Path of the Ascendant

The Beast’s Rib Bone was sold to Wei Yi for three medium motes, which just happened to coincide with how many she had remaining. After that, the rest of the deals went about as she expected, until it finally came time to witness the most significant item of the auction. Before it could be presented, the auction master left the stage, and, for a moment, there was silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I couldn’t possibly miss the last and most interesting item of the auction, could I?” a male voice said, the speaker slowly emerging from the darkness alongside a small pedestal that was covered in white cloth. The man looked rather ordinary at first, but those with any degree of combat experience realised that it was far from the truth, for he walked with extreme confidence, and perfect balance. Additionally, thick yet transparent killing intent circled around him, originating not just from his body, but from the entire building around him.

“Ding Wen,” Wei Yi stated, with the servant nodding beside her.

“Indeed, that is Master Ding Wen. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share this with him, but he is very fond of showing off. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a hint of his killing intent right now.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything,” she replied, ‘Not unless it would benefit a potential alliance.’

“You might all be wondering what item was so important that I, myself, decided to show up today. Well, let me ask you – do you remember what the first thing the new arrivals always think about is? Their planar energy. Their dantians. Their cultivation. This crimson hell takes them all away, doing whatever it wants with them. They could not cultivate planar energy, but they also knew that killing intent, the power of the realm itself, would not be the key to freeing themselves. So, what did they come up with?” he asked the crowd, but whether or not he had been expecting a reply, he continued after a second, “The theory was, if there is something the prison realm does not erode, then why not create a new planar anchor out of it?”

‘New planar anchor? That alone wouldn’t work, even if it was possible, and that in itself is unlikely due to the manner in which planar anchor are formed. If there was any method to transfer them in or out of the body, it would undoubtedly be messy and complicated.’

“You’d think that it wouldn’t work, right? Perhaps, but that will be for the person who puts the anchor together to consider. That’s right, everyone, the final item, the mystery object that you’ve been waiting for… is the planar anchor shard that survived the erosion of the realm!” he exclaimed, removing the white cloth from the pedestal.

On the pillar lay a small chunk of rock, one that could easily be passed by on any random road in the continents, but now that it was placed at the centre of attention, it suddenly became far less ordinary.

Wei Yi wanted to inspect it with her spiritual will, but she pulled back at the last moment. While she didn’t expect it to be noticed with the previous items, for they were mostly ordinary to the people in the auction, the anchor shard was both far less common and currently observed by the very owner of the auction. Regardless of the true nature of the shard, she believed that she would need to purchase it, as it was almost impossible to complete her study of it purely via a brief check of spiritual will.

As for why she wanted to purchase the shard, it was not because of the possibility of putting together a new planar anchor, because it would be completely unsuitable for her, but due to desiring to confirm what caused it to survive while her own cosmic energy was rapidly being consumed.

‘It is likely that anyone else who will want to purchase this will have a similar idea,’ she thought.

“As with everything else around here, once you own the item, it is up to you to do what you want with it,” Ding Wen stated, “Now, I don’t think anyone will blame me for setting the initial price to one medium mote.”

The man grinned on stage, as no one could express any complaints. Even if he started with one minute mote, the price would quickly rise on its own, and then certain individuals that would have otherwise abstained from participating in the auction would have been roped in anyway. In a way, the raised initial price actually reduced the potential for Ding Wen to profit from this auction, though, at the same time, anyone that had no interest in the shard wouldn’t contribute to the final price too much, while those that do will be eager to pay as much as possible to prevent anyone else from acquiring the shard.

Hence, the cries began immediately, “Two motes!”

“Three!”

“Five!”

“Six!”

…

“Ten!”

“Eleven!”

…

“Twenty medium motes!”

The price quickly rose, with the primary contributors being one man on the first floor and two VIPs who, due to the effects of the voice changing arrays, sounded like a warped old man and a warped young girl.

“Twenty-five medium motes!” the old man voice said calmly, “Juniors, I hope you won’t make this too difficult for me. I believe I can make the most out of that shard.”

“Twenty-six motes!” the man in the hall said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, old man.”

“Same here,” the girl voice nodded verbally, “Thirty!”

“Fine, you give me no choice! Forty!”

“Fifty!”

“Fifty-five!”

“So, you cannot afford to increase it by much, can you? Seventy,” the old man increased the price again.

The young girl’s voice interrupted the man in the hall, before he could even consider raising his own card to increase the bid, “You fool, that’s not the case at all! Eighty!”

“One great mote,” a warped voice from the special guest booth emerged, the number 43 shining through the wall, “If you had been planning to do this on your own, I wouldn’t have minded, but we’re in a public auction here. Let’s just get this over with, and then you lot can get a bed somewhere and keep going for however long you want.”

‘I’ve just realised, at the most inappropriate of times, that Yi Kun might have been making sexual references when she spoke… That is extremely embarrassing – not the references themselves, but how long it took me to understand this.’

“Special guest? Fine, I’ll cease my participation.”

“Eh? Young man, why did you not listen to me when I asked you to stop?” the old man questioned.

“One great mote and ten medium motes!” the young girl said, ignoring the two.

“Don’t you dare! I don’t care if you’re a special guest, but I need that anchor shard! Give it to me! Great more and fifty medium mote-”

“Two great motes. I’ll say the exact same thing back to you, sir,” Wei Yi smiled, lowering the card and turning to Shiyi, “This might take a while, so could you feed me a bite of the cake every now and then? This might take a while, and I’ve never really experienced a servant feeding me before, so I think it would be a useful experience.”

“Alright, Master Wei Yi,” she nodded, kneeling down beside her with a fork.

“You dare? Three great motes!”

“Four great motes,” the young girl voice answered calmly.

“I shall hunt you-”

“You may be a VIP client, but you are still a client, number 98,” Ding Wen interrupted the old man, looking up into his booth, “Do not forget what the rules of the establishment are, or else I will demand your payment and then take away everything you’ve won, placing it in my personal treasury.”

“Actually, there seem to be fifty booths for special guests around here, but the count of the crimson robes is supposed to be one hundred, is it not? Did your master not expect all of them to come at once?”

“Four great and fifty minor motes!”

“So far, it has never happened, and there is good reason to believe that it won’t ever happen, not until the end of the prison realm,” Shiyi explained, “There is a certain degree of opposition between the powerful members of the realm, and they tend to live quite far apart from one another. Some are in the Great Bone Lake, others reside here, and some live near the Storm Wall, hoping to notice something through the endless clouds, or even to pass through. All of the auctions are typically held on short notice, and not all of the items are useful to everyone, so for everyone to gather here… Master Ding Wen would be in some trouble if that happened.”

“Five great motes!”

“How would all one hundred crimson robes masters compare to Ding Wen and his organisation?”

“That is enough, old man. Seven great motes.”

“That is difficult to say, but if everyone wearing your robes came at once, even if the whole city came together, killing one Hatred Augur master would be difficult, not to mention a potential hundred.”

“I am not old! Ten! Ten great motes! Ten, you hear me? TEN!”

“Such a big difference, huh. Alright then, I’ll keep that in mind as well.”

“I heard you, senior. Fifteen.”

“Ugh…”

“So, number 43, are you intending to participate, or did you simply want us to fight between ourselves until one of us lost all of their motes?”

Wei Yi swallowed a piece of red cake and raised her card, “I would never do such a thing. Thirty.”

“Thirty-one. Don’t raise the price if you do not intend to purchase the item.”

“Why would I ever do something like that? Thirty-five great motes.”

“Thirty-six motes.”

“Alright, little girl, how about I just raise the price one more time, and if you can afford to raise the bid as well, then you can just take the shard. Alright?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Then, one titanic mote.”

“…” there was a silence all across the auction house with every invested participant and casual observer turning their eyes to the glowing golden number 43. Not everyone could take out a titanic mote, and most had never even laid their eyes upon it, and even the master of the auction, perhaps the richest man in the town of Beast’s Rest, Ding Wen, did not have a spare one to exhibit, and yet here was a special guest who took one out just to win a bet.

If they knew that there were two more such motes in the guest’s pockets, they would be even more surprised.

“Hatred Augur… they have to be…” someone muttered, and those around them nodded.

Wei Yi heard the collective murmur but chose not to ask the servant girl. However, she did have a few ideas regarding the possible alternative methods of acquisition of the motes. It would be unlikely for the economy to rely on people dying constantly, even if the atmosphere of the world encouraged it, and so, logically speaking, there ought to be a method of creating motes in a less violent method.

Based on the fact that everyone’s thoughts turned to her potential killing intent realm rather than her identity or fighting ability, which were not necessarily connected if she was instead recognised as a body cultivator, it was possible that motes could be created by killing intent cultivators via some process that was not yet known to her. Perhaps it was some casual ability of the cultivators, or perhaps it was an extremely complicated ritual that required a few dozen killing intent practitioners to work together, but there was little doubt that there was something.

One thing she could understand for certain was that the fifth realm of killing intent cultivation, as well as the realm of the Black Terror, was Hatred Augur, and that it had not been fully demonstrated during their battle.

“Very well. You can take it.”

“Thank you very much, little girl,” Wei Yi smiled, passing the titanic mote to the servant girl.

“Excellent, everyone. Now, you may take your leave and return the cards for the use of our future customers, and remember that interference with them in any way, even the soiling of the cards with your vile fluids, be they blood or anything else, will get you evicted from the next session,” Ding Wen stated with a smile, before looking towards Wei Yi’s booth, “Number 43, your servant will bring you to my office. I will pass the item onto you, but I would also like to have a talk with you.”

He retreated from the stage, while Shiyi fed her the last piece of cake, wiping her lips with a soft cloth before helping her to stand up, “My apologies, Master, but I have to do as he says.”

Wei Yi did not reply, following the servant girl to a room behind the primary hall of the auction house, where she was led to sit on one side of a pristine desk while the titanic mote was left on the other side of the desk. For a while, she was left to sit in silence, allowing her to confirm the presence of several secret entrances within this room, much like the chamber in which she spoke with Meng Chu.

Finally, almost ten minutes later, the door behind her opened, and Ding Wen entered the room.

“I hope I did not keep you waiting. Here is your shard,” he said, sitting down, pocketing the titanic mote without much formality, and granting her the anchor shard wrapped in the same white cloth as before.

“You did, and you should be well aware of that,” Wei Yi replied, examining the shard with both of her primary senses before storing it in her pockets, “Since you’ve given this to me already, I suppose there must be some other reason for you to be speaking with me right now. I’d appreciate it if we could get straight to the point.”

“Then we might get along quite well. You are someone new to the city, correct, number 43?”

“Are you offering me to join your trade empire?”

“You could say that,” Ding Wen nodded, “You’ve been here for long enough, right? You should know that I have the most treasures out of everyone here. I can probably spare one or two for you, and if I discover any more anchor shards, I could give them straight to you, so long as you fight on my side.”

“Very interesting, but I would like to take a day or two to consider things. You wouldn’t have a reason to prevent me from doing so, would you?”

“No, I would not. However, I’d advise you not to be in such a hurry to leave,” he said, silently focusing his invisible killing intent on her. Despite the violent nature that such energy is ought to have, it simply enveloped her and sank into her mind, ringing with the faint sounds of ringing treasure and whistling tunes of wealth.

Wei Yi noticed it easily – her former experience with mental attacks, as well as her keen spiritual will allowed her to detect the invisible killing intent even when it truly wished to hide from the target – but she ignored it and simply shut the doors of the library when it approached.

To create an entirely new desire was the realm of high-grade techniques that were on the level of creating entirely new worlds, and thus, this particular attack was obviously an attempt to stimulate any worldly individual’s natural desire for treasures, money or some similar objects. It was bound to be present in someone who had acquired three different artefacts of seemingly completely different natures, and thus it should have been easy to manipulate the person’s mind. Unfortunately for Ding Wen, mental cultivation was rarely considered in this world, for killing intent appeared to be a completely antithesis to it, and thus his technique appeared to be far more fearsome than it would have been on the continents.

Additionally, although Wei Yi could not be said to be among the Daoists that have achieved a certain detachment from the world and its riches, she had no desire for wealth purely for the sake of wealth. She had a single goal right now – to form, no, to reform Yi City. Since that requires her to escape the prison realm, that’s what she will do. If it requires her to amass a great supply of riches and treasures, perhaps to pay off some ancient deity to ensure that it doesn’t attack her, then that is what she will do.

“My apologies, Ding Wen, I need to be elsewhere. Good luck in your future endeavours.”