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The humanized werewolf couldn't help but reveal a sinister smile.

The Werewolf Hero Scroll, Chapter 29: A Thousand Twists and Turns, There is a Time for Everything

As expected, the auction festival of the "Golden City" culminated in its largest auction on the final day.

Originally, Chen Xuanfeng and his companions thought that with the major surprise of the "Eagle Corps" resurfacing, the "Golden City" would temporarily halt the auction festival. However, the werewolves, lacking commercial savvy, completely underestimated the merchants' mindset. Not only was the auction festival not canceled, but to retain panicked buyers, the scale was significantly increased, making this auction festival the most grand in decades.

And Xi Luo ultimately did not leave with the Holy Temple's team.

It is said that after losing the Holy Emblem of Light, the Holy Temple, in an effort to make amends, greatly intensified the training of new Light-affinity Sword Masters, comprehensively selecting young men with exceptional martial talents, and opening the treasure vault to distribute the treasured epic divine weapons of the Light element to them. However, epic divine weapons are inherently rare, and those of the Light element are fewer than ten. After losing the "Holy Spear Quinilon," the Holy Temple only had four left, one of which had already bonded with a Holy Grail Knight, leaving only three spots available.

In terms of talent and achievements, Xi Luo was originally considered the top among the Holy Temple's youths. However, even the Holy Temple, now on the brink of collapse, could not escape the troubles of factional strife. No matter how formidable the Pope's prophecy skills were, they could not untangle the intricate web of relationships within the Holy Temple. Thus, after balancing and considering, none of the three Light divine weapons fell to Xi Luo, who was not at the Saint Spirit Mountain. It was only after the distribution was finalized that the Grand Prelates and bishops remembered Xi Luo.

For the Holy Temple's only genius who had pushed his strength to the peak of the Sword Master level before the age of eighteen, just one step away from becoming a Sword Emperor, excluding him was simply unacceptable. Coincidentally, at this time, news came through secret channels that the "Dark Eagle" had returned to the Mainland. Thus, someone proposed an absurd plan for Xi Luo to participate in the mission to slay the "Dark Eagle." If successful, the "Light Saber," a divine weapon stronger than the "Holy Spear Quinilon," would belong to Xi Luo. If it failed, then it would be Xi Luo's incompetence, and no one else could be blamed.

This inexplicable plan unexpectedly gained the approval of the majority of the Holy Temple's high-ranking officials, and thus Xi Luo was manipulated without his knowledge. In the end, Griffith unexpectedly summoned the "Eagle Corps," which was immune to Light magic, and nearly annihilated the Holy Temple's expeditionary force, leaving Xi Luo's hopes in ruins.

However, what Chen Xuanfeng was more concerned about was the whereabouts of the forbidden spell materials bearing Jin Luosha's "Original Sin Brand."

Xi Luo and his team were quite clever, splitting the materials into two parts. They auctioned off most of the materials but kept the most crucial pages in their possession. Once these materials fell into the hands of the forbidden spell casters, they would surely notice the omissions and send someone to track down the sellers, allowing them to gather the information they needed.

In the final auction, none of Chen Xuanfeng's group of five (including the elf sisters) attended. Only after the auction ended did they bid farewell to Xi Luo and officially begin their pursuit.

For the next three months, Chen Xuanfeng and his companions had a very difficult time. The materials did not seem to have been directly acquired by the forbidden spell casters' own forces but instead fell into the hands of a wealthy southern merchant. Just as Chen Xuanfeng had confirmed through several infiltrations that this merchant had no connection to the forbidden spell casters, the materials were offered to the royal family due to the merchant's financial crisis. Naturally, Chen Xuanfeng had to investigate whether the royal palace harbored any forbidden spell casters. However, a prince of the royal family secretly used the materials as a bargaining chip to win over a certain Grand Magister, which then led to a coup d'état. Amidst the chaos, Chen Xuanfeng almost thought his carefully laid bait would turn to dust, only to find that the materials had changed hands again. Then followed a series of conspiracies, trades, deceptions, and killings, with even the elves and forces from the underground world getting involved. Several times, Chen Xuanfeng was on the verge of intervening himself. In the end, even Chen Xuanfeng, who had been tracking the materials all along, was not entirely clear how many times the precious materials that could attract the attention of the forbidden spell casters had changed hands. If someone were to record its journey, it would undoubtedly make for a fascinating story (should I write a side story? Hmm, better not—author Guan Canghai is ultimately a lazy person).

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"After a long... long... pursuit, we have finally... finally... found our... dream..." the silver-haired man sang loudly.

"Yes... brother, but it was really... really... long..." the golden-haired girl sang in response, sighing.

Using a bizarre recitative style, these lines were sung by a pair of siblings... actors, yes, actors performing on stage. And naturally, the place they were in was a theater stage.

As for Chen Xuanfeng, he was sitting in the audience, listening to these completely incomprehensible things.

"Jin Luosha, why are we here? Do you like this so-called Western-style opera?" Chen Xuanfeng frowned and asked softly. To be honest, he found this absolutely torturous. Even when he endured the double backlash of the "Dream Star Crown," it wasn't this unbearable. He wasn't unfamiliar with theater—various operas were popular in his previous life's Central Plains (or so he thought, since "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" had actors)—but this pretentious stuff was completely different.

"No, Jin Luosha is suffering too, but I sense the 'Original Sin Brand' reacting here."

The poor girl endured the torturous performance while focusing her mind to sense the location of the "Brand."

As they say, good things come with many twists and turns. Besides following the flow of the forbidden spell materials and facing various sudden changes, Chen Xuanfeng's group had another headache: people kept adding magical seals to the materials.