins.”
“Fifty thousand six hundred gold coins.”
…
Unlike during the auctioning of the Thunder Beast skin, not many participated in bidding for the Chaos Stone that is more expensive than it. And even if they did, they did not add in too much gold coins, showing that they were not attaching much importance to it.
This could only be attributed to the chaotic nature of the chaos energy. With it being too rampant and hard to control, finding a use for this rare material would be as hard as trying to find the material itself. Most would just cultivate normally, with it being more efficient and less dangerous.
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Naturally, Yvette would not be included in those lists of people.
Without turning her head, she said to the female attendant.
“Increase the bid to sixty thousand.”
Hearing the unexpected command from the young lady next to her, the female attendant froze for a moment. But knowing that is not allowed to question the words of a VIP, the attendant called out.
“Sixty thousand gold coins.”
When the participants heard the amount of bid, many could not help but to look towards the VIP box which the sound came from.
To them, 60,000 gold coins for a rare stone that is only worth as decorations is simply not worth it. Most of the ones who actually went to bid were mostly collectors. But even then, 60,000 gold coins would still not be worth it for a couple of rare stones, and the increment of almost ten thousand gold coins made most of them realize the determination the person inside the box has to have this piece of ‘useless’ stone.
And as none of them wished to make an enemy out of nowhere, none of the participants increased the bid.
As for the old auctioneer, he was naturally satisfied with this, as he knew that having the almost useless yet rare Chaos Stones sold for such a price was already quite good. This is also why the auction house decided to sell all five stones together instead of selling it in batches.
“Five pieces of chaos stones, sold to the bidder in the seventh VIP room for sixty thousand gold coins, congratulations to our VIP customer.”
Following the announcement, Yvette stood up and told the attendant that they were going to leave and had her bring the five chaos stones to her.
Soon enough, the attendant returned with the five chaos stones stored carefully inside a wooden box and a pouch filled with the return of her deposit after deducting the 1% tax and purchase, which left her with 930,000 gold coins.
Then, without another word, Yvette and her group left with their carriage and returned to the Aasmany Clan branch. By the time they returned, the sun has already set. In the end, they decided to return to the clan the next day.
The moment they returned to the clan’s branch, Yvette told Daiyu and her two female guards that she is going to attempt to breakthrough and had them stand guard for her.
Without questioning her words, the three acknowledged her words and stood guard outside the room.
Meanwhile, inside the room, Yvette removed her veil and took out a few black and white rods covered in exquisite formation engravings.
These black and white rods were made of normal iron. But the things that made them valuable were the liquids smeared on them and the engraved formation.
The white rods were smeared with a mixture of plant essence with the yang nature, while the black rods were smeared with those of the yin nature.
All these she had long prepared to form the formation she had long received from the bracelet memories.
This formation is called the Yin-Yang Field Array.
Unfortunately, she did not have a core for the array before. And the Chaos Stone is one of the materials that can be used as a replacement for the core.
Carefully, she placed the rods in a pattern, forming a circle of black and white rods around her.
Next, she took out a chaos stone and sat in a meditative position in the center of the circle.
Finished with the preparation, she drew out her Qi from the Yin-Yang seed and used it to stimulate the chaotic nature of the chaos stone.
The moment her Qi came into contact with the pure chaotic energy within the chaos stone, the chaotic energy became even wilder and used the connection between Yvette and her Qi as a bridge to invade her body.
Yet before it could even reach her body, Yvette forcefully connected her Qi to the location she was sitting on, which is also the center of the formation she had just placed.
As a group of mindless entities, the chaotic energy could only follow the path of Yvette’s Qi and flow into the formation.
With the arrival of the chaotic energy, the formation engraved on the black and white rods all lit up brightly. Following that, a vortex of chaotic energy appeared over the formation rods. The vortexes domineeringly pulled in all the surrounding energy without leaving a single shred.
Noticing this, Yvette was finally reassured at the stability of the formation and closed her eyes before filtering through the incoming energies and taking in all the Yin and Yang energy to nourish her Yin-Yang seed.
Although the filtering process took a while, the energies sucked in by the vortexes were all of the topmost quality and are perfectly pure, which erased the need of refining the energies.
In that way, Yvette spent the whole night cultivating. Comparing it with her usual cultivation, it was comparable to a whole month of cultivation. She even felt that by cultivating a few more nights in such a way, she would be able to breakthrough to the next stage.
By the time the chaotic energy ran out, morning already came.
When Yvette stepped out of the room, she saw Daiyu and her two guards sitting cross-legged on the corridor, cultivating while keeping watch for her.
At the same time as she stepped out, the three who were sitting all opened their eyes and stood up before bowing towards Yvette in greeting.
“Prepare our luggage, we will be returning.” Said Yvette impassively.
Without another word, the three servants abided to her words.
Soon after, under the watch of Casper and the other high-rank members of the branch, Yvette’s carriage departed for the city gates.
But as they proceeded, they all noticed that the road to the city gate was crowded with people.
Without waiting to be instructed, one of the guards questioned someone from the crowd regarding the situation.
They then learned that not only this city gates but all four city gates of Blood River City were sealed off, refusing entry and exit for anyone.
At first glance, the crowd seemed to be rather rowdy, but it could clearly be seen that they all restrained themselves from making any drastic moves, showing the control the authorities of the Blood River City have over it.
Meanwhile, Yvette who was observing silently from inside the carriage was suddenly struck by a bad premonition.
As she observed the expression from the guards, she noticed that expressions from most of the guards had a difference from their usual expressions. Unlike their usual hard expression full of indifference, they seemed to be filled a grim seriousness, as if an impending danger is about to come.
Without a shred of hesitation, Yvette instructed the two guards to drive the carriage back to the clan branch.
When they arrived back at the branch, Yvette had one of the confused branch members to lead her to Casper.
Once she met up with him, she directly said to him.
“The gates have been closed off and I believe there is something off regarding this.”
“I understand. Do not worry, I will send some people to look into this.” Said Casper with a hint of seriousness in his eyes.
Nodding, Yvette was about to walk away. But after a moment of hesitation, she stopped in place and said without turning her head, “Please focus the search on the army.”
Startled, Casper took a moment before finally replying seriously, “I will do so.”
Assured, Yvette finally left the room. She then had her one of her two female guards help with gathering information before finally returning back to her room.
In the end, she spent her time inside her room cultivating for a whole day using the Yin-Yang Field Array.
Soon after the second chaos stone ran out of energy, a knock sounded from the room’s door.