Radeon had made the auction house easy to enter on purpose.
A gold coin in the palm. Slide it into the slot on either side of the door. Take a mask. Walk in.
The reason was simple. No one wanted to wait. Neither did he.
Two hours passed. The doors sealed shut.
Latecors ca running anyway, breath ragged, sleeves flapping, only to stop short when they saw it.
The mask rack had vanished. The coin slots were gone too, not blocked or hidden, simply erased, as if the building had never accepted paynt at all.
Ghost attendants stood nearby and only watched, pale faces blank, hands folded.
Voices rose, faces warped into indignation, and anger spread through the still sizable crowd.
"Hey, didn’t you like custors. Why are you closing the entrance so early?"
"We were just discussing our strategy, please give us face."
"I am friends with City Lord Calderon, please let pass."
Backgrounds were thrown like titles. Pleads followed. Then bribes. Then uglier offers.
A few won stepped forward with practiced smiles, trying to buy passage with skin and promise.
The white robed ghosts did not budge. Their qi flowed around them in a smooth, indifferent veil.
Anyone who tried to grab them found their hands sliding off, like hugging a plush toy made of glass. Soft looking, hard as truth.
Inside, Eldric sat with his eyes closed, as still as a shrine idol. Then he opened them. The room snapped quiet.
Even the ones chattering on their couches went rigid, attention yanked tight by nothing more than his gaze. Eldric cleared his throat.
"My thanks to you all for attending. I am Eldric, your host for this day." He allowed the silence to do its work.
"This house is... particular. I built it so that eagerness need not beco noise. No hands in the air, no bawling sums across the floor. Your bids will appear within your own sight."
"When you wish to offer, think the amount only. The mask will take the asure of your intent and set it down."
"And when you judge it entered, speak the thought three tis in your mind. Yes. Agree. Affirmative. Or Aye."
"Bear this in mind. All bids are made in anonymity. This old man has neither the taste nor the terity to loose your particulars, no matter who asks it of ."
The mortal participants clenched their fists. This was already a victory.
What was more, gossip said Eldric was a walking god.
If a god could lie over such trivialities, then who were they to trust afterward?
Ghost attendants rolled the first item forward.
Eldric reached and pulled the red curtain. One hundred bottles.
The liquid inside looked like blood thinned with night, and within it swam glittering flecks, starlight caught and caged.
Eyes narrowed. No one could tell what it was ant for, or even what it was, so all attention fixed on Eldric.
He did not let the room stew in guessing.
"These are one hundred bottles of Physique Accelerant Bath Solutions."
The murmur did not swell. Not with doubt. No one had heard of such a potion or elixir before.
Eldric lifted one bottle, letting the starlight inside drift and spin.
"Most of us have descendants who cannot cultivate," he said with a forlorn tone. "Alas, who are we to hate them for being incompetent?"
He paused, and in that pause the room supplied its own mories. The dull eyed son.
The daughter who tried until her hands bled. The whispered jokes at banquets. The pity that cut deeper than insult.
Then Eldric’s voice struck like a bell.
"Heaven. It is Heaven to bla. Not the child."
Sothing broke in the hall. People shifted, swallowing hard. A few lowered their heads.
Tears appeared on faces that had not wept in centuries. Even battle hardened n blinked fast and failed to hide it.
Radeon had chosen the wound well. So of them had lost their edge watching their bloodline falter, and they had beco a laughing stock for it.
Eldric pressed that sore spot and dressed it as rcy.
"This is not a miracle panacea," Eldric said, shaking his head.
"It will not turn a useless branch into a divine trunk overnight."
He let disappointnt breathe for a heartbeat. Then he tightened the noose.
"But it can give a man without spiritual ridians another path."
The room leaned in.
"Physical body cultivation."
Near the edge, Calyx stood close enough to hear everything.
Through each mask, every thought and curse and prayer bled into him.
Radeon allowed it. He knew the Preta would feed on this in the long run, on the road to immortality.
Calyx’s eyes twitched. His breath hitched as if the noise had weight.
"How do you deal with this?" he asked.
Radeon only shrugged, palm open, almost bored.
"I got used to it. I even enjoy it. No secret."
Below, the hall turned into silent chaos. The masks hid faces. They did not hide voices.
"Fuck you. I fucking hate you. I told you to bring all our treasure. Jeremus might have already cultivated the body path."
"Who do we ask for more funds. Doesn’t this an our next generation could beco cultivators?"
"We need to get those treasures. This could be a reward for descendants who worked hard."
Eldric watched the crowd like a man reading weather. When he saw the frenzy begin to steady into calculation, he poured oil on it.
"The regin admits of ten baths, no more. Beyond the tenth, the virtue is spent, and the body gains nothing further."
"Follow it faithfully, and I give you my word. A peak Nascent Embryo will stand at your side in a half a century."
His gaze swept the seats, calm, confident.
"With the limit of baths being ten, as there are no more effects after that. I guarantee a peak Nascent Embryo by your side."
The hall went wild. Nascent Embryo. So cultivators did not even dare claim they would reach it in their own lives.
Yet here it was spoken as a future for a child who could not even sense qi. Physical body cultivation was still cultivation.
It was sweat and strain, weights and bruises, muscle grown into a weapon. To the eyes of many cultivators the only real difference was flying, and even that was not absolute.
So body path monsters leapt from summit to summit on raw strength alone, like the Silent Severance during the calamity.
Eldric lifted the bottle again, holding the room’s hunger in his hand.
"I will not be selling these by ten," he said. "All one hundred go to one buyer."
Most people did not lose their minds. They started bidding. The first offer flashed across their eyes.
[100 Middle Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]
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