AI Model: gemini-2.5-flash
Chapter 241: Auction House's Final Ultimate Three-Choice-One
Normally, the auction house's auction day is the 1st of every month.
At this time, all players who have either completed their main quests or evacuated have returned to Heaven's Chosen Space. The latter is irrelevant for now, but the former, while having a certain amount of time to stay in the space, also retains some small change they haven't had time to spend. Therefore, it's very suitable for cutting leeks (crossed out) bidding.
At the same time, the holding of the auction also provides a space for lone players and player guilds to gather and communicate.
Of course, not just anyone can enter.
If you are a pure buyer, you need a certain amount of assets to enter. Those with only a few coins in their pockets shouldn't bother; go work hard on bounty quests instead.
As for sellers, as long as they are deemed by the auction house to have auction value and are included in the auction process, they are qualified to participate and can bring a small number of companions.
However, there are no formal dress restrictions here, and since it's within the space, one can spend money to change their appearance at any time. So, looking around, there are strange and bizarre people everywhere in the auction house.
Cheng Tian didn't go through such complicated changes; he just styled his hair into a never-before-seen 'shamate' (visual kei) look.
His orange, wild, long, layered hair obscured his vision, making him see things as if through a curtain.
"Uh, you guys didn't really need to match my style..."
Looking at Eileen and others who had also styled themselves similarly, Cheng Tian couldn't help but cover his cheeks, trying hard to control his facial muscles from twitching.
Eileen had styled herself with a waist-length hairstyle reminiscent of Super Saiyan 3, which looked incredibly heavy, even hiding her eyebrows, making her appear extremely fierce.
Bazett, among many even more unreliable choices, opted for a super mushroom cut. As she walked and bounced, her mushroom cap bobbed along.
Mina, at Eileen's strong insistence, went for a Shibuya gyaru style.
With colorful, clear nail art, her head adorned with glittery stickers, a modified sailor uniform, a pink skirt, long cotton socks, and big-toe shoes, combined with her naturally dark skin tone, that Shibuya vibe immediately hit you!
However, in Heaven's Chosen Space, this was just a drop in the ocean.
For example, as Cheng Tian entered, he immediately bumped into a female Minotaur wearing three tube tops. And when he apologized and turned his head, he saw an elegant female insectoid creature that clearly incorporated many elements of a velvet moth... Uh, these special XP systems were a bit much for Cheng Mouren; one could only say that such a mixed place truly broadened one's horizons.
Cheng Tian's Crimson Chaos Staff was placed in the Bronze-tier auction house because its value was already beyond what ordinary unranked and Black Iron-tier players could afford. Moreover, as a prized auction item, according to the auction house, quite a number of powerful and wealthy Bronze-tier players had their eyes on the staff.
As the seller, Cheng Tian also received a large number of private messages handled by the auction house.
This was an additional protection provided by the auction house, ensuring privacy.
Then Cheng Tian witnessed the diversity of species.
Normal transactions, increased bids for acquisition, requests for item exchanges, and even pleas for charity – Cheng Tian could understand all of these.
He genuinely hadn't expected that after being tempered by the law of the jungle in Heaven's Chosen Space, which only values hard power, there would still be players threatening him via private message to hand over the staff, or else they would use tracking abilities to enter his instance and hunt him, Cheng Mouren, down.
But actually, this reminded Cheng Tian: since he also had 1 use of the mutated 'Dino Crisis' to forcibly replace a main quest, then other players' threats of forcibly following him into an instance might not just be empty words.
For such idiotic threatening private messages, Cheng Tian simply entrusted the auction house to give them a simple and clear standardized reply—
Go f*** your mother!
The entire auction process went very smoothly, and Cheng Tian also deliberately held onto his tens of thousands of small change, not immediately using it to strengthen equipment, wanting to see if he could find any bargains at the auction house.
After all, not all players immediately understand the added value of some equipment items, and Cheng Tian was targeting precisely this point.
Because the auction house had leaked that the Crimson Chaos Staff would be the final item, many players reserved their funds specifically for bidding on the staff. This led to relatively ordinary auction items earlier not selling for much, and there were fewer bidders.
Soon, as the atmosphere reached a fever pitch, the auction house finally released the usage rights for the Crimson Chaos Staff as the grand finale.
There was no need for the host to build up the atmosphere; the eager players had already begun bidding, and the bidding price soared, quickly reaching the threshold of 200,000.
For Black Iron and Bronze players, this number was already extremely exaggerated.
One must know that a player capable of producing such a sum in one go, unless they were a natural hoarder who was happy just having money in hand, even if it meant an implicit increase in their own evaluation, or they had already sold off a considerable amount of valuable inventory items.
In terms of pure Heaven's Chosen Coins, this was already the limit that top players at this stage could produce in one go. Naturally, the auction then entered the stage of Heaven's Chosen Coins + rare items, and at this stage, Cheng Tian gained the authority to intervene.
Because the estimated value of items in the space and their value to the player themselves are not entirely equivalent, when the funds are equal, it falls to Cheng Tian to decide who to sell to.
Ultimately, there were three groups of players in the final bidding round. They could all produce a maximum of 200,000, but their rare items were not entirely consistent.
Buyer #1 offered a golden dagger named "Seagull." This item's damage was almost non-existent, but it came with a powerful attribute: "100% better chance to obtain magic equipment."
This meant that simply by holding it, the probability of loot dropping from monster-killed chests would skyrocket.
If it weren't for its inherent low damage attribute and the fact that it occupied a weapon slot, this item would definitely fetch a considerably high value.
Buyer #2 offered an A-rank skill scroll called 『Treasure Crystal』. This skill scroll, from "Dragon King Warrior," could create a "Treasure Crystal" that, when exploded, could eliminate enemies while forcibly transforming them into valuables.
This was essentially a specialized version of the magic crystals in Dragon King Warrior. Aside from several elemental spell orbs and the mass polymorph frog spell, this Treasure Crystal was the most powerful.
If it had been before, Cheng Tian would most likely have chosen the Treasure Crystal, but for Cheng Tian, who already possessed the 'Three Orbs' title, an item that also occupied a skill slot wasn't truly that valuable.
Buyer #3 offered a special item called "Black Pearl Shard." The value of this item in the space's recommended recycling price was far lower than the Seagull Dagger and the Treasure Crystal, but it was an admission ticket that could open an exclusive instance—
A special instance called "Ys: Origin."