An uproar went through the great plaza of the City of Stars at once, shock spilling over into talk on every side. The central magic screens, which every player in the region watched, were actually showing the floor of the July Chamber’s auction — and by the look of it they meant to broadcast the whole thing live. How on earth had the July Chamber managed it? In theory this was a right no player should have at all, and no amount of money could buy it.
In fact, having the four magic screens in the City of Stars plaza carry the auction live had been a wish of Liu Qiyue’s — and once it reached Ye Tianxie, he went to the City Lord’s manor and put it to the man in a few words. The City Lord agreed readily enough… and very warmly took a two-million-gold usage fee for it.
Liu Qiyue accepted that sky-high price gladly.
The astonishing sight set a few sharp minds sniffing at something out of the ordinary. Put beside the other unbelievable things about the July Chamber — the superb position, the enormous premises put up in no time at all, that utterly bizarre announcement they had gone to the trouble of broadcasting across the whole region — every part of it gave off a strange smell.
At once a few of those sharp minds hurried to the July Chamber, meaning to buy tickets and get in… but half past eight had gone, and the ticket price had leapt from 200 gold to 1,000. The receptionist selling them wore a smile that put everyone at ease, and no matter what anyone tried to haggle her down with, she would not give an inch. Any number of players who could no longer contain their curiosity and wanted a look inside the July Chamber were, in the end, frightened off by the price.
At nine in the morning, the auctions at the July Chamber and the Shroud-the-Sky No. 1 Chamber formally began.
The Shroud-the-Sky No. 1 Chamber, which had been without an empty seat for an hour already, opened in an extremely lively fashion. Before the bidding, a dozen or so women in brilliant clothes came out to sing and dance, and the cheering inside the auction hall rose in wave after wave, the atmosphere blazing… while a few players who had come too late to get a ticket could only stand outside and sigh over it.
And by contrast, the floor of the July Chamber’s auction, laid out under the eyes of countless players by way of the magic screens…
The July Chamber’s auction floor was very large — large enough to make a man click his tongue. Nine o’clock had come, and the hall was exceptionally quiet, with a thousand-odd people scattered thinly across it. Well over half of them were there as the Divine Domain Pact’s friendly gesture, and the rest had come out of curiosity, or in the hope that Liu Qiyue might suddenly appear after all. If a man had genuinely come to an auction for top-grade equipment, he would have chosen Wings That Shroud the Sky first. With power on that scale, laying hands on the very finest equipment was easy for them.
A thousand-odd people. At an auction in the real world that would not have been a small number. But this figure had every player in Huaxia for its base, which made it pitifully small indeed. The sheer size of the hall was no glory to it now; instead, all those empty seats made the place feel remarkably cold.
Ye Tianxie sat in a very unremarkable corner, watching every movement of every person there with a cold eye. That vast auction hall had barely a twentieth of its seats filled — colder than even he had expected. But the colder it was, the more powerful the shock would be when the contrast came.
“Second Brother, that Dugu boy really has come. Big Sister said outright that she wouldn’t be here, and he still came in person. Looks like he’s more than a little set on her.” Zuo Pojun, sitting on Ye Tianxie’s right, said it quietly by his ear, and glanced at the smiling Zangshen in the front row.
“Clever people always know what to do and when. That poor child they call the Son of Heaven has played this move about as badly as it can be played. He doesn’t understand our beautiful and terrifying Big Sister in the slightest. Oh! Good luck to him!” Murong Qiushui pursed his lips and said it with a face full of pity.
At one minute past nine a woman finally came out from the back, and only then did everyone turn their eyes to the stage. She was around thirty, smiling, full-figured, with a ripe grace about her that the eye caught at once… The July Chamber was made up of women, without exception, and of very beautiful women at that. When Liu Qiyue chose the people around her, the first test they had to pass was their looks. It was for this reason that the upper social circles often whispered that Liu Qiyue in fact preferred women, and had had her way with every woman at her side. It was also why she was still unmarried to this day, and why no one had ever heard of her being close to any man.
“Friends, welcome to the July Chamber’s first public auction. I am September, your host for today, and I will be running this auction from start to finish on my own. That you have chosen our July Chamber today is something we thank you for sincerely…” The woman named September finished with a smile and went straight to the point. “So I shall not take up any more of your valuable time — the auction begins now. As the host of this auction, let me say first that everyone who has come to the July Chamber’s auction has come as a mark of their trust and their approval, and we will repay it with equipment of the very highest grade… At the very least, we will not insult your trust and your enthusiasm with low-grade equipment below Gold rank. Now — the July Chamber’s first public auction is formally open!”
September’s words rang not only around that wide auction hall but out through the magic screens in the City of Stars plaza and on through every channel relaying it, into the ears of countless players — and left them slack-jawed.
What had they just heard?
“We will not insult your trust and your enthusiasm with low-grade equipment below Gold rank…”
The July Chamber had actually said a thing like that. Did they not know what those words meant? The whole of Wings That Shroud the Sky, the whole of the Divine Domain Pact, the two of them together — none of them would dare say anything that outrageously arrogant. We will not insult your trust and your enthusiasm with low-grade equipment below Gold rank… Could the July Chamber really produce Gold equipment? At this stage of the game, Gold equipment was the exact equivalent of a divine artifact, a thing even the big men of the great pacts could long for and never get.
The answer was set out in front of them, shocking and splendid.
“Now, we begin the auction of our first piece — suitable for any male player of a spirit class — the ‘Gold-Patterned Robe.'”
As September’s voice fell, the great screen above the auction floor and the central magic screens in the City of Stars plaza both showed the Gold-Patterned Robe and its full attributes at the same moment.
Gold-Patterned Robe: Gold-grade artifact. Requirement: Level 15 male Mage, Priest, or Summoner class. An outer robe traced with dazzling golden patterns, holding mysterious power. Stats: Defense +55, Lightning resistance +8%, Spirit +8, Vitality +7, 3% chance on being attacked to trigger “Gold-Pattern Ward,” raising the wearer’s own Defense by 20% for 10 seconds.
“Haaaa—”
It was as though a storm had come down out of nowhere. In that one instant the uproar swept the whole of the July Chamber’s auction floor, and swept the whole of the City of Stars plaza. Out in the plaza, countless players were struck dumb where they stood; on the auction floor, more people than anyone could count could not hold their excitement in and came straight up out of their seats. Even the calm smile on Zangshen’s face went stiff in a heartbeat.
Gold equipment… the very first piece the July Chamber had put up was actually Gold equipment, which countless players had never so much as laid eyes on!
The shock of it very nearly sent the room out of control in a single moment.
“The Gold-Patterned Robe, a Gold-grade piece. I imagine our friends with spirit classes are already finding it hard to wait. We said that the July Chamber would provide our friends with equipment of the very highest grade, and would never insult your trust and your enthusiasm with low-grade equipment below Gold rank. Now — bidding on the first piece begins. Since it is Gold equipment, and every one of you knows perfectly well how rare that is, the price is set a little high. Opening bid: 80,000 gold!” September was not frightened by the uproar in the room. She was still smiling, still perfectly unruffled. Plainly she had expected exactly this.
And her words were, in effect, a slap across the face of Wings That Shroud the Sky — measured, but a slap. Three days ago they had announced that the centerpiece of today’s auction would be two Level 15 pieces of Silver equipment. Their centerpiece was, here at the July Chamber, precisely the “low-grade equipment” not fit to be brought out at all. It said outright that what Wings That Shroud the Sky were auctioning was, in the July Chamber’s eyes, trash not even worth a glance.
“One hundred thousand!” September had barely finished before a man dressed as a Mage was on his feet, unable to wait, calling out his bid at the top of his voice. Before he came here today he had certainly never imagined he would be facing the Gold equipment of his dreams. And not only him — nobody could have imagined it.
Level 15 was exactly the level everyone on the level ranking had reached, barring Xietian hanging high at number one. It was also the equipment bracket that players most needed at this stage. The first bidder had barely finished when a second voice burst out: “One hundred and fifty thousand! I’ll take this robe! I’m Sings Supreme Under Heaven, of the Under Heaven Pact — do me this favor, gentlemen, and we’ll all get along nicely next time we meet!”
This was a man with a tiger’s back and a bear’s waist, thirty-odd by the look of him, his features coarse and thrown together any old way, his face savage. One look told you he was not a man to cross.
“Two hundred thousand.” His words, with the threat half-buried in them, had barely landed when a flat, unremarkable-sounding voice came slowly out — and the man who had named that price was the Pact Master of the Divine Domain Pact, Zangshen.
Sings Supreme Under Heaven, so overbearing a moment ago, sat straight back down and did not say another word. The strength of the Divine Domain Pact was there for anyone to see, and this was the Pact Master speaking in person; he was not idiot enough to go picking a fight with the man.
The auction floor was still reasonably calm. Outside it, things had already gone to pieces.
News that the July Chamber’s auction was selling Gold equipment spread outward at a speed close to madness — through the City of Stars, out to the leveling parties beyond the walls… and all the way to the auction floor of the Shroud-the-Sky No. 1 Chamber.
(End of Chapter 226)