Chapter 66: The Auction House

  Perhaps stimulated by Lin Feng's double kill of a 6th and 7th layer Qi Refining cultivator, Deng Bin broke through smoothly in less than two days after returning to Qingyang Gate. According to the rules, he also had to participate in this trial, which disrupted his plan to secretly deal with Lin Feng. After some thought, he decided to prioritize participating in the sect's trial, as the sect's rules and generous rewards seemed more realistic than the temptation of a mid-grade sword and the desire for revenge.

  Moreover, he thought that by taking on some tasks near the periphery of the Radiant City, he might be able to find an opportunity to kill Lin Feng. With this idea in mind, Deng Bin was also extremely busy for several days, running around everywhere to gather information about powerful training teams. Unfortunately, it turned out that the training provided by the Qingyang Gate was actually just a great opportunity for powerful teams to earn low-priced contribution points, and many strong teams didn't even bother with him, a low-ranking cultivator who had only just entered the seventh layer of Qi Refining. This caused him to hit a brick wall everywhere he went, his enthusiasm being ruthlessly crushed by reality.

  With the start of the trial not far away, most of the high-level cultivators at the 8th and 9th levels of Qi Refining had already formed their teams. The remaining ones were almost all cultivators at the 7th level of Qi Refining. Deng Bin steeled himself and spent a hundred spirit stones to squeeze into a team led by a 9th-level Qi Refining cultivator and two 8th-level Qi Refining cultivators, which was barely considered a mid-tier team. However, this meant that his plan to take advantage of the trial to kill Lin Feng had been ruined, as he had no say in this team.

  Lin Feng was unaware that Deng Bin was planning to harm him, and he was now considering how to get as many spiritual stones as possible in preparation for buying fifth or sixth-grade spiritual medicine in the future. The method was ready-made, which was to sell elixirs. Mid-grade Qi-boosting Elixirs were very marketable, and he could guarantee the output, so selling mid-grade Qi-boosting Elixirs was the best choice. The only drawback was that selling too many would bring trouble to himself.

  There are not a few shops in the city of Luo Guang that sell dan, but as soon as he thought that he might end up selling mid-grade dan worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ling stones, Lin Feng felt that going from door to door to sell dan was extremely foolish. Moreover, walking on the night road many times would inevitably lead to encountering unscrupulous shop owners, and this approach carried too much risk, which was unacceptable.

  As for letting Liu Kai help sell, Lin Feng only flashed through his mind and gave up. Even if he spent some money to turn Liu Kai's stall into a store, under the temptation of a large number of medium-grade elixirs, without sufficient strength as a backing, it would only bring disaster.

  After some thought, Lin Feng came up with the idea of going to an auction house. Having been in Yangguang City for so long, Lin Feng had also gained some understanding of auction houses. The items sold at auction houses were all valuable and precious, and although the middle-grade Qi Dan was popular, it wasn't considered particularly valuable, at least not enough to attract envy from others. Moreover, auction houses never asked about the origin of the goods, they simply followed the rules and collected a handling fee, which made Lin Feng feel safer. Most importantly, auction houses only feared a lack of goods, never fearing that there were too many goods; as long as your goods were valuable enough, they welcomed more with open arms. This could allow Lin Feng to once and for all solve the problem of selling his Dan.

  Having made up his mind, Lin Feng rushed to the auction house in Yangguang City - Jinding Auction House. Jinding Auction House was the only auction house in Yangguang City and it didn't belong to any sect, but rather a large cultivation family. It's not hard to imagine that this family had extraordinary power to establish such an unique auction house in this chaotic market where evil and righteous coexisted. It's said that there was always a great master at the golden dan stage sitting in the auction house to intimidate villains. With such power, both buyers and sellers felt much safer, especially for cultivators like Lin Feng who had low power, his sense of security increased greatly, at least he didn't have to worry about being robbed of his belongings.

  The shop was not much smaller than the Baibao Hall, with over a dozen windows lined up in a row. Behind each window stood an apprentice. On both sides of the main hall were several elegant rooms, where people occasionally entered and exited mysteriously, clearly dealing in valuable goods.

  "Are you here to buy or sell?" A cultivator of the 8th layer of Qi Refining approached him warmly as soon as he reached the window.

  "I want to sell some medicine." Lin Feng said as he casually pulled out a bottle of mid-grade Qi-boosting pills.

  "Mid-grade Qi-tonifying Pellet! The quality is not bad, but Fellow Daoist, this is your first time at our Golden Cauldron Auction House, isn't it?" That cultivator took one glance at the pellet Lin Feng had taken out and saw its quality, yet his expression was somewhat awkward.

  "Really, this is my first time coming to an auction. How did you know?" Lin Feng also noticed that the other person seemed like they wanted to say something but hesitated, thinking that buying at an auction wasn't any different from other purchases.

  "Oh, fellow Taoist, it's like this. Our Golden Tripod Auction House has a rule that all items to be auctioned must be appraised beforehand. This way, we can ensure the interests of the seller and greatly simplify the auction process, saving time."

  "Then name your price." Lin Feng said casually.

  "But we also have a rule, which is that the appraised value of the auction item must not be less than 1,000 spirit stones. Otherwise, we will not accept the consignment for auction. This is also for your own good, sellers. Items with too low a value often end up unsold here, and even if they are sold, after our auction house's commission is deducted, you won't have much of a profit left..."

  Lin Feng finally understood that the value of his goods was too low, and others were not willing to help him auction them off. Upon hearing this, he not only didn't get angry but instead became even more delighted. The other party's disdain for his goods meant they didn't care about his things at all, so he didn't need to worry about the other party being unfavorable towards him. Thinking of this, he took out four bottles of medium-grade Dan and placed them on the counter, saying: "Now it should be worth around a thousand Spirit Stones, right?"

  "This...this...!" The monk couldn't believe that Lin Feng had taken out so many mid-grade Qi Gathering Pills at once. He was both surprised and felt helpless. An auction house has its own rules, and the value of the items being auctioned is only a simple standard. In fact, there are more detailed regulations, such as the degree of rarity and preciousness, which are also standards for measurement. Generally, goods that are too common, no matter how valuable they are, cannot be put up for auction. For example, the cheapest first-grade spirit stone, Flame Stone, is only worth one low-grade spirit stone for every three or four pieces. Would anyone want to buy thousands of those low-grade spirit stones at once? If an auction house were to sell such items, wouldn't it lose its reputation?

  Similarly, Lin Feng's mid-grade Qi Gathering Pill is marketable, but it's only a low-ranking cultivator's pill and far from being precious. Such pills might be in high demand when sold in stores, but the buyers are mostly Qi Refining stage cultivators who generally don't have the qualifications to come to auction houses to consume, so auction houses usually won't auction off this kind of spiritual pill.

  Generally, masters understand this principle and will not bring things that are not up to par to the auction house. However, Lin Feng was a complete newbie, he didn't know these things, and thought that as long as he gathered enough valuable items worth 1,000 dan, it would be fine. This made the auction house's staff quite troubled. Should they directly tell him that his stuff was too trashy to be put on the auction house's stage?

  Lin Feng wasn't a fool, and although the other party didn't say much, their rich expression was clear enough - his own things were obviously not suitable for auction. Embarrassed, Lin Feng smiled awkwardly and reached out to take back the jade bottle. Now he just wanted to leave this place quickly, having lost face in a big way.

  "Wow, such a good Zhongpin Dan, big brother, can I take a look?" Lin Feng hadn't even had time to react when he heard a clear voice say this. It turned out to be a 12 or 13-year-old little girl who had climbed up onto the counter using the stool behind it.

  The little girl looked very cute, with two big eyes rolling around, and a bit of baby fat on her face, just like she walked out of a New Year's painting. But Lin Feng took a closer look and was shocked - her cultivation had actually reached the sixth layer of Qi Refining, one level higher than his own.

  The little girl's identity was obviously not simple. She stood on a stool, blocking the window, and the monk was naturally squeezed to one side. However, he didn't show any dissatisfaction or displeasure, standing respectfully to one side with an attentive expression. As expected, before Lin Feng could react, the girl had already picked up a bottle of Dan medicine in her hand, examined it for a moment, and then said: "Brother, go invite Master Ming over."

  "Yes, miss!" The monk nodded and turned away.

  "Big brother, is this pill refined by you? It's really well-refined, even better than Master Ming's! Big brother is so amazing!" The little girl's big eyes stared at Lin Feng, filled with admiration, making Lin Feng's earlier embarrassment instantly turn into a sense of pride.

  "Ah... no, it's not mine, I'm just selling on behalf of my master." Lin Feng was completely unguarded against the cute girl and almost admitted it, luckily he reacted quickly.

  But the little girl was not so easy to deceive: "Big brother is cheating, haha, Master Shu said that when someone speaks hesitantly, with shifting eyes and unnatural expression, they are mostly telling lies."

  Lin Feng was shocked, he thought his reaction just now was quite timely, even a normal adult would find it hard to detect the flaws in her words. But in front of this little girl, it seemed like all his flaws were exposed. What kind of monster was she? If her cultivation was not bad, then with Zhao Chun's presence, Lin Feng didn't think she was that formidable, at most just okay. But if it came to observational skills, even adding himself and Zhao Chun together might not be a match for her. Were all the direct descendants of the Great Gate Sect this powerful? Lin Feng suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of crisis, if everyone in the Great Gate Sect was this strong, what was he doing here?