Chapter 350

Chapter 350: How Is It So Fast?

Wang Jie glanced toward the private room. Whoever was inside had fought him for the Extreme Cold Essence before, and now they were fighting him again—for the Memory-Devouring Spider Nest.

Was it actually useful… or was the bidder deliberately targeting him?

Probably not. The other side likely didn’t even know who he was.

Inside the private room, the young man was already seething.

“Investigate. I want to know exactly who’s on the other side. How dare they bid against this young master—are they tired of living?”

Behind him, the maid bowed, her voice gentle. “Young Master, please don’t be angry. They don’t know it’s you. If they did, they wouldn’t dare compete.”

“Open the window.”

“Th-this window won’t open. And the auction house rules don’t allow us to threaten guests directly.”

“I don’t care. This is the Third Zen. This young master makes the rules. And Star Vault Vista still dares to bare its teeth at me?”

The maid sighed and pushed at the window again. It wouldn’t budge.

From inside, the hall was perfectly visible; from outside, no one could see in. The design existed for a reason—to prevent guests from using their identities to threaten other bidders.

Wang Jie raised his bid again.

The young man raised it right back.

The price climbed higher and higher until, in the blink of an eye, it hit six hundred million.

Wang Jie frowned. Who was stubborn enough to keep forcing it up like this?

Six hundred million could hire someone to kill a Hundred-Star Realm expert. Wang Jie had money, but he couldn’t play this kind of game.

Then the window of the private room he’d been watching shattered outward.

A beautiful woman appeared first in the opening. A young man stood behind her.

It wasn’t just Wang Jie who saw it. Everyone did.

The young man leaned out and roared, “Who dares bid against this young master? Are you tired of living?”

The crowd below erupted at once.

“It’s that little young lord. Someone’s in trouble.”

“Who’s unlucky enough to anger him?”

“The grandson of the First Zen—crown prince of the entire Third Zen. Thank heavens we didn’t bid.”

Wang Jie listened to the murmurs, eyes narrowing. The First Zen’s grandson?

No wonder he was so overbearing.

Threats weren’t allowed at an auction. If people could bully bidders openly, who would dare participate?

Now it depended on what Star Vault Auction House would do.

They moved fast. Someone immediately sealed the broken window from the outside. The maid tried to force it open again, but it still wouldn’t budge.

The young man kept shouting anyway, until Star Vault Auction House sent someone into his room to speak with him.

Wang Jie seized the opening and won the Memory-Devouring Spider Nest.

Six hundred million was inflated, but still within reason.

As for offending that crown prince… it didn’t matter. The other side didn’t know who he was.

No one knew how the dispute was resolved. They only knew the crown prince stormed out after throwing down a few vicious words, and before leaving, he shot a poisonous glare toward Wang Jie’s private room.

Wang Jie suddenly remembered one of his requirements: make a brat cry. This guy counted as a brat, didn’t he?

The auction continued.

Near the end, the final item appeared—a five-tribulations chen artifact saber.

Wang Jie’s eyes lit up. It was excellent, and more importantly, it could complete his mission.

“Next is our final item: a five-tribulations chen artifact, the Returning Wind Hazy Moon Saber. This saber comes from… Bidding begins now. Starting price—2.3 billion starstones.”

A normal five-tribulations chen artifact went for around two billion, but they were usually impossible to purchase even with money.

Five-tribulations chen artifacts were suited for Star-Refining Realm cultivators. Even within clans and sects, they were treasured heirlooms passed down like bloodlines.

Even Madam Miao might not have one.

And for giants like Black-White Heaven and the Third Zen, their stock of five-tribulations chen artifacts was never enough.

Wang Jie hadn’t expected to run into a five-tribulations chen artifact auction today.

Below, people sent messages out in a frenzy.

Then the bids started climbing, one after another.

Wang Jie knew he was in trouble. This saber would be hard to buy—and even if he did buy it, it would draw eyes he didn’t want.

He couldn’t afford any accidents.

So he bid twice, just enough to look involved, then stopped the moment the numbers kept rising.

Sure enough, more and more people joined in. They had powerful backers.

The Third Zen might not have many more Star-Refining Realm experts than Black-White Heaven, but it had far more Hundred-Star Realm cultivators.

What Hundred-Star Realm cultivator wouldn’t want a good weapon after breaking through?

The Third Zen was especially skilled in saber arts, and the Returning Wind Hazy Moon Saber would fetch a fortune. How much, Wang Jie didn’t know—and he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

He left.

He needed to get to Madam Miao as quickly as possible.

To reach Madam Miao, he needed a ship. The moment he exited Star Vault Auction House, he headed straight for the Star Vault Ship Exchange.

He didn’t notice the figure watching him from afar.

“Keep your eyes on him,” the young man said coldly. “He dared to compete with me, so he’s tired of living. Does he really think I can’t find him?”

He lowered a telescope-like device. It was strange—when he looked into the distance, a faint line seemed to stretch from the device all the way to Wang Jie.

Wang Jie sensed nothing.

The young man was Jiang Yu, the grandson of the First Zen.

Behind him, the maid searched a personal terminal, then gasped. “Found him. So it’s him.”

Jiang Yu raised an eyebrow. “That guy is a Zen Heir Disciple?”

The maid nodded. “Young Master, he’s Zen Mountain’s Zen Heir Disciple, Lu Bu Qi. He just took control of a mountain range. Someone like that isn’t easy to touch.”

Jiang Yu’s expression tightened. “Go call Old Ji.”

The maid bowed and left.

Jiang Yu’s gaze swept the distant stars again, hard as ice. “Dare to mess with me, and it doesn’t matter who you are—you won’t get away.”

The Star Vault Ship Exchange wasn’t far. Wang Jie arrived quickly.

He bought a Nebula-class ship.

A Nebula-class ship started at one hundred million starstones and could match Star-Refining Realm speed. It was terrifyingly fast, far beyond his void splint.

Without time-space vortices, it could cross Star Chain in under five days.

Now that he had money, he was buying the best.

The only problem was the wait: ten days.

The people who had accepted missions to Madam Miao had already departed. From the Third Zen to Madam Miao took at most thirteen days.

Madam Miao sat right beside the Third Zen. With a Nebula-class ship, three days would be enough to reach it—but the timing would be tight.

“Do you have a Star Chain-class ship?” Wang Jie pressed. “Do you have one?”

“We have Star Chain-class ships in stock,” the clerk said. “But their speed is nowhere near a Nebula-class ship.”

Wang Jie did the math. A Star Chain-class ship would take roughly fifteen days from here to Madam Miao—two days too slow, even if he could leave immediately.

In the end, he chose to wait.

The ship cost three hundred million, the most basic Nebula-class model. As for the top-tier Universe-class ships, he could afford one, but he couldn’t buy one. The waiting list was endless.

The ship’s name was Starwatch.

During those ten days, he didn’t return to the Sunset-Glow Mountain Range. He stayed at the exchange, in the lounge reserved for customers waiting on delivery.

It was quiet. No one bothered him.

Wang Jie used the time to practice his saber.

One of the requirements for the Myriad-Instant Slash was a hundred million cuts. Even if he never ate or drank and swung One Blade once per second, it would still take three years.

He couldn’t afford to waste three years doing nothing but swinging a saber.

So he swung whenever he had time.

Now Jiang Yu watched him like a hawk.

As crown prince of the Third Zen, no one had ever disrespected him like this. He couldn’t pick a fight with Star Vault Vista, so he decided to take it out on Wang Jie instead.

But Wang Jie remained inside the exchange. Jiang Yu had nowhere to act.

“Old Ji,” Jiang Yu asked in a low voice, “can we drag him out?”

Beside him stood the maid and a middle-aged man. After hearing Jiang Yu, the man replied helplessly, “That’s Star Vault Vista territory. We can’t make a move there. Even if we could, Lu Bu Qi is Zen Mountain’s Zen Heir Disciple. Attacking him would be a slap in the face to the Second Zen. It would stir trouble between Zen Mountain and the Zen Hall.”

Jiang Yu scowled. “So there’s nothing we can do?”

“Wait,” Old Ji said. “Once he leaves the Third Zen, we can act. He’s buying a ship, so he’s bound to leave.”

Jiang Yu sneered. “Fine. I’ll wait. It’s not like I have anything better to do. So what if he’s a Zen Heir Disciple? He dared to bid even knowing it was me. I’ll show him what it means to mess with Jiang Yu.”

The maid exchanged a glance with Old Ji, both of them looking weary.

They knew the crown prince’s temperament. He wouldn’t kill anyone—at most, he’d “teach a lesson.”

But even a lesson would offend Zen Mountain.

The best solution was to let Zen Mountain handle it themselves, but the crown prince would never agree.

He was throwing a childish tantrum.

Wang Jie waited ten days.

Jiang Yu waited ten days too.

In that time, Wang Jie swung his saber five hundred thousand times. He needed rest, so he wasn’t cutting every single second. Even so, five hundred thousand was still a speck compared to a hundred million—but it gave him new insight.

The saber in his hand felt different now.

It felt like his hand moved with his heart, and his heart moved with his will.

Every One Blade felt as though it could cut through anything.

The simpler it was, the harder it became.

A hundred million cuts weren’t as dull as he’d imagined. He was starting to get interested.

He wondered what his saber would become after a hundred million cuts.

The Starwatch arrived right on schedule—ten days, no more, no less.

Wang Jie paid the balance, boarded, and the Starwatch departed Outer Zen for Madam Miao.

To avoid being noticed, Jiang Yu’s group deliberately left a little later. They didn’t want Wang Jie reporting them to Zen Mountain.

“Don’t worry, Young Master,” the maid said confidently. “We’re on a Nebula-class ship—the fastest kind. Lu Bu Qi can’t get away.”

Old Ji stared into the starry sky, expression calm.

As far as he knew, the Star Vault Ship Exchange in Outer Zen had ships below Star Chain-class available immediately. If Lu Bu Qi had bought one of those, he wouldn’t have needed to wait.

If he waited ten days, there were only two possibilities: he’d customized a ship with special features… or he’d ordered a Nebula-class ship.

Old Ji didn’t say it aloud.

This wasn’t a life-and-death feud. It was a child’s urge for revenge.

“Huh?” Jiang Yu suddenly blurted. “How is he so fast?”

The maid checked at once, her face going pale. “Young Master… he’s on a Nebula-class ship. Its speed is the same as ours.”

Jiang Yu exploded. “What? Chase him—now. No, go buy a Universe-class ship!”

“You can’t buy a Universe-class ship,” Old Ji said flatly.

Jiang Yu snapped at the maid to push the engines and pursue. He glared into the starfield, furious. “That Lu Bu Qi is suspicious. How can he afford a Nebula-class ship?”

The words made Old Ji’s heart stir.

It was true. This kid was only a lockforce cultivator, yet he had a Zen token, could control a mountain range, and could now afford a Nebula-class ship. None of that fit an ordinary lockforce cultivator.

Something was off.

The maid lowered her voice. “Zen token disciples aren’t allowed to be investigated, Young Master. Even if he is suspicious, it won’t help.”

Jiang Yu ground his teeth. “What if he’s a spy? What if another bridge-pillar planted him in our Third Zen? I don’t care. We’re going to find out. Little brat—you won’t get away.”

Inside the Starwatch, Wang Jie lounged comfortably with a drink in hand.

So comfortable.

This was real speed.

Back during that club mission, he’d ridden a Nebula-class ship. Now he finally had one of his own.

Spending money felt amazing.

He needed to earn more.

How could cultivation be shackled by resources?

He looked out at the stars and estimated that, at most, the Third Zen’s people would reach Madam Miao in two days.