Immortal Soaring Blade Book 3, Chapter 108 – Herculean Spirit Ape

“I'll stop teasing you all now. Let's have a look at the goods.” As her voice echoed, a sweet-looking woman in blue walked up with a small plate, and the item on it was covered in a red cloth.

Li Lanxin's beautiful body swayed as she walked up to the sweet-looking woman. The contrast between the two made them stand out even more. Li Lanxin then stretched out and personally unveiled the red cloth.

When the red cloth was removed, the object on the plate shined brightly. After the light faded, everyone realized that it was rather small, only the size of a palm. It was a crystal-clear, golden sphere, and inside the sphere one could vaguely see a spirit ape. The spirit ape hadn't been refined yet, so it opened its mouth and let out a roar. An invisible spirit force pressure spread across the auction. Even Nascent Soul Realm cultivators were affected by this pressure.

“My God, it's the soul fragment of a spirit beast! From the pressure of this beast, it must have been a Soul Formation Realm spirit beast!”

“Looking at the spirit beast inside, it should be a Herculean Spirit Ape. This is good stuff. You only occasionally see soul fragments in the provincial city; I have not heard of another city in the Huang Province auctioning a soul fragment.”

“A Soul Formation Realm Cloud Armored Beast was just sold, and now there is a soul fragment, which is even rarer. Soul fragments can only appear from spirit beasts at the Soul Formation Realm or higher.”

“That's right, there should be a good show to watch. I believe everything before was just a warm up, the VIPs on the second floor must have all come for this. The bids will go sky-high, likely higher than both the top-quality spirit treasure and the Soul Formation Spirit Beast combined.”

The moment the soul fragment was revealed, everyone on the first floor began talking to each other.

Inside the Bai family box, Bai Zimo was lying on the soft chair. The two beautiful women in white were massaging his shoulders and arms.

The three men in white were respectfully standing at the door, completely alert. As for Li Changhao and Bai Yang, they were sitting on the side. One was as silent as always and the other seemed to be asleep.

When the final item appeared, Bai Zimo's expression suddenly changed and his eyes lit up. He immediately sat up straight.

Then a sneer appeared on his face “They made this young master wait for so long, and now it's finally here. If it wasn't for the rule that the four families can't buy directly in private, there would be no need for this troublesome process.”

Bai Zimo's words were filled with arrogance. In his view, since none of the other three families had come, then he was certain to win against the people here.

However, no one paid any attention to his words. The three guards' statuses were too low to speak, and the two maids were very nervous. Li Changhao and Bai Yang were two people who just didn't speak.

In another rather big box, there were two people inside. One was an old man sitting on a chair with his feet up on a stool. His eyes shined as he looked at the glowing soul fragment.

Behind him was a young man with a slightly pale face and a mild expression. He was respectfully standing behind the old man and was wearing the same style of clothes. He hadn't said a word this entire time.

“Yu Er, I didn't expect to find this at the auction today. I'll get it for you to refine you a life-linked treasure. You have been cultivating with me for more than ten years and have only reached the Spirit Core Realm. Now that you have almost finished learning, once I refine the treasure for you, it'll be time for you to go out and experience the world. The chick must eventually leave the shelter of the eagle and soar on his own.”

After a long time, the old man's voice slowly echoed, sounding a bit hoarse. He seemed to be reprimanding his disciple for cultivating too slowly, but although he said this, his eyes contained a doting gaze.

The young man didn't mind his teacher's scolding and faintly smiled. He mischievously stuck out his tongue and answered, “Yu Er understands, Teacher.”

The appearance of the Herculean Spirit Ape soul fragment even shocked Zhao Jiuge and Pei Su Su a bit.

“A soul fragment appeared here, in Qing Cang City? This is good stuff.” Pei Su Su couldn't hide the surprise in her voice. It has to be said that the appearance of a top-quality spirit treasure didn't even make Pei Su Su blink.

Zhao Jiuge frowned and asked with some doubt, “Is it that precious? I also had one, but it was refined into a treasure.” He knew it was precious because his senior sister had told him, but he didn't know its exact value. However, because of this, he had special feelings for that senior sister that doted on him.

“How can a soul fragment compare to a spirit beast? If a master refiner uses it, a top-quality spirit treasure is almost guaranteed. Soul fragments are in short supply, and most powers barely have any in stock. They are used up as soon as they are obtained.” Pei Su Su rolled her eyes at Zhao Jiuge.

Below, Li Lanxin was already holding the soul fragment in her hand.

“There is no need to doubt the price of a spirit beast soul fragment. This is the soul fragment of a Herculean Spirit Ape. We all know that soul fragments only appear when you kill spirit beasts above the Soul Formation Realm, and the chances are slim. This Herculean Spirit Ape wasn't strong when it was alive, but it has a good bloodline. The starting price is five million spirit stones, and each bid must increase by at least one million spirit stones.”

It could be said that the Li family had put a lot of effort into this auction. Although the four families took turns presiding over the auction, the money made each time was not the same. In order to attract more customers, they would sometimes take items themselves to be the main event to attract more people. This way, there would be more competition and the prices would go through the roof. The profit they would make from the processing fee would also increase.

The higher the cultivation level of the spirit beast, the more it was worth. The chances of obtaining a soul fragment were simply too low. Even if you killed 10,000 Soul Formation Realm spirit beasts, you might not get a single soul fragment. Not to mention how difficult it would be to kill 10,000 Soul Formation Spirit beasts. Even if you had the strength, you wouldn't bother.

Most spirit beast soul fragments on the market were at the Soul Formation Realm. A soul fragment from a Spirit Sea Realm Spirit Beast would even make the eyes of a cultivator at the Dao Origin Realm go red. As for soul fragments of Dao Origin Realm spirit beasts, they didn't surface at all. Spirit Beasts at the Dao Origin Realm had an advantage against cultivators of the same realm due to their powerful physical bodies. Their disadvantage was their low talent. After all, they had to slowly gain their intelligence.

The bloodline of the Herculean Spirit Ape was certainly not as good as his ice phoenix. There was naturally a difference in quality between soul fragments—how could an ape compare to a phoenix? Fu Hongling had encountered the ice phoenix by chance, and when she killed it, she unexpectedly obtained the soul fragment.

Fu Hongling was worried about her little junior brother who dreamt of having a flying sword and had decided to give it to him. However, Zhao Jiuge didn't know the value of the phoenix. If it hadn't met its end when it came across Fu Hongling, it would have certainly reached the Dao Origin Realm due to its bloodline.

The soul fragment of the ice phoenix was extremely precious even to Fu Hongling, but she had still given it to Zhao Jiuge without any hesitation. This showed just how much she cared for this little junior brother of hers.

“The starting price is five million spirit stones, and each bid will increase by one million spirit stones.” Li Lanxin's words once again shocked everyone. Even if you extracted everything from a small spirit stone mine, you weren't guaranteed to get five million spirit stones. 

“The soul fragment of the Herculean Spirit Ape can be used for cultivation, you can feed it to your spirit beast, or you can use it to refine pills or treasures. However, most will want to use it to refine a treasure. It's not impossible to refine a top-quality spirit treasure, but there is a risk in refining.” Seeing no one bid, Li Lanxin felt worried that the price had scared people away. The Li family had bought this item themselves, and it was worth about four million spirit stones. The only reason it was expensive was because it was rare.

Whether it was Bai Zimo, who had come specifically for this soul fragment, or the old man in grey, who suddenly wanted to buy it for his treasured disciple, neither of them were moved. They were just waiting to see what would happen.

However, when Li Lanxin began advertising the benefits once more, Bai Zimo became a little impatient. He wrapped his voice in spirit force and shouted, “Eight million spirit stones.”

The moment he spoke, the people that were still shocked from before were turned into wooden chickens once more. Were spirit stones so worthless nowadays? An opening bid increase of three million spirit stones. Some rogue cultivators would never be able to make three million spirit stones in their lives.

Everyone's gazes followed the voice to the source, which was the box exclusive to the Bai family. Bai Zimo didn't hide the source of his voice, as if he was intentionally letting everyone know he was from the Bai family and deliberately showing off his wealth.

Seeing everyone's reactions, Bai Zimo revealed a proud smile. His eyes were filled with arrogance as he looked down on the cultivators below with disdain. It was as if this was the only way for him to appear high above them, and this gave him a sense of superiority.

Other people would deliberately cover up their identities in fear of their information being leaked. They were afraid that others might hunt them down after the auction for their purchase, or hunt them down because they had raised the price of something worth 1,000 spirit stones to 10,000 spirit stones.

However, Bai Zimo didn't have any worries. He didn't believe anything would happen to him here. Even the old fellows were afraid to make a move against him for nothing other than the fact that Qing Cang City belonged to the four families.

Chapter end