Chapter 474: Earning Money is Not Easy

’An auction? Tsk, sounds like a place that burns through money.’

’But by the same token, there must be a lot of good stuff.’

Lu Sangjiu felt she definitely didn’t have the money to buy anything. ’But... I’m pretty clueless around here. If I have time, it might be good to go to the auction just to broaden my horizons?’

After a moment’s hesitation, she took the flyer and nodded. "Thank you. I’ll take a good look at it!"

Leaving the general store, Lu Sangjiu wandered the streets for a while, mainly to see if Ji Li had given up looking for her during the year she’d spent in seclusion.

Unfortunately, the wanted posters were still up, which frustrated Lu Sangjiu immensely.

So, she found a random restaurant, ordered a few small dishes, and looked over the list of auction items while she ate.

As she scanned the list, she suddenly spotted something that piqued her interest!

’Ten Thousand Fusion Stones?’

She carefully read the description of the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones. To put it simply, this ore could fuse anything and everything.

It could merge two completely incompatible items, including materials with conflicting attributes. It could even forcibly fuse an Immortal Artifact and a Demon Artifact.

That last sentence hit Lu Sangjiu right where it counted! She desperately needed this to strengthen her Domination Map Blade!

Her own qi was already a fusion of Demonic Qi and Spiritual Energy. Although she could use both Immortal Artifacts and Demon Artifacts, there was no doubt that merging them into a single weapon would allow her to unleash even greater power!

She’d never dared to imagine it before because she hadn’t even known something like the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones existed in the world.

But now that she knew, how could she not be tempted?

Tempted as she was, Lu Sangjiu kept a level head after calming down.

For now, this was just the auction house’s claim. Besides, fusing an Immortal Artifact and a Demon Artifact wasn’t something most people would do. Even if it were true, it was likely only possible in theory; it was doubtful anyone had actually succeeded in practice.

’What’s more...’ Lu Sangjiu frowned. ’Maybe I’m overthinking it, but the emphasis on fusing Immortal and Demon Artifacts seems a little... deliberate.’

’I have an enemy who knows me very well. It’s best to be careful about everything.’

So before deciding whether or not to go to the auction, she needed to learn more about these Ten Thousand Fusion Stones through various channels!

Over the next period, Lu Sangjiu cautiously asked around about the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones. She even used Spirit Stones to bribe some Sect Disciples into helping her check their sects’ Book Collection Pavilions.

Through these multiple avenues of investigation, Lu Sangjiu managed to learn the gist of the matter regarding the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones.

The description on the auction flyer hadn’t exaggerated. The item really could fuse anything, and the process was simple: just place the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones together with the materials you want to merge and start refining.

Its function was truly powerful, but correspondingly, the item was also extremely rare.

Logically, something so powerful and rare should be very expensive.

But the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones often failed to fetch a high price.

This was because, generally speaking, whether for Elixir Pills or Magic Treasures, combining items with compatible attributes was what created the greatest value.

Therefore, very few people actually needed to refine something that required the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones for fusion.

For an ordinary person with insufficient skill, the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones could serve an auxiliary function.

But the item was prohibitively expensive, and using it to compensate for common technical issues was simply not worth the cost.

This led to a situation where the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones were indeed a rare commodity, but they often couldn’t sell for a high price.

Its situation could be described as extremely awkward.

In fact, this wasn’t the first time these particular Ten Thousand Fusion Stones had been put up for auction.

They first appeared at a major auction house eight months ago, where their owner set a starting bid of one hundred thousand top-grade Spirit Stones.

This exorbitant price daunted the few people who showed any slight interest, so naturally, the item went unsold.

Since then, these Ten Thousand Fusion Stones had appeared in various auction houses, always with the same high price of one hundred thousand top-grade Spirit Stones, and without exception, they always went unsold.

After learning this, Lu Sangjiu made a special trip to an auction house in a nearby city that had previously tried to sell the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones to make inquiries.

According to the rules, the auction house couldn’t casually disclose client information, so Lu Sangjiu couldn’t find out who the owner was.

She could only ask about other details indirectly and eventually learned that they had advised the owner to lower the price, but the owner had flatly refused.

The owner claimed that Ten Thousand Fusion Stones were a rare find and that eventually, a true connoisseur would come along. He was willing to wait, but he would absolutely not sell them at a reduced price.

And indeed, the owner had stuck to his word. At the very least, the auction flyer Lu Sangjiu currently held still listed the high price of one hundred thousand top-grade Spirit Stones.

Lu Sangjiu couldn’t help but be suspicious about this whole affair.

’It really... feels too much like someone is fishing.’

And she strongly suspected that she was the fish they were trying to catch.

Because even though it was so suspicious, Lu Sangjiu still couldn’t suppress her restless heart.

’The Ten Thousand Fusion Stones... I really want them so badly!’

If she could fuse an Immortal Artifact with her Domination Map Blade, Lu Sangjiu didn’t dare to imagine how powerful she would become.

Lu Sangjiu agonized over whether to risk getting the Ten Thousand Fusion Stones for a long time, but in the end, she didn’t want to let this opportunity pass her by.

But setting aside the danger for a moment, there was the matter of the one hundred thousand top-grade Spirit Stones—which Lu Sangjiu didn’t have!

One hundred thousand top-grade Spirit Stones was equivalent to one hundred Immortal Stones. All told, she could only scrounge up about twenty-seven or twenty-eight Immortal Stones right now, which was far from enough.

This feeling of having something she desired so close yet so out of reach was agonizing for Lu Sangjiu.

In her anguish, she decided to forget everything else. The most important thing right now was to make some money!

The auction in Giant Shark City was in three months. She still had time. Who knew, maybe she could get her hands on one hundred thousand top-grade Spirit Stones by then?

Although her previous experience told her that killing people and looting their treasures was indeed a fast way to make money.

But Lu Sangjiu wasn’t that kind of vicious person; she couldn’t just go around hunting down ordinary Cultivators.

So in the end, she decided... ’Maybe I should try some entrapment?’

’There’s no shortage of villains in this world. If I pretend to be a naive little bunny, I might be able to lure a few in.’

And so, Lu Sangjiu actually tried this a few times, but her earnings were pitiful.

After all, these ordinary Loose Cultivators didn’t have much to their names. After turning the tables on and killing three groups of people, her final haul was only a few thousand top-grade Spirit Stones.

Instead, the whole affair had wasted more than half a month of her time. At this rate, even if she continued her entrapment scheme nonstop, she’d be lucky to earn fifty or sixty Immortal Stones after three months.

Just when she was at her wit’s end, she suddenly received news that a Secret Realm, open to Cultivators below the Heavenly Immortal Level, was about to open...