"Your Highness", the Inner Court Elder of the Ember Palm Pavilion who arrived at the inn that Wei Yuanjie was staying in bowed in greeting, as did the other two Sect Elders, as well as Disciples and Sect Protectors with them.

"Good evening", Wei Yuanjie nodded in greeting as well, an unreadable smile on his lips, "Shall we?"

The Sect Elders didn’t fail to notice, just as Lu Bihai of the Martial Alliance the day before, that aside from Duan Feng, there were ten figures in veiled bamboo hats with the prince, with no sight of Wu Long. And just as Lu Bihai, they came to the same initial conclusions about the reasons for both.

They proceeded to the Soaring Feather Trading Company, the streets leading to it bustling with dense crowds of attendees.

There was a festive atmosphere which hid the tension, and even as they entered the private small balcony of the auction hall, they saw mostly excitement and enthusiasm among the crowds of people both on the ground floor and in the galleries.

Wei Yuanjie did not bother activating the privacy formations of the balcony, allowing everyone in the hall to see his arrival and presence.

He could see that the 5th prince, Wei Liheng, who arrived a bit earlier in another private balcony on the opposite side of the hall did the same, sitting with his entourage out in the open.

Although unlike Wei Yuanjie who blatantly came together with the Ember Palm Pavilion, the Seven Extreme Swords Sect had a separate private balcony which also was open for everyone to see.

In fact, there was a rather large amount of private balconies which occupants decided not to shield them from public view, for example the one with the Crystal Wood Sect, or the one with the delegation from the Martial Alliance, Lu Bihai giving a polite nod to greet Wei Yuanjie and the Ember Palm Pavilion.

Qian Ying also occupied a private balcony, since people expected to see the owner of the arena at such a public event, especially after the announcement about the tournament that was sponsored by the Soaring Feather Trading Company.

In another one, Iron Claw Group was represented by one of their four Chiefs, who looked at the 9th prince with open hostility.

In a private balcony next to them were representatives of the Silverleaf Trade Hall, looking at everything around them with an air of disdain and arrogance. Among them was a man with a sickly color of face and slightly bloodshot eyes in which someone might recognize the representative of the Bao Family who made the life of the Silverleaf Trade Hall owner miserable.

The air of superiority and self importance of the two representative groups from the Iron Claw City, however, was severely undercut by the obvious, palpable mocking attitude toward them from almost the entire audience present - the former for the incident with the death of Tiezhu Bo and Go Ritian losing his arm, and the latter from the rumors buzzing around the entire city from this morning.

Ignoring both of those groups, Wei Yuanjie was surprised to find that the City Lord Manor occupying another one of the visible balconies, was represented by Ko Wenlu and Ko Furen, having expected to see Ko Fuan in their place.

However, the Imperial Ambassador, Wei Lufan, was conspicuously absent, which led everyone to speculate that he was likely in one of the private balconies shielded from public view with arrays and formations.

The Right Guardian of the Crow King also occupied one of those private balconies with activated privacy protections.

These private balconies were quite expensive to occupy, and yet not one of them was left empty, making this auction already a bit profitable even without selling a single item.

But even in the 2 tiers of galleries which were a bit more moderately priced to occupy, there were a lot of people who would’ve bought a private balcony if one was available, like the Crimson Arrow Manor, the majority of nobles and court officials of the Wei Dynasty who came with the delegation, representative of local Sects and so on.

After some more time spent in murmurs and low-voice chatter, the auction finally began as a masked man came out onto the stage, making a grand opening speech thanking the audience for attending, and jokingly mentioning a few last-minute attendees who came from the Iron Claw City, causing laughter from the audience, and making those from the Silverleaf Trade Hall clench their jaws with anger but unable to do anything beyond that.

This masked man was, of course, Kwon Qianhong, who came back from his assignment in the Emerald Falls City specifically for this event.

The auction started off with a big ticket item to pump up some excitement - the 3rd-tier Mortal Grade sword made by Kai Huoshi and Ci Han from the Blood-Veined Iron that was announced to be the first quality item ’submitted to the auction by a third party’ as part of Wu Long’s and Sui Luxiao’s scheme to boost the credibility of the auction right after its announcement.

There were a few bids from the lower floor and galleries right away, most people shouting out their bids out loud while raising their bidding signs with numbers.

Directly above the stage was a sphere of flowing Qi that displayed the current bid as well as the required minimum raise for each bid.

Sometimes the bid changed without anyone raising their voice, signifying that someone placed the bid anonymously using their bidding sign.

The bid rapidly climbed up to 50,000 Wei Dynasty gold coins, but from there the sharp climb began slowing down as it first increased to 60,000 and then almost crawled up to 70,000.

Although the sword was precious, and very obviously high-quality, this price was already a bit above its actual approximate value taking into consideration its materials and quality of craftsmanship, so there weren’t many willing to compete for it any further.

The last few bids came from the Seven Extreme Swords Sect, which further reduced the chances of any further bids on it as not many would risk offending one of the three big Sects, even with the possibility of anonymous bids.

That is, unless someone had sufficient standing to do so...

"100,000 gold", Wei Yuanjie’s hand holding a bidding number went up into the air. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The patterns on the bidding number lit up, and his bid was displayed in the large glowing symbols above the scene, displacing the previous one, as murmurs went through the hall, the members of the Seven Extreme Swords Sect showing dissatisfied expressions on their faces.

"120,000 gold!", the 5th prince’s sign went up almost immediately after.

The crowd gasped, realizing that the two princes clashed from the very start on the very first item. At the same time, excitement welled up among those who had no interest in the sword, eager to see a good competition.

"200,000 gold", Wei Yuanjie chuckled before announcing his new bid, causing even bigger reaction among the audience.

"250,000", Wei Liheng snorted, not willing to back down so easily.

"300,000"

The two didn’t give the people in the audience a chance to properly react as the price quickly rose to half a million in this back and forth.

But they did notice that the 5th prince was raising 10s of thousands while Wei Yuanjie’s raise was always a 100 thousand, which put pressure on Wei Liheng.

He obviously picked this fight not to win the treasure but to mess with Wei Yuanjie, but now, even if he made the latter pay an exorbitant price, this difference made him look weak, forcing him to respond in kind and finally bid 600,000.

And after he made that bid, Wei Yuanjie made a pause, and then turned to him with a wide grin, shrugging his shoulders, "Well if Brother wants this sword so much, I won’t fight with you over it. Think of it as a gift - enjoy"

This made the 5th prince clench his fists in anger, while struggling to control his expression, as he realized he was baited. He wasn’t going to bid after this one, making this final bid with an increase of 100,000 just to display his dominance and being satisfied with making Yuanjie pay that much for an item that should cost around ten times less.

Kwon Qianhong’s enthusiastic, "Sold for 600,000 Wei Dynasty gold! What an opening! Congratulations to his Imperial Highness, the 5th prince on this spectacular win!", only intensified the feeling of bitterness, as Wei Liheng didn’t feel like a winner at all, and knew that he didn’t look like one in the eyes of the audience at all.

Perhaps he could spin it as him gaining initiative by winning the first bid, which would’ve been worth the massively overblown price for just any item, but it was clear to everyone that it was not the attitude he displayed when he started bidding, and Wei Yuanjie’s current look of cheerful nonchalance, completely unbothered about ’losing’ the bid fight, only solidified the perception of the 5th prince’s loss.