As a precaution.
Li Ping had already changed his appearance into that of a middle-aged, sallow-faced cultivator upon entering the second-ring market ward.
With several days still to go before the auction began, he was in no hurry to head straight to the venue and wait. Instead, he wandered around the market ward.
To accommodate the many cultivators who needed to trade, the market ward had set aside an entire street several thousand zhang long. For a small payment in spirit stones, visiting cultivators could secure a stall there.
Although there were no cultivation restrictions on setting up a stall, most stallholders were actually in the Foundation Establishment Realm or Qi Refining Stage. Core Formation Cultivators were virtually nowhere to be seen.
Core Formation Cultivators in Great Zhou were not as rare as they were in the Western Wasteland, but neither were they cabbages piled on every street corner. They were either sect elders or lineage patriarchs, and could hardly lower themselves to personally run a stall.
If they needed anything done, they could simply order the disciples beneath them to handle it. There was no need to act themselves.
Even rogue cultivators who had reached core formation usually dropped anything they wanted to sell straight off at a shop.
Perhaps running their own stalls would earn them a few more spirit stones, but a Core Formation Cultivator's time was worth far more than those few stones.
As a result, there was little of value at the stalls. Li Ping only bought a few uncommon spirit materials, intending to use them to refine high-tier puppets later.
Still, he did not find it dull. He mingled with the crowd, stopping now and then to inspect the wares on a stall.
Having once picked up a fourth-tier corpse refining technique for a