Zhou Yue's live stream.
In a messy, cramped shipping container, Zhou Yue was using all his strength, fighting wits and courage with his opponent.
Last night, he and Zhong Yi were so furious that they went to Buried Soul Sea and mowed down an entire fish-monster tribe to vent their anger.
On the way back, Zhong Yi suddenly had an epiphany and told Zhou Yue about a strategy for looting in Auction King.
It was basically picking safe characters on low-tier maps, grinding out small profits of ten to twenty thousand every round.
Zhou Yue even spent Spirit Stones to buy Luna, and he found that the strategy actually worked!
Luna was Elsa from the game in his past life, with a skill that revealed the outline of a collectible's quality color each round, ranging from white to purple.
The shipping container map had pretty low-tier loot, rarely spawning anything big.
As long as he wasn't greedy, didn't get carried away, and didn't gamble on those non-existent red ones...
After identifying the white, green, blue, and purple collectibles, it was hard to lose money!
Take right now, for example. It was the fourth round, with only two single-slot items left to uncover in the massive container. Clearly a broke-man's game.
"Eighty-eight thousand, take it or leave it."
Zhou Yue's tone was cold, a little numb, completely lacking the earlier fire he'd had.
Facing the doubts from the chat, Zhou Yue answered confidently:
"If red shows up, I'll hand it over. I just treat everything like ten-thousand-coin small fry here!"
All night long, he stuck strictly to this rule and never went bankrupt again.
All his opponents were using Mai Xiaowen. Since everything they scanned was low-quality, none of them offered more than eighty-eight thousand in the end, and Zhou Yue successfully claimed the cargo hold.
"The reveal... holy crap?! Both single slots are red???"
Zhou Yue was shocked.
Sure, they were both small reds, worth less than two hundred thousand combined, but this was the luckiest round he'd had all night.
"Haha! My luck's turning around!"
Zhou Yue laughed from deep within.
Just then, the live chat started teasing him.
[Lao Zhou, I've been watching you dig through trash all night. Can you take us to someplace wealthy?]
[This really does feel like looting.]
[Other people hit treasure and dive into violent bidding wars, but you're totally doing the opposite.]
[Damn, Lao Zhou's already at 5 million? Time to go all-in on the wrecked ship!]
[Lao Zhou's luck has turned. Approve the program change!]
...
Zhou Yue's heart started racing, swayed by the chat.
All night long, grinding three to five grand per round from trash pickings, he'd gone from 2 million to 5 million—all honest sweat.
"No, no, if you want to make money in this mode, you gotta stay stable! That kind of place..."
While talking, he opened a battle-pass reward supply pack and suddenly froze.
"No way!! I pulled a golden item!! My luck really changed???"
Zhou Yue's head started spinning.
Something was off—very, very off.
He'd always thought these packs could only drop green items...
What was a golden item doing here?
One that could even see the total number of red collectible slots—a top-tier golden item!
"Fortune has come... I've got to seize it! Seize it!"
Zhou Yue didn't waste a second. He frantically switched maps to the Deepsea Wreck.
"Crap, I didn't switch characters... Is Luna gonna look way too noobish here?"
Zhou Yue felt a wave of embarrassment.
At this stage, having 5 million meant you were a player with some skill and understanding.
Two Nameless, one Deep Blue.
Zhou Yue's Luna, built for spotting low-tier collectibles, stood on the bidding platform, looking like a country bumpkin new to the city.
The chat cracked up.
[You're a dirt-farmer, so what if you look plain?]
[Whoa, this storage is huge???]
[That's a fat cache!]
[Lao Zhou hitting a fat cache? I don't believe it; it's probably all trash fish.]
[What's there to fear with that item? Just check how many reds there are!]
...
The first public bid message was explosive:
Total number of slots occupied by all collectibles: 269.
Zhou Yue's eyes went wide.
He'd picked through containers all night and never seen such a huge stash.
Reminded by the chat, he hastily used the golden item he just pulled, Rare Scanning.
Total number of slots occupied by red-quality collectibles: 86.
"???"
Zhou Yue was so excited he almost forgot to breathe.
Eighty-six slots!
The red collectibles in this cache alone outnumbered all the reds he'd looted from containers all night combined!
"Calm down, calm down... Pfft, to hell with calm! Just grab it right now!!!"
Zhou Yue instantly bid 3 million.
But to his disappointment, one of the three opponents bid 1.6 million, so he didn't manage to close the deal instantly.
Worse still, his bid fully exposed the info—now everyone knew this cache held a lot of reds.
What followed would be bloody chaos!
"Dammit, how do I bid now..."
Zhou Yue started to hesitate.
If it came down to a wealth showdown in the final round, his 5 million bankroll wasn't enough to face the others.
The live chat started giving advice.
[Go all-in on the second round now. They don't know how many reds there are and won't react in time... If you stall, you'll lose it! Eighty-six slots of reds can't all be trash, right? If this ends in a loss, I'll eat the Mirage Tower on the spot!!]
When Zhou Yue saw that comment, his mind began to race.
That made a lot of sense!
Zhou Yue got pumped. Without hesitating, he pushed his entire net worth—5.16 million, every last coin—onto the table.
"All in!!"
Zhou Yue shouted.
As expected, Player No. 2, Nameless, bid 3.2 million, and Zhou Yue narrowly snagged the cache right at the edge.
"That was close..."
Zhou Yue patted his chest, still shaken, then couldn't help getting excited.
"Come on, come on, come on..."
He stared at the cargo hold.
One by one, red collectibles started popping out.
"Twenty-five slots??? What is it???"
"Imperial Auspicious Zodiac Plate... 188,000?? Is this a joke??"
"Easy, easy... Here comes something big... Fifteen slots sideways--definitely not trash!"
"Hybrid Red Hare... 290,000... You can sit at the trash table!"
"It's fine, it's fine... Keep it together..."
"Sixteen-slot Rosewood Screen for 360,000?? I freaking..."
"Another fifteen-slot one... Don't tell me it's..."
"Trash, get out!!!"
...
One red collectible after another—every last one of them a fraud.
Even Lu Ze, watching this scene from Zhong Yi's stream, was startled.
Because he knew that the cargo hold in Auction King was different from containers in Abyss Action—the items were already determined when the game started.
It wasn't possible that Zhou Yue's loot was junk while someone else's from the same cache would be good.
So how did Zhou Yue's situation even add up?
Maybe from the moment he pulled that Rare Scanning, everything was already fated?
Zhou Yue's whole face was beet red.
He never imagined in his life that 86 slots of red items would total just over three million...
A loss of 1.6 million just like that!
"Whoever said they'd eat the Mirage Tower, get your ass out here..."
Zhou Yue suddenly became furious and frantically scrolled through the barrage messages, quickly finding that long and obnoxious one.
The sender of the barrage was clearly marked: [Prodigious Cultivator].
Zhou Yue’s face turned even redder.
“Damn it!!!”
“It really is you!!!”
...
...
The gameplay of Auction King was very simple.
Gather information, appraise value, place bids, open the auction.
With the precedent of the treasure-hunting mechanic in Divine Sense Seeker, cultivators quickly grasped the concept and found it highly addictive.
The reason was simple—
Essentially, Auction King was not a bidding game at all, but a gambling game disguised as an auction.
Stimulated by skills, items, outlines of different qualities, and all sorts of random information, players were more than willing to act like desperate gamblers.
Each auction round took only four or five minutes, making the pace incredibly exhilarating.
Lu Ze launched a new event in Celestial Abyss Frontier: players could earn limited-time points by participating in auctions each day.
After seven consecutive days of participation, they could obtain a limited-edition red collectible called the [Charity Auction Jade Pendant].
This move was no different from a certain game in a previous life having its official Delta Force counterpart promote and advertise Auction King.
Back in the previous life, even a small workshop—with no marketing, straight to Steam—could still achieve impressive results.
Now, with the backing of Celestial Abyss Frontier, Auction King naturally exploded in popularity.
In just one night, seventy percent of all players had entered Auction King.
Half of those had stayed for over three hours.
Many had even played through the night.
Lu Ze looked at the backend data and nodded in satisfaction.
This number exceeded his expectations by a fair margin.
From Slayer Immortal Tower to Auction King, the enthusiasm of the cultivators had surpassed what he had anticipated, clearly showing their love for randomized mechanics.
“Looks like folks in the cultivation world really love to gamble…”
Lu Ze muttered to himself as he began dividing the user base by region in the backend.
Those who frequently appeared in the Great Qian Dynasty were marked as high-priority users.
Even if they didn’t play Celestial Abyss Frontier, he would find ways to get them into Auction King through other means.
After finishing everything, Lu Ze exited the illusion realm.
Compared to the illusion realm, which could be completed in half a day, another matter was slightly more troublesome.
“Next…”
“I need to transplant the illusion realm into the secret realm.”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
end. Thus one must continue to cultivate, and become a saint or great emperor, in order to prolong one's life. Chen Xia, however, completely reversed this. Since his transmigration, he has gained immortality, and also a system that awards him with attribute points for every year he lives. Thus between the myriad worlds, the legend of an unparalleled senior appeared. "A gentleman takes revenge; it is never too late even after ten thousand years." "When you were at your peak I yielded, now in your old age I shall trample on you." - Chen Xia
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
y came from. The chests contained supplies, currency, class-change scrolls, skills, talents… and even godhood! The laws of the world were completely rewritten. This became a world where everyone gambled with their fate! Some people, despite having nothing, opened a divine artifact and rose to the top, eventually ruling the world. Others went bankrupt, opened nothing but worthless junk, and leaped from skyscrapers in despair. Lin Ye arrived in this world from another reality, utterly bewildered. “What is going on? Why is everyone a gambling addict?!” “Opening chests? No way. I refuse to gamble. I’ll start with myself!” Until— On his first chest, he obtained a Mythic Talent: Void Incarnation! He could become completely intangible, pass through all things, and reduce everything to nothingness! … On his fiftieth chest, he obtained a Mythic Weapon: Blade of Karma! With a single slash, karma shattered, twisting the universe and overturning the myriad phenomena of creation! … On his ninety-ninth chest, he obtained a Mythic Divine Treasure: Primordial Purple Energy! It could split open the heavens and earth, create all things, and evolve countless worlds with a single thought! Lin Ye: “Now that I think about it… shouldn’t someone have told me that every chest is guaranteed to contain something Mythic?!”
