Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

As the days went by and the day of the Ancient Battlefield's opening got closer and closer, Alex came to realize that a lot of True Emperor realm cultivators and Saint realm cultivators were coming to the city to train.

Every 6 months, many young and enthusiastic cultivators would come to learn new and old Dao and improve their understanding of their cultivation journey.

With a week left before the Battlefield's opening, it was hard for Alex to go out to the city and not see a young master or a young elder from a sect come here.

Since this was the time in between the Dao mountain opening, this was the perfect time for most of them to go improve themselves on the battlefield.

However, before they entered, there was still an entire week left. And in this period, the largest auction house in the city had decided to start an auction that would last 3 days and nights.

They had been advertising this since before Alex came, and Alex had taken the chance to get rid of the various things he had that weren't exactly something he wanted.

These included everything but pills. He didn't want to risk selling pills at all.

The auction house was a little reluctant to accept his items at first after seeing his cultivation base, but after he showed what he wanted to sell, they were more than happy.

The auction was virtually split into two sections for when the auction house sold its items. The first one was the normal section, which included items sold off in the first 2 days of the auction.

Not everyone came to buy something during the first 2 days, but the auction house did take only 5% of the sale's cut.

It was only on the final day when the elites came and the prices for the items were high, but the auction house took a 10% cut on that day, so you really needed to be thoughtful about when to sell your items.

Of course, not all items qualified for the third day, but Alex did have a few that did, and after some deliberation, he decided to sell those on the third day.

Once that was done, he only needed to wait until the day of the auction, which was today.

Alex arrived at the foot of the auction house and was led to the lower halls and was made to sit somewhere towards the front. He was also handed a token which he was to use later.

Alex looked around in the velvet-covered auction hall and saw that there were 3 different floors.

The lower floor was for True realm cultivators and could house about 5000 cultivators at once.

The higher floor was for Saint realm cultivators and could only house about a thousand saint realm cultivators at once.

Finally, above them were the VIPs, which were only reserved for people like sect masters or Saint Core realm cultivators.

Alex didn't mind being sat so in the front as he wasn't intending to buy anything. Still, he wasn't against buying anything so long as he found something interesting.

As the hall slowly filled up, the time approached for the start of the auction house.

The lights slowly dimmed until everyone's attention was on the one place where the light still shined.

The stage.

4 Saint Foundation realm cultivators came out and stood at the edge of the stage. As soon as they arrived, a crimson barrier emerged in front of them, blocking everything for the moment.

The crowd didn't understand what was going on, but the barrier quickly disappeared, leaving a massive table on the stage with a woman in a beautiful pink robe standing behind the table.

"Good afternoon, fellow Daoists. Thank you for coming to our auction. I hope you've been having a lovely day," the woman spoke.

"I am Xi Qiyun, your auctioneer for this auction, and before I start it, I would like to explain to you how you can bid in this auction," she said.

"Many of you may already know this, but this explanation is for those who do not," she said. "When every one of you came in, you were all handed a small token."

"Instead of shouting out your bid, you will be silently putting in your bid through the token. Also, unlike most other bids, we have a lot of items to bid away. So, for the first 2 days where we sell normal items, you will all be subjected to a 2-minute bidding time, during which you can bid as much as you want."

"Bidding will have to happen in True Spirit stones, and once the timer ends, the highest bid will win," she said. "More information will appear in front of you as it is needed."

"So, without any more waiting, let me begin the auction," the woman said and called out the first item.

Alex waited to see what the first item would be and saw the woman bring out the books he had brought to sell.

'I'm first huh?' he thought.

"In front of me are a few books, none of which have anything to do with cultivation techniques," the woman said. "What they do have to do with is Dao."

The crowd spoke in a hushed tone, trying to figure out what she was saying.

"As you all know how hard it can be to gain an insight into a Dao. One can cultivate for years and not see a hint of it. Fortunately for you all, you now have an aid."

"All of these books are insights into Dao, and we will start with this first one. This one gives you an insight into the Dao of Earth. Betting starts at 1000 True Spirit stones, with 50 spirit stones increment. Begin."

As soon as she said that, a few words in red suddenly appeared in front of them all in the location where the crimson barrier had first emerged.

'0' hung in the middle with 120 seconds ticking down slowly. People realized that they were losing time and immediately started betting on the book.

Alex felt a little bad selling such a thing to these people who were hoping for insights, but then the Black Tortoise explained to him the situation of this world.

With a hybrid body, these people had no chance of ever entering Immortality. Also, Insights didn't just stop one from acquiring a Dao, it simply made it harder. One needed to learn more on their own without the worldly laws showing them a few insights while they cultivated.

So, he didn't have as large of guilt as he felt he should have.

He saw the number blur through on the screen as it got bigger and bigger by the second.

As the time approached its end, the number had already crossed 8000.

8000 True spirit stones. That… wasn't bad, but that wasn't great either. In fact, given how lucrative the insights must be, he was certainly more people would want to acquire them.

'Wait, why did they put my books at the start anyway?' he wondered. 'Wouldn't it be smarter to put it at the last when the elites actually start to arrive? That would certainly fetch more coins, wouldn't it?' he thought.

After a bit more thinking, Alex realized why. 'These sneaky little… they know about the problem with insights too, don't they?' he thought. 'They want to profit from it as fast as they can before someone with actual knowledge arrive. So I'm not the only bad guy here.'

The lady Xi Qiyun smiled as the number slowly racked up and when the timer ended, the price finalized at 9250 True Spirit stones.

"Congratulations to bidder number 2384. This book of insight on the Dao of Earth is yours," she said and kept the book aside were a few staff members came to take it and took it backstage.

"Next up is the book with an insight into the Dao of Sharpness. It will go for 1000 True spirit stones at the start with 50 increasing for each bid. You may begin."

Alex watched as the people began furiously bidding on the next book as well, and when the time came for the bidding to end, this one earned nearly 10 thousand True Spirit stones.

The rest of the insight books were sold after that, and those brought him about 170 thousand True Spirit stones in total.