Before the bidding for the puppet could begin, Red looked over at Lady Ilse.

“Could you lend me some Spirit Stones?”

“You wish to buy this puppet?” She asked, confusion evident in her voice.

“I do, but I haven’t brought many Spirit Stones with me.”

It was inconvenient to carry around hundreds of Spirit Stones within your person, so Red hid most of his fortune within his manor. He also wasn’t expecting he would find anything worth buying here. Lady Ilse, on the other hand, seemed to have a fortune with her, considering she was bidding upwards of two thousand Spirit Stones, which made Red realize she was probably carrying a magical pouch akin to the one Leon had.

Lady Ilse was silent for a few moments before nodding. “Alright. I’ll bid on them for you.”

Red was surprised at her quick agreement. He expected her to at the very least question his intent, as the puppet wouldn’t be too useful for someone of his cultivation, but she asked no such questions.

On the stage, Gustav continue to explain the puppet’s functions. It wasn’t powered by Spirit Stones like one would expect, but by a Spirit Beat’s Crystal Core.

“Depending on the elemental attributes of the core inserted into the puppet, it will be capable of utilizing different spells,” Gustav said. “The core, of course, is not included with the puppet. Bidding will start at seven hundred Spirit Stones!”

This was a very steep price for a Mystic Artifact, but the Spiritual Puppet warranted it. Most artifacts couldn’t be used by mortals, unlike this puppet, so it was easy to imagine a lot of noble houses would want to buy such an item for their non-cultivator members.

Many people were eager to put their bid in, but Lady Ilse’s voice rang over the auditorium once more.

“Fourteen hundred Spirit Stones!”

A mix of surprised and angered stares were thrown the group’s way, and Red suddenly felt a sense of regret at asking her to lend him the Spirit Stones.

“R-Right, fourteen hundred for the lady over there…” Gustav looked around at the guests. “C-Can I get fifteen hundred? Anyone?”

He sounds both helpless and happy at the same time. After all, they would be getting the money either way, but this style of bidding wasn’t conducive to a competitive auction.

To no one’s surprise, there were no more bids on the puppet.

“Then the Spiritual Puppet goes to the lady!”

A servant carried the dormant puppet over to Lady Ilse and she handed over a small box she took out from her pouch to them. The servant looked inside, and his eyes went wide for a moment as he saw the fourteen condensed Spirit Stones inside, but this time, they didn’t make any commotion about it.

“Here is the control disc and a manual explaining the puppet’s functions.”

He handed the items over to Lady Ilse, and she passed them to Red without sparing them a glance.

“You can pay me back in your own time,” she said.

He sighed, but chose to put the matter aside for now. The auction continued below, but Red focused instead on inspecting the unmoving puppet in front of him.

‘Like I thought, there are a lot of arcane runes I don’t recognize here.’

The wooden mannequin looked very ordinary from afar, but upon closer inspection, one could see the faint runes and connections spread through its segmented parts and joints. Other than this, though, it resembled a figure stores used for displaying their clothing and other accessories, with no expression or other details.

Red read through the short manual on how to control and insert a core into the puppet before nodding in satisfaction.

‘Like I thought, this should work.’

He reached for Aurelia with his expanded awareness.

“No!”

Her voice cut him off before he could say anything.

“…It’s a body you can control,” Red said.

“It’s a damn puppet! I want a real body!”

“This doesn’t mean I can’t find you a body later. This should be better than nothing for now.”

“No, actually, I’m not sure it is.”

“…It would help me a lot to have a sparring partner I could practice with.”

Aurelia snorted. “So this is all about you now? I said forget it!”

Red sighed and retracted his awareness. His idea was to use the Moonstone Crystal Core Aurelia was contained within as the core for the puppet, which would both provide him with a better hiding place for the core and also allow her to interact with physical matter. While the proud woman seemed to be against the idea right now, he thought she would eventually come around to it. After all, she often bemoaned having to live her entire existence as an incorporeal being.

While Red examined the features of the puppet with interest, the auction went on.

A lot of items he had never heard of before were being sold. They ranged from artifacts with powerful and strange effects, to ingredients and pills that could help the cultivation of practitioners of very rare arts. Even formations and talismans were up for auction, some of which Red recognized from his manual, and others which took him by surprise.

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‘A sword formation?’

As Gustav described it, this was a formation that could transform Spiritual Energy into powerful sword arts that could be used to strike down intruders or even siege a fortress. Purely offensive formations like this were rare, much more so ones that utilized Sword Energy to function. Red had never even come across any arcane symbols that could represent sword arts.

‘Still, a thousand Spirit Stones…’

This was just the initial price, too. It was too expensive, and he didn’t feel like owing yet another couple thousand Spirit Stones to Lady Ilse. Not to mention, this was a complete formation, not a blueprint, so if Red wanted to study it, he would need to reverse engineer it, which would take a long time and might not even yield him much success.

It was not worth it from his point of view.

Yet, a while later, he found something else that piqued his interest again.

“A pair of crystallized water-beast lungs,” Gustav pointed to the crystalline blue organs, smaller than a human’s own lungs, that reflected the light from the bright lanterns. “Though our researchers are unable to uncover which monster these lungs belonged to, they can indeed confirm it has been frozen in spiritually rich waters for almost a hundred years. Suffice it to say, this is an extremely valuable material for alchemists or artifact-crafters who wish to create water-aspected items.”

Red knew all of this, but his interest in the item wasn’t in creating a treasure. Rather, his interest was piqued because this was one of the ingredients mentioned in the Storm’s Blessing manual that could be used to increase one’s talent with the water element.

This was the kind of material one would struggle to come across under normal circumstances, so Red couldn’t let this chance escape him.

He looked over at his companion. “Could you-?”

“You want that one?” Lady Ilse cut him off. “Fine.”

“…Thank you.”

She bought the item with little trouble for six hundred Spirit Stones. This put Red’s debt at two thousand Spirit Stones, which was far more than he had stashed away, but since the woman wasn’t pressuring him about repaying it, he could definitely earn that amount in due time.

The crystallized lungs were given to him in a sealing container, which he stowed away in his pouch.

‘This will help me set the foundation for when I try to breakthrough into the Greater Ring Realm.’

Red couldn’t be more satisfied with his two acquisitions, but he didn’t lose sight of his goal in the auction.

Two hours went by, as Gustav presented item after item without pause. Since most of the people here were cultivators, they could easily go a long time without a break, and very few of them even got up from their seats throughout the entire thing.

Lady Ilse bought quite a few things, mostly alchemical ingredients, which added another few thousand Spirit Stones into her expenditures. It made Red realize the woman was richer than he previously thought. No other items caught his attention, though, so he remained seated and examined his targets.

The guards didn’t change positions, standing at full attention throughout the whole process as they observed the room. This spoke to their professionalism, but Red could also tell through their fluctuations that they didn’t expect any trouble. As for Nikon, he resembled an unmoving statue the entire time as he stood on stage.

Finally, it seemed as if they were gearing up for presenting the last few items for the auction.

“Be prepared,” Lady Ilse said. “I will act soon.”

Red nodded, though he was still unsure of what she meant.

“My honored guests, as you may know, our Chalice organization prides itself in acquiring items that not even cultivators can lay eyes upon for their entire lives,” Gustav said, his voice filled with a dramatic tinge. “Most of the items we have presented thus far have been aimed for use by Lesser Ring Realm cultivators, not because we are incapable of procuring more valuable items, but because we know this is what would be most useful for our guests.”

Some murmurs and curious glances were thrown Gustav’s way, as most people seemed confused about where he seemed to be going with his speech. The man seemed to revel in the suspense.

“Yet, we also know what is most important for practitioners like you, honored guests. And that is - to reach the next realm!” He motioned over to a servant, who brought a golden box to him. “This is why we have brought the most valuable item a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator could ever wish for!”

He opened the box, upon which a rich wave of golden Spiritual Energy spread throughout the whole auditorium. Red felt his whole body tingle in reaction to the abundance of energy, and his attention was taken by the item revealed inside the box.

A shining golden-purple pill.

Gustav smiled. “This is a Shaping Sea Pill, and it can help a cultivator stuck in the peak of the Lesser Ring Realm to break into the Greater Ring Realm!”

At his explanation, the guests couldn’t hold themselves back and exclaimed in surprise. Even Lady Ilse seemed to have hard time containing herself, though something told Red she had been expecting this development.

“Do not trip over yourselves, guests! I will explain the value and effects of this pill at length.”

A pill that could help someone break into a higher realm was a rarity. They differed from pills that helped one improve their cultivation within a minor realm, in that they contained mystic powers that would assist a cultivator in breaking past the hardest obstacles they would ever face. A Parting Sea Pill was something that helped a mortal open their Spiritual Sea, while a Shaping Sea Pill would help a cultivator condense the misty Spiritual Energy contained in their body into a proper lake and step into the next realm, which was an equally daunting task.

A Shaping Sea Pill was invaluable, but it was also different from a Parting Sea Pill. The latter was rare, but much of its rarity was due to sects and other factions monopolizing its production, while the former was not only rare, but it couldn’t be produced at will. Its ingredients were rare to find and couldn’t be grown normally, so there was not a constant supply of said pills, even for a lot of sects. That was to say, not even the largest factions could consistently produce these pills, so it was possible to imagine how rare they were to be seen anywhere.

Gustav explained all of this with a smile. “Now, there are a few things that may be obvious, but I feel the need to explain. This pill is only effective for Peak Lesser Ring Realm cultivators, so please be certain you have stabilized your cultivation base before consuming it! Also, while it can almost certainly guarantee a breakthrough, there might be personal elements within an individual’s body that could interfere in the process and result in failure, so do not blame us should such an accident happen to you!”

None of the guests seemed to pay much heed to such a warning.

“Who concocted the pill?” Someone asked.

Gustav laughed. “Can’t you tell by the color? It was the grandmaster of the Golden Hand!”

Red wasn’t too familiar with this grandmaster, but he imagined the title could only refer to the Spirit Core cultivator that lived in the Golden Temple.

Surely enough, at this response, a lot of the worries in the crowd were assuaged. After all, if the pill was faulty, the blame would be put entirely on the Golden Hand and they wouldn’t be able to divert it with this Chalice organization.

“Since I assume most of your questions have been answered, I can announce the starting bid,” Gustav looked around at the crowd, the excitement in his voice undisguised. “Five thousand Spirit Stones!”

At this, the entire place fell silent. A few seconds later, grumbles of complaining could be heard.

“F-Five thousand? That’s too much!”

“That’s a fortune even for the Duke’s family. I would need to sell my entire manor to afford it.”

Such responses were heard throughout the entire auditorium. Yet Gustav seemed unbothered by them. Red even noticed his gaze wandering to a certain spot in the gallery above.

“Five thousand Spirit Stones! That is the starting price.”

“Five thousand it is, then.”

A serene voice came in response. Everyone turned to look at its source - the lady with the butterfly mask up above, whose faint smile was still lingering on her face.

Gustav was elated upon hearing this. “Five thousand for the fair lady up above! Anyone else willing to offer more?”

Although he asked this, he wasn’t expecting any offers.

“No one? Well, then-”

“Six thousand!”

Lady Ilse’s clear voice cut him off as she stood up.

The smile on the masked lady’s face disappeared.