The Supreme God of Martial Arts
Chapter 156 A Fierce Bidding (Part One)

Having all the cultivators’ undivided attention, the flirtatious auctioneerfelt pleased. What had hooked the audience was obviously the IllusorySwordsmanship. But now as she smiled her sweet and seductive smile,the audience felt weak in the knees.

"As the name says, the Illusory Swordsmanship is almost too good tobe true. It can release hundreds of Sword-lights if its owner hasattained the Major Achievement Stage. In fact, the energy of eachSword-light is powerful enough to kill. This is what makes it a dauntingweapon,” she said as the introduction to the weapon. On hearing this, awave of murmurs and gasps spread across the room.

"However," the auctioneer took a pause, "the Ganges Auction Househas always been honest with its customers. We only deal in fair tradePeriod. So, it is only obvious that we will tell you both theswordsmanship's merits and demerits. Especially the latter. Now, it hastwo shortcomings.

First, it consumes a lot of vital energy when used. This is very easy tounderstand. Its owner's vital energy would be the source of its Sword-lights, and we are talking about hundreds of Sword-lights here. So justimagine the amount it requires.

Second, its power could be too fragmented. It is true that the largeamount of Sword-light it produces is very hard for your opponent toavoid, yet each of the lights might not be strong enough as the energygets divided. It could be weaker than one focused attack in somecircumstances,” the auctioneer explained patiently.

"But then these are problems only for cultivators that have a weakcultivation base.

For those with a refined level of cultivation, who can absorb andunleash immense amount of high-quality vital energy, theseweaknesses can easily become strengths.

In a word, this Illusory Swordsmanship is meant for the strong—theones with a solid cultivation base and abundant vital energy.

So please think twice before you bid," she concluded. Austin was a bitsurprised by the frankness and the detail in which the setbacks of theSwordsmanship were spelled out.

But then this was the very reason why the Ganges Auction House wasso popular in the Violet Orchid Empire. It spoke of both, an item'smerits and demerits. The House enabled the bidders to make a wisedecision as they were fully informed. The bidders could then think oftheir needs and strike as fair a deal as possible.

So after the shortcomings of the Swordsmanship were articulated tothe audience, many interested cultivators balked at the idea of bidding.This was because most cultivators aimed at making as manybreakthroughs and reaching a higher realm in the shortest timepossible.

So for such cultivators, investing in medicinal pills or elixirs was big ontheir agenda. But as every coin has two sides, this kind of refinementwouldn't ensure a solid base in their cultivation and again, when itcame to their vital energy, it would in all possibility be inferior andunrefined.

So after much mulling over, over half of the cultivators’ enthusiasm toacquire the Illusory Swordsmanship wore off when its truth was baredto the audience.

But not Austin's. Austin was not to be deterred. He instead was all tenseand excited to know how phenomenal the Illusory Swordsmanship was.'Of course, its sapping immense vital energy to activate is a bigdrawback, but not for me. The vital energy stone in my elixir field canstore enough vital energy to activate it in full throttle. The stone is myfailsafe until I practice to harness the powers of the swordsmanshipwith proficiency, ' thought Austin to himself.

'In the worst case scenario, if my stone doesn't store the amountrequired, I'll just have to replace a way to up my reserves in the stonesomehow.

After turning all these facts over in his mind, Austin decided to bid forit.

"Alright, 1 think all of you have fully understood this item's pros andcons. Let the auction begin,” she announced. "The starting price of it istwo hundred thousand vital energy crystals, you may only bid inmultiples of ten thousand at a time!"

she informed in a saccharine tone.

There was almost pin-drop silence in the room when she finishedspeaking.

Two hundred thousand vital energy crystals was a great fortune formost people, great enough to make another chunk of cultivatorsabandon their plans once and for all to bid for the swordsmanship.Still, giving up on such a dream object wasn't easy. They cudgeled theirbrains to see if they could not acquire the Swordsmanship. After all,everyone knew equally well that the object in front of them was a greatmartial arts skill worthy of its level despite the shortcomings. When theythought practically, they knew that a level 4 martial arts skill at twohundred thousand vital energy crystals, on the contrary, was truly abargain!

So some cultivators with supposedly deep pockets were itching to giveits auction a try. For them, buying a level 4 martial arts skill at such alow price was a great source of pride! It would be a great thing to boastof, never mind that they would hardly use the Swordsmanship in thefuture.

Seeing her audience numb into silence, the auctioneer's heart flutteredanxiously. 'So no one wants to buy it?" she thought as she nervouslyscanned faces of all the bidders seated in the house in front of her. Thiswas the last thing she wanted to see in her career. It would be trulyawkward.

Fortunately, a voice finally resounded in the room, bringing great reliefto the auctioneer.

"I offer two hundred and ten thousand vital energy crystals for it!"

It was a hoarse voice that startled the others with its audacity to be theonly bidder for such a distinguished object.

Almost everyone turned to look who this brave soul was.

As hundreds of eyes swept the room, the slim figure of a boy in acorner caught everyone's attention. Half in shadow, he was so wellhidden that many couldn't clearly see his face.

Those who saw him couldn't place him from Adam. So murmurs,guesses and gossip began to brew to answer the two most importantquestions: "Who is he? Where is he from?"

A person plucky enough to be the first and the only bidder yet for theSwordsmanship had to be someone remarkable. After all, very fewcultivators could afford an amount like this and had the girth to pay inone straight go. So many started to think that this mysterious bidderwasn't a local, just like Raymond from the Flaming Sun Valley.

The boy was none other than Austin. He felt that the moment to bidwas now and never and so decided to jumpstart the race with aprobing quote.

What he didn't expect was the unwanted attention of possibly everyonein the room. On the inside, he groaned. He tried to avoid curious staresto conceal his embarrassment.