Chapter 47: Blessed Augury
Old Li laughed uproariously, his old face red with mirth. After all, threats as a form of bargaining were the norm in demonic sect areas, and even some righteous sect black markets adopted this same method.
Just like a typical earthling, or really, any sane person, Li Ling had first been shocked by this practice when he passed through about a decade ago. However, after tasting the difference between demonic and righteous sects, he had come to understand that these differences were borne due to the different underlying rules of society in both domains.
As seen in the Qing Shan number 9 marketplace, Li Ling had bought a level 1 wolf from that Qi Refinement level 4 woman. Because at the time, his outward cultivation level was at level 2, she charged him slightly more than the wolf’s value, and he had to accept it without bargaining.
This was due to the prevalent unspoken rule in the righteous sect territory where you, at a lower cultivation level, were expected to give way to those who were stronger without making the stronger one seem like a tyrant.
It was as if righteous sect societies asked those who were weaker to be thoughtful of the pride and mentality of those stronger.
If you didn’t, then while the righteous cultivator would not strike you down on the spot, you would have offended them and would subsequently face many challenges that usually ended in death or suffering.
Here though, the value of what you were saying, what you were selling and what you were buying was solely decided by the power difference between you and your prospective buyer or vendor. It didn’t matter if you had a treasure worth 1500 spirit stones, if you were Qi Refinement level 8 and your buyer was Qi Refinement Perfection, you’d better lower the price down to 1200.
How to finalize this? Well, the process was by flexing auras, making verbal threats and showing your cruelty, but the actual decisive conclusion came down to a spar. Vendors and buyers could quickly settle a dispute on price through a non-fatal spar, in which the winner decided the price.
It wasn’t the most efficient, but it suited the people here very well.
Old Li glanced at the three books Li Ling chose with amusement. "Little brat, no need to threaten me, your cultivation is far higher than mine, so how dare I say no? Just be careful when practicing these methods, because they are extremely sinister."
"That’s not your problem, old man! Quickly state the discounted price for me!" Li Ling scoffed outwardly but nodded secretly inside, taking the advice to heart.
Old Li shrugged and made a finger of five with a zero after. Li Ling’s brows initially furrowed seeing the price, but looking down at the three techniques, he pretended to grit his teeth and paid from the spoils he had gained from his recent killing spree.
After giving Old Li the payment, which the old man deftly swiped away with definite hints of the Hidden Sleeve Art, Li Ling took the three books and sat down nearby where Old Li would be within eyesight, opening them to read.
Old Li, seeing Li Ling showing basic common sense when in a demonic market, chuckled softly but did not try to escape. He simply relaxed in his stall, waiting for passersby to purchase his bizarre array of techniques once more.
Meanwhile, Li Ling opened the first of the three techniques he bought, which was the Soul Piercing Seal. This was a daoist art that was not limited to Qi Refinement, its general utility in a similar flow to the Qi Sealing Technique but also vastly different.
Bluntly speaking, its main function was to enslave other sentient creatures with weaker spiritual power than the user, more effective if the user was at least one major realm higher than the target. The chances of backlash were significant because one couldn’t easily measure spiritual power at the lower cultivation ranks outside the sects or orthodox societies, and the power of cultivators in such a regard was usually equal at the same level unless one practiced a strong mental method.
But which normal cultivator had time to cultivate so many methods? Likely, even sect disciples had to apportion their time and priorities well, only those with endless resources able to splurge on such a thing.
There were many variants of enslavement techniques out there, even righteous sect ones, but most of them followed the same rules and had varying strengths as well as weaknesses. This Soul Piercing Seal allowed one to penetrate enemy mental defenses after you capture them, but did not give bonuses to the success rate of enslavement nor strength of mental power.
How it achieved this was by transforming the loose spiritual power that low-level cultivators did not actively train and turning it into a sort of armor-piercing spike. Li Ling found it to be quite intriguing because he could totally use this as an attack method in Foundation Establishment and above, when he activated his spirit sense.
The second technique was similar to the previous one, with a more famous connotation to Li Ling especially. It was the Memory Plunder Method, famously called Soul Reading back on Earth. This one allowed you to browse through the memories of a subdued cultivator after breaking into their sea of consciousness, but the downside was that the target would be rendered stupid afterward, becoming retarded.
But that wasn’t the only downside. If the user was not careful in handling the plundering, the memories of the target could merge with their own and become indistinguishable, leading to personality issues. This was especially the case if one dealt with multiple targets over a long period of time.
The main feature of this technique was that plundered memories were organized in a more formal manner, which was good for storage and indexing if you were searching for important info while trying to skip the unimportant personal details about their lives.
After all, it was fine when dealing with a Qi Refinement youngster, but what about a Nascent Soul old monster with 500 years of life under their belt? Even if more than 70% of their waking time was spent in the daze of meditative cultivation, that was still a lot of content to sift through to find something brief, so having a technique like this was fine for Li Ling.
The third and final technique was the one that truly caught his eye, making it impossible for him to pass up.
It was a demonic divination technique called the Blessed Augury, which required a person to sacrifice something of equal value to what they wanted to know, whether it was premonition of danger, chance of luck, or the outcome of a choice.
The technique boasted no limits in what it could divine, which made Li Ling raise an eyebrow. If it was so powerful, then why was it sold in a dingy stall by some old man and not a guarded technique in a sect pavilion?
Soon, he found out.
It turned out that the price-to-performance ratio was completely skewed.
If the cleanest righteous sect divination technique required a price of 1:1 in terms of sacrifice from the user to gain equivalent value from the heavens, then this technique was akin to trading 1:10.
So then, why would anyone even practice this? It was clear that by the time you even got to use it to benefit yourself, you would very likely be walking with only one leg and one arm remaining.
Well, it had three main advantages that Li Ling found amazing. The first was that anyone could practice this technique regardless of their karma, their cultivation level or their race. This was an important distinction because the reason why every Li, Su and Chen did not practice divination to know their fate was not just the complexity of it, but the hard requirement in talent.
Most divinatory methods, especially those of the righteous or orthodox side, needed one to have special qualifications and usually were transmitted singularly down to one inheritor per generation, making seers rare and highly sought after.
The second advantage this method had over others was simplicity. Typical divinatory methods required ample preparation and even the use of materials to perform rituals. It was the length of the ritual that decided the quality of the divinatory method and how portable it was.
Interestingly, this technique was extremely unique in this regard because it allowed one to condense the ritual into an item or an action. You could make it a coin toss, a flip of the dice or even a snap of your finger. However, this was just the activation method and did not change the hefty price to pay.
The final advantage was the variety of offerings. While it seemed like one could choose what to give up for typical divinatory methods, this was not the case. Each method, whether righteous or demonic, had a strict cost attached to its usage, whether it be lifespan, blood, souls or even karmic ties.
The Blessed Augury was lenient in this regard because you could choose what to pay up, and even cobble together parts from different aspects to pay the severely steep final bill.
Putting the mantra down, Li Ling found himself in a slight daze.
Why did it feel like divination was sort of like an information broker business, where the will of heaven was the information broker who had knowledge of past, present and future, selling it to seers in exchange for a cost?
Not only that, but the will of heaven seemed to discriminate between seers, treating those with more orthodox techniques with stringent talent requirements better, akin to VIP card members, granting them discounts on their purchases.
Meanwhile, those using a technique like the Blessed Augury were treated with utter disdain, facing severe markup on the same things as the others, fleeced dry for even daring to enter that noble establishment with their lacking qualifications.
Li Ling shook his head and sighed, admitting that these techniques were truly worth their price. What he couldn’t understand was why Old Li would sell such a thing out here for so cheap, not to mention the low patronage of his stall.
Absorbing these techniques did not take mere seconds, so Li Ling had literally been sitting here for more than six hours. Countless people had come and gone by, while even vendors had packed up their temporary stalls and left with new ones coming to replace them.
Yet Old Li remained there, smiling provocatively at Li Ling as if telling him that he was right there, not going to run even if Li Ling tried to scare him away. Interestingly, people passed by Old Li and glanced at his techniques with interest, but then they failed to bargain successfully.
Li Ling was not insane, he could tell that this sale was somehow targeted. However, he could not, for the life of him, understand how Old Li would know that he would be here at this specific date, specific time and that he would buy the daoist arts here, until Li Ling looked at the very Blessed Augury technique he held.
Interesting! Li Ling thought as he cracked a smile, raising his head to see that the moment he made the realization, Old Li and his stall had disappeared as if it were a mere illusion.
This did not spook the young man. If the old man had divined something about him, then it was clear that he wanted to cut into Li Ling’s destiny and siphon off some good luck or favor, otherwise he would not have conveniently supplied him with techniques that would make his journey easier.
Li Ling was only left to wonder, what exactly did Old Li see and what price did he pay? And with Li Ling’s knowledge of his own character as well as his plans for the future, he was surprised that anyone would want to help him. It would be more logical to slaughter him in the cradle while he was weak, or did Old Li thrive off chaos and slaughter?