Every time the auction was held, the final five treasures would be in a league of their own. In fact, the other items that came up for auction, while precious, were still within the reach of the major forces. It might be a bit difficult, but any of the people in the VIP seats could definitely find the other items.
But the final five items were different. They were unique and rare items that were nearly impossible to find, and could only be found by luck. Most of the people here were only here for these final five items.
Zhang Tianyi laughed as he looked around. He could feel the gazes of all the people in the auction house heating up. They were excited about the final five items. All five of them were currently situated on the stage in identical looking boxes. Each of these boxes were made of highly refined gold essence, and sparkled under the lights.
"Even though it is fun to tease you guys, I am not that cruel." Zhang Tianyi said with a chuckle. "The first of the five items is this." Saying so, he opened the box at the far left of the stage. At first, they were all blinded by the light inside the box, but when it subsided, they were all stunned. Inside the box was a small book.
"The first item up for auction is a martial technique." Zhang Tianyi said. Seeing the confusion in the eyes of the people here, Zhang Tianyi laughed inside his heart. "This martial technique is a very rare movement technique called fleeting cloud steps. The people who practice this technique can reduce their body weight and move very fast. As you know flight is possible only after reaching the soul step. The people who practice this technique can even float or even fly for a few minutes, once this technique is practiced to its peak even at the qi step. And this is the fraction of the technique corresponding to the qi condensation realm. The fraction of the technique corresponding to the foundation establishment and core formation steps are being auctioned in the corresponding auctions right now."
All the people who heard this was still confused. The abilities described were impressive, but they weren't enough for the skill to be precious enough to be the main attraction of the auction. After all the major forces all had at least one skill that was similar to it.
Zhang Tianyi paused for a while, and then he concluded with a smile. "And the most important thing about this technique is that it is a ninth rank technique."
The moment his words landed, the auction house erupted. Even though they had many many techniques in their libraries, a ninth ranked movement technique was rare. It might even be the case that none of them had a ninth ranked movement technique.
Even Bai Yun was surprised by the revelation. Even he viewed a ninth ranked technique very highly. After all, the strongest martial technique he developed in this life was only at the ninth rank too. And it was a sword technique developed by someone who had comprehended the sword dao to the god step too.
But in the end, Bai Yun decided to simply let it go. If it was anything else, he might have been interested in it, but the technique just happened to be a movement technique. The one technique that he did not need was movement techniques. After all, he had not even mastered the Assassin Gods movement technique, which was a tenth ranked technique. In front of it, all other movement techniques would be trash.
Suddenly Bai Yun felt some movement next to him. He turned around, only to see Zhang Zi standing next to him. Even though he was asleep, he had somehow heard about the movement technique and woken up. Bai Yun's lips twitched as he thought about it.
"The auction starts at ten thousand gold." Zhang Tianyi declared. Generally, it was necessary for an auctioneer to drive up the price of items by describing it in detail, but it was completely unnecessary right now. Just the name of ninth ranked technique was enough to motivate them to fight over it.
For a short while, there was no response from any of the rooms. Then suddenly someone from one of the rooms shouted out "One hundred thousand." Bai Yun did not know from where the sound came.
Before the sound subsided though, there was a cacophony of sound from the other rooms. One after the other, the other major forces started to bid on the technique. For a cultivator, this technique might be valuable, but for a clan, it was priceless. Soon the value of the technique rose to three million gold coins.
At this point, even Bai Yun was surprised. He had no idea why the auction would place a ninth ranked technique as only the fifth item in the auction. If the final item is not up to the standard, then it would be a disappointment.
It was at this point that Zhang ZI finally moved. "Ten million gold." He declared.
For a moment no one replied. Even though the forces and families behind each of the people in the VIP rooms had billions of gold in reserve, the people here were only the youngsters of the family. Most of them weren't even teenagers yet. It was impossible for them to be given the responsibility for a lot of money. Thus they were only carrying around ten million gold in total, and most of them had spent some of it already. And calling their seniors would only be humiliating for them.
Not only that this was only the qi condensation realm portion of the technique. The technique might be effective then but once you broke through to the foundation establishment realm, if you did not have the corresponding portion then its effectiveness would certainly fall. Generally, effectiveness would fall by one rank for every realm. The ninth ranked technique at the qi condensation realm would only be able to show the power of an eighth ranked technique of the foundation establishment realm once the person broke through. And the same technique would fall to the seventh rank at the core formation stage in effectiveness. Of course if one practiced the foundation establishment portion of the technique, it would be a ninth ranked technique.
Thus, all in all, it was not worth it to spend more than ten million gold on the technique. In fact, even ten million gold was too much.
So Bai Yun looked quizzically at Zhang Zi when he heard his bid. No one outside the room knew who it was that bid, but that didn't matter. With the complicated and delicate power structure of the yellow city, it was better not to antogonize an unknown person. Especially someone who could easily throw out ten million gold. This was taught to all the children of major forces from the time they were toddlers.
As a result, no one bid after Zhang Zi. Zhang Tianyi was a little annoyed at Zhnag Zi for throwing away so much money, but as a professional auctioneer, he did not show it on his face.
Bai Yun turned towards Zhang Zi confused. "Why did you spend so much on it? It's not worth that much. Also based on what I know of your fighting style, such a technique doesn't suit you right?" He asked him.
"It's true. But the movement technique I am currently using is only rank seven. Even if I dont get the other two parts of the movement technique, it would still be just as good, even at the core formation level. Besides I can get higher level techniques once I join an academy. And more importantly, I can try and exchange the other parts of the technique from the people who bought them at the other auctions. And if the worst comes to worst, I can simply try and deduce the later portions by myself." Zhang Zi replied.
Bai Yun nodded when he heard this reply, but he wasn't as confident as Zhang Zi. It was only that he wasn't sure if the other party would be interested in an exchange. After all, they would have been sold for much more than ten million gold. Many times more in fact. And as for deducing the later portions of a ninth ranked technique, he was not confident that Zhang Zi would be able to. Even he himself did not have that confidence.
Once the auction was done, they moved on to the second item. The second box was opened to reveal a small golden silk vest.
"The second item on our list is this. A quasi artifact level flexible inner armor made of the silk of the golden winged silkworm. It could defend against the attack of an average early core formation level cultivator." Zhang Tianyi introduced the second item.
Similar to pill making, weapons, and other equipment were also divided based on the strength. But there were major differences.
All equipment was fundamentally divided into two: artifacts and non-artifacts. Artifacts are the equipments which contain its own spirit, and can thus communicate and even cultivate and thus improve themselves. Non-artifacts were similar to normal weapons made by mortals, except that they were stronger and could handle qi.
And the strength of artifacts and non-artifatcs could be seen based on the materials used in forging them as well as the skill of the person forging the artifact. Generally, artifacts were much stronger than non-artifatcs, but it need not always be the case. Thus a straight forward characterization like that of pills did not exist, leading to people having to explicitly state the strength of objects.
And quasi artifacts were objects that had spirituality but did not have a true artifact spirit. They could help optimize the power output and even give small boosts to a person's combat ability, though they could not work by themselves. They were probably the most common items in the universe, but they were typically too much for someone at the qi step to handle.
In the end, the fact that there was a quasi artifact suitable for someone at the qi step caused a flurry of bids. Finally, it was bought by someone from a VIP room booked by the Hunters Union at a cost of over seven million gold coins. Throughout the auction, Zhang Tianyi continued to mention more facts about the armor, like how it was tested, the rarity of the materials, and who made it, all in order to drive up the price even further. Unlike the movement technique previously, this armor required a good auctioneer to sell it well.
In fact even after the auction was done, the commotion caused by it did not de down easily.
"All right. Now let us move on to the third item of our final five." Zhang Tianyi said. He then moved to the middle box and gently opened it. Just as the previous two times, a light covered the item before it was revealed.
But just as the box was opened, even before the light faded, Bai Yun's god sense started to throb in warning.