Fang Han hadn't expected his very first bid of the day to be blocked. The interruption caught him off guard, and he immediately turned toward the VIP room from which the voice—"Six hundred thousand pills!"—had come. Since achieving mastery in the Azure Emperor Wood Sovereign Art, his vision had sharpened to an inhuman degree: the liver governs the eyes, and his could now cut through illusions and barriers alike.
What he saw was a young man in blue—relaxed, self-satisfied, and meeting Fang Han's gaze with a faintly mocking smile.
Fang Han wasn't surprised. Anyone seated in a private VIP room was either a Heaven-Man Realm expert or someone with enough influence to command that level of respect—sect master's heir, imperial prince, aristocratic prodigy. And six hundred thousand pills was no trivial bid. Even a Golden Core master like Wan Luo would have to sell off a treasured artifact to produce that much wealth. Yet the blue-clad youth didn't even bat an eye. A man with deep pockets, clearly.
Fang Han wasn't the type to be intimidated. He lifted his hand.
"Seven hundred thousand!"
But the blue-robed youth didn't hesitate. "One million."
A tremor ran through Fang Han's body. At that price, the Western Taiyi True Gold was already far beyond its actual value. Pushing further would be pointless. Besides—he only had a little over two million pills on him. What if something better appeared later? He couldn't exactly rob people in broad daylight… not unless absolutely necessary.
He exhaled lightly, smirked twice, and lowered his hand. The blue-robed youth secured the Taiyi True Gold.
"That bastard's courting death! Fang Han, once this auction ends, let's stalk him, butcher him, and take his stuff! Get some payback!" Yan snarled.
"I'm a Yuhua Sect disciple, not a roadside bandit," Fang Han replied, shaking his head. "All this just to buy one item? Not worth staining my hands. Besides, the Heavenly Dao Pavilion really does have treasures you can't even find in Wan Gui Sea Market—even this Taiyi True Gold was rare enough."
Green-brow glanced nervously at Fang Han's grin, thinking he was truly enraged. He quickly whispered, "Senior, please don't take it to heart. Better things are coming."
Fang Han waved him off and continued watching. The second item was a Hundred-Treasure Pouch, which stirred up intense bidding and finally sold to a third-level Astral Qi Realm cultivator for forty thousand pills. Fang Han even briefly considered selling his three spare pouches.
Nothing else caught his eye for a while—low-grade artifacts, flying swords, robes, cauldrons, pills. Two notable ones were Star-Gathering Pills from the Starry Sky Gate and a Sixty-Year Life-Extending Elixir, signatures of Hua Tiandu's alchemy. Each went for thirty thousand.
Half an hour passed before something finally made Fang Han sit up straight.
"The next treasure is a sacred item for earth-attribute cultivators—the Mountain God Pearl!"
Thirteen-Mistress whisked away the red cloth, revealing a massive, head-sized orb radiating swirling ochre light. Dense, heavy earth-essence surged outward, stirring Fang Han's Yellow Emperor Earth-Sovereign Art so intensely that it almost leapt out of his body to swallow the orb whole.
"A Mountain God Pearl? They actually managed to find one?" Yan cried. "Back when the Yellow Springs Emperor was still around, Heavenly Dao Pavilion was just a tiny trading house. Look at them now! And this thing's no weaker than a Great White Star Stone—maybe stronger! It's the condensed soul of a mountain, forged over countless ages. Given hundreds of thousands of years, it might even evolve into an actual Mountain God!"
"So if I refine it, I could complete my earth-attribute technique?" Fang Han thought. His Earth-Sovereign Qi had yet to reach minor completion—if he achieved even that, his five-element cycle would become self-sustaining, his power multiplying severalfold.
He nodded internally. A true treasure.
To Green-brow, he said simply, "I want it."
"One hundred and ten thousand!"
A calm female voice drifted from another VIP room—not the blue-robed man from before, but a mysterious woman draped in red silk, her face veiled.
"One hundred twenty thousand," Fang Han countered, unwilling to yield.
"One hundred thirty thousand." Her tone remained placid, emotionless. The blue-robed youth didn't join the bidding; apparently the Mountain God Pearl didn't interest him. None of the other VIPs intervened either.
Fang Han knew there were at least a hundred hidden elites present, a true den of dragons and tigers. But this pearl mattered. A lot.
"One hundred forty thousand."
"One hundred fifty thousand."
"One hundred sixty thousand."
"Two hundred thousand."
The woman abruptly jumped the price, clearly annoyed with the slow escalation.
"Two hundred ten thousand." Fang Han licked his lips. He was nearly all-in—he only had two hundred thirty thousand left.
"Two hundred fifty thousand."
The veiled woman raised the price without hesitation, crushing his final margin.
Fang Han exhaled. His hand dropped.
"Don't be upset, Senior. That woman is a fairy from Linglong Blessed Land. Even the Taiyi Sect shows her respect," Green-brow whispered urgently.
"So she's from Linglong," Fang Han said with a wry smile. "I thought I had some wealth. Seems I was delusional. The cultivation world's true giants… they're on a different scale."
"The Heavenly Dao Pavilion's auction is the top of the world. Your net worth is nothing here—unless you sold the Blood-Night King or the Five-Prisons Cauldron. Then you'd be one of the wealthiest individuals alive!" Yan cackled.
"Sell me, why don't you?" the Blood-Night King snapped coldly. "The Yellow Springs Emperor's decree, the Forget-Love Water—those alone could buy the entire Pavilion."
"Enough!" Fang Han cut them off, sensing their bickering would escalate. "Look at the next item. What is… that?"
After the Mountain God Pearl was carried away, a massive piece of wood—over a man's height—was hauled onto the altar by several Divine Ability experts, assisted by multiple artifacts. Its surface was ancient, ringed with countless age lines so deep they seemed bottomless. It carried no scent of wood at all, as if it had fossilized over eras.
Its weight was immeasurable.
"This is a nameless divine wood," Thirteen-Mistress said softly, caressing the ancient surface. "Untouched by blades, unburned by flames, unsoaked by water. It is a peerless treasure—starting at ten thousand pills. A cultivator found it while wandering the Void Realm. It could be a shard of some ancient Dao artifact. If anyone can refine it, the fortune would be unimaginable."
Fang Han froze.
His heartbeat thundered. Blood roared in his veins.
Yan rubbed his eyes violently. "No mistake. That's a World Tree fragment! And such a big piece! Fang Han, even if you have to bleed for it, you must get it! The piece you found in Wan Gui Sea Market was palm-sized—enough to grow a sapling. But absorbing this? Think of the celestial energy it could draw!"
A piece of the World Tree the size of a grown man.
Fang Han's current World Tree—born from a tiny shard—only allowed him to produce one hundred eighty Nascent Infant Pills per day thanks to his newly opened second sea of consciousness. But with this—
It would swell. It would transform. It would devour celestial essence at a hundred times the current rate.
Tens of thousands of Nascent Infant Pills per day.
One Nascent Infant Pill was worth a hundred Baiyang Pills.
Meaning: millions of additional pills per day.
Within ten or twenty years, he could genuinely afford to buy out the entire Heavenly Dao Pavilion.
This wasn't an opportunity. It was destiny.
Only someone who cultivated the Azure Emperor Wood Sovereign Art could refine such a fragment—and Fang Han was the sole living practitioner. Even Yan couldn't cultivate it.
Compared to this, Taiyi Gold and Mountain God Pearls were trash.
"Twenty thousand! I'll take this divine wood!" Fang Han declared immediately. He thanked every star in the heavens that he'd failed to win the Mountain God Pearl—otherwise he wouldn't have enough pills left.
"Thirty thousand!"
A voice rose from another VIP room—someone else had noticed.