Just as he made this declaration, the auctioneer touched a part of the cage that sent a surge of Qi in and the previously motionless bone shot upwards. The small fracture lines along the bone unfurled into six limbs along with bends for a neck and waist. The bone took on the rough shape of a mantis, which shot forward and struck at the gap between the bars with its bladed forelimbs. It tried to reach between the gaps to strike the auctioneer but a barrier sprang to life in the cage and stopped its attack. It jumped back to the center of the cage and lifted its forelimbs up high. The bones on its back looked like they fractured further and a set of wings opened wide. The mantis made itself look as big as it could and rocked from side to side. The combination of its wings and forelimbs took on a shape similar to a skull, making it look like a skeletal monster was staring at the crowd.

Thinking back, he had wanted to bid upon this exact beast at the first auction he attended, but the price had been too high for him. After some fierce bidding the price had gone from a hundred thousand to more than six hundred thousand. Surprisingly, just as he was remembering the prices from the last auction the auctioneer stated the same number he was thinking of.

“The starting price of the Bone Mantis is a hundred thousand Spirit Stones, with each bid requiring an increment of ten thousand each time.”

There was a little fire in Sage’s eyes as he entered his bid into the ‘system’ in front of him and the counter up on the stage suddenly multiplied by five times. There was a collective gasp from the lower levels. The first bid for this Demonic Insect was already five times the starting amount in just an instant. In fact, Sage had wanted to bid a million right off the bat to win the Bone Mantis, but he was fearful that if bet so outrageously so quickly than others might think there was something special about this specific mantis. Even as rich as he was now, he had no idea if there was anyone else with more Spirit Stones than him at this auction, and he definitely didn’t want to accidentally interest them in the Bone Mantis and miss this chance.

In the past he had only wanted the Bone Mantis as it was a Demonic Insect, which he believed would be a great improvement for himself. Now, with far more knowledge, the small size of the Bone Mantis proved how powerful its bloodline was. Others desired it because it was an important material for a few types of high rank purification pills and corruption cleansing artifacts. For Sage it wouldn’t just become a component of a few pills or tools. If he could get his hands on it, he could try to breed them on the Inner World and also use its powerful bloodline to strengthen his whole clan.

The bid for the Bone Mantis jumped up to 600,000 and Sage bumped the price with a minimum increase to make it 610,000. The other bidder pushed it to 700,000, and Sage responded with another minimum increase. The auctioneer hadn’t yet said a word and this back and forth continued a few more times until the price had jumped to a million and ten thousand Spirit Stones.

It was only then that Sage’s competitor grew discouraged. He had kept adding on the full initial price with each bid, but each time the counter bid was the same. The other bidder had the feeling that his opponent was filled with such confidence that no matter what number he said, they would just add ten thousand again.

“One million and ten thousand going once. Going twice. Sold!”

The cage holding the Bone Mantis was taken off the stage and Sage had a huge smile on his face. He didn’t bid on any of the remaining items in the auction, and that mysterious competitor of his decided that had bankrupted his opponent with such a high price on the Bone Mantis. In reality, Sage still had a huge fortune of Spirit Stones, but he had no need for the last few items.

When the auction had finished, he walked down a secluded hallway to a private reception room where he could pay for and receive his items without being seen by anyone else. This sort of thing was very common for auction houses as there were always those who didn’t want to spend any money in the auction and instead just killed those who did. Why pay for the things they liked if they could just rob them from others? The security of the auction house was extremely high, so they liked to target those leaving the auction house instead. In order to give their customers some peace of mind, the private booths had to be kept very confidential and secret. Then these bandit cultivators would have no idea who purchased what. Without knowing which targets were the juiciest, they didn’t know if those big ticket items were in the hands of weak Sea Forming cultivators or terrifying Nascent Souls.

Sage brought out a dozen Storage Bags, each of them containing nothing but Spirit Stones. A Spirit Stone was about the size of a marble and the internal volume of a Storage Bag worked out to store about a million of them in total. Given how cheap Storage Bags were, it was an easy way to count money for a transaction. Powerful cultivators could count with their consciousness and then transfer the stones directly from one Storage Ring to another, but weaker cultivators preferred to use full bags because it took them much longer to do counts. They were wary of being vulnerable for so long as they did a count, and many only had a single Storage Ring. If they were to let someone else look inside, they could be giving away their secrets. Sage actually suffered from a similar problem as he had the Universe Ring and Inner World to store all his treasures on, and had only a single Storage Ring that he used as a decoy.

Since he only wore a single Storage Ring, if he took it off to hand it over then it would be obvious he had another one hidden on his body. He could have worn the Universe Ring openly and then handed over his spare to use for the transfer, but the Universe Ring was very plain looking in comparison to most Storage Rings so he preferred to keep it well hidden and not let anyone get even a glimpse of it. Instead, he looked excessively cautious or that the amount he was spending was a considerable part of his fortune by handing over so many Storage Bags.

He only casually examined most of the items with his Spirit Sense, but for the Bone Mantis he took the time to carefully examine and admire it for a while. While doing so he couldn’t help himself, “Years ago I missed an auction on another Bone Mantis just like this. I can’t believe I ran into another one here so many years later. How often do you get Demonic Insects for auction?”

The old man who was overseeing this trade shook his head, “We rarely see any Demonic Insects other than this Bone Mantis. There’s usually one put up for auction once every few years, and that stingy fellow only gives us every other one. We have tried to keep him away from the Daggerguard, but he insists on splitting them equally.”

“The Bone Mantises are from the same seller everytime? Can you put me in contact with him?”

“Ehh, this.”

The old man was taken aback. It was highly against their policy to be doing such things, because it was similar to releasing the identity of the buyers. If they told who the seller was, a vicious ‘buyer’ might kill and take the place of the previous seller, or do even worse and cut them out of the loop and sell to someone else. They were still in Holy Flame Sect territory so the old man knew how influential Sage was and he was immediately at a loss at how to turn down Sage’s request.

Sage knew this and he held up a hand, “Relax, I understand your difficulties. Just ask the buyer if they're willing to make a deal. Tell him I’m willing to offer a large sum if they can take me to where they got the Bone Mantis from. Make sure to assure him I will not be butting into his business. I want them for my own use and will be leaving the Shihu Kingdom soon.”

The old man rubbed his beard for a moment and then he nodded, “Alright. There shouldn’t be any harm in just asking.”

With their business concluded the old man left the room, leaving Sage to wait for a response.