“How strange... I can understand making it an illusion realm first, but why didn’t he create a new one? Why put it inside the Xianyuan Continent Operation instead?”
Zhong Yi entered the Xianyuan Continent Operation illusion with some confusion.
At that moment, a brand-new mode called [Auction King] had just gone live.
“Speaking of which, how do you even make an auction interesting?”
Zhong Yi muttered to himself.
He had decided not to participate in this challenge.
First, because the shift from an illusion realm to a secret realm had killed his interest.
Second, because no matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t figure out how to make an auction fun.
Still, Zhong Yi entered [Auction King] full of anticipation.
The background of this mode was that members of the righteous alliance, during their downtime, traveled all over the world to participate in auctions and shopping.
The moment he entered the Auction King mode, his character turned into Mai Xiaowen.
The teleportation array beneath his feet flickered through a dizzying array of patterns before finally settling on a map called [Spiritual Energy Technology Shipping Container].
In the next instant, Zhong Yi’s figure appeared inside a uniquely styled auction house.
The most striking feature was a medium-sized, deep blue container standing in the center of the auction hall.
Originally, shipping containers didn’t exist in the cultivation world.
But as Lu Ze’s illusion realms continued to roll out, cultivators gradually accepted these novel items—after all, they weren’t that hard to understand.
[Spiritual Energy Technology Shipping Container: This auction lot is an air-shipped container sent from Xianyuan Continent to the Kingdom of Asara. Rumor has it that inside is a batch of priceless spiritual energy items.]
“Oh? Everything is inside the container? What treasures could there be?”
Zhong Yi raised an eyebrow, then immediately noticed something off.
The container was sealed tight, surrounded by formations that blocked any spiritual energy detection. There was no sign of it being opened.
“A blind open!?”
Zhong Yi froze.
Then the beginner’s guide appeared:
[This is an ownerless container sealed by spells. Its internal storage space and contents are unknown.]
[You possess a special skill that allows you to detect some information.]
[Every so often, the auction will reveal certain details about the container. Use them wisely.]
[Synthesizing the information you obtain, try to win the container in the auction.]
“A whole container, auctioned off as one lot?”
Zhong Yi’s curiosity was instantly piqued.
At the same time, the first piece of public auction information appeared:
[The highest quality grade in this auction is: Gold]
“Gold?”
Zhong Yi’s inspiration was stirred again, and he began to guess how this illusion realm’s gameplay worked.
The next moment, his character’s skill activated automatically.
During the tutorial phase, the default character was Mai Xiaowen, and her skill was [Detail Perception].
[Detail Perception: At the start of the auction, randomly reveal the quality grade of 5 items. Then, each round, reveal the quality grade of 2 unknown items.]
In an instant, a thick, dark grid appeared on the surface of the container.
Within the grid, five single-square blocks of different colors appeared scattered here and there.
Three green, one purple, and one gold.
“Is this... grave robbing!?”
Zhong Yi immediately understood why Lu Ze hadn’t made a separate illusion realm and instead included [Auction King] inside Xianyuan Continent Operation.
The process of inspecting the container was essentially very similar to grave robbing in Xianyuan Continent Operation!
Anyone who has touched a container would immediately understand how this game works.
A shipping container is a massive container—how many slots of items are inside, what quality each item is, how many slots it takes up…
None of that is known!
You have to use public information and character skills to speculate, judge, and then place your bids.
Compared to traditional competitive bidding, this is far more interesting and much more thrilling!
“As expected of Junior Brother Lu—he can even turn an auction into something extraordinary!”
Zhong Yi sighed with admiration.
Anyone who has played Action in the Immortal Abyss Realm knows how addictive the process of using spiritual sense to search for loot can be.
Lu Ze had perfectly transplanted this key gameplay mechanic into the auction fantasy realm—it was practically a stroke of genius!
Guided by the tutorial, Zhong Yi placed a bid of 20,000 spirit stones.
It was higher than the bid from the AI competitor, but it didn’t win the round.
Another rule of the fantasy realm appeared before Zhong Yi:
[Auction Closing Rules:]
[First round: The highest bidder must bid at least twice the second-highest bid.]
[Second round: The highest bidder must bid at least 60% more than the second-highest bid.]
[Third round: The highest bidder must bid at least 40% more than the second-highest bid.]
[Fourth round: The highest bidder must bid at least 20% more than the second-highest bid.]
[Fifth round: The highest bidder only needs to outbid the second-highest bid. If bids are equal, an additional bidding round is triggered.]
“I see… This is a game of information!”
Zhong Yi stroked his chin, excitement gleaming in his eyes.
Unlike traditional auctions where the highest bid wins outright, the closing rules changed with each round.
It seemed pointless at first, but Zhong Yi immediately spotted the trick behind it.
Not allowing a single round to decide the winner was meant to introduce more variables into the match.
Because as the number of rounds increased, the situation would constantly shift!
For instance, the character he was using now, Mai Xiaowen, could immediately see the quality of five random items at the start, but in subsequent rounds, she could only check two more per round.
She was strong at the beginning but gradually weakened as the game went on.
However, another character on the auction floor, [The Nameless One], was completely useless for the first four rounds but could see the full quality and outlines of everything inside the container in the fifth round.
He was a complete liability early on, but if dragged to the fifth round, he essentially gained divine sight—absolutely unbeatable.
On top of that, there were various tools and magical artifacts…
Different characters, different tools, different public auction information.
With all these layers stacked together, the number of variables was enormous!
Soon enough.
After three rounds, Zhong Yi easily won the tutorial match.
He secured goods worth 90,000 spirit stones for just 45,000, making a tidy profit.
“Interesting, interesting!”
Zhong Yi lavished praise on this mode.
He had never imagined that an auction could be played this way!
Instead of jumping straight into a match, Zhong Yi first reviewed the character skills.
The characters from Lu Ze’s previous life’s King of the Auction had mostly been replaced with operatives from the Delta Force, and they still shared similar traits.
For example, the original influencer Sophie had become the equally beautiful and charismatic Mai Xiaowen.
For example, Raul, who was skilled at hiding and striking at critical moments, had become the ult-invisible, sneaky veteran The Nameless One.
For example, Aunt Maria, who could reveal the quality of all white, green, and blue items at the start, had become the potion doc who always filled her backpack with all kinds of junk…
…
After browsing through all the auctioneer skills, Zhong Yi had a general impression of each character.
“Heh! A fantasy realm that relies on brains like this—no one can beat me!”
Zhong Yi confidently began bragging to his livestream audience.
He entered auction mode and immediately set his sights on a high-difficulty deep-sea shipwreck map.
[Entry fee: 5 million spirit stones]
[You cannot enter yet!]
Seeing the system prompt pop up, Zhong Yi’s face reddened slightly. He hadn’t expected that the map had an entry requirement.
As a newbie, his starting funds were only 200,000.
There were only two maps he could enter.
“A mere five million…”
Zhong Yi smiled with confidence and stepped into the most basic map, the [Blind Box Pile].
“Let me show you how a genius like me, with the Midas touch, wins 25 million from just 200,000!”
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
