The state of Zhao's annual auction was the kind of event that attracted everyone within five hundred miles who had too much money and not enough sense. Meng Hao went because he needed a specific herb — Seven-Leaf Spirit Grass, the key ingredient for Foundation Establishment — and the Reliance Sect certainly wasn't going to give it to him.
He had saved three hundred spirit stones from various hustles, thefts, and the Lottery Pavilion incident (which he preferred not to think about). The Seven-Leaf Spirit Grass usually sold for around two hundred and fifty. He had a comfortable margin.
The auction hall was magnificent — red and gold banners, spirit lamps that cast a warm amber glow, private balconies for the wealthy patrons, and a main floor packed with cultivators of every level from Qi Condensation to Foundation Establishment. Meng Hao found a seat in the back corner where he could observe without being observed.
The first twenty lots went by without incident. Weapons, pills, a few cultivation manuals of questionable value. Then the Seven-Leaf Spirit Grass came up, and Meng Hao leaned forward.
'Opening bid: two hundred spirit stones.'
'Two hundred!' he called.
'Two fifty,' someone else called.
'Two seventy,' said a third voice.
'Three hundred,' Meng Hao said, wincing internally. That was his entire savings.
'Three fifty,' said the second voice — a young woman in the robes of the Violet Fate Sect, one of the most powerful organizations in the State of Zhao.
Meng Hao did the mental math and found it humiliating. This was the problem with cultivation: the rich got richer, the powerful got stronger, and the broke stayed broke.
He lost the auction. The Seven-Leaf Spirit Grass went to the Violet Fate Sect disciple for four hundred spirit stones, leaving Meng Hao with nothing but his three hundred stones and a renewed appreciation for the unfairness of the universe.
Meng Hao had not been born rich. He had not been born talented. But he had been born stubborn, and he was starting to think that stubbornness might be worth more than either.