Gu Zhi and Gu Xiao made their way to the auction with Gu Bo in their arms. Obviously they couldn't leave him home alone so they had to take him with to the auction.
"Welcome dear guests, may I see your invitation please" a worker there asked.
"Of course here you go" Gu Xiao said.
The worker looked at it and pretended like it was a normal invitation.
"Please, follow me to your seats" she said.
Once they were out of public view however she grew more respectful.
"Dear, guests the auction house has placed a minimum bid on your item to 3 million spirit stones. As per the terms of the contract you can use up to 3 million spirit stones as auction credit. Once the auction is over any spirit stones you use as credit will be deducted from the total amount that your item sells for. We hope you have a pleasant stay at the shiny whale".
She left them in a VIP room for the auction house. The room was widely furnished with decorated space filled with chairs, tables, pots and plants. They had a wide view from high up of the auction house with one way windows.
The same worker came back into the room with a tray full of tea and said "This is our specialty tea, some people come just to our auction house for this tea, its called the mellow fall blossom. As for the auction rules, just hold up your jade slip if you want to bet and say the number of amount of spirit stones you wish to place. This is called booth four since you wish for your identities to remain secret".
"Thank you" Gu Zhi replied.
He took a sip of the tea to find it had a very mellow and pleasant taste to it. It reminded him of a fireplace in the fall as it warmed his body. He felt a faint trickle of qi enter his body, as he noticed a slight increase in his capacity to hold qi.
"Wow, no wonder they were so proud of it" Gu Zhi commented.
Gu Xiao took a sip as well. "It certainly is good tea, I wonder how cost effective it is".
While some medicine had better effects when turned into a complete product that wasn't always true. Some medicines were better taken raw. For Gu Xiao she was wondering if the resources used to make the tea had a greater efficiency in the tea form, or their base form.
"Who knows" Gu Zhi said.
The lights gradually dimmed as the chatter in the auction house stopped and a man appeared on stage.
"Welcome guests to this year's grand auction hosted by us: the shiny whale. I know you didn't come here for a speech so without further ado, here is our first item".
A beautiful girl in a Chinese dress walked out onto the stage pushed a cart. On the cart was a dish covered in a plater as the man took the dish to unveil a burlap sack.
"20 pounds of diamond dust, with the minimum bid being 1 million spirt stones" the man said as the audience let out a collective gasp.
although they had already known what the first item was, that did not mean they knew the amount of it being sold. The auction kept somethings a secret to build up suspense and anticipation while they had to disclose some other things. This tactic brought in more customers then they usually would have so almost every auction house used this practice. As for 20 pounds of diamond dust the general populous was expecting grams not pounds.
The crowd erupted into a frenzy as people spat out bets one after the other.
"1.1 million"!
"1.2 million"!
"1.3 million"!
Diamond dust was a widely sought after for many reasons so getting so much diamond dust in one place was really rare and hard not find, as such people betted like crazy.
"1.8 million"!
"...1.9 million".
"1.9 million, going once, going twice".
"2 MILLION!" Someone shouted in the crowd.
"2 million, going once, going twice, SOLD to guest number 34" the host said.
"2 million spirit stones in the first sale, this really is a high end auction house" a customer from the crowd said. Whispers and mummers were already abound as just the first item of the auction stirred up peoples emotions.
"For our next item folks we have 500 qi condensation pills".
The same lady in the Chinese dress brought out another cart filled to the brim with pill bottles, she took off the lid of one and put 5 pills onto her hand and showed it around to the audience.
"The minimum bid for these pills is 500,000 spirt stones" the host said.
"555,000"!
"600,000"!
"650,000"!
The bids kept going until it was sold for 850,000 spirt stones. To Gu Zhi the pills weren't worth much as he had already taken 5 but for a sect or clan they could very well be worth it. He had noticed an immense improvement to his qi when he had taken his. With some of the pills used as motivation he could easily imagine people building up their qi foundation and even body cultivators going crazy for them. They were probably the best incentives to use for foundation building cultivators.
"The next item we have is a qi fire pill of superb quality with a 98% purity test and has PILL VEINS on it"!
"WHAAATT"!!!
This time the crowd went absolutely ballistic to the news. Shouting over each other and immediately calling some people for additional funds. Just like weapons and treasures, pills also have their own unique tier system of their own. Not every pill is created equal. With the quality of ingredients and the skills of the pill refiner, there can be very rare instances of pills having unique markings on them, known as pill veins.