San Guo watched the influential people of the city walk up to their boxes and was busy scrutinising them. "You kids must remember these people that walk up to the Auction boxes. They are some of the more influential and powerful people in the city and shouldn't be offended. These people usually have alliances with each other and not knowing the situation would be costly." After saying his piece, an old man walked up on to the stage and began clearing his throat.

"Welcome to the Annual Auction hosted by the Skylight Auction Organisation. I am the auctioneer for this Auction and I wish the best of luck to all those who bid for the rare items we have this year." The Auctioneer's voice was loud enough for everybody to hear him and his tone of voice made people feel the need to buy the rare items otherwise it would be gone forever.

"As usual, I'll be announcing the rules for the Auction for each item when it is displayed so please be patient when it is brought out. Be warned, those that who bid falsely and are unable to pay will be banned by the organisation for however long we feel like it. Now, let the auction begin!"

"First up, we have a rare ingredient! The Moonspike thorn with an age of 100 years. Bids start at 25,000 silver and bids must rise by 5,000 silver each time." The auctioneer announced the first item which lit the audience's enthusiasm like a fire. The group tuned out the voices and spoke to each other because this item wasn't of any interest to them. Ye Xiu was hesitating between wanting to buy it but he dismissed it because he wanted the seeds of the plant instead of the actual plant.

Jin Yuan observed the auctioneer carefully before nodding his head. "They sent out a stronger auctioneer than usual this year. It seems like whatever items they have up for bidding this year are probably extremely precious if they are sending out such a strong person to be the auctioneer."

Shang Yang tilted her head slightly and asked. "What do you mean? Why would the auctioneer need to be strong? Isn't he just announcing the items and their price?"

Jin Yuan shook his head. "No, the auctioneer is always a strong person. This is because the auctioneer would be the one to protect the items if anybody tried to attack the auction. Most of the time the items are not too precious so they have an auctioneer at the strength of the strongest person in the city. However, this time they have a person who is in the fourth realm. Nobody would dare to attack this time unless they are suicidal."

Liu Fan nodded his head. "It's the same in all auctions. It's the standard thing to do and as far as I know, none of the auctions I've been to have been attacked. It's just that much of a deterrent when such a strong person is defending the auctions."

San Guo looked bored. "Most of the better things will come at the end of the auction anyway. Only buy things that are essential to your growth or combat power otherwise it'll be pretty much useless for you to buy it in the first place. If you don't have enough money to buy something you can borrow money either from me or from Jin Yuan."

"We have plenty of money to spare. Also remember that if you successfully bid for something, take into account the 20% price reduction from the card we have. You'll be able to buy more items that way."

They continued to watch the many items being bid on for the next half an hour until there was an item that caught Ye Xiu's attention because of Xiao Bai's screaming.

"Master! Whatever that next item is, you must get it! It's extremely rare and I sense that it'll help with your cultivation greatly. Don't bid on it too fervently otherwise, some of those people will realise that it could be valuable!" Xiao Bai urged Ye Xiu to get the next item.

The Auctioneer brought up the next item for sale. "Next up, we have an unknown item that wasn't able to be identified even by our experts. We have no clue what it does but it does emanate some strange aura. This is a rock that will be for sale! Bids start at 100,000 silvers!" Many people in the audience gasped because of the starting price for something that was virtually unknown in usage.

The Auction Hall was silent and the Auctioneer was about to announce the failure of the sale until Ye Xiu placed the card in the slot. "Ah, a bid of 100,000 silvers from No.003 has been placed! Any other takers?"

Still, nobody else bothered to answer the auctioneer. "Going once!"

"Going twice!"

"Going thrice. Sold to No. 003 for 100,000 silvers! The item will be brought to you shortly." The auctioneer left with the item to have one of the staff bring it up to them privately.

Xiao Bai was beaming inside the Dimension and was pleased that his master was able to get the item cheaply. "Congratulations Master! You managed to get the item without any hassle! I'll tell you the usage and how to use the item after the Auction. You'll be really surprised with the effects once I tell you!" Xiao Bai made the Locket on Ye Xiu's body slightly vibrate from his enthusiasm.

San Guo was looking at Ye Xiu who was in deep thoughts curiously. "I wonder why you bought an unknown item, you saw that everybody else in the Hall didn't even bother bidding for the item so why did you?"

Ye Xiu just smiled at San Guo. "I just have a good feeling about this item and it's telling me that this item is important to me."

San Guo just shook his head. "Whatever. It's your money after all. You'd be able to earn that money back in a single batch of Grade 3 pills anyway so I can't say much. How much money do you have on you right now anyway?"

Ye Xiu thought for a moment. "I have 100,000 Gold on me right now."

San Guo was surprised. "That's quite a lot of money you have there. A thousand silvers is a single Gold. Your Pills must've been quite high quality if you managed to get so much gold from your pills."

Ye Xiu scratched his head. "The quality was pretty good and I had batches upon batches of pills to sell so even I was surprised that I would be able to get this many pills. The number of pills I sold would probably last the City demand for a while. There's only 7 Rank 3 Alchemists in the City right now so it's in quite a high demand but it's not too high."

One of the staff knocked on the door of their Auction Box and they let him in. The staff held the item and Ye Xiu quickly paid the staff with the money and the item was safely passed to Ye Xiu. Ye Xiu stored it into his dimensional storage quickly because he didn't want to lose the item that even Xiao Bai was excited about.

Shang Yang started to pester Ye Xiu about the mysterious stone that he bought but Ye Xiu was not bothered to answer any of her questions. Ye Xiu tuned Shang Yang out and was telepathically talking to Xiao Bai about the item. "Xiao Bai, you can tell me about the stone because nobody else can hear us. You can always stop your explanation when an item that I want or that is intriguing to you is up for bidding."

"Okay, Master! The stone is actually just something which is holding the actual item. Inside of it is a gem that will allow you to rise in cultivation levels multiple times without your foundation being damaged. It is best used when you are at a higher rank of cultivation so I suggest you to just keep it safe for now inside of the Locket Dimension. This is because the gem can still grow and collect more Qi inside of as time passes so it will be best for you to put it into the Dimension for now." Xiao Bai nodded his head.

"Currently, the gem should be able to help you rise 5 cultivation stages if you were in the third realm. If you can find other gems like this, it'll definitely help you raise your cultivation by multiple times. These gems can be found in places where the Qi is extremely dense. Most of them are covered in their stone casing and it's supposed to be the full size that they can grow to. This gem is considered pretty small to the ones I've seen." Xiao Bai was gloating about the sizes he's seen

Ye Xiu heeded Xiao Bai's words and decided that he would let the gem grow in the future. The auction went on, Liu Fan and San Guo bought multiple items that they needed. Liu Fan was able to bid on several rare materials that he needed to craft for his growth weapon. Growth weapons could grow with their owner and the owner could only have one growth weapon unless their soul was able to house multiple weapons.

Most ordinary cultivators could house only one growth weapon but for someone like Ye Xiu, he could possibly house 4 growth weapons due to the Phoenix Technique that helped him cultivate his soul and mental strength.

The last three items were left in the auction and many people were already leaving. Most of the people that stayed behind were either those who were gunning for the last few items or were those that were there to watch the show of the influential people bidding. It was entertainment because most of the time, the influential people got into each other's faces and started shouting matches so that they would relent and let them buy the items.

The last three items weren't as exciting as they thought it would be and when they were all introduced, San Guo led them out of the Auction House and back to the academy. As they were heading out they noticed several fights going on outside of the Auction House. None of the fights actually affected the Auction House itself due to the many inscriptions and formations that they had placed for protection.

The Auction House was the most fortified building in the entire city and it wouldn't be affected by the many fights that occur around it because there were hundreds of formations being powered by Qi stones. San Guo led them through the fights without issue because many of the combatants stopped fighting the moment they saw San Guo. Those who weren't aware of who San Guo was, ran away after he let out his powerful aura.

San Guo was probably one of the strongest people in the entire city even when he was restraining his strength. Ye Xiu and the others only felt his strength of one at the Foundation Establishment but Jin Yuan knew better than to underestimate San Guo. He knew that San Guo kept many secrets and he noticed that he hadn't even told the children about his true occupation at the academy.

With the Auction over, they could see many people heading back towards the academy. Xiao Tu took a look at the crowd and noticed that many of them were much older students. This obviously made his curiosity get peaked because he rarely saw any of the students which were above the 3rd Year. Deciding to sate his curiosity, he asked San Guo his question.

"Sir, why is it that I rarely see students above the 3rd year? I noticed that they rarely come out but today they've all appeared like they were always there."

San Guo kept on walking. "The majority of the 4th and 5th-year students do missions for the academy so that they can earn income and earn points for themselves. You know that the library requires a lot of points so they do this for contribution. Most 2nd and 3rd year students just stay in the academy because they don't have the strength necessary for most of the missions that get assigned to the students." With that done, they continued their walk to the academy.