Chapter 1777: The Outcome
Though the prince felt embarrassment and fury earlier, gathering 10,000,000 chaos stones for the bet had won him some face. He wanted to let everyone know that the Heavenly Phoenix Crown Prince was not a sore loser and could afford any type of bet.
“I’ll cut your neck off one inch at a time after you lose.” He was still furious at Li Qiye and didn’t try to hide his cruelty by pushing this mortal to the edge. After winning, a fate worse than death was his parting gift to the mortal.
“That depends on if you are capable enough. How do you want to do it?” Li Qiye smirked, unaffected by the prince’s threat.
“Brother Langxuan, go against him again, help me take his head!” The prince said.
Langxuan was surprised to hear the prince asking him and quickly cupped his fist: “Your Highness, I know my limits and I’m afraid I will let you down. Please ask someone else.”
This bet was too grand so Langxuan didn’t want to participate.
“Brother Langxuan, no need to boost the enemy’s morale while lowering ours.” The prince was unhappy instantly and deepened his tone: “You are a genius appraiser, no need to be discouraged after one loss! I’m daring to bet 10,000,000, don’t tell me you care too much about your own reputation and don’t dare to try?”
The prince needed Langxuan to participate. Even though his cultivation was high, he was far inferior when it came to dao material. Even the best appraiser from his country had lost to Langxuan before.
That’s why the prince thought so highly of Langxuan. If he were to personally go against Li Qiye, defeat was certain but there was still a chance of winning with Langxuan!
“Well…” Langxuan hesitated not just because of his reputation and the effect of potentially losing to a mortal appraiser. The monstrous scale of the bet was the thing stopping him from carelessly participating.
“Don’t worry, Brother Langxuan, I won’t blame you even if you lose! I can handle losing this much!” The prince shouted: “I know that you are capable of taking this mortal’s head, don’t you want to make up for the loss earlier?!”
“Still…” Langxuan was still reluctant.
“Brother, do you not view me as a brother? You can’t represent me for this bet right now?” The prince’s expression darkened as he uttered.
He has lost for sure if Langxuan didn’t help him and he didn’t wish to go down like this. He must make sure Langxuan participate no matter what.
“Very well.” Langxuan had to step out after the constant pressure from the prince. Plus, he wanted to try again after losing the first time. He cupped his fist and said: "I’ll try my best to live up to your trust, Your Highness.”
“I believe in your abilities, no one is your match outside of the top appraisers from the last generation.” The prince finally smiled and roughly patted Li Langxuan’s shoulder.
Langxuan came out and asked Li Qiye: “How do you want to do this?”
Li Qiye leisurely said: “Since your group started this, I’ll just play along. Anything will be fine.”
“Okay, then we’ll pick any dao material in the Stone Workshop. The one with the best dao fetus will be the winner. The only rule is that the material price cannot be over 1,000,000 Dao Sage Chaos Stones.”
There were dao materials of inordinate value at the workshop. If there was no limitation, one would just buy the highest priced material in order to win.
After all, the workshop relied on its reputation. These higher-end materials were virtually guaranteed to produce the best fetuses. The probability of error was diminutive.
This was the reason why Langxuan proposed the particular rule in order to truly test the skill of an appraiser and make this bet worthwhile.
“Good, it’s decided then, nothing higher than 1,000,000 Dao Sage Chaos Stones.” Li Qiye straightforwardly agreed.
“We’ll meet back here in a bit then.” Langxuan cupped his fist.
Langxuan’s attitude was much friendlier compared to the prince who only wanted Li Qiye’s head. He had no grievances against this mortal appraiser and personally wished to test his skill against another expert.
The second bet between the two of them garnered just as much attention from the crowd as the previous. It wasn’t only about the money; the spectators also cared about the skill level of the bout.
The appraisers, both novices and experts, were excited to see the incoming colorful event. It was going to be as brilliant as any physical battle. The ones who were vested in studying dao materials wanted to learn appraising techniques out of the experience. In a short time, some masters even followed right behind the two of them in order to see the selecting process.
One was a magical mortal appraiser that had profited twice at the Workshop on top of beating Langxuan once already. It showed that this was more than luck; the guy was a true expert appraiser.
A mortal appraiser was already rare enough but a skilled one like this was once in a million years. How could the crowd not be excited? As for Langxuan, he was well known as a genius appraiser and his skills were acknowledged by the older masters of the craft. So many famous older appraisers have lost to him in Pure.
Even the appraisers in the workshop became very interested in the two of them.
After carefully rummaging through the materials, Langxuan finally picked and bought one that was appraised by the workshop as a prenatal dao fetus of the Dao Sage and Golden Inlaid level. The price was 360,000 Dao Sage Chaos Stones.
His strategy was quite good. It was essentially impossible using Dao Sage Chaos Stones to buy materials at the Dao Saint and Dao Celestial materials because they weren’t on the same level. Numbers alone couldn’t make up for it. The only way was to buy a Dao Sage material and hope for the best. This probability was quite low, hence the gambling nature of the entire industry.
Langxuan was very bullish on his chosen dao material and believed a great fetus could come out of it.
“That’s a good one, there should be no problem getting a prenatal fetus out of it.” Many people felt the same way, especially since the appraisal from the workshop was most likely correct.
Li Qiye chose one a while after. It was as big as a basin and round like a watermelon with gray veined patterns all around. This one was much cheaper compared to Langxuan’s. It was appraised as a postnatal fetus of the Heaven Bestowment level. The price was only 5,000 Dao Master Chaos Stones.
“He’s quite courageous picking a postnatal to go against a prenatal.” This caught many people off guard.
Everyone knew that in terms of value, a postnatal fetus would never be more expensive than a prenatal, unlike the buyers had some special requirements.
“He’s relying on the workshop making a mistake, but I’ve bought so many here. It isn’t that easy.” A different appraiser commented.
The crowd felt that Li Qiye was too bold with his choice, especially when his life was on the line.
The appraisers from the workshop stared at each other too since it was an indirect insult at them.
Even though there were countless materials here, the margin of error was very small for the materials appraised by them.
Earlier, Li Qiye had chosen perfectly twice earlier in spite of their appraisal. If he could successfully do it again, he would be the king of misappraisal, or in other words, the best appraiser.
Thus, in their eyes, this was no longer a bet. It was a blatant challenge to the workshop’s appraisers.