Outworld Liberators-Chapter 168: Selling Quality and Building Connection

[Five Elements Spirit Stone Protection Array]

[Sold for 69999 High Grade Spirit Stones.]

Even when the numbers climbed into madness, there was no announcement. No gong. No voice naming the victor.

This was not a daily spectacle. It was a transaction in a room full of sharks.

It was Tiberius who won the array. Again.

He had been tormenting the World Pricing Estimator to the point of obsession, not because he talked too much, but because he kept trying to break it.

Every question was a trap, every route priced from a dozen angles, every scenario twisted until it would have fooled a lesser mind.

The mirror kept answering, clean and cold, and the answers all pointed to the same thing.

This pillar was an investment that could eat roads.

Imagine migrants coming and going from Goldkeep Crownmarkets to the Central Continent.

Caravans, pilgrims, merchants, families pushing carts with their whole lives inside.

Within a decade, Tiberius could recoup the cost and still keep the array running while charging higher prices, selling safety like a commodity to anyone too scared to travel without it.

On the other side, Jekyll simmered behind his mask, indignant not at himself but at the higher ups of the Silent Severance.

Who would have thought Master Eldric hid something like this here. Worse, he had started it at a low balled price of merely a thousand high grade spirit stones.

Lunacy. The man might have been too obsessed with Dao to remember this was not some roadside treasure.

Seventy thousand high grade spirit stones was not low. It was savage. The problem was not the number.

The problem was that no one would make such a thing for you even if you had the money.

Calyx carried the pillar off the stage with one hand, deliberately. A quiet insult to every bidder who had come up short.

Curses rang through the masks as people watched his grip and saw no twitch of qi, no strain, no trick.

A few hundred tons at best, and he made it look light. Regret settled heavy. A huge loss for anyone who had not brought enough wealth.

Then the next special lot arrived. A set of nine pills.

Eldric’s voice stayed level.

"This set is not for aiding cultivation. It is for special ailments. Called the Death Avoidance Pill Set."

The display did not glow with pretty colors. The pills looked dark and ominous, like pieces of night shaped into medicine.

Their shades ran in a grim procession. Asphalt. Ash gray. Charcoal. Onyx. Raven. Licorice. Satin. Iridium. Smoky.

"I will not beat around the bush," Eldric said. "These is a set of treatments. Not a temporary fix." He gestured, one by one. "A pill here can heal broken meridians. Another can mend soul damage. This one can remove a curse."

Now cultivators leaned forward in earnest. Especially those with sect backing, the ones who carried old problems in their sleeves.

An elder with an incurable curse. A master with injuries that never closed. A pillar of the sect slowly rotting in place while everyone pretended time would fix what time had caused.

They had needed pills like this for a long time.

And now the room had to decide what an old monster’s life was worth when it finally had a price tag.

[Death Avoidance Pill Set]

[Sold for 6199 High Grade Spirit Stones.]

Eldric also sold a five pieces of World Pricing Estimator in a set to Gregodor.

[World Pricing Estimator]

[Sold for 1889 High Grade Spirit Stones.]

World Pricing Estimator

Most people expected more lots, a longer night, a slow bleed of greed until dawn.

Radeon had set a hard limit instead. Three hours. Mortals could not sit still longer than that.

They needed to eat. They needed to piss. Some needed more than that and would never admit it.

So Eldric called the attendants in and brought the end forward.

This time there was not one covered item. There were two.

Eldric let his gaze sweep the hall, and his voice carried clean.

"I invite ten Peak Cornerstone Setting cultivators willing to give face to our Damage Assessing Apparatus here. I also need ten Early Gilded Core stages."

Eagerness moved through the seats like a spark through dry grass. A chance to be seen. A chance to earn favor. A chance to get something free. Who refused that.

Thoughts flashed behind masks, and none of them were cautious. They trusted the old man now. If he meant to kill them, he did not need a stage and a scheme.

Participants rose and hurried down. The moment their feet touched the stage, their bodies shifted.

Their builds stayed the same, but their skin took on the pale tone of the undead, as if a cosmetic veil had been painted over every inch of them.

They did not slow. They did not stiffen. No heaviness in the joints. It was only appearance, a shell that hid identity from the hall.

No one knew who they were now. Everyone watched harder because of it.

In the center stood the Damage Assessing Apparatus.

At first glance it looked like a man stripped of features, a body without a face, without expression, without soul.

The blankness made a few mortals shiver. Some cultivators whispered that it was undead. Others felt a flash of pity.

"Don’t worry," Eldric said, and his mouth curved slightly. "There is no living soul in this creature. Or is there?"

Silence dropped. Even the volunteers on stage froze.

Eldric waved a hand.

"Jesting. This old man will not jest anymore. Alright."

He pointed to a smaller man among the Peak Cornerstone Setting volunteers.

"Give this apparatus the strongest blow you can muster." Then Eldric looked over the rest of them.

"No need for a desperate attack that endangers your life. I want a very strong strike. Something you would call a trump card. One blow."

Weapons were brought out. Options laid in rows. Each participant chose what matched their hands.

The moment they gripped the weapons, several of them stiffened. The balance. The responsiveness.

It was better than what they used as a main weapon. The sensation was like fighting with a splintered plank, then being handed a true arm.

The first man chose a sword. He stepped in, drew breath, and struck.

The Damage Assessing Apparatus turned to mush.

A wet collapse. A splash of ruined flesh. The hall inhaled as one.

Eldric lifted a finger toward the mess.

"That, people, is an unguarded Peak Cornerstone Setting. What can you say about it?"

The man panted, sweat on his brow, satisfaction in his eyes. He had just proven something in front of too many witnesses.

"Senior Eldric," he said, voice smug despite his effort, "it had a bit better bone and physique. If this apparatus could react, it could have mobilized its qi."

He tried to sound clever. He succeeded, just enough.

Eldric nodded once. The mush gathered. It pulled itself back into shape as if drawn by strings. The body reformed.

Qi gathered into it, and the apparatus shifted into a defensive stance, shoulders angled, feet planted, posture suddenly alive with intent.

The next participant struck. This time the barrier held, then cracked, then held again. The apparatus did not melt. It resisted. The blows that followed painted a scale across the stage.

Five Peak Cornerstone Setting cultivators could only match it. They could not break the guard. They could not reach meat.

Three managed to fracture the barrier and tear skin.

Two landed strikes that drove in deep enough to count as serious injury.

All of them said some version of the same thing when Eldric asked.

If this had been a real enemy, it would have been strong for their rank. Strong enough to make a careless man die.

Then the Early Gilded Core volunteers stepped in, testing with colder eyes.

"It’s on the strong side for Peak Cornerstone," one said.

Two of them went further, hesitant but honest.

"Half step Gilded Core," they judged, as if the words cost them something to admit.

Eldric beckoned an attendant. Rewards were brought out at once, as if the stage itself paid wages.

Each volunteer received a rectangular box marked in three colors. Yellow, white, and red.

"These," Eldric said, "are an Emergency Pill Set, a saving grace even for one at the peak of Gilded Core.

"Yellow mends damaged meridians, returning them to proper function."

"White restores qi, half of what has been spent."

"Red returns blood, stamina, and vitality by no less than seventy percent."

He let their gaze rest on the box, as if the thing might grow heavier for being looked at.

"Understand this. The restoration is complete within ten heartbeats. The set will be offered shortly. Stock is limited."

All who participated were elated. This was only a few notches of what Blessedgrove Fortunecrest offered.

Those pills, if bought, would run a cultivator four hundred to nine hundred middle-grade spirit stones at least.

The participants thanked Eldric for the generosity. He nodded and pulled the red drapes on both items at once.