Chapter 4847 — The Private Auction

"You are too kind, Young Hero Lin. They are both my disciples—how could I ever stand by and do nothing when they are in difficulty?" the Sea Goddess of the East shook her head, though a trace of relief was plainly visible in her brows.

As one of the three giants of Morning Star Academy, her strength was beyond question, yet where cultivation resources were concerned she found herself rather straitened. Ordinary resources were no concern, but the moment something like the Thunder Mystery Pill came into play—a pill that required a fortune to outbid others for—she could not help feeling somewhat powerless. After all, she had always cultivated alone in serene seclusion, and wealth had never been her strong suit.

Wei Zhao smiled and said nothing, but the Sea Goddess of the East went on: "Young Hero Lin, you had best keep one pill for yourself. One each for Yan'er and Xiaotao is quite enough. There is no use in hoarding Thunder Mystery Pills—over time their potency will gradually leach away, and they breed a sense of dependency, a feeling that one has a way out, which is detrimental to a breakthrough."

"You speak truly, Senior." Wei Zhao nodded. A breakthrough demanded the resolve to press forward without looking back—to succeed or die trying. If one clutched an extra Thunder Mystery Pill in hand, one could not help but think, 'If this attempt fails, there is always the next,' and that was anything but a good thing.

The group finished their morning porridge together, and then Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao followed the Sea Goddess of the East to cultivate. This was the morning lesson they never failed to perform. Though the Sea Goddess did not mind their spending time with Wei Zhao, the way of cultivation demanded perseverance. Had the two girls abandoned even their morning lessons because of Wei Zhao's arrival, she would not have permitted it.

It was not only the Sea Goddess of the East who insisted on this; Wei Zhao felt the same. He himself was a tireless cultivator—whenever he had a little spare time he would devote it diligently to training. Otherwise, no matter how many fortuitous encounters one had, they would be castles in the air, and he could never have reached the heights he now stood upon.

If they wished to be together, there would be plenty of time after the morning lesson.

While the two girls went with the Sea Goddess of the East for their morning lesson, the Sea Goddess also had the Deaf Old Maid prepare a cultivation chamber for Wei Zhao, treating him as though he were her own nephew. This left Wei Zhao somewhat overwhelmed by the favor.

"Senior Ghost, about that matter with Qing Xuanzi—how do you think it ought to be resolved?" Wei Zhao took the opportunity to consult Ghost Thing. Now that he had taken Qing Xuanzi as a disciple, he could not simply turn a blind eye to the man's problem. Unfortunately, with his meager experience in pill refining he could find no thread to grasp, and so he could only seek the counsel of an expert like Ghost Thing.

"You're asking me?" Ghost Thing was rather taken aback, and retorted sourly: "Do you think I'm that old codger Zhang Lifeng? I'm no pill refiner—how would I know?"

"Uh…" Wei Zhao was rendered speechless. In his desperation he had consulted anyone he could, forgetting for the moment that each trade has its own specialty, and that across trades the gulf is as wide as a mountain. Even Ghost Thing, for all his wide experience, could not possibly know of such matters; pill refining was, after all, a most profound profession.

"Fool. If you don't know, can't you go and ask someone else?" Ghost Thing curled his lip.

"Ask whom? Zhang Lifeng? I haven't even met him. Am I to go ask Cai Zhongxuan and Hou Guanqi?" Wei Zhao thought it over. Among the people he knew, the more accomplished pill refiners seemed to be only those two—and both were merely registered disciples of Zhang Lifeng. Yet he did not believe their attainments in pill refining surpassed Qing Xuanzi's; it was likely they could be of little help in this matter.

"Isn't that little girlfriend of yours quite formidable—the one who got you the Divine Farmer's Cauldron?" Ghost Thing said instead.

"You mean Jingjing?" Wei Zhao was startled, then shook his head. "Jingjing is a pill refiner too, but not in the traditional sense. She excels at high-tech pill refining along unconventional lines. I doubt she could help with Qing Xuanzi's problem."

"Are you dense? That bargain disciple who delivered himself to your door is already a seventh-grade pill refiner. Unless you truly find Zhang Lifeng, what ordinary pill refiner could solve his problem? Better to take a different approach and try your little girlfriend—who knows, she might have a way. It costs nothing to ask." Ghost Thing curled his lip in disapproval.

"You have a point." Wei Zhao made up his mind, and at once left the Eastern Sea Pavilion and returned to the Hong Merchant Guild. He wrote a letter detailing Qing Xuanzi's matter and had Chai Laoshi send it to North Island. Han Jingyi had by now also arrived at North Island and was together with Shangguan Lan'er.

But sending a letter was no easy task. Every branch of the Hong Merchant Guild had special spiritual birds for communication with headquarters, but the Eastern Continent was simply too far away for ordinary spiritual birds to cover, so conventional means had to be used.

To go from the Eastern Continent to North Island by the usual route, aboard a treasure ship, would take at least two months round trip. But that was only the regular logistics channel; if one made use of special long-distance communication channels, bypassing the treasure ships and employing special flying spiritual beasts to relay the message directly, the time could be cut considerably.

Such flying spiritual beasts capable of crossing two Cloud-Tier Islands were rare, however, and large-scale domestication alone was a major problem. To coordinate them uniformly and extend a communication network to all five Cloud-Tier Islands, including the Eastern Continent, was even more difficult—something no single merchant guild could possibly sustain on its own. Only a specialized transport house had the capacity.

In truth, even the transport houses could only manage this by borrowing extensively from the resources of the great merchant guilds. Thus all the major guilds, the Hong Merchant Guild included, could cooperate with them to transmit messages—though it cost no small amount of spirit jade.

After having Cui Mingshan deliver the letter in person, Chai Laoshi asked Wei Zhao: "In three days the second auction will be held—a private auction. Would you like to go and take a look?"

"Oh?" Wei Zhao was momentarily taken aback. He seemed to recall Chai Laoshi mentioning it once before, but after meeting Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao, the matter had long since been cast from his mind.

"If you have no pressing business, you might as well take Miss Huang and the others to see it. I hear the private auctions are in fact far more worth seeing than the guild auctions—all manner of curious and exotic things emerge in endless succession. Not only is it livelier, but there are far more buyers and sellers as well. It should be quite interesting," Chai Laoshi suggested.

"Is that so? Does one need any qualification to enter?" Wei Zhao asked.

"According to the rules of the Grand Auction Ceremony, taking part in a private auction is not simply a matter of having enough spirit jade. One must also submit something of quality that passes the auction review for consignment—only then can one obtain entry. Otherwise one cannot even get through the door," Chai Laoshi explained.

"Interesting. With a rule like that in place, the auction really will be worth seeing." Only then did Wei Zhao understand.