Ten Thousand Lightning Bamboo could only appear in an environment where there was constant lightning for ten thousand years or more.
This bamboo had been immersed in lightning and thunder for ten thousand years. It was truly a marvelous treasure that was immensely hard to come by. If the people present knew, that Xue Wei had filled a whole storage treasure with these bamboo shoots, their eyes would be filled with greed and murder.
In fact, all the treasures that were deemed very rare, and everyone wanted during the auction had all been provided by him. If someone were to say that all these treasures came from the same person, then the crowd would not be able to believe it.
It was simply too unbelievable!
The auctioneer and the Golden Chambers Auction house was aware of where all these treasures came from, but although they were tempted to act on their own to seize even more wealth for themselves, they dared not.
They had contacted their higher-ups, even went above the man who was managing their continent, but the only answer they had gotten was, "Don't cause problems for this young master, he has an outstanding backing."
As a member of the Golden Chambers, they understood precisely how frightening their own background was, and anyone with their heads screwed on correctly would never cause problems in their auction houses. When had they ever needed to consider other's background when doing things?
Since they had had been heavily warned from the upper echelons of Golden Chamber's auction house to look well after Xue Wei, they would naturally do so, but they were very puzzled.
Even Xue Wei was unaware of why the two elusive leaders of the Golden Chambers would go this far for him.
Had he known, then he would have been much more apprehensive about trying to establish a connection with them.
If these people had some sort of interest in him, then it was likely not a good thing. He had seen many things throughout his short life, and he knew that great samaritans did not exist, especially not amongst such influential figures.
If they were friendly towards him, he likely held some sort of value to them.
It could not be his bloodline, as he now understood that although Sovereign Beasts were rare, they were not unique in this world.
Then it meant that it was he himself who had something that others needed.
Bbut knowing himself, he knew that the only special thing about him was his half-bred status, which was a strictly guarded secret.
Unfortunately, Xue Wei was unaware of the order that had been passed down throughout the entire world's Golden Chambers headquarters.
The order that he was the most important VIP amongst VIPs.
The auction finished with Xue Wei having bought a lot of materials in large quantities, but also gained a whole mountain of essence stones.
When he went backstage for the sake of getting the things, he was given a black command token.
"This token is the highest graded command token," the manager said humbly while looking at Xue Wei with shining eyes.
"You need to drop a single drop of blood onto it, and then it will belong to only you for the rest of your life. It can be used in any Golden Chamber Auction House across the entire world."
Hearing the manager so readily admit that all Golden Chamber's Auction Houses were connected, Xue Wei felt a bit deflated, but he quickly accepted the token and dropped a bit of blood onto it.
The blood drop was sucked into the command token, vanishing without a trace, and the token was as smooth and clean as it had been before, but Xue Wei could feel a connection to it now, that had not been there before.
After saying his thanks, he went back to the palace. Here he concocted a lot of new pills while Bai Tianyi was busy creating inscriptions.
Like this, the time went by like flowing water, one day took another, and soon the days had passed, and it was time to enter the Ascended's Realm.
In the morning, a eunuch which usually followed the Emperor came to fetch them. He was immensely respectful towards Xue Wei and his comrades.
As they followed the eunuch, they soon reached the martial arts field. Here all the princes and geniuses had gathered together, waiting for the entrance to the Ascended's Realm to open.
As soon as Xue Wei had arrived, another eunuch called out, "The Emperor has arrived!"
Everyone stood up and bowed towards the Emperor, who dismissively waved his hand.
"Rise," he said, and the people straightened their backs.
"I have a few pieces of information to share with you all before you enter the Ascended's Realm."
The Emperor's gaze landed on all of them one after another.
"First of all, all of you will be arriving at the same location when you enter the Ascended's Realm. I hope that you can all travel together, as you will, without a doubt, encounter other teams from other forces.
"If a contradiction appears, then work it out peacefully, you need support from one another to survive this trial!
"I am appointing Xue Wei, the leader of the team; all of you are to follow his lead!
"At the same time, all of you should be aware that the Ascended's Realm was created by one of our ancestors, and the beasts within the realm are all gathered from outside of our world. They have no fear or subservience towards Sovereign Beasts.
"Be aware that inside the Ascended's Realm, you are all equal. The humans and the beasts that enter will all be treated equally, and it is impossible to gather the beasts under your command.
"When the Ascended's Realm opens here, it will open quite a few rifts all over the world. Some of them at specific locations, such as the Eight Great Families from the Huang Continent.
"There will be at least one rift in every continent, and I think that many have already gotten information about our opening date, so many will enter the realm together with you.
"These people will prove to be the most dangerous thing you will encounter in the entire realm. Since we are from different continents, no one cares about killing and looting.
"At the same time, you also need to be aware that this realm will be open for a full year. During this year, you will have to gather all the lucky chances you can and enhance your strength tremendously.
"You are the next generation that will lead the Demon Phoenix Continent to greater heights; we need you to enhance your strength as soon as possible."
Everyone felt emotional after listening to the Emperor. Their chests swelled with pride when they thought about how they were the hope of the continent. They were all eager to do their best.
The only one who was looking slightly gloomy was the First Prince. Although he had already expected that he would not be the leader, he had never expected that his royal father would appoint Xue Wei, an outsider, the new leader of the entire Demon Phoenix Continent team.
Xue Wei was not feeling too proud of being the leader of this team. He understood that since he had been made the leader, he was also made into the one who was responsible for their survival. This was something he would rather not be connected to.
After he stopped speaking, everyone was excited. The geniuses did not care about who was their leader was as they knew it would not be them. However, the princes were all quite disappointed with the decision made by the Emperor. They all had a hope that they would be able to lead the group to gain significant achievements that could be used to convince others to support them in the fight for the throne.
If Xue Wei knew what they were thinking, he would gladly throw this hot potato back in their hands, but considering the kindness that the Emperor had given him, he decided to do an excellent job to protect the members of the Demon Phoenix Continent.
Time ticked by slowly as everyone was waiting. As the sun stood highest ion the sky, a tremor suddenly ran through the ground, and the air started vibrating.
A massive crack appeared in the space just in front of the many geniuses, princes, and experts who were waiting for the Ascended's Realm to emerge.
Meanwhile, all over the entire world, cracks like this one started appearing. Some places, it was in remote and desolate areas, other places it was like the palace, in the middle of a training field.
On one continent, Lan was leaning back on a chair as he looked at a group of youngsters in front of him.
"Miss Wang, are you sure you wish to do this?" he asked, his lips curved into a grin as he looked at the leader of the group.
An alluring young woman was standing there, her hair was tied on top of her head, and she was wearing a beautiful green dress.
"I will not back down! I will use this year to enhance my strength and the strength of my Murdering Heavens Sect. When we return a year from now, we will be able to kill all the Primordial Beasts and let the humans emerge victorious in this war!"
Lan smiled slightly and looked into the sky above. He took a long time before he finally asked, "What will you do if you meet him there?"
Wang Xiaoyun's face turned rigid when hearing Lan's question, and her movements towards the crack stagnated.
"If he causes problems, then I will kill him," she finally said with a low voice, but even she could hear how unconvincing she sounded.
"I see," Lan said no more; he just observed as the green-clad woman entered into the crack, closely followed by nineteen other humans all below the age of fifty.
When she had vanished, Lan's usually cheerful eyes turned sad, and he looked into the sky. "Ling'er why weren't you as strong?" he muttered to himself before he sighed deeply and vanished.
Back at the Demon Phoenix Continent, the experts and Xue Wei all went into the crack. It was similar to the time when they had entered the dimensional tunnel, and thus Xue Wei and the others were on high alert. If they encountered a space-storm, they would be done for.
Fortunately, they did not encounter any of them and moments after they reached the exit.
When they exited the tunnel, all of them instantly felt a heavy pressure on their bodies.
It was as if they had entered a gravity field, the pressure on their shoulders made it so that they even the speed of which the Qi was circling in their meridians had slowed down.
Sensing this, Xue Wei felt an urge to curse. He had not been told about this, if he knew he would have long since given up on being the leader.
He knew that if they did not adapt to this pressure fast, they would be dead in the hands of the residential beasts within days.
These beasts were used to this pressure and would be much more agile than them; they would also be much stronger than them, having lived their entire lives in such an environment.
Looking around, Xue Wei found that they had arrived in a forest. The forest was quiet, no one could hear anything, not even the sound of beasts, and his already grave expression turned ugly.
"Everyone, gather together," he said with a low voice as he looked around. Every sense in his body was telling him that this was an immensely dangerous place they had encountered.
As Xue Wei had spoken, many instantly followed the orders, but a few of the princes refused to listen to Xue Wei. They would not acknowledge him as their leader.