Qi Refinement level four was still a bit much, but not entirely outrageous. In fact, if Li Ling had not registered as Qi Refinement level 2 at the entryway to the hunting grounds, he could have passed it off as a natural breakthrough while within the encampment.
As it was, this had become increasingly difficult to achieve because he was not only about to enter a new class of being within the market, but his actions and desires would shift according to his current cultivation. At the perfected Qi Refinement level, minus the Foundation Establishment sect disciple who oversaw the market while in seclusion, there was not anyone else who could deal with him.
If Li Ling had never entered the marketplace's hunting ground, he could even wait a week and enter the market anew, posing as someone who had been in hiding for a while. He did not have any connections in the market and while he was above average in terms of looks, this was the cultivation world.
Unless your head was shaped like a box or your face's symmetry was completely off, most people looked good enough because cultivation made your teeth white and straight, your eyes clear and your skin pristine as a baby, whether male or female.
Because of this, few would remember Li Ling, his face having been one of the many they had seen in their lives, even more so due to his reclusive nature.
Hmm… Li Ling rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Technically, it was not impossible to say that he had been suppressing his cultivation before, but then that would not work because that was illegal. The fee to enter the hunting ground was linked to cultivation level, so misreporting would lead to him giving the Market Guards a reason to deal with him.
To that end, the best thing to do would be to strut around and act mysterious about how he jumped from level 2 to level 4. This jump was not huge enough to make people go crazy and initiate a manhunt with people at the Foundation Establishment joining, but many lower-tier cultivators in the mid to late stage would be interested.
And when they snuck over to either capture or assassinate him, he would have a clear and aboveboard reason for a counter-kill, which would incidentally bring him even more Slaughter Points.
And as he killed more and accumulated, he could further purchase new techniques that had better effects, invest in them, master them and then secretly raise his cultivation even more, attracting more and stronger parties to come and investigate.
Li Ling felt that this was the best path available for him, because he could not engage in production or service-related activities as the Infinite Slaughter System clearly did not support such things. It would control the level of foes he could harvest without causing complete chaos and upending the entire situation.
With that in mind, Li Ling invested 10 points into the Qi Seeking Technique, raising it to the Mastery stage as well. Immediately, the technique became more refined, now barely overlapping with the real world, causing only slight darkness in the sky and in the far distance, but everything nearby was fully colored.
He could now see up to a hundred meters in all directions, and the qi signatures were more distinct and detailed, allowing him to easily distinguish those belonging to animals or persons, and those belonging to even different persons.
Li Ling felt he could even see the specific cultivation stage of a person like this without even meeting them, as long as he saw their qi signature. This would be incredibly useful against the incoming assassinations he planned for, but he would still need some more skills.
After all this spending, Li Ling had exactly 7 Slaughter Points left. He decided to withhold them, as they could not increase either the Qi Restraining Control or the Qi Seeking Technique to the final stage of Perfection.
"It's time to go back," Li Ling muttered to himself, feeling his heart thump slightly.
He initially planned to spend seven days painstakingly hunting demon beasts to reach this point, but he ended up doing it in just two days because of the richness in value of cultivators. After tasting the sweetness of killing his own kind, Li Ling could not stand the idea of wasting time on demon beasts anymore.
As such, he packed up and glanced at the two storage treasures he had looted from Tan Guwan and Wu Ke. As late-stage cultivators, even just at level 7, they were qualified to wield storage treasures, but only low-level storage bags and pouches with limited space.
However, these two had storage rings, or void rings, usually used by those at Foundation Establishment and above, or those at level 9 or Qi Refinement perfection with significant backgrounds. These rings were likely given by their faction, since it focused on hunting. Mere storage bags could not hold larger beast corpses, so the rings were necessary.
Raising the storage ring to his eye level, Li Ling marveled. If you were to ask any denizen of Earth in the know about the cultivation world what they wanted most from it, a storage ring would likely rank after the ability to cultivate.
As one such person, Li Ling had always wondered what they looked like and today he finally had the chance to inspect one closely.
Physically, it was a ring made of what seemed to be a dark silver-like metal that was etched with intricate lines and runes that even an array master like him found dizzying.
Lowering it from eye level, Li Ling had to admit that this thing deserved its exorbitant price. Storage pouches could only hold five cubic meters of goods, which was already quite large, about the size of a large wardrobe-sized closet, which was more than enough for a low cultivator to use.
Storage bags had about seven cubic meters of space, slightly bigger and about the size of a small delivery van's cargo hold, good enough for even a group of cultivators or a team to share, much less one.
Storage rings were the largest, coming at a whopping 15 cubic meters. This was nominally about as big as a large truck's cargo hold, especially those dump trucks that hold sand or gravel at the back. It was more than enough for an entire group to use and carcasses would easily be made to fit within.