Chapter 48: Daily Life Personnel Shop
Li Ling stood up and dusted himself, heading towards another area where the slaves were sold. This was a big square with countless tents and pavilions, along with pens where various creatures, mostly humans, were kept in captivity, naked but clean and healthy.
They all had various bindings from either poison pills, daoist arts, array techniques or collar-like artifacts. The method varied per vendor. The type of human also varied per vendor, with the majority being the same Yanhuang Human as Li Ling himself, with a few selling exotic species like the Sage Race, Spirit Humans, Sand Dwellers, etc.
Li Ling inspected the goods before going to the largest tent in the area, which was marked the Daily Life Personnel Shop, making Li Ling chuckle. When he entered, he saw that it was just as bustling as any other establishment, especially from female cultivators here to buy male furnaces for cultivation.
There were other shops that also catered to such a service, trading male yang from the source for female cultivators to drain for a fee, a reverse brothel if you will.
However, it was not as secure as buying your own male slave and then training him slowly to drain later on. Clearly, as Li Ling was disguised as a young woman at the moment, the vendor here thought he came for the same purpose, as a sultry middle-aged woman sashayed over with a mild smile.
"Young miss, are you here to patronize our goods? I can assure you, you won’t find quality like ours anywhere else, and you get to do as you please with them not limited by time or availability!" The Madam spoke confidently, sizing up Li Ling sharply.
Li Ling felt her spirit sense sweep over him and knew that she was a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
However, this was not surprising to him, as unlike righteous sects that segregated their areas by level of power, especially the outer markets, demonic regions were more random.
He felt his Essence Locking Technique being probed, but it was futile. The yang within him was firmly locked behind a wall of his natal yin energy, the small amount that each male had to balance out their fundamental internal cycle.
It was akin to a pool of water hidden beneath a layer of black oil that floated at the surface. Using your eyes to look, the pool seemed to be one of black oil, and the only way to find out otherwise was to do an in-depth search, plunging into it to see what was hidden beneath.
However, that would be crossing more than a few boundaries, something that could lead to a life-and-death conflict in this kind of area. As for such casual scans with spirit sense, qi seeking techniques or the like, they were unlikely to reveal anything unless Li Ling himself slipped up.
Alternatively, if Li Ling engaged in intercourse, it would be impossible to do anything without his yang energy in operation, so that would also out him.
"I am here to buy as many high-level Qi Refinement slaves as possible." Li Ling divulged succinctly, not wanting to waste too much time here.
The Madam’s eyes lit up. "Of course, my dear! May I ask what your budget is?"
Li Ling took out Wu Ke’s spirit ring, which made the Madam’s eyes narrow, and tossed it over. "Give me a valuation and a price."
The spirit ring was collected by the Madam with the Object Control Technique and she scanned inside with her spirit sense. The next moment, her mature face made an expression of slight surprise, giving Li Ling a deep look.
"I count just about 1897 low-grade spirit stones, various pills, artifacts, talismans, and even beast carcasses. And oh... the corpse of a young girl at Qi Refinement level 3? A virgin too before death? And such a well-preserved soul?" The Madam’s eyes lit up as she took out Qiu Yaoli’s corpse, something Li Ling had even forgotten he owned.
Li Ling tsked. He had become complacent with the Infinite Slaughter System, forgetting how to be a true scavenger that did not even leave the tables and chairs behind. He knew to take the storage treasures of those he killed, but since he knew he was coming to a demonic sect region, he should have stored their corpses too.
They had even greater value than beast corpses in an area like this.
Of course, that begged the question, if corpses were so valuable, then why sell living people? Well, it was due to the different sub-markets for each and the nature of utility.
Those who bought living slaves were those who practiced daemonic refinement methods that either plundered yang, plundered yin, stole cultivation, or enslaved the mind to work for them. Such persons, when "done" with their purchases, usually left a desiccated, useless corpse behind that had either no or little value.
It was similar to buying a depreciable asset like a car on Earth. The more you used it and the heavier it was used, the more its value decreased to the next person, even if they planned to salvage it for scrap because the parts were now worn and old.
Yet a corpse like Qiu Yaoli’s was valuable because it was whole and pristine. Li Ling did not drink her blood, eat her flesh, plunder her yin nor harvest her soul. He simply broke her neck and collected her body right away, so those who utilized corpses on the demonic path like corpse puppeteers, spirit callers, ghost cultivators, etc., were able to get the maximum value from it.
This was just like buying a car with a minor manufacturer’s defect. Just a slight tweak with your "special" mechanic skills and it could become something new, even augmented to feature completely new parts and new features.
Good corpses were always in high demand, especially those of cultivators. As such, the Madam continually exclaimed as she scanned Qiu Yaoli’s corpse over and over again.
"Such minimal resentment! Such a pure soul aura! What a good product!" She sighed with satisfaction and put the corpse back into the void ring, glancing at Li Ling softly.
"I will give you a tentative valuation of 5,000 low-grade spirit stones. This includes your initial 1897 raw spirit stones, 488 spirit stones for the talismans, pills and artifacts, 1449 for the beast corpses, 300 for the girl’s corpse and 1000 for the ring itself." She elaborated with a business-like smile.
Li Ling did the calculation and found that the total was 5,134 spirit stones, so she clearly rounded off to the lower number. After all, this was a business and no matter how she liked Li Ling’s presentation of the corpse, they were not friends nor even acquaintances, so why would she give Li Ling extra?
However, Li Ling was visibly surprised. "Such a good price?"
The Madam chuckled, giving Li Ling an appreciative look for understanding. "After all, I deal in slaves, not general goods. No matter what, there will be some gains and losses when trading your other things, so I have to take a fee for my work, right?"
Li Ling nodded. "Completely reasonable. How many items can I get for it?"
The Madam clapped, summoning over a younger girl who was at the same outward cultivation level as Li Ling, level seven, who seemed to resemble the Madam a bit.
"Xiao Yu, how many Qi Refinement Perfection slaves do we have?" She asked the young girl, her eyes softening with maternal love.
The young lass had a bored expression as she held the Madam’s arm casually. "Oh them? Our current inventory is around 230, but most of them have been reserved by our usual buyers. We only have slightly more than 50 free that we can sell."
The young girl sized up Li Ling and smiled. "Well, I guess you are here to buy from my mom, right? If you want slaves, we have plenty to satisfy you, but those of the higher ranks are more sought after."
"It doesn’t matter. Just give me as many as you can at the high ranks. All the available Perfection realm slaves, then level 9, then level 8 and so on, until the budget is expired." Li Ling answered swiftly.
The Madam nodded. "Good. One Perfection realm Qi Refinement cultivator is priced at 100 spirit stones by the market, but due to high demand, this can increase. However, since you are making a bulk order, I will give it to you at market price."
Hmm, just about right. Li Ling knew that the price of Qi Refinement cultivators was equivalent to the sequence of 10 as a general price, but as the Madam said, it could vary. So a Qi Refinement level 1 cultivator cost 10 spirit stones to buy, which, contrasted against the market price of 5 spirit stones for a level 1 demon beast, was quite telling.
After all, demon beasts were the main raw material for righteous cultivators to practice their arts, aside from herbs and medicines.
The mother-and-daughter pair then brought out a line of slaves bound using a mind seal, controlling their sea of consciousness and preventing them from having any thought of rebelling whatsoever. This was a rather high-end binding method and ensured that the slaves would be mostly free of any future problems due to rough treatment in captivity.
They numbered 50 in total, all at the Perfection realm. Their genders varied, but a large majority were male, quite burly, with abundant yang energy ready for plundering if any demonesses so wished.
In the Joy Sect region, women had a higher status than men, but only if they were affiliated with the Joy Sect or its expansive operations. Other women were not exactly first-class citizens, but could avoid being captured for harvesting and could largely live free unless they crossed a certain line.
So some slaves being female was not surprising.
At the end of the day, whether matriarchal or patriarchal, the final say lay in one’s strength.
Li Ling scanned the bunch with a look of satisfaction, doing some calculations in his mind. At this time, Xiao Yu came over with a soft smile, inquiring: "Would you like us to move them to your place of residence? With so many, you would need some time to drain them all."
Li Ling, still calculating, shook his head. "No need."
This made Xiao Yu adopt a weird expression, wondering how Li Ling planned to cart all these fellows out at once under the greedy gazes of the market. However, she was left utterly shocked when Li Ling simply pointed his finger, releasing the Mountain Splitting Blade with a "shwiim" sound, using the Object Control Technique to behead all the slaves in a line.
｢System Prompt: You have gained 500 Slaughter Points.｣
The cut was smooth and clean, causing the heads to remain attached to the bodies without falling off nor spraying fountains of blood, only showing a thin line of red on each of their necks, their eyes dimming as death freed them from their life of suffering.
Not only Xiao Yu, but the Madam was stunned by this act, as she had been watching from the side, content to let her daughter handle the after-sales service. However, even if someone gave her a thousand chances to guess, she would never have thought that Li Ling would simply slaughter them on the spot.
But her shock was only beginning as a satisfied Li Ling turned to them and asked: "So, how much will you give me for these corpses?"
The Madam and Xiao Yu felt their minds were about to explode, because they had never seen business done like this. Even if you were practicing a demonic method, you had to extract value from your kills physically, be it their blood, their flesh, something.
Since Li Ling left the corpses in their best possible state, it seemed to the two other women that he simply purchased slaves and killed them out of amusement or boredom, then sold the corpses back.
Seriously... who does such a thing?