Having delivered the news to Alex, the King returned to his quarters to rest after a rather stressful day.
Alex's hands hovered in front of the painting he was making and struggled to care about the painting at the moment having received the news.
It was all okay in the Ivory Kingdom. Could he believe that? That was certainly not possible, but what other choice did he have?
"Are you going to go check to see anything? Do you think you can stake into the barrier?" Godslayer asked.
"Are you kidding me?" Alex answered. "There are Immortals, maybe even Divinities that came down. And if my suspicion is correct, they are here for the senior. If they find the treasures on me, I will be dead."
"True," Godslayer said. "You're right. I don't want to get caught either. Don't go."
Alex was of the same mind, so he said nothing. He had talent, but he wasn't at the level yet where he could go up to potentially hostile immortals and come out alive.
"We'll see how it goes. If things get really bad, I'm sure Bai Jingshen will do something," he said. "Even if he was ready to lose me here, he wouldn't lose Pearl."
"Him not acting here means he is relatively sure that there isn't much harm to me as long as I don't do something stupid," he said. "Besides, there is a chance that whoever came down has already left, so I would be stupid to try and find them in that case."
"Let us ignore this for now," Alex said, speaking aloud so his two elders could hear him as well. "For now, let us focus on enjoying the upcoming auction. We will know what we need to know when the barrier finally drops in the Ivory kingdom."
The two elders nodded and stayed right there watching him. Even if he said what he did, they were too experienced to let Alex out of their sight. There had been too many times where he had gone out to do his own things after all.
Alex took a few breaths and finally focused back on the painting. He managed to get into the flow of the art in front of him once again and realized just how bad it was what he had drawn due to the interruption.
"You really can't lose your focus can you?" he spoke softly, continuing.
Once he was done, he left to go cultivate in his room.
A few days passed since the incident and everyone was made aware of what had happened in the Ivory Kingdom. They were all surprised to learn about the large barrier and worried.
However, thanks to Queen Song's only piece of message who said that everything was fine, people didn't devolve into mass hysteria that something like this could happen to them as well.
A day before the month-long auction was to begin, people had already arrived in the city, filling the streets as well as the snow outside.
Alex walked around the outside with his elders and other soldiers, looking at the festive environment that had been prepared out here.
So many tents of so many different colors were set up, each with space constricting formation in them to store more space inside than would be normal. Those sorts of tents could house dozens of times, if not more, as many people as they physically appeared capable to.
There were people gathered outside the tents, ready to enter the moment they were allowed to. Even though the auctions officially started tomorrow, they were all preparing to enter today.
Since there was no such thing as VIP seats in such auction houses, the people were forced into having to find a seat there themselves. And the further back they were, the less appealing the seats were to these people.
Alex had no such worries. The auction house he was going to was only for VIPs and no one else. Each VIP would get their own room, so he could roam the city for ages and still arrive at the auction house to have a place for him.
Even if he was not a King and just a lowly cultivator, as long as he had a VIP room, that would be the case.
"I wonder what sort of items they sell in these auction houses," Elder Liang said. "I wonder if they even get to Saint-ranked items at all."
"Some of these are definitely for lesser cultivators who will have no way of entering the bigger auctions, but most should be for the better ones."
"After all, what is the point in setting up an auction for a Dec-annual occasion, if only to set one to sell mediocre treasures," he said.
"Sure, but there could be treasures that the ones selling or buying don't consider treasures," Elder Liang said. "What if we miss it?"
"Elder Liang, there are hundreds of auctions being set up here. We are bound to miss every other good thing but the one we will be going to," Alex said. "We're bound to miss a lot of good stuff. Unfortunate as it may be, we can't be anywhere."
Liang Shufen sighed and nodded. "You are correct," she said. She sighed a little still, and Alex could understand her feeling. He was a little sad about having to miss various things as well.
"Let's leave," he said. "We should return to the palace and prepare to head over to the actual auction."
"We should do that," Yao Ning said and had the soldiers lead the way. Alex looked around as he walked back and arrived back in the palace a while later.
When he did, he found someone inside who he was surprised to see here.
"Lady Zhan?" he couldn't help but call out to the woman. "What are you doing here?"
Lady Zhan, who had been in the hall resting by herself looked around toward Alex. "Your Majesty," she quickly got up and bowed a little. "It's a pleasure to meet you again."
