Chapter 4834 — A Scene Gone Mad

Wei Zhao could not help but laugh, speechless. He had assumed that only someone like Yang Qianshuang, whose looks had been ruined, would be so obsessed with the Beauty-Enhancing Pill. Never had he imagined that every woman was the same. No wonder Ning Xuefei had treasured it so when she first received one—this thing was practically every woman's lifeblood.

Once the screaming had somewhat subsided, the white-bearded elder announced: "One Beauty-Enhancing Pill of superior quality, starting bid: three million spirit jade!"

For a seventh-grade pill of equally superior quality, the starting price was a full one million two hundred thousand higher than that of the Great Return Pill. There was no help for it—this was the classic case of rarity driving up value.

If one spoke purely of practical use, the seventh-grade Great Return Pill was actually far more useful than the Beauty-Enhancing Pill. It was a pity it could not drive women mad the way this one did. Wei Zhao had now seen it for himself: wherever you went, women's money was still the easiest to earn!

The moment the white-bearded elder's voice fell, bids rose one after another. By now spirit jade was no longer spirit jade at all—it was simply a number. Women at such a moment were utterly beyond reason. In but a brief span, the price had climbed to an absurd nine million, far surpassing the final price of the seventh-grade Great Return Pill just before!

Wei Zhao was left gaping, and in his heart he quietly made up his mind: it seemed that if he ever lacked spirit jade in the future, he need do nothing but casually refine a few Beauty-Enhancing Pills and put them up for sale. He could easily rake in ten million spirit jade.

Among the bidders, apart from Box One, every one of the top-ranked boxes had entered the fray without exception—even Box Three, which had never spoken before. Yet while Box Three's was a woman's voice, the others were all men's.

Naturally, if they were bidding on this Beauty-Enhancing Pill, it was certainly for a woman. Unless a man were a madman, no ordinary fellow would use such a thing himself.

Wei Zhao paid particular attention to Box Three. The voice that had spoken earlier was hollow and wavering—one could tell at a listen that some voice-altering method was being used. But combined with Box Three's ranking, Wei Zhao's first thought was of the Donghai Divine Nun.

After all, as one of the three giants of Morning Star Academy, if the Donghai Divine Nun were attending in person, it was hardly strange that she would be assigned Box Three. Still, Wei Zhao could only guess. Until he saw the master within with his own eyes, no conclusion could be drawn.

But on second thought—though the Beauty-Enhancing Pill drove every woman mad, surely the Donghai Divine Nun, with her cultivation and temperament, would not be unable to rise above such vulgarity?

Still, Box Three had spoken only once midway and then made no further bids, not madly chasing it like the others—just a shallow taste and no more. So it was not impossible that the Donghai Divine Nun sat within.

In the end, this superior Beauty-Enhancing Pill fell to Box Four at a final price of nine million five hundred thousand spirit jade. Such an astronomical sum was unprecedented and would never be surpassed—not just at this grand auction, but even counting every Morning Star Grand Auction ever held, it would surely rank among the very highest.

At last the dust settled, and every woman in the hall was left heartbroken. Losing out on the Beauty-Enhancing Pill was to them like losing a lover to death. They had only themselves to blame for lacking spirit jade—a figure of nearly ten million was truly not something an ordinary power could produce. One had to cling to a sufficiently thick, top-tier thigh.

"Next is the Hong Clan Merchant Guild's fourth lot, and the last of today's merchants' special auction—five Thunder Mystery Pills, superior quality!" the white-bearded elder announced at last.

The whole hall erupted, an uproar even more shocking than when the Beauty-Enhancing Pill had appeared. Before, only the women had gone mad; this time, everyone's hair stood on end.

What kind of merchant guild was this, to produce superior-quality Thunder Mystery Pills—and five of them at once?!

One had to know that in any Yellow-Tier academy of East Continent, the Thunder Mystery Pill was the most scarce of seventh-grade pills, bar none!

After all, every disciple of a Yellow-Tier academy shared one common goal: to break through to the Mystery Ascension. Only after succeeding could they rise higher and travel to the Mystery-Tier sea regions—and the Thunder Mystery Pill was indispensable to everyone's breakthrough. However great your talent, you could not do without it.

And it was well known that the high-grade pills of any great merchant guild—especially those at the seventh-grade level—came mostly from the academies' alchemists. Though the guilds had their own other channels, those could not remotely compare with the academies.

For anyone capable of reaching the level of a seventh-grade alchemist could only be found in one place in all East Continent: the academies. Only they could truly afford to support such seventh-grade alchemists; nowhere else could keep such people at all.

But this time, the Hong Clan Merchant Guild, without relying on academy alchemists, possessed such high-grade stock all on its own—each lot more staggering than the last, even producing five Thunder Mystery Pills in one go. It was simply defying the heavens!

Seeing the explosive reaction throughout the hall, even Old Chai, usually so mild-tempered, grew excited. Had he not been mindful of his dignity as branch manager, he would scarcely have restrained himself from dancing for joy.

"The strategy you devised was indeed correct—good things need not be many; four are enough!" Old Chai said, gazing at Wei Zhao with a face full of admiration.

According to his original plan, besides the pills Wei Zhao had refined on the spot, he had wanted to add in the lots prepared earlier. But Wei Zhao had vetoed it with a single sentence: those things, though they seemed rare, could actually be obtained by anyone, and mixing them in would only lower their own standing.

"Heh. Rather than dragging ourselves down with useless filler, better to bring out just these four heavy hitters. That way we build our reputation and leave a deep impression," Wei Zhao said with a faint smile.

If the earlier bidding had been fierce, then this time, faced with the lure of five superior Thunder Mystery Pills, the entire scene had gone as wild as a battlefield!

"This set of five superior Thunder Mystery Pills will be auctioned separately, each with a reserve price of three million spirit jade!" the white-bearded elder announced, straining his voice. A single superior Thunder Mystery Pill already commanded an outrageous price; had the five been bundled together for auction, there would have been no way to play the game at all, for no one could easily swallow such a sum.