Time Twister

Those who came for the Cla.s.s 5 magic artifacts and Cla.s.s 6 magic artifact sets were also prepared by the stiff compet.i.tion. Most of them were representatives of clans from other empires who wanted to strengthen their influence and power. They didn"t hesitate to bring roughly around 800 billion to 1.5 trillion Galaxy coins" worth of money to purchase these things.

Of course, some rich, lone cultivators were also planning to buy a Cla.s.s 6 set or a Cla.s.s 5 magic artifact, and some of the elixirs for their safety and security. Although they were alone, they usually had a lot of connections in their very long lives, so they couldn"t be underestimated.

What caused their eyes to turn green is that the effects of each artifact set would boost the user"s power by at least 3 stages, and up to a maximum of 6 stages.

Imagine, a Divine-3 cultivator fighting against a Divine-9 cultivator, or a DemiG.o.d-6 fighting a Divine-3 cultivator evenly, just because of the presence of a Cla.s.s 6 artifact.

Everyone was excited. There were only 15 more minutes left before the auction began. The other cultivators and bidders were using this time to frantically transfer funds to ensure they had enough money. They realized that this special auction held by the Galactic Empire may not be as tame as the previous auctions.

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Somewhere inside the city.

"Are you all prepared? Remember, we cannot fail. If we fail, we die. That"s it." A hooded person asked the 8 people in front of the figure, all with the same attire.

No one responded.

"Let"s get the mission started." The person said, and all 9 of them disappeared on the spot.

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Koeman Group, Unknown location.

A man was quietly rubbing the Dalmarkal Doom Kitten lying on his lap, asleep.

He was looking at a large, single-paned window that covered half of his room. A lady was quietly standing nearby, not releasing any sounds whatsoever.

"…is it all ready?" he asked, in which the lady quietly responded,

"Mr. Koeman, the preparations have been completed."

"…that"s great." He replied after a few moments of silence.

"…" The room felt very heavy for some reason after he responded. After a minute or two of silence, he posed a question,

"Alice, do you think what I"m doing is bad?"

"…" the lady, Alice, remained silent. She did not become the personal secretary of her childhood friend without learning a lot of things about him. Seeing her despondent, the man rolled his eyes, and added,

"Don"t worry, I won"t fire you, whatever your answer is." Hearing this, Alice didn"t hesitate to answer what she thought about it.

"…it"s subjective. If you lose, you are bad, if you succeed, you are good."

"Do you think I"ll win, Alice." He asked Alice, who just smiled back at him, before saying,

"…I never bet on the losing side, Mr. Koeman."

"Quite eloquent, Ms. Alice, quite eloquent. Nevermind that. Let everything fall into place." He muttered before the room returned to its previous silence.

In front of the two, the 5 auction houses they had in Elema planet was being broadcasted. There is a beautiful scene to watch for the next 3 days.

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Alemara city, in the Koeman Auction House.

Xander was looking at the projection shown in front of him. A charming-looking man who looked like he was in his 30s was standing and holding an item. The auction was finally beginning.

Immediately, the man smiled and spoke out, his voice deep and enchanting. Xander already recognized that this man was a natural master of the 6 desires under the Emotion series elements, the Sensual Pleasures element.

"Ladies and gents, welcome, to the Koeman Group"s traditional auction event in the Galactic Empire."

"I am your host for this auction event, Brady K. Galloway."

"I know you all are itching for the auction to begin, but we would like to remind you all: the winning bid price is the final price of the item. Once you win the bid, you must have enough money later to pay for the item, or you will be paying for it with your body~"

"Now, let"s begin the auction. Our first item is a pair of brooches. These are twin man-made Cla.s.s 6 magic artifacts, the Sapphis Jewel Brooch! Its effects allow the owner to negate any attack below Sage-3 once and reflect it to the caster, before requiring a recharge of magic energy and a cooldown of 14 days. Its negative effects once worn are only two: You will stutter once in a while, and you will sigh once every minute."

"The starting bid is 500 million Galaxy coins. Increments of 10 million or more only~ You have 2 minutes."

Immediately, the prices began to rise, rapidly reaching a value of 900 million, before slowing down. After 2 minutes, the final bid was 1.28 billion Galaxy coins. It was a female Divine-9 magic swordsman that got the pair of brooches, one of the VIPs in another city in Elema. The others who came with her congratulated her, while those that recognized her name tsked in annoyance.

Xander, for the next few items that popped out, was watching carefully the projection, checking the current bids.

When it came to the 48th item, Xander"s eyes narrowed. This was one of the items he was eying.

Brady began to announce the item"s name and description.

"Our 48th item is known as the Crown of Thespileis, a Cla.s.s 6, man-made artifact. This allows the wearer to distort anything that comes within a certain radius from the crown, before allowing the wearer to take control of the distorted thing. According to our tests, its power and range depended on the power of the wearer. A DemiG.o.d-9 could affect someone up to Divine-3, a Divine-9 could affect someone up to Sage-2. The negative effect of this artifact is that you must feed it with your blood essence once every month, or else it begins to act against you, the wearer, as well."

"The starting price is 500 million Galaxy coins, increments of 10 million or more only. You have 2 minutes~"

The moment he said that Xander immediately raised the price to 5 billion, momentarily stopping everyone from placing any bids when they saw the bidder"s name.

[SG] Chronicler - 5,000,000,000

Note: Yes, I made those pills and artifacts. Yes, I"m interested in this one.

When they saw the note attached to his bidding price, no one dared to bid. Who would want to antagonize someone who was able to sell these items in an auction? They would rather befriend that person. They weren"t stupid, after all.

Xander, who was sitting calmly in the private room, had to thank the system. The moment the bidding opened, it put in the ceiling price that he had determined beforehand, allowing his bid to dominate the bidding list immediately.

After 2 minutes, his note changed, saying, "Thank you. 10 more items to go," subtly informing them that he will be betting on 10 more items so they shouldn"t attempt to outbid him.

Brady couldn"t do anything about the situation, nor did the other auction managers in other branches.

The regular and VIPs, however, understood clearly his meaning.

After a few more items, the first of Xander"s consigned items appeared.

"Ladies and gents, the 59th item in our list: 19 Star, Immaculate quality elixir pill: Gratifying Essence! This is one of the rare 15-star elixir pills that had been refined to the extreme, allowing it to change the number of stars it had as well as improve its quality beyond the Perfect rank.

The effect of the pill allows the user to recover his or her lost magic energy, increasing the maximum amount the user can hold by 5 times without any negative repercussions to the user, a large increase from its initial 1.5 times increase. A maximum of two pills can be taken at the same time while it worked, which was for 2 days, a large jump from the initial 4 hours it provided.

An additional effect it brought to the user is that after the effect fades, their energy capacity would permanently increase by 10%. That"s right, 10%! Another additional effect it brought about was it was able to repair injuries in one"s body completely and even one"s elemental essence stones by a large margin."

"A warning, however: If you take more than two at the same time, you will die, no matter what your rank is as long as you are below G.o.d cla.s.s. The pill has a cooldown of 1 month before being able to use it again. That is what Mr. Chronicler told us when he consigned this pill."

"We are selling one of the two sets of 5 pills for 2 billion Galaxy coins, with increments of 100 million or more only. You have 2 minutes."

The moment he said that numerous flashes appeared on the screen, with the top bidding price changing every second.

The price continued to surge up, reaching a value of 13 billion Galaxy coins before it began to slow down. The two disciples, Reva and Martina, tried to bid was easily outbid by others. They had to reserve their funds for the two pills they wanted to buy. After all, this was just a 19 star, not the 20-star pill they were looking for. A pill of this potency was roughly around 100,000 Universal notes; its quality is what made its price jump up to at least 250,000 Universal notes, or 25 billion Galaxy coins. As long as they got it below that value, they would have profited.

Three bidders continued to struggle before the final price reached 24.5 billion Galaxy coins. The one that won the bid was a young man with a trimmed beard, one of the VIPs in Alemara city. The two disciples recognized him as one of their master"s friend"s disciple, Jakob.

The three chatted, asking one another if they could coordinate in bidding so that they knew which ones to avoid for the other party. After the terms had been agreed on, they made a promise for now.

The bidding for the last set of the same item was more intense. The price reached 27.3 billion Galaxy coins, with Jakob backing out once it reached that amount. The reason was that his master was quite fussy and told him to get 12 different pills, and gave him only 400 billion Galaxy coins" worth of money. He wasn"t even sure if he had enough for the later pills.

The auction continued to sell the 19-star elixirs and elixir pills Xander consigned, the prices rising from an average of 21.5 billion to 33 billion Galaxy coins per set.

As the auction continued, it became more frenzied for the regular, VIP, and other special guests to bid for the elixirs and elixir pills. There was even a special guest that bought a set of elixir bottles, Drops of Fantasia, that allowed the consumer to improve their Domain Clarity and Elemental Essence Stone Colors by 5% per bottle, a maximum of 2 bottles per person before it loses effect. Everyone could only eye that special guest greedily. This was because they saw the name of the buyer and instantly shut their mouths that were about to badmouth the person.

[SG] Queen of Pain, Akasha - 45,000,000,000

She was a notorious femme fatale amongst Sage cultivators, full of trickery and seductiveness, allowing her to fight off cultivators 1 to 2 stages above her without dying. This was partly due to her primary elements of Knowledge, l.u.s.t, and Sorrow, allowing her to strike where it hurts the most. Some had said that she had a thin bloodline of the Infernals within her, allowing her to use the power of the l.u.s.t element to exhibit nearly the same power as the Concupiscence element, which was under the h.e.l.l element series. Although she was already a Sage-6, she still bought this elixir to perfect her elemental essence stones and Domain expression.

All in all, the first batch of 450 sets took 15 hours to completely auction, producing a staggering amount of 12.38 trillion Galaxy dollars for Xander, roughly 123.8 million Universal notes.

The auction continued. It was already 24:30 pm, 30 minutes past their noontime, and Xander was still waiting for his other items to appear. He felt that it was weird that the auction decided to sell his items first, but then realized it was to bring the energy back to their remaining stocks of items to be auctioned for today.

Xander created some food out of his memory and began to eat while taking note of the items he was going to buy. It was a bit funny that there wasn"t any form of breaks whatsoever for this kind of event. The auction house had to probably remove the break due to me adding tons of items into the list, Xander told himself.

After several more items, the Eye of Carmaxus was up for bidding.

Brady began to explain the item.

"For our 522nd item for auction: The Eye of Carmaxus, a Cla.s.s 6 natural artifact. This is an eye produced by a cultivator that went by the name Carmaxus. He died 40,000 years ago in a battle with one of his enemies, his left eye becoming the focal point of his power, rather than his elemental essence stones, making it a rare formation of nature. Its effects are quite simple: Anything that the eye sees will fall into a confused, chaotic state, whether it be material or immaterial. Its range is a maximum of 2 kilometers and is indiscriminate in targeting. Its negative side-effect is that one would lose the capacity to see anything for the next 7 days after usage."

"The starting price is 450 million Galaxy coins, with increments of 10 million or more. You have 2 minutes to bid~"

Once again, Xander"s pseudonym appeared in the auction board, with a price: 5 billion Galaxy coins. When they saw his name pop out, no one dared to bid anything higher. To be honest, they felt the item had a crippling negative effect; blind for 7 days; what if they were on a siege? They would be sitting ducks if they turned blind afterward, unable to use magic perception to even guide one"s direction.

After 2 minutes, the bid ended, with Xander winning the bid.

The auction continued. After 25 more items, the last artifact he was looking for finally appeared.

"For our 547th item for auction: The Helyn"s Finger Bone, a Cla.s.s 6 natural artifact. The ability it has is primarily focused on bringing back the recently dead as an unnatural being, a zombie. As you all know, zombies are usually destroyed by the universe itself, because their very nature defies the cycle of life and death.

However, the owner of this finger bone, Helyn, managed to circ.u.mvent this by the usage of Soulfire - Preservation element, combining it with the Life - Rebel and Death - Form elements. The negative side effect is that it slowly decreases your vitality attribute by one point every year once it has been used; the effect can only be mitigated by destroying the artifact."

"The starting price is 250 million Galaxy coins, with increments of 10 million or more. You have 2 minutes to bid~" the moment he said this, Xander"s bid was placed once again, a total of 5 billion Galaxy coins.

It wasn"t surprising that after the 2 minutes, he got the items. Xander then checked the items to be sold and saw that besides the Narcissus seed, the remaining items he was looking for were going to be sold tomorrow. He decided to stay in the private room, however, and already pay for the items he bought.

After a few minutes, the items he requested was already sent into the room by his two servers.

He checked the items and ensured these were the specific items by viewing their past and pa.s.sive magical and elemental fluctuations. Upon Xander"s success in verifying their authenticity, he kept them in the same area in his pocket dimension where artifacts were stored.

He then began to lounge around, waiting for the 699th item, which was the Narcissus seed.

He didn"t see any other trinkets today that would excite him, so he was just casually reading the information of every partic.i.p.ant, for fun. There were a lot of powerhouses from nearby empires attending, huh.

However, he soon found a group of people with anomalous data. When he traced where they were currently, they were located in different floors, but when he used his [Divine Eyes] to view the overall scenario, he noticed that they were arranged in a spiral, and a bird"s eye view would show them in every matrix point of large-scale matrix spell formation; from the tiny fluctuations they were continuously releasing, it was a Sage rank matrix spell.

The magic they used was a bit weird because when Xander viewed the area normally, there was no trace or fluctuation of magic being cast, but when [Divine Eyes] is activated, he could see the tendrils of power converging and focusing on the center of the building and the matrices of the spell formation. He realized that the magic and elemental fluctuations acted the same when he used s.p.a.ce-time elements to cover his fluctuations.

When he looked again carefully in their attires, Xander realized they were all women. Could this be that terrorist group, the Black Order? An organization completely made up of women and female-like beings and focused on showing off their power, believing that women are more superior to men. Of course, this wasn"t true, since they both have equal potentials, it is really how they used and developed themselves individually. However, some empires didn"t believe that. For example, the Helennic empire partially believed it but from an economical perspective, and other smaller empires which were completely ruled by women-like beings.

He fell into deep thought. Should he report them, since he didn"t want his auction experience to be disturbed, or should he take care of them? Xander was a bit annoyed. It was supposed to be his day-off and a form of relaxation for the next 3 days.

Xander asked the system what was the most optimal solution. It gave a simple answer: Kill. Xander rolled his eyes. He still couldn"t kill Sages without causing too many casualties… well, if he used Time Shatter, he could specify the targets and area of effect though. But he didn"t want to waste his first 1,000 vitality attributes, jeez.

Xander, with the help of the system, began to explore possible solutions and explore the servers of the Koeman Group to find out if they knew about this or not.

After a while, he let out a big grin. It seems there"s going to be a large show later after the auction, huh. Interesting.

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The 9 women in disguises were quietly preparing, their hands and mouths moving discreetly, releasing magical fluctuations not detectable by any normal means.

This was because, with the help of a secret technique from their organization, they were able to shift the dimensions of their magic and elemental fluctuations, making it virtually undetectable unless one knows the specific dimension they were occurring.

Amelia, the leader of the operation, continued to message the others about their progress via the private communicators they had.

This spell was one of the strongest Sage-ranked spells their organization had, named [COVID: 19 Tribulations of Disease and Decay]. The spell was able to affect the entire planet, killing all lifeforms below Sage rank instantly and severely injuring Sage cultivators. What was scary though was that some of them would also be infected, and they can spread the infection to the next place they visit by as simple as breathing in air, or scratching their head, or even drinking from a cup. They could set the range to a maximum of 500 million kilometers, but by then, the effect would have weakened, only killing DemiG.o.ds and below, severely injuring Divine cultivators, and causing light injury to Sages.

The spell was quite stringent in its required amount of people, as it needed 45 people to cast this spell. The team Amelia was leading were in Alemara, and the other 4 teams were in the other cities.

They were here, after all, to create the largest, strongest impact to all surrounding empires that the Black Order is capable of doing this, and that they should be feared for it.