Chapter 49: Joyous Number 5 Pavilion
No matter how the two ladies tried to parse Li Ling’s actions, they came up with an error. More importantly, in the demonic sect regions, the more bizarre and unorthodox a person was, the more they were not to be trifled with.
A basic fact anyone who was well read in terms of history and had an extensive education in philosophy would know was that the relationship between dual concepts was always interlinked with each other, no matter how distant they seemed.
In this case, there was always a bit of chaos in order, with righteous sects still tacitly allowing black markets, indirectly enforcing cultivator classism and even having secret dealings with the very demonic sects they claimed they couldn’t tolerate.
Likewise, there was also a bit of order in chaos, with demonic sects having strong rules to protect the lives of mortals as property, with stronger cultivators strongly discouraged from hunting those one realm lower, while those at the same realm could freely kill or harm each other as they pleased.
Without basic frameworks like these, what was stopping one Foundation Establishment cultivator from perching outside the market and rounding up every Qi Refinement fellow who passed through, turning them into nutrients for their cultivation?
It was the same issue again as with the now deceased market guard captain number 3 descending on the Chen couple, Li Ling openly murdering Qiu Yaoli and his interrogation of Cai Dong.
None of these acts were made with logic, they did not follow the established rules, so people who lived within the system would find them baffling and irregular. In righteous sect domains, people who broke the basic train of logic like this were surrounded and usually taken down, but in demonic sect regions, they were given a wide berth and feared.
The Madam and Xiao Yu glanced at the smiling Li Ling and felt a chill in their hearts. It seemed like this young miss was one of those ’extreme’ demonic types, not to be trifled with.
Ha, but that was funny, wasn’t it?
This mother and daughter pair engaged in the most cruel trade known to sentient species, the deprivation of free will. There was no higher form of punishment than that to a creature of sound mind and logical consciousness, yet they called Li Ling extreme in their minds.
But this was normal.
The mind was skilled at many things, but the strongest of them all was in stabilizing itself through delusion and self-justification.
No matter what a person said outwardly, in their minds, they considered themselves to be the main character and that everything in reality reacted to their existence, especially in daily life. Because of this, whenever something good happened, people usually assumed it was due to their own efforts, yet when something bad occurred, it was usually blamed on an ’evil’ external force.
Likewise, if an average person had to do what they considered to be ’bad’ or ’immoral’, they would soon find various reasons and excuses to justify their actions. Whether they were ’forced’ by life or it was ’common sense’, there were multiple ways to rationalize what they did as normal and sensible, while others were bizarre for not agreeing.
So, did the two ladies consider themselves as evil? Definitely not.
They simply felt that this was the natural way of life, either you had the strength to be free or you were destined to become someone else’s slave to be controlled at will. This was the norm of the world and was common sense in their eyes.
But to Li Ling, nothing was as important in this entire world as Slaughter Points. They were the hard currency that decided his power and potential in Firmament Heaven, making their objective value higher than anything else in his life.
He did not bother to always engage in mental battles of logic in all situations, trying to understand the thoughts of others based on the ruleset of the world. He had once been a supporter of the ruleset, believing that indeed, the man who understood the Rules and Regulations Gu would be able to survive anywhere.
However, his current journey was initiated precisely because he learned the ruleset could be broken at random, so he changed his actions to match his current goals, to acquire power through Slaughter Points.
On the surface, if one looked at his actions from afar and one by one, they would assume he was practicing a demonic technique related to killing. However, when one came to stand before him and experienced his actions firsthand, Li Ling seemed to be a bizarre and cruel monster that was unfathomable.
Because of the nature of Slaughter Points, how they were acquired, the best way to farm them and his constant growth from them, Li Ling was simply akin to a world-destroying black hole that swallowed the living as he traversed the world, leaving nothing but horror in his wake.
The two ladies were experiencing a fraction of that horror right now.
"Of course, you can resell, but the value... hm. I can give you 2500 spirit stones for them." The Madam recovered faster than her daughter who was still trembling, speaking with a calm expression. She had lived far longer and had seen more acts of cruelty than this, just that this one shocked her due to the randomness.
Li Ling walked out of the Daily Life Personnel Shop with a smile, having both Slaughter Points and some funds to purchase the Foundation Establishment techniques he sought. He had already wasted enough time earlier with the Old Li situation, but he felt that it would even out thanks to the acquisition of the Blessed Augury.
Speaking of that, it was time to upgrade his skills again. While it would be wise to leave the points for after he got the technique so that he could shoot up, Li Ling was also considering the fact that getting the technique might not be easy.
In a sect like Qing Shan or Boundless Joy, Foundation Establishment methods were not too rare because cultivators at that tier were only Inner Disciples at best. Once Qi Refinement outer disciples reached the threshold, most sects only required them to farm contribution points to redeem the techniques and then advance at their leisure.
However, rogue cultivators had it extremely tough. In righteous sect regions, Foundation Establishment methods were purposefully kept under lockdown, only a few instances of them circulating around through top-level auctions sanctioned by those above, or when a secret realm yielded the treasures of an ancient elder above that realm.
This was because they did not want too many rogue cultivators to ascend higher, which Li Ling considered to be a valid worry since there were trillions of living beings across the Tianming Continent. If even only one tenth were able to cultivate, that would be hundreds of billions.
Even if it was a hundredth, or even a thousandth, that would be tens of billions and numbers in the billions respectively.
Whether or not Tianming Continent was geographically exaggerated compared to Earth, it was simply unsustainable for many cultivators to advance higher, because the more you advanced, the more you needed. This was especially true for those with lower talents, whose cultivation efficiencies were extremely low and had to make up for it with resources.
On Earth, Li Ling always hated that cultivation worlds were technologically backward with strong information blockage from above. There was literally free energy in the air, what was the issue with letting those who could cultivate be able to do so in peace?
Of course, like any naive earthling used to the information era, Li Ling felt that such worlds could not possibly thrive and were inefficient.
However, after coming here, Li Ling could write you a ten-thousand-page essay with not a single word of fluff about how necessary the current setting was.
Anyway, as for the topic of the Foundation Establishment technique, Li Ling was purposeful in coming to a demonic sect region. Such techniques were several tiers easier to acquire and the variety was a bit better, just that he was not entirely sure about the aftermath.
Why do demonic sects allow this to happen in their regions? After all, they should have the same concerns as righteous sects, so a general information blockade should be to their advantage as regional rulers, right?
Well, no. Once again, righteous sects and their cultivators thrived through using "natural" resources in the form of flora and fauna. Spirit stones were seen as a type of ore, but given their nature of appearance and cycle of existence, Li Ling considered them close to flora.
But demonic sect cultivators’ resources were other cultivators. While righteous sect fellows prevented more higher-tier cultivators in their region to preserve resources and prevent competition, demonic sects were happy to see rogue cultivators not affiliated with their force become stronger by using the natural resource that they didn’t really need.
Oh, you managed to reach Foundation Establishment Perfection by using herbs and pills? Great, come over here and enter this cauldron over here so I can refine you into a pill to breakthrough!
Li Ling amused himself with his own thoughts, eventually arriving at the center of the entire market, the Joyous Number 5 Pavilion, the Boundless Joy Sect’s official shop in the market. The rest of the places were other affiliated shops from lesser sects in the region, establishments owned by powerful rogue cultivators—like the Daily Life Personnel Shop—and various residence or habitation areas.
It was not as organized as the Qing Shan number 9 marketplace. It was clear that the pavilion before Li Ling was created first and everything else was slowly built up around it as people came over to do business for longer periods of time.
The place itself was quite large, possibly the largest single structure that Li Ling had ever seen. Even some of the resplendent palaces he had seen in mortal kingdoms still paled in comparison to this one shop, which seemed to be more of a bit of everything.
In addition, Li Ling actually saw more than a few Foundation Establishment cultivators coming and going, along with Qi Refinement fellows of various ranks. Truly, this market was quite bustling, where both dragons and tigers mixed, unlike the previous number 9 market where each area was segregated by power.
There were no guiding aides here, one had to take care of themselves. After scanning around and doing some investigation, Li Ling came to understand that the place he wanted to go was the western wing of the shop, where the techniques were inscribed and sold.
He also made inquiries and found that indeed, there were Foundation Establishment techniques up for sale, and they were even what most of the cultivators present here in the market—and in the region at large—practiced.
This made Li Ling relax a lot, as he would rather use a technique practiced by everyone, with no unique traits, than one super-secret technique just for him alone. This showed that the technique was at least somewhat clean, without any hidden traps or pitfalls placed within.
Heading to his destination, Li Ling entered a place that could be called a grand library. Huge shelves made of some form of spiritual wood stretched into the distance on all sides, the center of the area reserved for the sale with a large kiosk-like podium manned by three female cultivators of the Joy Sect.
Li Ling walked up to the kiosk and found that there was a set of display panels that held jade slips of different colors, each of them radiating different auras full of spiritual light, looking quite awe-inspiring.
One of the three Joy Sect disciples at the Qi Refinement stage greeted Li Ling with a small smile. "Hello customer. What would you like to buy from the Joyous Scripture Store?"
Li Ling nodded to acknowledge her and glanced at the five books placed at the front-most display panels, meant for anyone who came to shop to see regardless of what they were doing.
Li Ling’s eyes lit up, because these were the five Foundation Establishment techniques sold in the Boundless Joy Sect’s region!