Outworld Liberators-Chapter 167: Items Even Emperors Would Chew On

Only a tenth of the hall truly cared about blades.

The rest were onlookers for now, waiting to see what others valued before they decided what to pretend they valued.

Eldric did not bother explaining. He let the stage do the talking.

The blade was visible. Its length, its shape, the promise of balance in its line.

Yet no one could truly see it. A thin fabric wrapped the weapon, and the cloth did more than hide.

It blurred. Reality smeared around it. Eyes slid off the details as if the mind refused to hold them.

Frowns appeared among the few who had been targeted. Suspicion. Annoyance.

Eldric watched it and seemed pleased. He chuckled.

"Can’t see what it is. How about I let you hold the blade?"

That changed the air. People believed him now.

An old man who dared pass a weapon around in a room full of hungry hands was either a fool or a monster.

Eldric was not a fool. Ghost attendants selected a few and moved among the couches.

The masks had already done the sorting, identifying who was truly here for swords.

Fifty participants. Each received the wrapped blade for fifteen seconds.

The moment their time ended, the attendants took it and placed it into the next palm, smooth as a relay.

Fifteen seconds was plenty. A craftsman could read steel the way a gambler read faces.

A cultivator could feel the balance, the response, the small agreement between hand and edge.

Most of them knew after a single breath.

Some cultivators even tossed it from one to another, asking the ghost attendant with a glance if they could test it that way.

The attendant nodded once, and the blade flew, caught, turned, and returned again, each hand learning the same truth, all in the fifteen seconds time limit.

Those who had not cared at first began to care.

At first it was fifty. Then it was a few hundred leaning forward.

Then it was more than two thousand, interest spreading fast once whispers confirmed what the fabric could not hide.

Legendary grade. Eldric waited until the hunger had built itself, then spoke.

"This sword is called the Beginning Moon Sword Series," he said. "The reason is simple. It can be used by all stages, even mortal."

His gaze moved across the hall as if he could see through every mask.

"I can tell you it can carry you up to half step Ethereal Integration. Past that, you better find a replacement."

"It also promotes ease of learning for any sword art."

A few chuckled at that. Ethereal Integration was spoken of like a far mountain, not like a shop you visited.

No one in this room had reached it, and everyone knew it.

Then Calyx stepped onto the stage.

He wore his young human guise, slitted eyes and smooth face, the polite shape of danger.

In his arms he carried a cold steel ingot the size of an elephant’s leg, heavy enough that mortals would have needed a dozen horses to pull.

"I will show you how sharp it is," Calyx said.

He drew the blade. Hands moved too fast for most eyes.

The fabric did not reveal the sword’s true face even then, only a brief suggestion of light, a line cutting the air.

Calyx planted the blade’s edge on top of the ingot.

"Let’s watch."

He let go. The hall held its breath at the audacity. A sword left unsupported should have fallen, should have bounced, should have clattered.

Instead the blade continued downward as if guided by an invisible hand.

It sank through cold steel like a knife through soft bread.

When it slid all the way through, Calyx snatched it back in a blur and stepped aside.

Ghost attendants allowed a few close enough to inspect the cut.

There was no burr. No jagged tear. No flaw.

The bidding began again.

Not as feral as the bottles, not yet, but it climbed anyway, steady and relentless, and the price still went through the roof because a blade like that did not just kill enemies.

[Beginning Moon Sword Series]

[Sold at 690 High Grade Spirit Stones.]

The reason the blade became expensive was simple.

Physique Accelerant Bath Solutions offered an opportunity, and opportunity was a fickle thing.

It could be used on a future wastrel. A man could be killed by the cradle. It could fail in the hands of a fool.

A sword that trained the hand was different. It was not a single use promise.

It was a companion you could pass down a hundred generations and still have it waiting, patient and sharp, shaping the next grip, the next stance, the next life.

That kind of value did not rot. The winner was Tiberius.

Behind his mask, he sat very still when the final bid sealed, but his mind was already with his son.

Manicus had practiced sword arts for fifteen years. He had progressed a cut above the rest, true, but Tiberius would not lie to himself.

If he had been given the same training, the same discipline, at the same age, with a blade like this in hand, he would not be sitting at Peak Spirit Transfiguration now.

He could almost see it, Ethereal Integration, early stages, maybe middle.

Manicus was hard working enough. Maybe the sword would carry him farther.

The next item rolled forward.

A large stone pillar, runes cut into it in swirling patterns, the five elements hinted in every groove.

Many in the hall knew it at a glance. City Defense Array.

Eldric did not bother with theater this time.

"You already know what this is," he said. "I’ll send the details to you."

And the masks waited, ready to turn knowledge into bids.

[Five Elements Spirit Stone Protection Array]

[Breakage Threshold Limit: Full-powered Strike of a Half-Step Mortal Apotheosis]

[Protection Radius. 50 Kilometers]

[No Installation needed.]

[Powered by Spirit Stones.]

"I dare not say it will not break as long as you have spirit stones," he said.

The sentence cut the noise because it sounded like honesty, and honesty was rare at auctions.

Those who were well read, the ones who had actually opened their sect archives instead of pretending they had, understood at once.

Arrays like this were not for daily bandits and petty feuds. They were for siege wars, when formations ground against formations for days, when spirit stones were burned like firewood and the sky stayed lit from talismans and blood.

The mood shifted. For most of the room, interest died. No one wanted to admit they could not afford something, so they hid it under indifference.

Who would have that kind of money. Who would need it.

But the ones who did not flinch, the ones whose coffers could feed armies, felt their pulse quicken.

They recognized the shape of it without needing a second glance.

Legendary Peerless.

"Starting Price at 1000 High Grade Spirit Stones."

[2000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

The bidding turned ugly. The Five Summit Emperors went at it first, and they did not bother to hide it behind courtesy.

[7000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

Other large organizations joined, each one smelling the same thing in that stone pillar, the same advantage that could rewrite a war before it began.

[31000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

A game changer. Not because it was pretty, or because it was rare, but because it could be carried and moved.

A defensive array like that was usually rooted into a sect foundation, fed by deep reservoirs, guarded by walls and pride.

This one stood ten meters tall, yes, but cultivators were not mortals. One strong man could heave it onto his back, seal it with a storage wrap, and run.

[45000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

You could retreat with your fortress. You could steal with your fortress. You could drop it on a road, light it with spirit stones, and turn pursuit into a massacre.

[49000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

Everyone in the hall understood the value the moment they pictured it. A mobile shelter that could survive the first wave of a siege.

A portable gate that could buy time for reinforcements. A lifeline for a fleeing heir.

[51000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

[52500 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

In the mortal factions seated together, confidence curdled.

What they had brought felt like pocket change now, chum tossed into deep water. This was extreme wealth.

The price kept rising and rising, and many mortals stared at the numbers with a kind of stunned anger, not at Eldric, but at the world for being this expensive without warning.

Even some city lords tightened their jaws.

[57000 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]

They knew what it took to make an array like that. Not a shop artisan. Not a clever disciple with a few scrolls.

Array premiers, the cut experts above grandmaster, the ones who could read the five elements like a musician read notes.

A defensive formation was not a blade you forged for offense.

It was a living map of energy and flow across a wide area, a pattern that had to hold under stress without tearing itself apart.

One mistake in the channels and the whole thing became a coffin.

To reach that level of mastery, you needed more than talent. You needed cultivation deep enough to support the understanding.

[59100 High Grade Spirit Stones bid has been placed.]