Reverend Insanity

Things progressed stably with the passage of time. The Gu Immortals entering became fewer and fewer. After a while longer, Qin Bai Sheng closed the entrance of his blessed land.

He walked to the raised platform in front of the main hall, proclaiming briefly and to the point: “Ladies and gentlemen, the time has arrived, the auction will officially start!”

“Strange, why have Fairy Li Shan and Hei Lou Lan not arrived?” Tai Bai Yun Sheng transmitted a message to Fang Yuan.

“Yes, I am also puzzled. According to Fairy Li Shan’s nature, she should be sitting in the main hall after she arrives. However, there is not even a trace of her.” Fang Yuan replied.

“The auction currently has three spaces for participants; the main hall, single rooms and secret rooms. If they had chosen a secret room, they would have entered directly through secret pathways and not made a public appearance. But even if Fairy Li Shan entered a secret room, she would not have done so without even greeting us. Have you noticed this, there are no Gu Immortals of Hei tribe present.” Tai Bai Yun Sheng pointed it out.

Fang Yuan mumbled: “We should first send a letter inquiring about the situation. Fairy Li Shan and Hei Lou Lan are bound to us by the Snowy Mountain Alliance, the possibility of them betraying us is not likely. If they encountered an ambush from Hei Cheng and others, with the strength of those two, they should have been able to send a message to request for support.”

While the two were secretly discussing, the first auction item was already displayed on the platform.

“Everyone should know, these are sky chief clouds. When they are spread out, they can stretch out for over a thousand and three hundred square kilometres. Such a large amount of sky chief clouds are rare even in treasure yellow heaven! The starting bid is twenty immortal essence stones, every bid should be an increase of at least five immortal essence stones. Please start!” Qin Bai Sheng announced.

“Sky chief clouds, this is useful for my Tai Bai blessed land.” Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s attention was immediately attracted, and he subconsciously utilized the prepared mortal Gu in the secret room to make his bid.

Qin Bai Sheng sensed the bid and immediately announced: “The eleventh secret room bids thirty immortal essence stones.”

The next moment, a cloud path Gu Immortal in the main hall shouted: “Thirty-five immortal essence stones.”

Tai Bai Yun Sheng chuckled as he activated the mortal Gu to bid again. He directly raised the price by ten, to forty-five immortal essence stones.

Forty-five immortal essence stones were enough to buy a desolate beast corpse.

The cloud path Gu Immortal who had made the bid gritted his teeth, hesitating for a while but not making another bid.

On the ground, there was the earth chief beast, in the sky, there was the sky chief beast. Within the immemorial nine heavens, sky chief beast groups more or less lived in each of the heavens.

The so-called sky chief clouds were formed from the breath of the sky chief beast; condensing slowly over long periods of time.

These clouds could construct an environment in the immortal aperture that could greatly increase the production of cloud path Gu worms. If a group of sky chief beasts live in this cloudy environment, the effect would be even more wondrous, and if it was managed properly, there would be a never-ending flow of sky chief clouds.

However, the intact parts of the immemorial nine heavens could only be explored by powerful rank seven or rank eight Gu Immortals.

Every sky chief beast was at least a mutated beast king, comparable to an ordinary beast emperor. And the king of every group of sky chief beasts was essentially at desolate beast level.

“Forty-five immortal essence stones, going once.” Qin Bai Sheng spoke, seeing that there were no more bids.

“There are already large numbers of float ball tea in my blessed land. I will have the first batch of harvest at the end of this month. I intend to bring in jade hummingbirds later on. If I can add sky chief clouds, I will have the building blocks to smoothly bring in sky flowers and floating sparrowhawks. Junior brother, you advanced to Gu Immortal later than me, but you already have experience in managing blessed lands through Hu Immortal blessed land. Can you tell me what you think of my plan?” Tai Bai Yun Sheng chuckled as he transmitted his voice to Fang Yuan.

On the platform, Qin Bai Sheng shouted again: “Forty-five immortal essence stones, going twice.”

Fang Yuan pondered for a moment and replied to Tai Bai Yun Sheng: “Sky flowers indeed grow on clouds, and floating sparrowhawks often are the host for cloud path Gu worms. Old Bai, are you thinking of cultivating both time path and cloud path?”

“Yes. My time path abilities are specialized in healing, if I can add in cloud path, it can make up for the other shortcomings.” Tai Bai Yun Sheng said without reservation.

He was originally skilled with cloud path in movement ability, his attainment reaching flying master realm using it. Later, he had dealings with Northern Plains’ Inkman King, Mo Tan Sang, who sold him the killer move nine cloud ring for a low price, this deepened Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s interest in cloud path. Fang Yuan did not feel this choice was abrupt.

At this moment, Qin Bai Sheng shouted for the third time: “Forty-five immortal essence stones for over one thousand three hundred square kilometres of sky chief clouds, going thri…”

“Hold on, fifty-five immortal essence stones.” The bid was just about to be decided, when suddenly a Gu Immortal spoke up.

His voice came from the seventeenth single room.

“Eh.” Tai Bai Yun Sheng had not expected such a change as he hurriedly made a bid, “Sixty immortal essence stones.”

This price finally dispelled any thoughts of buying from everyone present, allowing Tai Bai Yun Sheng to get his wish.

“The second item for auction is a group of rare black spirit antelopes. The beast group’s size reaches three hundred and twenty thousand, and has five beast emperors. The lowest price is ten immortal essence stones, every bid should be at least four immortal essence stones higher. The price can be lowered if you use vertical rainbow ointment to trade.” Qin Bai Sheng announced.

Black spirit antelopes were already hard to find in Northern Plains, this beast group’s size was so large, it should have been reared in some Gu Immortal’s immortal aperture. The Gu worms residing in black spirit antelopes were mainly soul path Gu worms, thus this especially attracted the attention of soul path Gu Immortals.

The Gu Immortal putting this group of black spirit antelopes up for sale required a Gu refinement material, vertical rainbow ointment. Thus the bidding could be done using immortal essence stones or vertical rainbow ointment.

A round of bidding passed, and this black spirit antelope group was purchased by a Gu Immortal for twenty-eight immortal essence stones.

“The third item is a set of Gu recipes that came from the Medieval Antiquity Era, its name is inch of time. It contains all the recipes from rank one to rank five, and the crucial point is that these Gu recipes have already been improved. All of the refinement materials can be found commonly. The lowest price is twenty-two immortal essence stones and you can also use the desolate beast, six headed snake’s skin to reduce the price.” Qin Bai Sheng announced.

“Twenty-three immortal essence stones.”

“Isn’t it disgraceful to add only one immortal essence stone? Thirty immortal essence stones!”

“I bid thirty-two.”

This time, there were clearly more Gu Immortals bidding than the previous two times.

Inch of time was a time path Gu worm which could not be used on humans but could be used on other targets, and was extensively used in Gu refinement. For instance, if a Gu worm required three days and three nights to be refined, and the inch of time Gu was used, it would quickly reach the state that required three days and three nights of time, by accelerating the growth and transformation of the Gu worm. And the amount of time the Gu Master would have to spend probably would only be few short moments.

Fang Yuan had obtained the Gu recipe for the Olden Antiquity Era’s group strength Gu, the market price of which was only two immortal essence stones. Inch of time was only a Gu recipe from the Medieval Antiquity Era, but it was a complete set, from the rank one Gu, one inch of time, to the rank five Gu, five inches of time.

The most important point was that this Gu recipe had already been improved by the Gu Immortal! All the Gu refinement materials required also conformed to the present situation and were not difficult to obtain. It was not like the original Gu recipe, in which many refinement materials would be extremely scarce, expensive or extinct.

This point determined the explosive increase in the price, reaching the base price of twenty-two immortal essence stones. Soon, the bidding reached forty-eight immortal essence stones.

Tai Bai Yun Sheng also made his bid at this time: “Fifty-eight immortal essence stones.”

He increased the price by ten immortal essence stones at once, attempting to scare off the competitors.

Tai Bai Yun Sheng was rich, even more so than Fang Yuan.

He had Landscape as Before and Man as Before, two great time path healing Immortal Gu, and therefore was very much sought after in Eastern Sea. Especially in the exploration of Yu Lu blessed land, they might have failed, but he had used Man as Before to save a Gu Immortal. This Gu Immortal gave him a hundred or so immortal essence stones as remuneration, and also said he owed Tai Bai Yun Sheng a favor which he would pay in the future.

Most crucially, Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s blessed land was healthy and produced green grape immortal essence at every fixed interval of time. His green grape immortal essence was accumulating day by day, to the extent that he could not use them all up.

His Tai Bai blessed land’s time flow was thirty-three times faster than the outside world, nearly the same as Hei Lou Lan’s super grade blessed land.

This was because his was a high grade blessed land and he was also a time path Gu Immortal. Thus, in the aspect of time path resources, it was rather outstanding.

One day in the outside world would be a month in Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s blessed land. In theory, blessed lands would produce green grape immortal essence every month. In the same given time for the outside world, the amount of green grape immortal essence Tai Bai Yun Sheng obtained was several times or even ten times higher than ordinary rank six Gu Immortals!

On the contrary, Fang Yuan might have guts Gu business, but he had to handle all sorts of expenses, especially the constant converting of immortal essence stones to green grape immortal essence.

His immortal aperture was dead and could no longer produce immortal essence, moreover it would crumble and shrink every set interval of time, which was an extremely large setback to him.

Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s bid indeed scared off most of the competing Gu Immortals. But there was still some who persisted.

As the bid increased with two additional offers, the price had slowly risen to sixty-six immortal essence stones.

“Sixty-six immortal essence stones to purchase a set of mortal Gu recipes!” Some of the low-level Gu Immortals in the main hall were tongue-tied.

“It can’t be considered expensive. Inch of time cannot be used on oneself, but it can be used to save time and has wide range of applications like reducing the duration of Gu refinement. If you consider it in the long-term, especially for those Gu Immortals who also cultivate refinement path, they can use inch of time to slowly accumulate savings worth sixty-six immortal essence stones.” A Gu Immortal calmly analyzed.

“This price is already at the peak. It would be unwise to raise the price further. Unless you have a special requirement for it.” Another Gu Immortal added his analysis.

“Sixty-six immortal essence stones, going once.” Qin Bai Sheng started to close the bids.

At this moment, Fang Yuan transmitted his voice to Tai Bai Yun Sheng: “Old Bai, let’s split the immortal essence stones and make the bid together?”

Tai Bai Yun Sheng was happy: “Junior brother, you also have the intent to get it, that is good.”

He thus raised the price directly to sixty-eight. Only one other Gu Immortal continued to bid, adding one immortal essence stone.

Finally, Fang Yuan and Tai Bai Yun Sheng paid an expensive price of seventy immortal essence stones to finish the purchase of Inch of Time.

Time passed by, one after another, treasures continued to be auctioned off.

The competition in the main hall was getting more fierce and the atmosphere had also turned fiery. Many Gu Immortals lost their bearings and started arguing. Although they had sense and calmness, with large profits in front, they could not help being flushed with agitation.

After dozens of items were auctioned off, some low leveled Gu Immortals already became powerless to continue fighting, some were perspiring, some were pale, while many were exhausted.

The bidding did not only compare wealth but also involved psychological battles.

Gradually, rank six Gu Immortal bidders became sparser.

Rank six Gu Immortals usually had several hundreds of immortal essence stones of savings, while rank seven would have several thousands or over ten thousand directly in their hands. At rank eight, having several tens of thousands available was a certainty. And those who had accumulated over the years would have hundreds of thousands of immortal essence stones in hand.

The stronger the cultivation, the more resources they owned. Ordinary rank sixes had too weak of a foundation, fortunately, they could lower the price with other goods, otherwise most of them would have already been completely out of the game.

Fang Yuan also only had few hundred immortal essence stones. He had made bids, but there were very few successes while most failed, and he was still waiting patiently for the main show.

Finally, he heard Qin Bai Sheng announce: “Next, we shall begin the auction of Immortal Gu.”

“The most important part is here!” Fang Yuan’s eyes brightened.

Not only him, other Gu Immortals were also invigorated.

The previous auction could only be considered the prelude, the true event had just taken stage!

Immortal Gu trade!