Chương 77: Once In Two Decades Auction That Conveniently Happens in Time

Both Fatty Zhang and Ren Qingquan embarked on the Pure Wave Sect's ship that soon flew to the sky. To reward himself for his hard work, Ren Qingquan decided not to cultivate or do anything except read novels, eat, watch others through the observation function, or sleep. While reading a cultivation-style murder mystery novel, he remembered something.

'System, now that I don't plan to do any more massive upgrades, it's time to update the subsystem for Ren Xuan and let him feel the increase in scan range. Also, send him a system update notification.' [Alright. By the way, that senior brother Lin is the murderer. He used a remote sword-control technique mentioned on page 5 to kill the victim and used the wind-dispersal flower mentioned on page 2 to disperse the trace of his spirit qi and make the scene look like a suicide. Btw, the victim's dao partner, who specializes in hypnosis techniques, is a red herring.]'NOOOOOOO!!!!! How dare you spoil me!' Ren Qingquan expressionlessly closed the screen in front of him while screaming internally. Mwahahaha. How dare you order me as you please. Face the cruel wrath of a system! I shifted my attention from the screaming Ren Qingquan to Ren Xuan for a moment and sent him a notification. [Ding! System update available. The automatic system update will begin in five seconds. Please wait while the system is updating. During the update, all available functions can still be used.] Ren Xuan, who's been busy looking for a bargain in the East Fortune City market, paused when he saw my notification. Before he could do anything, I sent him another notification. [Update complete. Please check the changes yourself.] Perhaps my sudden notification startled him. I saw Ren Xuan leave the market and enter an inn where he had rented a room. Once inside, Ren Xuan checked my functions.

After testing a few functions that remained unchanged, He paused at the map function. The previously 20-meter radius map has increased to 400 meters. Seeing the massive increase in range, Ren Xuan looked thoughtful before finally muttering, "Well, no matter what the reason for the sudden upgrade is, the increased range will be extremely advantageous for me, especially on that inheritance ground."

Ren Xuan tinkered with his subsystem and tried other features, such as the newly added [Scan] frequency-changing function that can extend his divine sense range, before he went to cultivate in the inn. I kept my attention for a moment before checking on the other people I've anchored. Except for Peak Master Feng Yun's main body, who is sleeping in a grassy area while surrounded by rabbits, birds, cats, and other small animals like a D sn y princess, they're either working, traveling, or cultivating.

After a few days of flying, the Pure Wave Sect's ship stopped in a small cultivator city for a day. Ren Qingquan followed the others to disembark, kill some demon beasts, and recover his points before returning to the ship a few hours before it departed. For the next month, Ren Qingquan kept going to kill some demon beasts and used the Soul Swallowing Technique every time he disembarked from the ship.

Right now, in addition to many strong aquatic corpses, Ren Qingquan also has a considerable number of land-based corpses stored in his personal space. Of course, due to the full storage space, he needed to give up some of the fish corpses to give space for the land-based corpses. Except for killing beasts, Ren Qingquan also went to modify their corpses to create abominations or cultivate while devouring pills like candy.

Thanks to the pills and his efforts to swallow the souls of demon beasts over the past month, Ren Qingquan's cultivation has advanced to the Third Stage of the Golden Core realm. A month and twenty days after the ship left Vermilion Lotus Sect's market, it no longer stopped every one to three days. After another five days of continuous flight, Ren Qingquan grew curious and asked Fatty Zhang while eating in the ship's cafeteria, "Fatty Zhang, do you know why we haven't stopped for the past few days?"

Fatty Zhang swallowed his food and replied, "I heard that this time the Pure Wave Sect's merchant ships are taking a new route because the sect has just gained some new business. We aren't stopping because it seems the sect miscalculated the timeline. After choosing a route that passes by many small cultivator cities, they decided to take a shortcut midway to catch up with an important decennial auction in the next city." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Ren Qingquan grew extremely excited when he heard about the auction. Meanwhile, I grew stunned and had a weird feeling. [Host, ask Fatty Zhang what the name of that city is.] Ren Qingquan looked confused, but he still asked, "Fatty Zhang, do you know what the next city is called?"

"Hmm? Have I never told you before? The next city is called the East Fortune City. It's one of the biggest cultivator cities in the world."

"Ah?" Not only me, but even Ren Qingquan got dumbfounded when he heard it. Ren Qingquan also often went to observe Ren Xuan's situation when he got bored, and he knew that Ren Xuan had been staying in the East Fortune City. Actually, not only Ren Xuan but also the Miscellaneous Hall Master had stayed there for some time. Su Ping, the child of destiny with dual pupils, and the spectator guy Ren Qingquan met in the Vermilion Lotus Sect's market have also just arrived in East Fortune City.

Even though Ren Qingquan used the Pure Wave Sect's merchant ship, as Fatty Zhang said, they're taking a roundabout route that passes by many smaller cultivation cities. Meanwhile, Su Ping, the child of destiny with dual pupils, and the spectator guy walked straight to East Fortune City, allowing them to arrive sooner. After another seven days, the Pure Wave Sect's ship finally approached East Fortune City.

Over the past four days, the ships seemed to be passing through a forbidden area filled with many demonic beasts. There were two Nascent Soul realm demon beasts and even one giant bird at the Soul Formation stage that tried to attack the Pure Wave Sect's ships. Thankfully, the expert stationed on the ship reacted quickly. They flew into the sky and repelled the demon beasts. Honestly, I kinda feel it's a pity that they didn't kill them and let me get some points for free.

From an alchemy room he rented, Ren Qingquan was busy modifying his corpses when the ship's announcement rang.

"Greetings, dear passenger, the ship will soon arrive at East Fortune Cultivator City. We'll be staying in the city for one month. Exactly thirty days before continuing on our journey." Except for the familiar arrival announcement, there's also an additional announcement.

"A warm reminder. Tomorrow, East Fortune City's decennial auction will be held. For those who wish to join the auction, please immediately sign up at the auction building." In my mind, I heard Ren Qingquan's plan to delay his level-up for the sake of joining the auction. I didn't stop him and instead reminded. [Host, if you plan to join the auction, please don't forget to wear makeup and use a spirit tool that specializes in disguise.]'Why?'

Ren Qingquan felt confused for a moment before something clicked in his mind.

'Is it because there's going to be a lot of children of destiny in the auction?' [There's that. But also because Ren Xuan will definitely be there, and he has the System's recently upgraded [Scan] observation function and frequency changing function. The upgraded [Scan] lets him detect other people within 400 meters. So unless you can find a way to constantly hide beyond his 400-meter range, you'd better wear a disguise. Otherwise, who knows what he'll do when he sees you. From what the System sees, he seems to think you're already dead.] [Of course, System will help you to hide from Ren Xuan's [Scan]. But there's only so much that System can do without raising Ren Xuan's suspicion.] Ren Qingquan nodded and went to browse the items in his portable space, specifically the items in the storage building.

Although most of the items in the storage were either weapon-type spirit tools, talismans, spirit stones, or other miscellaneous resources, he still found a specialized disguise spirit tool. It was a wide-brimmed straw hat with a veil that could hide someone from the neck up. When Ren Qingquan saw it, he was a bit confused about how it worked and tried to wear it.

After imbuing a bit of spirit qi into the hat, his face became completely blurry from the outside, making it difficult to even tell the gender or facial shape. My [Scan] also felt a bit of resistance when it tried to peek inside the veiled hat from the outside. It's just a tiny weeny bit of resistance, though. The resistance is even weaker than the resistance from the stones in the Pure Wave Sect's secret underground area below the main hall.

After trying it, Ren Qingquan asked me, 'System, can this thing really hide from Ren Xuan's [Scan]? I fell silent. This is the first time I've felt that having such OP abilities is pretty troublesome. [Probably no. [Scan] is simply too good at piercing through obstruction.]'Then, we'll do it the traditional way? With the magic of makeup?' Ren Qingquan asked. [Sure. The system thinks there are some waterproof cosmetic recipes you can make with the ingredients already in your storage.] I browsed some of the books I've scanned and found a few cosmetic recipes. After filtering out those whose ingredients aren't readily available, I finally prepared a few recipes to make primer, foundation, and rouge powder. There's also a method to create fake flesh that can be used to temporarily change Ren Qingquan's body shape. I used my [Scan] and [Calculate] to help Ren Qingquan disguise himself by guiding him to apply cosmetics step by step.

Once he was done, Ren Qingquan's appearance had changed to that of a slightly short man in his late thirties. After leaving the alchemy room, Ren Qingquan went to his own room and soon saw Fatty Zhang knocking on his door. Ren Qingquan opened the door, and Fatty Zhang immediately barged in.

"Young Master Ren, do you... wait, I apologize for barging into the wrong room." Then Fatty Zhang left the room and reentered after he saw the correct room number.

"Who are you? Why did you barge into someone else's room?" Fatty Zhang shouted loud enough that a quarter of the ship could probably hear him.

"It's me! It's me! I am just trying a disguise technique." When Fatty Zhang heard Ren Qingquan's undisguised voice, he asked, "Young Master Ren?" Ren Qingquan said, "Yes. Why did you come to visit me now?" Fatty Zhang replied, "At first, I planned to bother you to bring out some items I plan to sell in the city. But when I passed by the cafeteria, I met Senior Acorn Tree, Peak Master Feng Yun, and two elders who asked me to bring you to meet them there."

"Why?" Ren Qingquan wondered why the Peak Master and the others wanted to meet him.

"If I have to guess, it's probably because of the auction," Fatty Zhang replied. Ren Qingquan nodded upon hearing that and followed Fatty Zhang to meet Peak Master Feng Yun and the others. Before they reached the cafeteria, a small rodent darted out and ran toward them.

"Ren... wait, who are you?" Senior Acorn Tree the squirrel looked wide eyed at Ren Qingquan.