PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

620 Chapter 620 Heavenly Treasures

Although Xiauyue’s explanation about heavenly treasures seemed more like a warning than anything else, Claire still wanted to hear more about it. With at least a couple of hours before the auction started, Xiauyue was okay with talking more about it.

At the same time as Xiauyue’s explanation took place, Fei Long immediately requested room service for the auction staff to clean up the mess she made on the bed.

The woman who came to do the cleaning gave Fei Long an accusing look when she saw the state of the bed, especially when she saw some completely soaked or torn sheets. With an “Additional service will be charged to her account at the auction house,” the woman began to do her work.

Too embarrassed to bother the woman any further, Fei Long had to call to have someone else bring drinks and snacks to the room. Meanwhile, Xiauyue was explaining her experiences with heavenly treasures or rumors she heard from somewhere.

“During our adventures with Desmond, we found what can be considered a heavenly treasure; a special fruit called the twilight soul. The pain of consuming it is hard to describe, but the results cannot be disputed. In addition to tempering the body to a great extent, the fruit purified my and Fei’s bloodline. As if that were not enough, Desmond, Fei, and I obtained some illumination from the fruit. Truth be told, many of my best martial arts are still influenced by the enlightenment I got that day.” As she explained, Xiauyue displayed prowess in manipulating the Arcana outside her body, creating butterflies and flowers that looked incredibly realistic and stable.

To the untrained eye, Xiauyue’s feat might seem like little, especially knowing that Sasha could do something very similar. However, the two feats were in very different categories, mainly because of the differences between Aura and Mana.

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Mana was a very stable energy, allowing for better external than internal control. It was much better suited for manifesting physical constructs made from it. Although the dexterity could vary depending on the talent and the element, the Mana was more suitable for the type of manipulation Xiauyue was performing.

On the other hand, the Aura was a highly volatile energy that, once refined and tempered within a martial artist’s body, lost its ability to exist stably outside of it. For that reason, manifestation-type martial artists were scarce, especially ones as skilled as Xiauyue.

The more powerful someone in Aura Mastery became, the easier the manifestation process became, but the result would still be inferior to what a Mana user of the same level did.

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Of course, a martial artist would still be a killing machine based on his physical prowess alone as opposed to an Elementalist, so there was no way to use the manifestation criteria to say that one path was better than the other; these were just different.

Whatever the case, it seemed that the heavenly treasure helped Xiauyue become the great manifestation martial master she was today. Regarding that topic, Claire and Sasha knew little about it since Desmond mentioned his own advances obtained from the twilight soul on occasion.

According to Desmond, the enlightenment he gained that day slowly led him down the path of an Elementalist who used water as the core of his fighting style. Foreshadowing that heavenly treasure, Desmond mainly used metal and wind to reinforce his attacks, with fire and water as support elements only to use certain abilities.

Nowadays, most of Desmond’s arsenal was based on aquatic abilities, and that was because it was the element with which his mastery developed the fastest. Just recently, Desmond added the skill set given by Titania to his mastery of metal. Beyond that, Desmond had given up on fire and started developing a speed-based offensive skill set that used the wind element.

With just Xiauyue and Desmond as the basis for comparison, it was easy to tell how powerful the effects of Heavenly Treasures were. Well, Fei Long was also supposed to be added to the list. Still, according to Xiauyue, Fei Long’s case was special as almost all of the fruit’s power was spent purifying her powerful bloodline. Although the power and advantages that Fei Long gained were exceptional, she was an outlier, so she did not serve as a basis for comparison.

Finding the conversation very interesting, Claire and the rest didn’t even notice when the cleaner left; or when the appetizers arrived. It wasn’t until Fei Long sat next to Xiauyue and started eating that the rest realized the change.

Claire, Sasha, Revna, and Cecilia shared a strange look as they realized that, at some point, the bed in the corner of the room almost seemed to have been swapped for a new and completely different one. Only Xiauyue and Fei Long probably knew how intense they had been for hours and how close to the destruction they had brought that poor bed.

Trying not to think about the subject anymore, Claire continued with the previous conversation. “I remember you mentioned that sometimes the Heavenly Treasures have effects that are too specific or difficult to use. How is that?”

Xiauyue took a swallow of the drink Fei Long gave her and answered afterward. “Well, the problem with heavenly treasures is that they are usually defined by some concept or notion. Although its function was the tempering of the body, the soul of twilight was defined by the cycle of life and death, light and dark, vitality and decay. However, not all heavenly treasures have such clear or even positive effects due to the concepts or energies that gave birth to them.”

At that point, Fei Long interrupted, giving time for Xiauyue to have a well-deserved snack. “As Xiauyue explained, Heavenly Treasures are highly varied for that reason, and we have seen firsthand how that may not be a good thing. On one occasion, an idiot rushed to snatch a heavenly treasure in the middle of a contest, only to be poisoned to death. It turned out that the treasure was sweetly deceptive in its appearance. The damn thing was so poisonous that it had to be destroyed when even a poison expert sect couldn’t handle it; like that case, there are many more. Still, there are also cases where the function of the treasure is simply too specific, being useful only for certain types of people.”

With that note, Fei Long and Xiauyue explained some rarer cases concerning heavenly fruits while they all waited for the auction to arrive. From a fruit that changed the color of hair and skin to some exotic colors to a stone that allowed you to see your moment of greatest pain. There was even a strange pearl that, when consumed, changed your sex.

Almost anything useless, dangerous, or compelling was possible regarding heavenly treasures. Their reception was always quite mixed wherever they turned up at auction.

Xiauyue and Fei Long should have mentioned that they had been searching for a certain heavenly treasure for almost two years now without success. The yang bonding pearls, a gem they had both heard of but never been able to find or track.

Those pearls were something that Xiauyue and Feilong had begun to yearn for more and more. Yet, like all heavenly treasures, they were almost impossible to find. Only luck could help in these cases, and luck did not seem to be on either girl’s side.

Of all the places on the continent where those pearls could be, the Eternal War Maiden Sect would definitely be the most likely place. Nonetheless, Fei Long and Xiauyue hoped that would not be the case. If the pearls had been in this place, they would undoubtedly have already been consumed, reducing the duo’s chances of ever finding them.

Although neither of them said anything, Xiauyue and Fei Long couldn’t help but think about the topic throughout their talk about Heavenly Treasures. For better or worse, both girls’ train of thought was interrupted when the lights came on in the central podium that could be seen from the glass panel.

Accompanied by the turning on of the lights, a stunning-looking woman walked onto the stage wearing a red Qipao that showed off her smooth and seductive legs in all their glory. The black-haired woman with eyes as clear as spring water used her velvety soft voice to make an announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Heavenly Maiden Auction House’s annual auction are about to begin, so I hope you’re ready to drool over our treasures. Of course, you will have to pay a fortune for our treasures; It can’t be helped; beauty is very expensive, and ours is a sect full of beauties. As always, I must warn anyone with strange ideas about my sect sisters or any other women within our territory. Such a thing is a bad idea, and I strongly recommend against doing such a stupid thing. Please spare this poor Qiqi the need to call our dragon maidens guarding this auction house.”

With a seductive smile on her peach lips, Qiqi made a few cordial comments. Then she made a rather direct threat followed by all-pervasive pressure from the dragon maidens guarding the auction house.

Only people of the caliber of Xiauyue and Fei Long, as well as other VIP guests, ignored the pressure; after all, they were monsters in their own right. However, the deterrent was still there, as no one wanted to take on a sect that could afford to use such powerful fighters as mere guards.

Seeing that she got the desired effect, the host Qiqi continued. “Well, since the rules are clear to everyone, it’s time to start our auction, ladies and gentlemen.”