Chapter 1233: The Bellerophon Clan

“Haha, that guy is probably vomiting blood right now! Trust him to come up with such a far-fetched explanation!” Grina and Cantory had both heard his explanation, but they thought that Lin Li was just making things up like the others. Besides, this just added on to the proof that their previous speculation about the backfiring of Lin Li’s plan to scheme against Grina. It was an extremely humiliating thing for Lin Li, so it was no wonder that he would come up with such an excuse, or so they thought.

The tiny uproar drew the attention of everyone at the venue, so much so that they were all getting distracted from the auction. When the next few items were being auctioned, it didn’t arouse any frenzied bidding or intense competition, which made Grand Duke Vidi a little frustrated.

However, a manager of the auction suddenly dashed onto the stage, and whispered something into Grand Duke Vidi’s ear. No one knew what he said, but they saw Vidi frowning before appearing flabbergasted. In the end, his expression turned sullen.

Finally, Grand Duke Vidi gave his subordinate some instructions, and waved his hand to gesture for him to leave the stage. He then proceeded with the auction.

Soon, another auction item was brought to the stage, which immediately drew the attention of the crowd at the auction. However, the auction item seemed rather inconspicuous on the surface. In fact, it could even be considered ugly.

It was a magic staff that was grayish yellow in color, and its exterior was not straight. Instead, it looked like a withered branch. Based on the appearance of the staff, no one could see what it was actually made of. The material was neither metal nor wood, and there were no gemstones inlaid in it, either. One end was thick, while the other was thin.

“Most of you will probably find this staff peculiar, and you might even wonder, how can such a thing be called a staff?” Grand Duke Vidi picked up the ugly staff, showed it to the crowd with a tone of mockery, and then continued, “However, I will mention a name that perhaps won’t be unheard of to all of you, and that is Mocajerio.”

Indeed, as Grand Duke Vidi said, all the people present got into an uproar after hearing Mocajerio’s name, disrupting the initial peace of the venue.

Mocajerio was a famous Sanctuary Master among the Sea Clans, but his fame was not entirely because of his strength. After all, he was not the only Sanctuary powerhouse among the Sea Clans. An important reason for his fame was actually because he was from the Gobiidae Clan, which had an extremely short lifespan of only 30-odd years on average. Even at the Legendary-realm, the Gobiidae Clan’s lifespan would only be extended to 100 years. It was almost impossible for any of them to break through to the Sanctuary-realm within such a short period of time.

However, Mocajerio was definitely an anomaly in the Gobiidae Clan. First of all, he was definitely a genius as he managed to reach the Legendary-realm at the young age of 15, which was definitely an amazing feat that would make him worthy of being considered a genius in the entire Endless Ocean.

However, even if the people of the Gobiidae Clan reached the Legendary-realm, they would still only have a life expectancy of less than 100 years. If they wanted to use those few decades to break through to the Sanctuary-realm, it would be impossible unless they were like Lin Li. However, there was probably no one in this world who would be as absurdly competent as Lin Li. It was the same for Mocajerio. According to records, even when he reached the age of 90-something, he still didn’t see any signs of a breakthrough to the Sanctuary-realm, and it was as if there was nothing else he could do except wait for the day of his death to arrive.

However, to everyone’s surprise, Mocajerio, who still hadn’t reached the Sanctuary-realm when he was almost 100 years old, didn’t get taken away by the reaper when he reached a full 100 years of age, unlike his fellow clansmen. Instead, he continued studying the ways to break through to the Sanctuary-realm.

Mocajerio finally broke through to the Sanctuary-realm at the age of 200, thus becoming the first ever Sanctuary Master of the Gobiidae Clan. No one knew how many years the lifespan of the Gobiidae Clan, which had short life expectancy, would be extended by after they reached the Sanctuary-realm. All they knew was that Mocajerio lived for more than 10,000 years before vanishing.

Hence, the Gobiidae Clan and many other Sea Clans with short lifespans were all dying to know how Mocajerio had managed to break free from the shackles of a short life expectancy.

“I think you have already thought of something. Yes, this Coral Staff is the one that Mocajerio has been using since he was a child, and did not replace it even after he broke through to the Sanctuary-realm. We have already verified the authenticity of this Coral Staff with the help of a few dozen authenticators. Now, we will begin the auction of this Coral Staff. The starting bid is 5,000,000 gold coins.” After giving the introduction, Grand Duke Vidi placed the Coral Staff on the shelf on the table, and everything was displayed clearly on a huge projection that appeared on the curtain behind.

As it was a staff used by a Sanctuary powerhouse, the power of the Coral Staff was actually not considered great. Hence, many weren’t that enthusiastic about this staff. However, the Gobiidae Clan was not the only Sea Clan with a short lifespan; it was just that the rest had it better than them. For Sea Clans with short lifespans like them, the power of the staff was not important. The key was that the Coral Staff might contain the secrets of Mocajerio’s method of breaking free from the shackles of their lifespans.

Hence, after Grand Duke Vidi announced the start of the auction, the Sea Clans with inherently shorter life expectancy began competing for the Coral Staff zealously. The secret to longevity, or even immortality, was not attractive only to the species with shorter life expectancies. Even those whose lives were longer hoped to master the secret of immortality.

Although the minimum bid increment stated in the rules of the auction was only 200,000 gold coins, the price of the Coral Staff was still soaring upward by a million gold coins at a time. However, even so, not many people gave up, and it seemed that many people treated the Coral Staff as their most important goal in this auction.

In fact, humans were actually also considered a species with relatively low life expectancy, with the norm being only 60-70 years for most ordinary people. However, humans had great potential for development, and once they broke through to the Legendary-realm, they would have their life expectancy increased by thousands of years. Once they reached the Sanctuary-realm, their lifespan could almost be considered infinite, even though they could not necessarily be considered to have achieved immortality. Hence, during the competitive bidding for the Coral Staff, many large forces and clans chose to remain seated and watch the intense competition instead of joining the bidding.

With the fluctuating increment between bids, the price of the Coral Staff soared, and gradually exceeded the 10,000,000-gold-coin benchmark. In the blink of an eye, the price was about to break through the 60,000,000-gold-coin mark, making this round of bidding even crazier than that for the Mirage Sphere previously. However, as the price exceeded 60,000,000 gold coins, some weaker forces finally had no choice but to give up, causing the bidding to cool down a little.

“On behalf of the Sea Serpent Clan, I’m placing a bid of 63,000,000 gold coins!” Falth, the prince of the Sea Serpent Clan, suddenly exclaimed. He even reported the clan that he was from. Clearly, Falth was not just bidding for the item, but also issuing some sort of a threat. Among the seven overlords of the Endless Ocean, the Sea Serpents had the shortest life expectancy of about only 300 years on average. Hence, the Sea Serpent Clan was bent on obtaining the Coral Staff.

As expected, after Falth placed his bid, many people who participated in the bidding showed a drastic change in expression. After all, the Sea Serpent Clan was one of the seven overlords of the ocean whose power and strength was far beyond what the other weaker Sea Clans could compare to. In particular, the Sea Serpent Clan was known to be the most vicious and insidious among the seven overlords. If they were provoked, they would really be capable of doing anything.

Besides, it could be seen from Falth’s bid that the price of the Coral Staff was probably reaching the maximum of his budget. The Desolate Sea where the Sea Serpent Clan resided was not abundant in sea specialties and resources. Although those tens of millions of gold coins were not exactly going to put a dent in their bank, they would obviously save as much as possible.

However, the temptation of the secret to immortality was clearly great enough to make the others ignore the threat of the Sea Serpent Clan. Soon after Falth called his bid, an extremely abrupt voice sounded in the venue.

“15,000,000 gold coins!”

Everyone immediately turned to look in the direction that the voice came from, only to see a peculiar-looking Sea Clansman raising the bidder sign with shaky hands.

That Sea Clansman was relatively short, with a stature of only about 1.2 to 1.3 meters, and he seemed to be a goblin of the sea. He was wearing a hat made of a colorful conch and a fist-sized golden conch hanging on his neck.

Although Lin Li was seated in the private room on the second floor, he happened to be able to see that strange-looking Sea Clansman. He carefully tried to recall the memories he had of the Sea Clan, and finally remembered some information about them with painstaking effort. It was obvious how insignificant they were among the many Sea Clans of the ocean.

Despite the threat of the Sea Serpent Clan, that short Sea Clan person was still insisting on bidding for the Coral Staff. In fact, the Sea Clan that he came from had quite a flashy name—the Bellerophon Clan. However, among the many Sea Clans, the Bellerophon Clan was definitely ranked at the bottom in terms of strength. Not to mention the seven overlords of the ocean, they were in fact far inferior even to the Gobiidae Clan.

The Bellerophon Clan had close to zero combat power, and while they could pick up magic, they lacked talent. Even the so-called geniuses of their clans were only at the standards of level-10 mages. They could learn martial arts, but their achievements would be stunted by their petite bodies.

However, the Bellerophons had an innate talent, and that was their ability to enhance the physical traits of their own clan through the sound waves of their conch, such as giving them ardor, courage, tenacity, etc. It could be said that Bellerophons were born to be a support-type clan that had to be attached to a powerful force, just like the other symbiotic creatures in the ocean.

Logically speaking, a purely support-type clan as such should be very popular with other Sea Clans like the Giant Shark Clan, which, although they had very powerful Giant Shark Knights, would gain a great boost in their combat power if they were complemented with a support-type clan like the Bellerophons, who would augment their abilities and power. In fact, it was said that during the era of the Ocean Dynasty, the Bellerophons had quite a high status, and they were present in many major legions.

Unfortunately, during the tumultuous period of the Ocean War, the Bellerophons would become the enemy’s priority target, regardless of which side they fought alongside on the battlefield. During the Ocean Dynasty era, the coordination and cooperation of soldiers of a large variety of clans were very important. Hence, there were also teams that specialized in protecting the Bellerophons on the battlefield. However, the Ocean War was a war between clans where all cavalry and infantry troops, as well as archers, joined the fight in a chaotic manner. Thus, protecting the Bellerophons was no longer a priority.

By the end of the Ocean War, the talented Bellerophons were almost fully annihilated, and there wasn’t even a single Legendary-level powerhouse left among them. Besides, due to the fall of the clan, the Bellerophons didn’t gain any benefits after the war. Without the support of abundant resources, they couldn’t nurture any outstanding talents, thus resulting in a vicious cycle.

Currently, the Bellerophons had already lost their value in the eyes of the major Sea Clans, and no one would bother to rope them in, because they wouldn’t be able to provide much help to them. Hence, just like the other weaker Sea Clans, the Bellerophons could only occupy a small, barren area of the sea while struggling to keep their clan from going extinct. Their only other source of income, which was considered paltry, was generated through being employed by some other smaller forces. After all, for those smaller forces, any increase in combat power would be good enough, even if it was only a little bit.

The average life expectancy of a Bellerophon was about 40 to 50 years. However, they would require at least 100 years to reach the Legendary-realm. Among the Sea Clans, they were considered a standard species with a short lifespan. Without any outstanding geniuses and long life expectancy, the Bellerophons were actually already on the brink of extinction at this point as they were truly struggling to survive.

However, no one could decide if a genius emerged among them or not. Hence, the Bellerophons had no choice but to pin their hopes on prolonging their lives. In fact, the powerful clans didn’t exactly rise because of their geniuses. Perhaps, there were other clans that had the same level of innate talent as them, but enjoyed longer lifespans. Hence, it wasn’t strange for them to have members that had reached the Legendary-realm. For the Bellerophons, it was simply impossible because they wouldn’t live long enough to reach the Legendary-realm in 100 years.

Hence, life expectancy was a huge problem that plagued many species with shorter lifespans, as it was a crucial factor that hindered their development. For example, the High Elves would break through to the Legendary-realm upon reaching adulthood, and those who had reached the Sanctuary-realm were not rare, either. Hence, they were the self-proclaimed descendants of gods and the most perfect race. However, the High Elves had life expectancy of a thousand years and above, unlike humans. If humans could all live for such a long time, they might not necessarily be inferior to the High Elves.

The same went for the Bellerophons. With an average life expectancy of only 40 to 50 years, no one except extremely rare geniuses would be able to break through to the Legendary-realm within their lifetime. Besides, doing so would also require a large amount of resources and support. Back in the era of the Ocean Dynasty, the Seahorse Clan valued the Bellerophons for their abilities, and all it took was a single order for them to gather a large amount of Legendary-level resources to allocate to the Bellerophons. However, in the current age, all Sea Clans would keep their resources for their own use. Who would bother wasting their precious resources on the Bellerophons?