Refining the Mountains and Rivers

Chapter 727A – Shadow Clan Auction

Through the Hidden Fog Sect, Yun Die completed the mission that Qin Yu had given to her in the shortest time possible. After reorganizing all of the information, she slowly read it out for her teacher.

She knew it was her teacher’s habit to never take the initiative to check the contents of a jade slip; she was well aware of this.

Qin Yu leaned back against a soft sofa, almost sinking into it. His eyes were closed as if he were deep in thought.

Almost an hour later, Yun Die put down the last jade slip. “Teacher, this is everything. I have already asked the Hidden Fog Sect to continue searching. If there are any harvests, I will inform you immediately.”

Qin Yu nodded, “Mm, I understand.”

He lifted a hand and rubbed his forehead to ease the discomfort and soreness caused by the overuse of his mind.

Yun Die had relayed a great deal of information to him about Dragon City, but none of it was related to what he wanted to find out. The records only indicated that Dragon City had existed for a long time, yet there was no mention of who had built it.

Then, there were only two possibilities. One was that far, far too much time had passed and things that had happened in bygone eras had already faded away in the endless river of time. The second possibility was that…someone had purposefully erased all information from that period of time so that the cultivators of today couldn’t find out any information about it.

Qin Yu couldn’t determine which possibility was the truth. He needed to obtain more information to make a judgment.

There was a knock on the door. Yun Die glanced at her teacher. Qin Yu lowered his hand and nodded.

Yun Die walked over to the entrance. After opening it she bowed, “I greet Lord Sect Master, Elder Si, and Mister Rong Wei.”

The Hidden Fog Sect Master had an even expression. “May I ask whether or not Mister Ning Qin has free time? There is an urgent matter.”

Yun Die fell to the side. “Teacher is resting. Please enter.”

“Greetings, Mister Ning Qin!”

The three people from the Hidden Fog Sect bowed.

Qin Yu collected his mood. He calmly said, “Sect Master has come to visit today, may I ask for what reason?”

The Hidden Fog Sect Master said, “I have just confirmed the news. Yesterday, this Dragon City that has been dormant for almost 2000 years finally gave rise to a connection again and has chosen a new guest.”

His face flushed red with a little excitement.

Coincidentally, Yun Die had just read out some information about this.

Qin Yu’s thoughts stirred. He finally realized why the Hidden Fog Sect Master was so excited. “The Shadow Clan is going to hold an auction?”

“Yes!” The Hidden Fog Sect Master took out a dragon-patterned jade card, “We have received an invitation from the Shadow Clan. They will officially hold the auction the day before the Beast King War begins.”

Every time a new guest appeared in Dragon City, they had the qualifications to receive the highest level of treatment from the Shadow Clan as well as to take out the true treasures from the Shadow Clan’s temple.

And the Shadow Clan’s rules were that they couldn’t hold onto these treasures. They needed to sell them all through an auction.

This was the reasoning for this current auction.

Yun Die received the jade card for her teacher. She probed it with her divine sense and read out the contents. There was little information inside; besides the invitation, there was just a description of three treasures.

That’s right, only things taken out from the temple had the qualifications to be recorded in this jade slip.

Dragon blood – it contained boundless vitality and could improve a cultivator’s lifespan and physique. Theoretically speaking, it had the ability to restore all of a cultivator’s mortal bodily wounds.

Dragon soul – this was a leftover soul fragment from when the great dragon died. Because it contained the essence of the entire dragon’s soul, when a cultivator fused with it, it could produce a qualitative change of the soul, greatly improving their cultivation.

Dragon fang – the hardest tooth of the great dragon. This was an unsurpassed treasure for refiners. A grandmaster refiner could forge this into a dragon fang sword, one with unparalleled power.

Beneath his black robes, Qin Yu’s eyes brightened. Besides the dragon fang, the dragon blood and dragon soul seemed to be custom prepared for him.

Originally, he didn’t care about the Shadow Clan’s auction, but that attitude had completely disappeared. The other items didn’t matter, but he needed to obtain the dragon blood and dragon soul no matter what!

…

Shadow Clan.

News of the auction had been sent out. It would begin before the arena opened, scheduled to be two days from now. All members of the clan were busying themselves in preparation.

“Patriarch, the seven sects have gathered in Dragon City so why are we rushing to hold the auction? I fear it will only increase their strength.” A Shadow Clan Elder anxiously sighed. He had a black mask wrapped around his head, only a single eye shining through the fabric.

Even if these were rules set down by the ancestors, it was still within their rights to wait until the Beast King War was finished and for the seven sects to leave.

It had to be known that the lineage of the Shadow Clan stood across from the seven sects…even if their relations seemed harmonious these past years.

The Shadow Clan Patriarch had a calm expression. “The laws of our clan handed down to us by our ancestors prevent us from leaving Dragon City. The inheritance of our bloodline has begun to show signs of decline.”

The one-eyed Elder was stunned. He somewhat understood the Patriarch’s decision. The Shadow Clan needed the income from this auction to increase their clan’s overall strength. The reason they chose to hold the auction the day before the competition began was to incite a bidding war between the seven sects and improve their final harvest.

“One Eye, I know that you are worried. But as long as my clan retains a certain strength, the seven sects will not act rashly. Rather, in order to maintain their own interests, they will become a barrier that protects the Shadow Clan.

“As for whether the seven sects will obtain a harvest from this auction that will increase their strength, this doesn’t impact my Shadow Clan too much. There have been dozens of attempts to annex Dragon City over the years, yet none of them have succeeded. Is the reason really that the seven sects have reached a stalemate?”

The Shadow Clan Patriarch coldly sneered. The seven great sects had laid siege to Dragon City for many years and had attempted to dig out their secrets. Yet, they had never found the method to truly control Dragon City.

After all, it was nothing but the ramblings of an idiot. Even thinking about it was laughable!

But there was a point that the Shadow Clan Patriarch was confused about. How come the items taken out from the holy temple this time had nothing to do with spirit beasts? This was the first time this had ever happened in the recorded history of the clan.

…

Because the Beast King War of the Seven Sects was imminent, cultivators from all over had gathered at Dragon City. Who would have imagined that before the opening of the arena, some random girl would be recognized by Dragon City, and the Shadow Clan would take advantage of this moment to announce they were holding an auction.

And it had been almost 2000 years since the last auction of the Shadow Clan. Even though time had partially faded memories of the past, no one was able to forget all those mysterious treasures that appeared in the last auction. Many of them were things that couldn’t be found in the outside world. They were of the greatest benefit to cultivators.

Due to this, the restless Dragon City became even livelier. Countless eyes gathered, filling with excitement and joy as they waited for the auction to start. They all hoped to win something by throwing out as much money as they could.

Time quietly passed in this heated atmosphere. The arena would open tomorrow and the seven sects would officially enter to compete.

But today, the atmosphere has already been ignited, because the Shadow Clan auction was about to begin.

After the Hidden Fog Sect Master led several high level figures from the sect out, another figure quietly disembarked from the flying ship. Upon entering the street, the black-robed figure quietly disappeared. When he reappeared, the black robes covering him had disappeared to reveal a handsome and strong face; this was Qin Yu’s true appearance.

He already had a bet with the Dark Parliament that wasn’t finished yet. He couldn’t allow them to know how much ‘Ning Qin’ desired these items from the auction, otherwise his plans would be destroyed.

So today, ‘Ning Qin’ announced that he was going into seclusion to conduct some experiments. When he came back out, he would assist the Hidden Fog Sect in the Beast King War so that they could proudly smile at all others.

Qin Yu escaped like a cicada leaving its shell, like a carp entering a river. At this time he followed the flow of people as they went straight to the Shadow Clan auction site.

After a while, Qin Yu was standing outside the Shadow Clan dwelling. He swept his eyes around and found a few sneaky figures that mixed amongst the crowd and kept trying to speak with others.

His lips curved up in a smile. He walked over to one of them and when he returned, there was an additional white jade card in his hands.

He passed it to a Shadow Clan guard. After inspecting it, the guard fell back to the side. From beginning to end, it was as if the guard didn’t see the process of Qin Yu purchasing the jade card.

The Shadow Clan were also people. People needed to eat, and where people needed to eat, how could there not be scalpers?

To obtain an invitation jade slip was incredibly simple.

…

Zhou Li had already accepted the fact that she had become the Shadow Clan’s Saintess. This was because she had carefully confirmed that she had experienced no losses. And because of the temple, she wasn’t limited by the ancestral laws of the Shadow Clan. She was able to freely leave and enter Dragon City.

And because of Dragon City, her identity as Saintess provided her with an extremely high status…to date, she had received many precious congratulatory gifts from the seven great sects.

This was a manifestation of her current status.

Looking back, all of this seemed like an illusion. If it weren’t for Ji Yun standing by her side, she would have thought this was nothing but a dream.

How could she suddenly become the Shadow Clan’s Saintess? She lifted a hand and rubbed the point between her eyebrows; faintly, one could see a dragon phantom there.

Ji Yun glanced at her and could approximately guess her thoughts. He smiled and said, “Zhou Li, this is your destined good fortune. Just accept it with relief.”

At first he was worried about how he could get his family to accept that he had chosen an ‘ordinary woman’, but now this problem was solved. If he could marry a Saintess of the Shadow Clan, a woman with dragon aura within her, his father definitely wouldn’t oppose.

Zhou Li nodded. Ji Yun had greatly helped her in understanding this sudden change in status. But, her expression was still light and she didn’t say much.

Ji Yun bitterly smiled, “Zhou Li, I didn’t intentionally hide the truth from you. It’s just that when I left home to cultivate, I was strictly forbidden from revealing my identity.”

At the Shadow Clan’s grand feast, Zhou Li had eaten the same spirit fruit that Ji Yun purchased from the flying ship. With her intelligence, how could she not know that this was an incomparably precious fruit?

When she discovered the truth that Ji Yun had been concealing, she wasn’t angry at all and even felt some happiness and gratification. But, she still cared about her face and needed to show some indifference and constraint.

Ji Yun was well aware of this so he wasn’t fl.u.s.tered. Rather, he stayed low and quiet, hoping that her ‘irritation’ would soon subside.

Someone knocked on the door. Ji Yun fell to the side and Zhou Li said, “Please enter.”

A Shadow Clan maid walked in. She respectfully said, “Your Highness Saintess, the Patriarch asked me to inform you that the auction is about to begin.”

Zhou Li nodded, “Alright, I understand.”

She stood up and subconsciously took a deep breath, her thoughts tumbling about.

Now too long ago, she had been a sheep herder in a small mountain village. Now, she stood upon a stage which she couldn’t even imagine before.

And today was the highest scene she had ever experienced.

But Zhou Li believed that this wasn’t the peak of her life. Rather, it was only the beginning of her radiant future.

Since she had the fortune to become the Shadow Clan’s Saintess, she had to live her life with glory and pride so that she didn’t disappoint the favor that the heavens had bestowed upon her!