Hua Jian made an ‘OK’ gesture at Qian Feixue, though of course Qian Feixue didn’t understand it.
But she could probably guess what the gesture meant—maybe it meant “no need to worry”?
What Hua Jian was referring to were naturally the business of selling additional services to cultivators who had obtained entry qualifications and giving inside information to those who hadn’t managed to secure one.
For example, Wanhuagu actually still held a small number of spots.
As long as the cultivators paid enough of a price, perhaps Wanhuagu could take out those slots and distribute them.
On the surface, the number of entry spots was fixed, but as for the hidden ones, no one knew how many there were.
And to obtain these unplanned spots, the price cultivators had to pay would be higher than the spirit stones spent at the auction—several times more was only the minimum.
If they couldn’t afford it, they could pay with their bodies. If they weren’t willing, then get lost!
Wanhuagu wasn’t going to haggle with you. This was the price, take it or leave it. Who told you that you couldn’t get a spot at the auction?
Now cultivators who had won spots but wanted to back out were too late!
If you knew today would come, why did you do it back then? Before the auction, Wanhuagu had already promoted customized Secret Realm plans. Who told you that you weren’t willing to pay?
If you didn’t listen to advice before, now you regret it. Wanhuagu naturally had to teach these reckless guys a lesson.
“With so many spirit stones earned this time, there won’t be much resistance to my plan of taking some useless junk from the family treasury and placing it in the Secret Realm to lure people into fighting over it.” Qian Feixue also smiled.
The original Secret Realm was too barren. To increase the number of treasures inside, they had thought up quite a few methods.
For instance, the simplest one: dig out some long-accumulated junk from the family treasury and throw it into the Secret Realm.
These things were already trash, so using them as bait was also a form of recycling.
However, there were people in Qian Feixue’s family who felt that doing this might harm the family’s interests.
Even with so many spirit stones pouring in, they couldn’t withstand the pressure from dissenting voices.
“Wanhuagu isn’t so bad though. My father’s spirit items will be delivered soon.” Hearing this, Hua Jian thought Wanhuagu was pretty decent.
The spirit items she requested arrived in just a few days, and there wasn’t a single dissenting voice in between.
This was the benefit of having backing!
These words fell into the ears of Hua Xinyou, who was nearby, causing this Ling King’s expression to change into one of helplessness.
Wasn’t that obvious? With Hua Jian’s status, what was wrong with asking for a few spirit items?
Back in the day, Hua Jian had eaten up half of the core combat forces in Wanhuagu’s Secret Realm, and she still became a Saintess safe and sound!
Compared to the destruction Hua Jian caused back then, the Ling King–rank spirit items she wanted now were practically a drop in the bucket.
Being able to appease Hua Jian with these things was an absolute bargain for Wanhuagu.
Moreover, Wanhuagu hadn’t lost anything either. The spirit stones earned this time were enough to compensate for the consumption of spirit items.
Furthermore, the spirit items placed in the Secret Realm weren’t irrecoverable.
With Hua Jian’s designs in the Secret Realm, it was hard enough for cultivators to successfully get out, let alone take away those tempting spirit items.
Most likely, there would be total annihilation, and the bait spirit items in the Secret Realm wouldn’t even be lost.
They could return to the treasury intact. That was a costless business!
As for the additional services Hua Jian mentioned, it was simple to explain: it was about helping qualified cultivators plan their routes inside the Secret Realm.
Wanhuagu had detailed intelligence on the Secret Realm.
They knew exactly where cultivators could obtain higher-level valuable resources and what was where.
Also, the methods for evacuating the Secret Realm had to be given to those cultivators by Wanhuagu.
Otherwise, once they went in, they wouldn’t be able to get out.
If they didn’t spend spirit stones to buy these services, then what those cultivators bought was just an entry token into the Secret Realm.
Everything else was completely unknown.
Once inside the Secret Realm, they wouldn’t know where to go, and after killing and stealing treasures, they wouldn’t know how to evacuate.
Surely, no cultivator would want to experience such an embarrassing situation.
Additionally, Wanhuagu was going to sell antidotes to those cultivators!
The environment in the core zone of the Secret Realm was harsh, with a lingering poisonous mist that hadn’t dissipated for years.
Without a special treasure to protect themselves, it was easy to get lost inside.
Coincidentally, after exploring the Secret Realm for years, Wanhuagu had developed pills to dissolve the poisonous mist.
Not only was this antidote single-use, but they also needed to keep consuming it to stay lucid.
In short, the ways Hua Jian thought of to make money were simply too many, enough to make one’s head spin.
The girls assigned to various stalls to sell these services and items, after collecting money at lightning speed, were stunned.
They were elites of Wanhuagu, but this was the first time they’d seen such a brazen way to swindle money.
This newly arrived Saintess’s mind was simply incredible.
She treated the cultivators entering the Secret Realm like monkeys, draining their storage pouches dry.
And once inside, she would fleece them down to their underwear.
Even if they died inside, they would enter the Secret Realm with an empty storage pouch, so even if an enemy killed them, they wouldn’t get much.
Was Hua Jian going to search the entire world for where these cultivators buried their storage pouches?
With that kind of effort, it was better to squeeze out all the spirit stones from their storage pouches while they were trapped by the sunk cost.
These cultivators wouldn’t fill their storage pouches to the brim, but chances were, they’d bring all the good stuff they could into the Secret Realm.
That was the reason players go in with a full set of divine equipment!
…
The auction assembly ended smoothly. Cultivators, either delighted or worried, left the ice crystal flowers and returned to their dwellings. Then Wanhuagu’s cultivators were dispatched to pay visits.
When it came to door-to-door sales, Wanhuagu’s cultivators were experts.
The cultivators who had just won entry spots almost immediately shelled out a batch of spirit stones after buying one thing after another.
The pricing of these additional charge items depended on the customer. With different target groups, the prices naturally varied.
They never intended to sell at a uniform price.
For example, when running Wanhuagu’s business with these demonic cultivators, they had already been informed of these people’s backgrounds.
Those who hadn’t managed to obtain an entry spot chose these—naturally, they were not short on money; they just hadn’t found the right way to buy.
As long as they paid enough, these people who wanted to make money could get it done in no time.
No matter how much Wanhuagu asked for, these people could come up with it.
Those who could afford these expensive “external aids” were called “major clients.”
When Wanhuagu’s girls started their sales pitch, the ones they approached first were the cultivators from big factions.
Their goal was to maximize the success rate of this first round of transactions.
And with the lead of these fellow disciples, the following cultivators would face completely different pressure.
Compared to the wealthy talents from big factions, the next lot of loose cultivators were more tense.
They didn’t have many spirit stones to buy these services.
But they could only hold their noses and buy more, otherwise, they’d fall behind others.
Their outcome would be the same as everyone else’s—becoming prey inside the Secret Realm.
This led to the situation before the Secret Realm even opened becoming different from before.
Without a communication jade slip to guarantee survival, entering meant death. Even if they died, no one would know who did it.
Those loose cultivators first huddled together, pooling spirit stones to purchase these expensive services, which made group buying the norm.
Besides that, some lone wolf cultivators also started looking for teammates to enter the Secret Realm together.
After all, more teammates meant more security. The three spots bought together might even increase the priority for choosing a starting location.
As for the risk of backstabbing teammates, no one had realized that yet.
Although demonic cultivators were evil, many hadn’t yet become evil enough to treat teammates as walking loot drops.
Someone had to enlighten them first before they realized they could profit that way.
All in all, after the auction ended, the temporary camp got completely lively.
Every day, people visited each other. Some were strong cultivators wanting to test the waters with opponents, others were weak ones trying to form alliances.
Some even had a flash of inspiration, suggesting they could form an alliance outside the Secret Realm first, then gang up on the weak inside.
But no one thought this plan was feasible. Who knew if the alliance was real or fake? Maybe this guy was trying to lure others into letting their guard down so he could backstab them?
Compared to loose cultivators on the demonic path, who couldn’t trust each other by nature, the few demonic cultivators from Tianmomen didn’t have that worry.
They could fully trust their fellow disciples.
But there was a small problem: Tianmomen didn’t have many spots. Including the previous ones, there were only seven.
These seven Tianmomen cultivators were assigned to various squads.
If they wanted to team up with other cultivators individually, their priority was too low, making the spots directly invalid.
“Then just find cultivators with priority similar to yours to team up. Once inside the Secret Realm, leave the team and find your main force. Simple.”
Hua Jian, who had been sought out again by Youye for advice, chuckled and said it was easy to solve.
In random matchmaking, there weren’t that many rules.
“And I need to remind you of one thing: those ‘teammates’ are actually your enemies too.”
Hua Jian smiled slyly.
“What I mean is, your people can directly strike their ‘teammates’ once inside the Secret Realm.”
“That way, you can eliminate a few competitors with zero risk.”