Xia Fei took the thing in his hand out and closely examined it. He saw that it was a rare white fruit, its body filled with rugged lines like brushstrokes on a landscape painting. It looked like a porcelain craft, giving a very unreal feeling to anyone who laid eyes on it.
“The Emperor Camel Dragonfruit!” Phantom gasped. “This is a priceless Emperor Camel Dragonfruit.”
Emperor Camel Dragonfruit you say? Is it worth a lot?”
Phantom was speechless. You already have a networth in the hundreds of millions, so why do you still keep defaulting toward money? This is a treasured exotic fruit that has long gone extinct; eating it will have the effect of reviving the dead, so how can it be bought with money? It’s truly unthinkable that Sun Zhan will have something so precious.”
Xia Fei thought about it for some time. “Don’t you think it’s strange.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sun Zhan and his Nanming Association is just some nameless organization that no one has ever heard of, yet he has so many rare and precious items like the Zephyr combat boots or the Emperor Camel Dragonfruit. What’s even more baffling is the fact that these items have all disappeared from the known world for many years and are considered peerless masterpieces. Something strange must be afoot if things are abnormal; there must surely be some secret amidst all this that we don’t know of.”
Phantom nodded in agreement. “You’re right. Zephyr combat boots are made from the leather of the twin claws soaring dragon, while a Emperor Camel Dragonfruit only grows on the Emperor Camel Dragon tree which has disappeared from tens of thousands of years, blossoming every thousand years while bearing fruit every ten thousand years. It’s beyond precious, so there’s no way it can remain in such a pristine condition to this day. This is far too strange. No, you must make sense of everything behind this.”
Xia Fei shook his head. “There’s no rush. Shun Zhan must surely have his reasons for intentionally keeping the matter of the Nanming Association a secret. If we just go and ask him about it now, I’m afraid that we will just come under suspicion. Besides, he’s already part of the Adjudicator Union. Why don’t I first get to know him better before prying the truth from him, bit by bit?”
“You’re really patient.” Phantom shrugged.
Xia Fei laughed. “An anxious heart will never be able to eat hot tofu; this is an unchanging truth.”
…
The next few days of the carnival were relatively peaceful. Xia Fei had managed to obtain plenty of decent items, but they were still far from what he hoped to obtain.
Xia Fei learned from asking around that the real climax of the carnival would be the final seven days. There was a series of auctions occurring in those seven days, which would have the really good stuff that was hard to put a price tag on, and that was why such goods would be auctioned to be won by the highest bidder.
This had always been the rule of the carnival; the first seven days would be the run-of-the-mill items, while the final seven would witness a bloody monetary massacre—a fierce competition over rare treasures, with the last day reserved for the climax of the climax.
The organizers of this carnival would select the most valuable, precious, and luxurious item among all the lots put for auction on the fifteenth day while also picking out the king bidder for this carnival.
…
Though Xia Fei was not normally the sort to be extravagant and wasteful, he was more than willing to compete at all cost if he came across equipment which could be very useful to him.
Furball had been sleeping in Xia Fei’s bosom this whole time. After learning from his lesson the last time, Xia Fei had decided to reduce its intake of the Purple Heart of Spirit, letting it absorb the clone energy ball he made every few days or so.
He had no wish of letting Furball become some cunning and treacherous exotic beast. If that was the case, what use would thee beast be even if it was high grade?
Every day, Xia Fei would spend his morning taking a trip around the Thirteen Pearl Islands, hoping to find what he needed, making his way back to his hotel when afternoon arrived and training until dawn.
Of course, he still called Avril every day, chatting and emotionally connecting with her.
The new house had already been completely decorated, and Avril was very confident with her taste, promising Xia Fei that he would definitely be satisfied.
Xia Fei said, “With you by my side, I’d be satisfied even if we were to live in a shack; I’d suffer from insomnia even if I were staying in the most luxurious castle without you.”
Avril blushed red, lowering her head, not saying a word.
……
In the blink of an eye, it was the fifth day of the carnival, and it was getting closer and closer to the auction.
After dinner, Xia Fei went out by himself to train. The location for his meteor ball training had already changed from the mountain side to the forest.
With countless trees serving as natural barriers, Xia Fei’s training got even harder.
In five days, Xia Fei completed the first stage of the meteor ball primary training mode, with the size of the meteors reducing some more, making them even harder to catch.
Limbering up his body, Xia Fei prepared to first carry out a round of Crafty Approach before he started on his meteor ball. He then cultivated his Beast Spirit Codex.
Completing the round from the beginning to the closing action at one go, Phantom could not help but cheer heartily. “Training with the meteor balls is truly wonderful; I’m afraid that no one in the Assassin Sect will have the physical agility that you possess now!”
Xia Fei nodded. “Speaking of the Assassin Sect, there’s yet to be anything from them. They have me as their envoy, yet they haven’t assign me any work. Is that normal?”
Phantom responded, “There’s nothing strange about that. Besides, Grand Elder Shadowless only wanted you to take up the position in name. What, are you hoping to do some work for them?’
Xia Fei hurriedly shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m only worried that by the time someone from the sect remembers to have me do something, I won’t have time for it.”
Before Xia Fei could even finish his speech in thought, a flash of red neon light from far in the sea appeared; the brilliance of which seemed quite a distance from the Sparrow Island Xia Fei was currently on.
“Ah? What was that?” Xia Fei curiously wondered out loud.
All of a sudden, the neon light burst in every direction, changing into a silvery squall, dancing madly as it shot forth to the clouds from the calm sea surface.
“That’s the demonic squall!” Phantom yelped. “That’s the sign of an ancient civilization ruin being opened!”
“Demonic squall!” Xia Fei exclaimed. He had already read about it from books; the ancient civilization had energy protection in place to protect their cities from harsh climate and enemy attacks.
If an ancient city remained undisturbed and had not been swallowed by the robot army, the protection system in place could preserve it all the time, but even the best machinery produced by the ancient civilization could not remain in operation forever, and after many years of natural weather, these energy protection systems slowly deteriorated, enough for a powerful external force exerted on the protection systems to make them blow up.
This was why people had named the explosion of this energy protection system as demonic squall! It meant completely intact ancient ruins had been unveiled.
To think the Thousand Islands would have completely intact ancient ruins—Xia Fei simply could not believe his eyes!
The only thing he was uncertain about, though, was whether the ancient ruins this time had resurfaced due to years of neglect or had been discovered by someone who proceeded to blow the whole thing up. If it was the latter, then perhaps someone had already taken the lead!
“Quick, we need to get there fast! According to the alliance’s Protection Act on ancient civilization ruins, the first people to enter can take for themselves their find, so if we manage to get our hands on some precious relics, we’ll be rich!” Phantom yelled, his ears red.
“Yeah!” Xia Fei nodded as he sped off to the pier.
It was nighttime, and the staff around had already knocked off from work. There were dozens of empty high-speed jet yachts with no one at the helm by the docks.
Xia Fei decisively used his Celestial Moon and cut the ropes holding one such yacht, leaping aboard.
A quick brush of his finger on his spatial ring and Xia Fei pulled out his personal toolkit. It hardly took him much time or effort to bypass the boat’s lock function.
*Zoom—*
The high-speed jet yacht let out a loud roar as he sped out of the pier, going at a speed well over 1500 kilometers an hour as he steered it in the direction of the demonic squall!
*Whoosh!*
A rapid passenger plane flew overhead, its tail end flashing high altitude indicators, seemingly heading for where the supposed ancient ruins were sighted.
The rapid passenger plane was faster than his jet yacht, so Xia Fei spat, “F*ck! Someone’s going to be a step ahead of us!”
Just as he said this, he saw two similar yachts coming from his left and right. It looked like quite a lot of people had witnessed the phenomenon moments ago; there was bound to be a little competition over this!
Xia Fei swiftly took out his Bloodthirsty Ice God armor from his spatial ring and wore it with the Zephyr combat boots, his Celestial Moon gleaming coldly on his right arm.
“I’m not gonna let some intact ancient ruins slip my hands. Since a fight’s what they want, I’m not about to go easy on them!” Xia Fei promised himself.
Half an hour later, a pitch-black island appeared in front of Xia Fei. This place differed from the other islands as it was uninhabited, and no light illuminating the place, looking completely desolate at first glance.
The size of the island was not huge, approximately twenty square kilometers or so. There were no other islands around, and it was all alone in this part of the sea.
About five or six other jet yachts were already docked near the shore; the people aboard them ought to have all gone ashore.
“There’re still more who have reached the island before us!” Phantom huffed.
Xia Fei quickly anchored the ship near the shore and dashed right out before it even completely came to a stop.
With great speed, Xia Fei went along the circular path as he rapidly searched the island once.
There were quite a lot of weird stones on the island, which looked particularly peculiar, as if each held a silhouette flickering under the moonlight.
All of a sudden, a black figure came flashing from the strange rocks, immediately making a beeline for Xia Fei without a word, waving a silver saber in hand!
‘Alright. For the sake of the ancient ruins, these men are also ignoring the rule of using weapons. Since they are acting flagrant, don’t blame me for responding in kind!’ Xia Fei thought to himself.
He was originally approaching at a slow cruising speed, not at all exerting his speed ability to the fullest. It was why the person had assumed that Xia Fei was low rank and decided to take care of a potential adversary in secret.
Only, this person did not know that Xia Fei’s speed was much faster than what he saw, and Xia Fei even had Crafty Approach!
*Shing!*
As that saber came close, Xia Fei’s body suddenly did an unbelievable turn sideways and shunted to the right of the saber tip.
At the same time, Xia Fei used one hand to grab hold of the man’s shoulder, and with just a bit of strength, he borrowed the impetus from the person’s attack to twist the latter’s arm, causing it to head for the man’s own throat!
*Stab.*
The tip of the saber went right through this attacker’s neck to reappear at the back of his throat. Not even 0.1 second passed before he died!
What was even more depressing was he had ended up killing himself with his hands and saber.
*Whoosh—*
Xia Fei increased his speed as his eyes glowed fiercely.
“Anyone who gets in my way shall die!”
