Only when he left Dipping Fire Peak did Luo Zheng discover that it was raining.
It was the twelfth month of winter, so rain was rather rare.
He raised his head to look at the nearby Purgatory Mountain, his gaze immediately becoming a bit more resolute.
He previously felt that Purgatory Mountain was too high to reach, but as Luo Zheng's strength increased, he understood that the day he rescued his younger sister was already not far away.
His gaze didn't linger on Purgatory Mountain, instead turning around to leave.
The Peak Great Competition was precisely an opportunity for him to stand out. This competition was extremely important to him. Even though there was still some time before the Peak Great Competition, Luo Zheng had to seize every minute and second.
The Peak Great Competition that was held once every three years was about to begin. Almost every disciple felt a sense of urgency.
The outer sect disciples were in a rush to enter the inner sect. The inner sect disciples wanted to climb to the front of the inner sect. Meanwhile, the disciples at the front of the inner sect were planning to obtain a good result in the Peak Great Competition!
Regardless of whether it was the first ranked Lone Sky Peak or the last ranked Xiao Yufeng, regardless of whether their talent was ordinary or extraordinary, they were all cultivating bitterly during this period of time.
Luo Zheng was naturally no exception.
Entering the "Fantasy Fish Pool" consumed too many points. Before, Luo Zheng could cultivate in the "Fantasy Fish Pool" for two hours, but now, he needed four to six hours. The consumption of points was too shocking. Entering the Fantasy Fish Pool once, several hundred points would be gone.
In order to ensure that he had enough points in his disciple token, Luo Zheng could only use square crystals. Luo Zheng couldn't help but be ruthlessly ripped off by the Blue Cloud Sect. Ten thousand square crystals could only be exchanged for five thousand Blue Cloud Sect points. For the sake of cultivation, this was the only way.
After cultivating in the Fantasy Fish Pool for a week, Luo Zheng finally felt that he had broken through while fighting with that fishman!
Stepping from half-step Xiantian to Xiantian was equivalent to breaking through an extremely important bottleneck on the path of martial artists. In comparison, the difficulty of breaking through from Fighter One to Fighter Two was a bit lower.
However, Xiantian lifeforms would also encounter bottlenecks in the future. For example, from the Xiantian ninth stage to the Xiantian tenth stage, which was the peak Xiantian realm, was an extremely difficult bottleneck to break through. And if a peak Xiantian expert wanted to break through to the Divine Illumination realm, the difficulty would be even greater! Only one out of a hundred Connate Full Circle cultivators would be able to enter the Divine Reflection Realm. Most of them would never be able to cross this bottleneck in their entire lives.
Although entering the Xiantian second stage was a good thing, the points in the disciple card were almost depleted …
"This is troublesome." Luo Zheng frowned all the way back to Xiao Yufeng from the Fantasy Fish Pond. He didn't have the slightest joy of breaking through. It was a big trouble for him to run out of points so quickly.
Luo Zheng could cultivate his physique in the Fantasy Fish Pond, but Luo Zheng had just obtained the Flowing Light Sword. Luo Zheng couldn't hone his swordsmanship in the Fantasy Fish Pond.
The most suitable place to practice swordsmanship in the Blue Cloud Sect was the Seven Stars Sword Radiance Platform. However, the Seven Stars Sword Radiance Platform didn't consume as many points as the Fantasy Fish Pond. The Fantasy Fish Pond cost 200 points per hour, while the Seven Stars Sword Radiance Platform cost 80 points.
Luo Zheng guessed that this was probably because the Seven Stars Sword Radiance Platform could allow many people to cultivate at the same time, while the Fantasy Fish Pond could only accommodate one person at a time.
The problem was that Luo Zheng only had a trifling 180 points left in his disciple card. At most, he could cultivate on the Seven Stars Sword Radiance Platform for two hours, which wasn't enough at all …
Luo Zheng gloomily climbed onto the Xiao Yufeng and prepared to have a good rest after a big meal. He didn't expect to bump into Zhang Wuxian just after dinner.
When Luo Zheng saw Zhang Wuxian, he was like a land that had been dry for a long time meeting the Dragon King who had rained. If the Sky Derivation Essence that he entrusted to Zhang Wuxian to auction was successfully sold, Luo Zheng's desperate situation would be solved!
"How is it?" Luo Zheng, who had always been calm, asked impatiently at this moment.
Seeing Luo Zheng's impatient appearance, Zhang Wuxian was puzzled. Luo Zheng had received a large sum of square crystals from the last auction of crystal cores. If those square crystals were given to other outer disciples, it would be considered a huge sum of money. However, Luo Zheng seemed to be in urgent need of square crystals …
Although it was strange, Zhang Wuxian didn't ask directly. He only smiled and said, "Your item was successfully sold at the last auction!"
"What was the final transaction price?" Luo Zheng asked. Although he hadn't been to the auction, this item couldn't be faked. Every treasure auctioned at the Tianlu Auction House and sold at a sky-high price would soon be spread by word of mouth. At that time, Luo Zheng would be able to easily find out.
Zhang Wuxian chuckled and kept him in suspense. "Make a guess!"
Seeing Zhang Wuxian's smiling face, Luo Zheng guessed that the Sky Derivation Essence's operation must have been very successful. It must have been auctioned at a good price. This price would definitely not be lower than the previous auction price. After thinking for a while, he gave a rough price. "150,000?"
Zhang Wuxian shook his head with an unfathomable look.
"200,000?" Luo Zheng simply gave a higher price.
"Too low!"
"250,000?" Luo Zheng was also a little excited. Previously, at the Tianlu Auction House, Luo Zheng had personally seen the Heaven's Divination Essence being auctioned off at a price of 120,000. Could it be that this time, through Zhang Wu County's operations, the Heaven's Divination Essence would be auctioned off at twice the price?
Zhang Wuxian chuckled and said, "28,000!"
"So much?" Hearing this number, Luo Zheng was pleasantly surprised. They were both Heaven Amplification Essences. Why was it only 120,000 Heaven Amplification Essences last time and 280,000 Heaven Amplification Essences this time? Luo Zheng couldn't figure it out.
"I didn't expect it to be so intense this time." Zhang Wuxian shook his head and stared at Luo Zheng. He smiled and said, "You're lucky! You just happened to bump into two big families smelting immortal artifacts! "
"Two big families?" Luo Zheng was still confused.
The two big families that Zhang Wuxian mentioned were the Yu Family of the Forbidden City and the Yun Family of the Qilin.
It was said that these two clans wanted to improve the quality of their Immortal Artifacts, turning their Low Grade Immortal Artifacts into Mid Grade Immortal Artifacts.
Every weapon only had one chance to be refined from the smelting process to the forging process. The refinement process directly determined the grade of the weapon.
Luo Zheng had been able to refine the Flowing Light Sword because Che Daozi had been unable to do so at that time and had given the opportunity to someone else, Luo Zheng.
Once a weapon was refined, it was extremely difficult to upgrade its grade. Either the weapon had to be melted down and reforged, which was equivalent to refining a new weapon, or the weapon's power could be increased by embedding crystals. However, there was a limit to the increase in power.
The last method was to use a secret method to fuse the Sky Derivation Essence into the weapon and forcefully upgrade its grade.
Unfortunately, Sky Derivation Essence was so rare that it could only be seen once every few years. To upgrade a low-grade immortal artifact to a middle-grade immortal artifact, it usually required dozens or even hundreds of drops of Sky Derivation Essence.
The Yu and Yun Families had been around for so many years and had two or three low-grade immortal artifacts. However, they didn't have a single middle-grade immortal artifact! In fact, five of the seven major landowning families each had a middle-grade immortal artifact.
This was also why the Yu and Yun Families wanted to use Sky Derivation Essence to refine middle-grade immortal artifacts.
In the last auction, fifty drops of Sky Derivation Essence had landed in the hands of Old Man Huang of the Sky Dragon Huang Family. How could the Yu and Yun Families miss out on it this time?
From the start of the auction, the two families had been fighting fiercely. In one breath, the price had risen to 130,000 cubes of crystal, instantly blocking out the other bidders. The Yu and Yun Families began to slowly compete. During this time, the two families had even sent people to each other's seats in private to exchange terms. If the other party gave up, the family would take out other things to compensate the party who gave up.
Unfortunately, the Sky Derivation Essence was too tempting. Both sides couldn't give up and could only engage in a fierce battle!
Therefore, the scale of the auction this time far exceeded that of the previous one! In the end, the price soared all the way to 280,000 cubes of crystal before it stopped. In the end, the Sky Derivation Essence landed in the hands of the Yu Family.
After listening to Zhang Wuxian's description of the auction, Luo Zheng could imagine how intense the bidding had been. The Yu and Yun Families had almost quarreled. If not for the fact that they were both landowning families, they would have fought on the spot.
Zhang Wuxian took out a small card from his pocket. The card was bright and shone with a faint green light. Then, he said to Luo Zheng, "Take out your token. After deducting the auction house's handling fee, you still have 250,000 cubes of crystal left. I'll transfer it to your token now."
The Tianlu Auction House's handling fee was divided into several types. If an ordinary person brought something to auction, they would have to deduct 20% or even 30% of the price! This was the Tianlu Auction House's biggest source of profit. However, Zhang Wuxian had helped Luo Zheng apply for the lowest fee, which was only 10%.
Even if it was only 10% of the handling fee, the Tianlu Auction House had made a net profit of 28,000 cubes of crystal!
And this result would be firmly recorded in Zhang Wuxian's' account book '! Therefore, Zhang Wuxian had to thank Luo Zheng at this moment.
Luo Zheng immediately took out his disciple token from his spatial ring and threw it to Zhang Wuxian.
Zhang Wuxian placed the green translucent card together with the Tianlu Ticket House's token. As the yuan qi in his hand surged, the translucent card began to slowly melt. In a short while, it had completely merged with the Tianlu Ticket House's token.
This translucent card was refined from a kind of demonic beast's crystal core. It recorded the number of crystal stones of the Tianlu Ticket House and so on. Moreover, it was encrypted using the Zhang Family's special method, so it was very convenient to use.
When the card merged with the token, the record of the 252,000 cubes of crystal stones was also stored in the token.
"Good! This transaction is a complete success! But Brother Luo Zheng, you said last time that you still have Heaven's Divination Essence. Don't tell me you really have it … "Zhang Wuxian asked tentatively.
Zhang Wuxian knew that Luo Zheng was not one to speak blindly. If he said he had it, then he had it. However, if he had not seen it with his own eyes, it was hard to believe that he could take out so much Heaven's Divination Essence at any time!
It would be best if he had it. Heaven's Divination Essence was the most sought-after item in the Burning Heaven Imperial Capital. It could be said that he could help Luo Zheng sell as much as Luo Zheng had in his hands. But … did Luo Zheng really have more?
A mysterious smile appeared on Luo Zheng's face. After putting away the Tianlu Ticket House's token, he led Zhang Wuxian to a secluded corner and took out a small bottle.
"This is a hundred drops of Heaven's Divination Essence. It's up to you whether to auction it once or twice," Luo Zheng said with a smile.
Zhang Wuxian's eyes widened. "There really is more, and it's a hundred drops …"