Alex reached into his storage bag once more and took out a small box from it. He then handed it to Cai Ping, who curiously looked at it.
It was a wooden box and quite small in size. "An alchemy ingredient?" she asked.
"No— " Alex stopped for a moment. 'Wait, isn't it an alchemy ingredient? Why else could I know what it was?' he felt like he was missing out on this core information for a long time now.
"It's a Spirit Cleansing Lily," he answered, still trying to calm his reeling mind. 'It must be an ingredient to a pill I have no idea about.' That was the conclusion he came to.
Cai Ping opened the box and looked at the orange lily inside curiously. "A Spirit Cleansing Lily?" she was a little confused. "I think I have heard about this somewhere before, but I can't remember. Please wait for a second, Daoist Yu, I will have to call someone."
Cai Ping took out a communication talisman and used it. Within minutes, an old, white-haired man walked in.
'It's him!'. Alex was surprised to see that the old man was the same person that had given them their spirit stones 2 weeks ago after the bi-annual auction. His master had even called him 'senior'.
'Who exactly is this person?' he couldn't help but wonder.
"Senior, " Cai Ping bowed to the old man as he walked in.
"What is going on? Why did you call me?" The old man said as he looked at Cai Ping and then towards Alex without a single bit of change in emotion. It seemed he was too used to meeting different people and seeing many different things.
"Here is the thing, senior." Cai Ping passed along the wooden box with the Spirit Cleansing Lily to the old man. She waited for him to open the box and see what was inside.
The old man, once again, showed no emotions as he opened the box and saw what was inside. He looked at the orange lily and didn't seem to realize what it was either. To him, it seemed like a normal lily.
"What is this?" he asked Cai Ping.
"Daoist Yu here wants to auction this flower. According to him, it's called a Spirit Cleansing Lily. I thought I had heard of it from the records but couldn't remember it. So I decided to call you senior."
The old man listened to this and then mumbled, "Spirit Cleansing L— " suddenly his eyes turned wide open. He immediately took out a communication talisman of his own and called someone else.
A lady came in with a stack of papers and left just as quickly.
The old man immediately flipped through the records and landed on an image of the Spirit Condensing Lily. He looked at the image, and then at the flower in the wooden box.
"It's the same!!" he screamed with astonishment. Cai Ping was now getting confused as to what exactly was happening. The old man looked at Alex, with emotions in his face for the first time, and asked," Where did you get this flower, Daoist?"
Alex was surprised that an auction house would actually ask for the origin. "Can I not sell this without revealing its origin?" Alex asked.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I was too excited," said the old man. "Of course you can sell it. I was just surprised since it's been forever since one of these popped up in the market. Are you sure you are willing to sell this?" the old man asked.
"Yes, please do." Alex was looking forward to having it sold since it could really bring him a lot of money.
"Yes, we will do that. However, it might take a while, Daoist," The old man said as he contemplated for a while and said, "I don't think we can sell it here."
"Huh?" Alex said with a surprised face. "Are you saying you won't sell it? Didn't you just say you will?" Alex asked with his head full of confusion.
"Oh, no. We will sell it. Just not here. We will have to send it to the capital to our headquarters where we can get the full benefit of selling this."
"The headquarters?" Alex remembered Ma Rong saying something about Pink Cloud auction house's headquarters being in the Cardinal City.
"Is there any special reason?" he asked.
"Well, the Auction house in the cardinal cities has a lot more guests on a weekly basis and also is used to dealing with objects of high value. We will transfer this flower over there during the weekend and as per the result, we will give you your spirit stones right here," the old man said.
"So, it won't take any extra time? I will get my spirit stones this Saturday?" he asked.
"Uh, it might be better if you come on Sunday. The auction in the Capital always takes a little too long." The old man said.
"I see. Please do that then," Alex said.
The old man himself set up 2 different talisman contracts for Alex, one for the pills and one for the flower. Alex thanked both the old man and Cai Ping and walked out of the auction house.
He looked at the time and realized it was barely 5 PM. "Should I go to the library now?" he wondered. He walked towards an empty alleyway and changed back to his yellow robes for the Tiger Sect.
Once he got out, he walked straight back to the Tiger sect. He walked past the gates of the Tiger sect, and as soon as he did that, his badge inside his storage bag started vibrating.
"Hmm…" he sent his spiritual sense inside his badge and saw that he was registered to fight with someone. 'Someone wants to fight with me?'
The badge said that it was someone with the number 173. 'Is this another one of Huo To's henchmen? I hope this isn't someone strong like that last guy.'
'On second thought, they do help me train. Let's see who my opponent is this time." Alex walked straight towards the sect crater.