Ye Liuyun felt that both their artifact-refining and pill-refining arts had hit a wall. Tong Xin and Lin Luoyi were still groping forward on their own; they needed a real leap. Inside the spatial world they simply couldn’t reach any higher-level methods.

He intended to “invite” a couple of grandmasters, or send Tong Xin and Lin Luoyi out to learn the real high arts.

Across the entire Huoyin Galaxy, the strongest refiners sat in the Chen Clan, while the top alchemists belonged to the Void-Dan Sect. People from those two giants would never risk themselves in the desolate Outer Sea, so he had to start with the families that supplied them herbs and ores.

Fan Cheng, whom he’d grabbed earlier, came from one of Void-D Dan’s herb suppliers; the He family fed ores to the Chen Clan. Both captives knew a few middling refiners and alchemists, so Ye Liuyun sent them home to fish for ways to slip his people inside as students.

If that road failed, he would simply stalk a few famous pill or forge masters and abduct them outright.

For now the two captives were busy gathering intel for him—while also passing him maps of their clans’ choicest mineral veins and spirit-medicine fields so he could loot them at will.

Ye Liuyun used the lull to cultivate flat-out.

He still had one galaxy-source core, half a blood-essence block, and a five-colour body-tempering stone untouched; he’d snatched the stone from another family months ago and hadn’t been willing to use it—until now. Inside his Soul-Seal orb swirled plenty more mental power he’d never had time to absorb; this session would burn through everything. Resources for Second Clone’s parallel rise would have to be seized by Second Clone himself over in Duqiao Galaxy anyway.

Second Clone was already sweeping Duqiao with an army at his back—top-tier force in that region. Each battle he personally hunted peak experts, reaping top-grade loot. Devil-Lion specialized in burgling chambers of commerce and city lord storehouses brimming with bulk resources; high-end items kept turning up under his claws. Income was solid on both fronts.

Both Ye Liuyun and his clone cultivated at break-neck speed; within a month every wisp inside Soul-Seal orb was gone, half-blood block and five-colour stone refined away. The galaxy source core lost another ten percent as well.

He’d even fed Snow-Wolf plenty of sealed souls so it would spar with him on spatial strength. Leng Yuan stayed busiest: drilling soul attacks against both original body and clone while trading live blows meant only for condensing divine origin power and worldly force.

His flesh grew so tough neither Snow-Wolf nor Leng Yuan could dent it; only when puppets slashed with blades did blood lines appear—and he treated those as free samples of peak True-Tier-9 weapon strikes anyway.

After absorbing everything he sensed soul, bloodline and body all needed another round of consolidation—but Lin Luoyi’s current pills were too low-grade for that job now. So he headed straight for the local chamber-of-commerce hall asking after consolidation elixirs.

The sales greeter sized him up as anything but rich; her suggestions fell far short of what he wanted. He kept asking about higher-tier arms, treasures or pills—she answered mostly with shrugs until Ye Liuyun tossed her some divine crystals; only then did her smile warm slightly:

“Young master,” she told him, “True-Tier-9 pills basically never go on open sale here—if we get any we consign them straight to auction.”

“The ones you want are exactly what we auction monthly: soul-, blood-, body-, essence-consolidating pills every cultivator fights over. Without enough strength even money won’t let you walk out alive.”

The crystals he’d shown weren’t big money by local standards; she remained politely certain he couldn’t afford it all anyway.

Ye Liuyun insisted: “Don’t worry—I can pay my way out if I win them. Just check whether any such pills are coming up soon: single-attribute consolidators or marrow-wash types like Cleansing-Marrow Pills.”

He slid her more crystals; she pocketed them without hesitation then went off to ask an executive manager for confirmation:

“Three days from now there is indeed an auction,” she reported back minutes later—“True-Tier-9 pills consolidating soul / blood / body / essence respectively... plus one True-Tier-9 Cleansing-Marrow Pill that works across all attributes together—but opening bids start at several hundred units of source-power each.”

“Source-power?” Ye Liuyun blinked—the exchange currency here turned out not coins but raw cosmic source itself!

Still understandable: once cultivators reached this level they carried oceans of mixed energies inside—without periodic consolidation further breakthroughs risk collapse into chaos itself...

Seeing his surprise she gave an indulgent little head-shake—as if confirming yet again this customer truly couldn’t pay...

Ye Liuyun caught the flicker on her face, but still pressed, “How do I get into the auction?”

The sales girl stared at him, plainly puzzled: if he couldn’t afford anything here, why bother with the auction?

Ye Liuyun could only shrug. “Can’t buy, but I can look’t I?”

“Of course you can!” she snapped back to life. Every auction seat she booked earned her a cut—no way she’d let the money walk.

“We take reservations right here. Private box: two million top-grade divine crystals. Open seat: fifty thousand.”

“I’ll take a box.” He fished out a Interspatial Ring packed with exactly two million and handed it over.

Privately he winced—two million just for a seat—but kept his face blank; no need to give her more reason to sneer.

The girl hadn’t expected him to pay up so easily, yet she didn’t ask questions. Clutching the ring, she dashed off to find the steward before he could change his mind.

A few breaths later she returned and slapped a numbered plaque into his palm, rattling off the auction’s time and place.

Ye Liuyun left without another syllable.

Through his slave seal he pinged Thief-Cat: power up fast; we’re going shopping for free later.

The girl knew she’d rubbed him wrong—and didn’t care. One stray cultivator, she figured; odds were slim he’d ever be back, and if he did return he still wouldn’t have coin for anything worthwhile.