Chapter 63: The City of Joy
The City of Joy was the heart of the Joyful Empire, the main state body that the Boundless Joy Sect established and controlled. It was an empire that spanned the entire region, the four provinces being its main territories while the Huxian Province was naturally the center of it all.
Unlike the sect, the empire did not practice the matriarchal system, rather surprisingly opting to adopt the typical patriarchal system. The only thing was that the general morality of the Joyful Empire completely embraced the kind of extreme modern progressiveness that Li Ling saw in his past life in terms of sexual freedom.
From what Li Ling had experienced personally when he passed here the first time, it was completely normal for a woman to be promiscuous if she wanted and most men here did not care about it. In fact, the majority took it as a point of pride to be superior to their partner’s previous lovers, basing their masculinity around pure sexual performance rather than strength and value.
It was also normal for the one doing the ’inserting’ to change at any time. Mortals and martial artists here may lack the power of cultivators, but with the existence of the Boundless Joy Sect, it was inevitable that many strange things had come into being that one would usually only see in the depths of one’s dark fantasies.
The first and most familiar to Li Ling had been the Yang Enhancing Pellet, which was essentially the ’viagra’ of the cultivation world and the Boundless Joy Sect’s biggest export around the continent that secured its value and status as overlord in this region. It was also one of the reasons why the Qing Shan Sect was rabid to take them down, for whosoever owned this formula would own around 3% of all the spirit stones traded annually continent wide!
The second was surprisingly a substance called the Yin Boosting Balm, which was a stimulant for females that was like the notorious Spanish Fly, able to increase their arousal, sense of pleasure and make them more receptive to pregnancy. Its market share was even higher than its male counterpart at 8% annually because cultivators suffered from infertility due to higher life levels. Naturally, those wanting to start cultivation families would right away buy this drug aplenty for their female partners.
The third was the Yin/Yang Change Powder, which was akin to Li Ling’s Yin/Yang Reversal Art, but merely changed the form without changing the essence. Not only was it temporary, but overuse would cause a person’s balance of the two essences to become out of flux, leading to mutations and aberrations worse than one’s darkest nightmare. This one was more niche continent wide, but was widely used in this region because the Boundless Joy Sect had ways to resolve these issues among mortals and low-level cultivators.
So as the pink palanquin reached the large gates of the City of Joy, one could already see people engaged in raucous sexual activity from the outside. Crossing the gate, which was completely unmanned and unguarded, one would be first hit by the smell of what felt like cheap perfume from a shanty town brothel, which was pervasive but not too overwhelming.
Then, one’s ears would be bombarded by the sound of female moans and male grunting, not at all suppressed or prohibited. Finally, one’s eyes would be left agape by the sight of wanton debauchery occurring in broad daylight, on the streets, on the balconies, and in the alleyways.
Men and women, men and men and women upon women were everywhere, indulging themselves in the most basic expression of joy that sapient beings possessed. The raw unfiltered nature of it was possibly the greatest culture shock anyone could experience, but none on the palanquin seemed surprised.
This paradoxically caused both Bai Ruyi, who had been sullen all this while, and Wen Caiyi, who felt extremely awkward and restrained, to display confusion. As both of them came from the sect that propagated this kind of lifestyle, they were used to such an atmosphere among the larger mortal territories in the kingdom, but they expected Li Ling to show some special reaction to this.
Seeing this, Li Ling, who had folded his arms with an amused smile all this while, decided to explain. "I’ve been here before, a decade ago. I’ve already seen the crazy nature of the territories of your sect, so don’t expect me to become pale faced as a response."
Wen Caiyi and Bai Ruyi shared a look of uncertainty before regaining their silence. Li Ling saw this and grinned widely, enjoying the wrench he had inadvertently dug between the two on the surface, but inwardly he was frowning.
It felt... off.
He had only spent slightly over a day with these two, but his impression of them was not consistent with their current behavior. Of course, it could be that he did not know enough about them to start with, and that was true, but he also had a sinking suspicion that they were somehow trying to one-up him.
So he played along, acting as if he was happy about their seeming conflict due to Li Ling accepting Wen Caiyi’s offer. However, he knew he had to find a way to eavesdrop on any potential voice transmission the two might be making, but neither his current techniques nor spirit sense were up to par.
He was tempted to spend Slaughter Points to upgrade his entry-level Voice Transmission technique to the max and then limit break it to see if he could gain something new, but he refrained from performing any breakthroughs while still in ’captivity’.
Because of course, Li Ling was not foolish enough to think that he had any form of control while seated near a Nascent Soul elder within her sect’s main territory. Until he crossed the teleportation gate and entered the Tianmo Empire, his life and death were fully in the hands of the two before him, so his main objective was to get there as soon as he could.
The palanquin naturally drew attention as it traversed the streets not only due to its size and flamboyant pink coloration, but also due to its bearers who were full of burgeoning yang. Mortals and martial artists could not sense their powerful cultivation, as it was currently restrained so as not to discomfort those within the palanquin, but seeing their bearing alone made the faces of everyone change.
No matter what they had been doing previously, everyone immediately ’disconnected’ and prostrated themselves by the road, not daring to lift their heads as the palanquin slowly passed through. Li Ling saw this with his spirit sense, his expression unsurprised as he knew that this was normal no matter the territory you went to.
Whether in demonic sect territories or those of righteous sects, the weak common floor members who had no power were expected to pay homage and show obeisance to the transcendent ones who held supreme power. Failure to do so might cause you to be punished in certain places or might be ignored in others, but one couldn’t afford to gamble when weak.
Naturally, as a capital city, the City of Joy was not home to only mortals and martial artists. There were many cultivators at varying levels present, though those walking on the streets as far as out here were mostly at the lower levels, and they too bowed their heads when the palanquin passed by.
While they may not be aware that this was the personal ride of the Joy Sect Saintess and her Nascent Soul protector, they definitely knew it was a vehicle affiliated with the overlord of the region, so respect must be paid where it was due.
Li Ling glanced at them with a deep look, remembering how many times during his past that he had been among such indiscriminate masses, having to lower his head to those who were better. In the beginning, he had been ten times unwilling, vowing to make sure everyone respected him when he awoke his destiny.
Eventually, it happened enough times that he had become numb, already bowing his head even before the superior person was within the necessary range, even maintaining the posture long after they were gone.
This was the essence of the cultivation world, present everywhere.
Li Ling looked at it with a calm expression, his gaze unreadable. This scene had awoken some memories, and those memories had in turn been catalyzed as fuel for the growing fire within him that demanded power, all the power in the world to bend it to his will!
Li Ling glanced at the Infinite Slaughter System panel, with its 1415 Slaughter Points still waiting for him to allocate, and smiled.
In due time, in due time. Let’s get over this current hurdle first and it will be time to show the cultivation world of Firmament Heaven what a truly horrifying rate of growth would look like.
Eventually, the palanquin reached the gates of a huge, sprawling mansion estate that might as well have been a palace. It was the size of about fifteen football stadiums, and just the main gate alone was wide enough to compete with a small canyon.
The gate was open, with a pink and purple banner reading ’Boundless Joy Hall’ fluttering above that seemed to possess some awe-inspiring power that enraptured the mind and seized the soul. For Li Ling, it was as if his spirit sense had been nabbed by a bunch of playful dryads, gently rubbing up upon him while giggling and asking him not to leave.
If it wasn’t for his high spirit sense for his level, he would have had extreme difficulty tearing himself away and even when he did, his face was a little pale. He was in shock, because he felt that his spirit sense had actually been consumed by 10%, the total range down from 320 meters to 288!
And this consumption was permanent, meaning that it would not recover naturally over time!
Bai Ruyi saw Li Ling’s state and covered her mouth with a giggle. "Oh? Tsk, Brother Ling should know better than to scan anything you see, right? The Joy Sect Banner is a Rank 3 Artifact that is meant to deter certain malicious yin creatures that like to prey on our disciples due to our high and pure yin essence."
Even Wen Caiyi, who had not shown a single positive expression since she appeared, was smiling slightly now. "It should be a fruitful lesson for the Young Lord. The biggest taboo among higher-tier cultivators and in truly important spaces is to use one’s spirit sense carelessly."
Both of them adopted a lecturing tone filled with satisfaction and schadenfreude, which made Li Ling become silent as he glanced at the two of them slowly, one after the other. Then, in a very unsettling manner, he smiled amiably and nodded.
"You’re right, I’ll keep that in mind."
Wen Caiyi paled because her danger sense spiked crazily, by more than twofold of what it was before. This left her completely stunned because she and the Saintess had planned to set up this prank to test Li Ling and also suppress him a little, as they were worried that once he entered the Six Paths Demon Sect’s territory, he would immediately switch up despite the heavenly oath in play.
Yes, they knew he would be angry and unhappy because of it, but that was as expected. Anyway, Bai Ruyi — and even Wen Caiyi — were skilled at defusing the aggressiveness and rage of a male thanks to their training in their skill in the Joyful Union Sutra, but this...
It was as if they had provoked something they shouldn’t have, and because of this, death was their most likely outcome unless something changed.
What Wen Caiyi couldn’t understand was how he could develop such intense killing intent that disregarded logic so easily and so silently. Even the most fickle young master would not harbor such strong killing intent that it would cause someone two times their realm to feel a sense of terror for their future self.
And even worse, how could he possibly make her danger sense ping so strongly? It wasn’t omnipotent, especially at the Nascent Soul stage where her spiritual space was empty and only had the foundation of her future Purple Mansion built, compared to Li Ling whose was finished.
While she could sense danger, it was like Li Ling’s initial passive danger sense from the advanced level of Blessed Augury, not coming with the direction and intensity of the danger, not any clairvoyant visions of the future.
More importantly, the ’danger sense’ thing had a limit in terms of range and time. It didn’t sense all danger towards you for eternity, but was confined to a certain period depending on the strength of one’s cultivation, spirit sense and Purple Mansion.
For Wen Caiyi, it was about a week based on her tests and calculations ever since she ascended to the mid-stage of the Nascent Soul realm.
In other words, starting from today, the Li Ling of seven days would become strong enough to give her such a strong sense of danger, which was something that Wen Caiyi could not fathom at all.
And honestly, she began to regret not killing him earlier, because it would be difficult to do now after confirming him as the prophesied one.