Chapter 71: Mysterious Water Jade Pendant

Back in his room, he sat cross-legged on the wooden bed and began to cultivate, silently reciting the second layer of the Cloud Rain Art incantation.

He had initially practiced the Autumn Water Art, but his father later told him to switch to the Cloud Rain Art.

To be honest, he preferred practicing the Autumn Water Art. Most Wang family cultivators whose primary spirit root was water-aligned practiced the Autumn Water Art.

The Autumn Water Art was a Rank-1 Yellow-grade cultivation technique, known for its low difficulty and relatively fast cultivation speed. In contrast, the Cloud Rain Art, though also a Rank-1 Yellow-grade technique, was notoriously slow, despite being praised for its stability. However, Wang Changsheng knew that most Rank-1 Yellow-grade techniques had low cultivation difficulty and relatively fast speeds.

He had secretly asked other family members, and while their cultivation speeds weren't exceptionally fast, they weren't excessively slow either. Only his Cloud Rain Art progressed at a snail's pace.

The Cloud Rain Art was the technique Wang Mingyuan had instructed Wang Changsheng to switch to. Believing that "even a tiger doesn't eat its cubs," Wang Changsheng thought his father wouldn't harm him, so he didn't dwell on it.

If he had known the Cloud Rain Art cultivated so slowly, he wouldn't have switched techniques.

Cultivation techniques in the immortal cultivation world were categorized by quality into four grades: Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow. Each grade was further divided into nine ranks, with Heaven-grade being the highest and Yellow-grade the lowest.

A technique's grade was determined by four factors: the inherent spiritual abilities it granted, its cultivation difficulty, the number of bottlenecks encountered, and its cultivation speed.

The greater the spiritual abilities, the fewer the bottlenecks, and the faster the cultivation speed, the higher the technique's grade. The nine ranks corresponded to cultivation realms.

A Rank-1 Yellow-grade technique referred to one that allowed cultivation up to the ninth layer of Qi Refinement. Yellow-grade techniques were the most widely practiced, generally having low difficulty and decent cultivation speeds. However, they usually granted fewer spiritual abilities and presented more bottlenecks.

The higher the grade of a technique, the greater its cultivation difficulty. One technique alone couldn't determine everything.

Wang Changsheng had once speculated that the Cloud Rain Art might actually be the Qi Refinement section of some Profound-grade technique. However, recalling his selfless father, he dismissed this idea.

Slow-cultivating Yellow-grade techniques did exist. While not fast, these techniques were stable. With diligent practice, reaching the ninth layer of Qi Refinement before the age of sixty was usually not an issue.

Some family members were overly eager for quick results, choosing Rank-1 Yellow-grade techniques with faster cultivation speeds but more bottlenecks. These techniques offered quick progress up to the seventh layer of Qi Refinement, but most cultivators got stuck at the sixth layer, rarely advancing to the seventh.

As cultivators aged, their vital energy would gradually diminish, and their meridians would constrict, increasing cultivation difficulty and making Foundation Establishment harder. This was the main reason why some elders of the Wang family, even in their seventies or eighties, had not managed to reach the ninth layer of Qi Refinement.

If one's cultivation speed was slow, their cultivation level would remain low, limiting them to simple tasks and earning little spirit stones in the short term. Conversely, faster cultivation led to higher cultivation levels, allowing them to take on more challenging missions and earn more spirit stones monthly. However, this often meant encountering more difficult breakthroughs after reaching the sixth layer of Qi Refinement. Wang Changsheng suspected his father had him switch techniques because he wanted him to cultivate steadily to the ninth layer of Qi Refinement.

For the next month, Wang Changsheng stayed at the Wang Clan Artifact Forging Shop, refining puppet beasts.

The profit from Rank-1 low-grade puppet beasts was too meager. He wanted to refine more Rank-1 mid-grade puppet beasts, but these took five to six days to complete, or even seven to eight days if he was slow.

Wang Mingcan was still learning to carve puppets and couldn't be of much help in the short term.

Besides refining puppet beasts and cultivating, Wang Changsheng spent an hour each day teaching Wang Mingcan the techniques for carving puppets and refining puppet beasts.

One day, after lunch, Wang Changsheng and Wang Mingzhan went out.

There was an auction that day, rumored to feature spiritual items aiding Foundation Establishment. Wang Changsheng decided to attend, hoping to broaden his horizons and, if something caught his eye, to try and bid for it.

He was now flush with cash, carrying over four hundred spirit stones, walking with a swagger.

The auction was held at the Soaring Immortal Pagoda, a stone tower over thirty zhang tall and the highest building in Immortal Fate City.

The cultivators from the four major sects guarding Immortal Fate City resided within the Soaring Immortal Pagoda. It was rumored that the pagoda itself was actually a high-grade magical artifact.

The auction took place on the second floor of the Soaring Immortal Pagoda. By the time Wang Changsheng and Wang Mingzhan arrived, the hall was already packed.

The organizers had implemented a measure: each participant had to pay five spirit stones to enter, yet the venue was still crowded.

The second floor was a very spacious circular plaza, capable of accommodating over a thousand people. Wang Changsheng and Wang Mingzhan found two empty seats in the front row and sat down. Each of them held a blue square token, which was actually a sound-amplifying token. To bid, one simply raised the token and called out. After the auction, the tokens had to be returned to the auctioneers.

Shortly after, the auction began with a low chime of a bell.

In the center of the circular plaza, there was a circular stone platform with a round wooden table on it.

Under the gaze of all the cultivators, a shrewd-looking middle-aged man strode onto the elevated circular platform.

"Welcome, fellow Daoists and seniors, to this auction. I am Liu Zong, and I will be your host. Without further ado, let's begin with our first item: a high-grade flying spiritual artifact, the Soaring Cloud Shuttle. The starting bid is two hundred spirit stones, with each subsequent bid not less than thirty stones."

After a brief introduction, the middle-aged man began the auction for a white flying shuttle.

High-grade flying spiritual artifacts were rare. After multiple increments, the Soaring Cloud Shuttle was sold for five hundred and eighty spirit stones.

Next, Liu Zong successively presented various auction items: spirit beasts, sets of spiritual artifacts, pills, spirit wine, and other cultivation resources. Each item fetched a high price, and the atmosphere in the hall gradually grew livelier.

"Our next item is the Profound Water Jade Pendant, a high-grade spiritual artifact. When worn by cultivators practicing water-attribute techniques, it can accelerate cultivation speed by twenty percent. This item was forged from Rank-2 artifact refining materials and was originally intended to be a magical artifact. Unfortunately, errors during the forging process resulted in it becoming a high-grade spiritual artifact instead. Therefore, this Profound Water Jade Pendant is significantly better than typical high-grade auxiliary spiritual artifacts. The starting bid is two hundred spirit stones, with each subsequent bid not less than thirty."

Liu Zong held up a blue wooden box and announced loudly. Inside the box lay an egg-sized blue jade pendant.

"Two hundred!""Two hundred thirty!""Two hundred sixty!"...Wang Changsheng's eyes lit up, and he called out, "Three hundred!"

After seven or eight increments, Wang Changsheng successfully bid five hundred and fifty spirit stones for the Profound Water Jade Pendant. Of course, he didn't have that many spirit stones himself; he borrowed one hundred from Wang Mingzhan, which demonstrated the advantage of being part of an immortal cultivation family.

It wasn't that others couldn't afford five hundred spirit stones. Firstly, five hundred spirit stones could already buy a low-grade magical artifact. Secondly, to accelerate cultivation, one could consume pills or spiritual meals; auxiliary spiritual artifacts were just one of several methods.