"I believe all of you are no stranger to the name of the Sky-reaching Empress. There are countless portraits of the Sky-reaching Empress circulating in the world. However, most of them are imitations, and very few of them are authentic. However, the ancient painting that we are going to auction today has an extraordinary origin."
"Everyone should know that the Sky-reaching Empress was born in the imperial palace. When she was young, she experienced the rebellion of the imperial family. At the age of sixteen, she displayed extraordinary talent and became a Saint-level expert. She swept away the rebellion and ascended the throne as the Empress. That was also the beginning of the Sky-reaching Empress' fame."
"When the Empress ascended the throne, there was a court painter who painted a portrait of the Empress. Later on, after the passage of time, the portrait's whereabouts were unknown. This is the only portrait of the Sky-reaching Empress when she was sixteen years old. Even though the Sky-reaching Empress was still a young girl at that time, she already had the demeanor of a Great Emperor of the later generations."
"This portrait was discovered in an ancient ruin not long ago."
"It is precisely the portrait that everyone is looking at."
"The starting price for the portrait of the Sky-reaching Empress in her youth is five hundred billion spirit stones."
Upon hearing the starting price, many people frowned.
"Even if it's authentic, the starting price of five hundred billion spirit stones isn't too appropriate. After all, it's only a portrait."
"If the portrait contains the true meaning of the Sky-reaching Empress's Daoist technique, this price would be appropriate. However, no matter how I look at it, it's just an ordinary portrait."
"That's right, that's right. This price is too high. Who would spend five hundred billion spirit stones to buy a portrait and bring it home to worship?
I might as well offer it to the Three Pure Ones. "
Right at this moment, Bai Ruo 'an directly called out a price.
"I bid six hundred billion."
It was not only Bai Ruo 'an. Two other mysterious buyers also began to bid.
The price was instantly raised to eight hundred billion spirit stones.
The crowd that was still muttering a moment ago suddenly became absolutely silent.
There were truly spendthrifts.
Many people secretly shook their heads and directly gave up on the idea of competing.
Such a price was no longer something that ordinary people could afford.
After all, there were countless cultivation sects in the world that could not gather so many spirit stones even if they sold everything they had.
"One trillion."
Su Chen suddenly raised his hand.
Whoosh!
All eyes were on Su Chen.
Even Bai Ruo 'an was stunned. She frowned and looked at Su Chen. "Brother Su, you're also interested in this portrait?"
"I'm interested in the Heavenspan Empress."
As soon as these words came out, Bai Ruo 'an was momentarily speechless.
Alright, then they could only compete with their financial resources.
Bai Ruo 'an once again raised the price: "One hundred and two hundred billion."
The two mysterious men who had previously bid no longer spoke. Clearly, they had given up on the idea of continuing the competition.
Bai Ruo 'an faintly glanced at Su Chen with a hint of provocation.
Su Chen was neither happy nor sad as he raised the price. "One hundred and fifty billion."
Bai Ruo 'an: "… …"
Damn, is this guy for real?
His father had only given him 1.5 trillion. If he continued to raise the price, he would have to use his own private stash.
And from the looks of it, Su Chen didn't seem to have any intention of stopping.
Should he continue to fight?
After a moment of silence, Bai Ruo 'an finally shook her head and gave up.
It wasn't worth it.
Although his father had said that the value of this portrait was extraordinary, it wasn't worth it to spend 1.5 trillion to buy it.
The auctioneer counted down from three seconds and slammed the gavel: "Congratulations to this noble man for successfully obtaining the portrait of the Heavenspan Empress."
Su Chen smiled faintly and cupped his hands towards Bai Ruo 'an. "Brother Bai, you let me win."
The corner of Bai Ruo 'an's mouth twitched. "Brother Su's financial resources are astonishing. This fatty admits defeat."
With the portrait in hand, Su Chen wasn't interested in the rest of the auction. Moreover, he had already spent quite a lot of money. There was no point in continuing to squander it.
He stood up and went backstage to complete the transaction. One hundred and fifty billion was directly transferred to the auction house. Su Chen obtained the portrait of the Heavenspan Empress as he wished.
When the ancient painting entered his hands, Su Chen could clearly feel the phoenix origin contained within it resonating with the phoenix origin within his body.
However, now wasn't the time to absorb it.
Putting away the ancient painting, Su Chen directly left the auction house and returned to the inn where he was staying. He sealed the surrounding space with divine runes and took out the ancient painting again.
Without saying a word, Su Chen began to absorb the phoenix origin within the ancient painting.
"Hmm?"
Just as he was absorbing the origin power, Su Chen suddenly discovered that there seemed to be a very hidden soul fluctuation mixed within the origin power.
Su Chen immediately activated his soul power and enveloped the soul fluctuation.
Buzz!
Suddenly, an ethereal tremor sounded in Su Chen's mind.
The soul fluctuation actually broke through the seal of his soul power and directly projected into Su Chen's sea of consciousness.
Su Chen was startled. He thought that he had encountered some kind of trap.
However, after careful observation, Su Chen discovered that the soul power didn't show any signs of harming him.
The soul power turned into a ball of white light and hovered in his sea of consciousness, gradually forming a ball of light.
The ball of light trembled slightly, as if there was a mysterious force attracting it and moving it in a certain direction.
Was this soul gravity?
For better or worse, Su Chen was a Soul Grandmaster, so he could still understand this.
Su Chen immediately determined that the soul power contained in the ball of light came from the Sky-reaching Empress.
This was a wisp of soul power that the Sky-reaching Empress had extracted from her soul.
The so-called soul gravity was like a magnetic field, forming a special connection between the soul power and the Sky-reaching Empress' body.
This meant that Su Chen could find out where the Sky-reaching Empress was through this ball of light!
This was great news for Su Chen.
As long as he had the soul gravity of this ball of light, his chances of finding the Sky-reaching Empress would be much higher.
However, it seemed that the direction of the gravity was in the sky.
This meant that the Sky-reaching Empress wasn't in the Dong Sheng Divine Continent, but on another planet.
The starry sky was so vast. It was still not easy to find the Sky-reaching Empress just by knowing the general direction.
However, with this' compass', as long as Su Chen was given enough time, he was confident that he could find the Sky-reaching Empress.
And as long as he could meet the Sky-reaching Empress, he could use the method that Jin Fengxian left for him to subdue and control the Sky-reaching Empress!
Subduing a Great Emperor powerhouse seemed to be just around the corner!
Let's not think about this for now and continue to absorb the Phoenix origin.
It had to be said that the origin power contained in this portrait was very strong and brought great benefits to Su Chen.
After absorbing for half a day, he finally absorbed all the origin power in the portrait.
A huge amount of energy was constantly accumulating in Su Chen's body.
It seemed that he was about to break through the critical point.
Whoosh!
A powerful wave of spirit power came from the depths of Su Chen's sea of consciousness.
"Ding, congratulations to host for breaking through to the late stage of the Heaven Ascension realm. The reward is 100 billion skill points, five high-grade lottery chances, and one 'Breakthrough Pill'."