“Hm? Why isn’t she signalling the end of the auction?”

Huli Ruo stood there with a mysterious smile, before asking a question that caused the hearts of everyone in the room to beat faster, “Everyone, do you know of the spiritual treasure between heaven and earth known as an earth flame?”

****

“Earth flame?” hearing this, Long Di’s eyes lit up. His interest was at an all-time high.

“You know what an earth flame is!?” Yaomu Shou was a bit shocked at this.

“Of course I do,” Long Di admitted. This knowledge was not something Long Di read from the books of his parent’s library.

Instead, this was the knowledge gained from his love for cultivation novels.

“What are earth flames?” Shen Ling asked.

“Oh, well, they are a natural treasure of heaven and earth, and possess great destructive capabilities,” answered Yaomu Shou. She chalked up Long Di’s knowledge on this subject to his alleged mysterious and powerful background.

“You can think of them as a rare instance of the heavens and earth coming together under certain conditions to give birth to an existence composed of the purest fire-attributed energy. They are so powerful that they are rumoured to be able to set the sky ablaze and boil the seas,” she explained.

“Wow!” Tie Lang was blown away by such a treasure. “I can’t believe the Qian Dao Sect is auctioning such a treasure.”

“Hmph!” Zi Yu snorted when she heard this. “The Qian Dao Sect may be powerful, but not even they have the capability to auction off an earth flame. It must be something related to it, nothing more.”

“First of all, these disciples don’t know too much. So don’t try to lord your knowledge over to them and start looking at them with disdain,” Yaomu Shou admonished Zi Yu, not pleased with her tone.

“S-Sorry LadyYaomu Shou!” Zi Yu stood up to bow and apologised.

Because Yaomu Shou was getting along so well with everybody here, Zi Yu’s wariness towards the latter decreased. Even so, she still felt a bit of contempt for these disciples and considered them beneath her, causing her to subconsciously speak with a sense of superiority that Yaomu Shou disdained, especially when she considered these people her friends.

Yaomu Shou didn’t bother to pay any attention to her at the moment. They would just finish up here and decide what other actions to take.

“It’s weird that this aspect of the cultivational auction is already pretty much over,” Long Di pointed out. There were only two items in total, three if you count the mysterious item related to the earth flame.

Yaomu Shou shook her head, “You can’t look at it like that. Cultivational auctions are only held in cities where cultivators roam. That’s the best way to describe profit from them. A mortal city like this one doesn’t have the clientele necessary to support such a high-profile event, even if it was once every month. Heck, not even once a year would be enough. The only reason why it is being held now is probably because the master of this auction house is going to be relocated soon, so he upgraded the level of the auction through his own power before he left for whatever reason.

“Since it’s most likely a one-time event, they advertised the peculiarity of this auction to the upper echelons, which is why some people came prepared. Ultimately, though, a cultivational auction is not something to get worked up about, which is why the truly rich people didn’t show up. There’s nothing to interest them. The mere fact that there are two or even three decently levelled cultivation tools that were auctioned off is nothing short of incredible. Of course, if there truly is something about an authentic earth flame here, then those people whose noses are stuck in the clouds would probably cough up blood in anger if they knew, hehehe…”

As she laughed, a mischievous twinkle appeared in her eyes, as she wished to see the world descend into chaos.

Back to the auction, everybody looked towards the stage, wanting to know where Huli Ruo was going with this.

“Of course, I am sure that everyone knows that I am obviously not auctioning an actual earth flame…” she chuckled as she spoke. Truly, if they had the power to auction off an earth flame, then they might as well rent out the heavens while they were at it.

She continued, “However, one of our members was fortunate enough to enter the remains of an ancient ruin. Within, there was a dried beast skin with symbols on it that we weren’t able to make out. However, the beast skin gave off a powerful fluctuation so we’re quite sure it’s a valuable treasure.”

“What does this have to do with an earth flame?” someone asked.

“I’m getting there,” she smiled. “One of our elders felt the fluctuation it gave off and recognised it to be similar to the fluctuations given off by an earth flame he saw in his younger years, he advised us that he is nine parts out of ten sure, that these are the fluctuations for an earth flame’s flame energy.”

A commotion broke out among the audience. If this beast skin had any sort of relationship with an earth flame, then its value couldn’t be estimated. Unfortunately, these people didn’t dare to think that something of such incredible value would show up here, but all felt regretful that they didn’t treat this auction with more seriousness from the beginning.

Huli Ruo made a quick gesture with her hand and an attendant came out with a map on top of a cart that was covered by a formation.

The formation was a low levelled one and its only purpose was to restrict the aura and energy the dried beast skin radiated.

Yet, even though this was the case, the audience as a whole could still feel an overwhelming heat rushing towards them.

They stared at the beast skin beyond the formation trying to see if there was anything they could understand from it.

Poof!

Unexpectedly a faint flame appeared on the beast skin. It was gentle at first, flickering without end as if the slightest breeze could extinguish it.

Then, without warning, the flame devoured the beast skin before it grew in might and power. Huli Ruo and the attendant who brought it here didn’t even get the chance to issue a scream before they were burnt to ashes. In fact even their ashes couldn’t resist the flames.

Before long, Blackstone City turned into a sea of flames. No life could exist here, for this flame allowed none to match its peerless hegemony.

Vrrm…

Suddenly, the flames vanished revealing the beast skin, the same as before. Huli Ruo was present as well, standing there as if nothing had happened.

‘Was it an illusion?’

Everyone looked towards each other and after seeing the shock in each other’s eyes they weren’t sure what to think.

Yet, the scene earlier was terrifying. They felt as if they had no power to resist the flames. They could only wait for it to burn them into nothingness, erasing them forever from this world.

One thing was for sure, though, if this beast skin was indeed related to the earth flame, then they had to get it. They would even put it on credit if they had to!

In all honesty, they wouldn’t be sure if it was an earth flame if this was all that they saw. After all, a great majority never even heard of an earth flame before much less had seen it. What really sealed the deal was the Qian Dao Sect’s elder advising that this is the same fluctuation he felt in his younger years that matched an earth flame from back then.

If someone else made such a claim, they wouldn’t just take it with a grain of salt. They would have manufactured a salt plant of their own and drown themselves in it before anything else.

However, combining that earlier scene of fire and destruction with the elder’s words were enough to put everyone at ease.

It just shows how much weight the Qian Dao Sect’s words held. Their reputation was as good as gold, as they never tried to trick their customers. It was this type of business practice that made them the number one choice among cultivators on who to conduct business with.

With this being the case, as far as anyone was concerned, there was no need to doubt the authenticity of this beast skin.

Huli Ruo naturally knew what happened. When they first brought back the beast skin, all they could feel was its terrifying fluctuations, but nothing could be made from it until the aforementioned elder gave some clarity on its properties.

Using a secret technique of his, he was able to unravel the superficial outer restrictions that kept its aura at bay. After this was let loose, anyone that espied the beast skin for the first time would be afflicted by the same vision.

She wanted this effect to make everyone no longer question the origin of this beast skin. In truth, they themselves couldn’t figure anything more from it, so selling it to make a profit was the best option.

“I’m sure everyone here knows the value of any object even remotely related to an earth flame. This item is undoubtedly one of those very objects.”

Everyone waited with bated breath. They wanted her to call out the base bid already so that they could start. They knew that with the worth attached to something as valuable as the earth flame that they didn’t have the capital necessary to take it away, but then, that should be the case for everyone else. If necessary, they were willing to take it on credit, even if they were to later trade everything that their clan or respective sects owned, it would still be worth it.

Of course, they wouldn’t go overboard. But even if it was thousands, tens of thousands or, god forbid, a hundred thousand spirit stones, they would be willing to pay the price.

Huli Ruo could see all this, yet she handled it with grace and a smile as she announced, “The starting bid is at 70,000 spirit sto-”

“One million spirit stones.”

aA voice, lazy in bearing and apathetic in nature, rang out. Everyone turned to look at a particular private box with incredulity in their eyes.