Lin Yun's Thoughts

The Lingxian Sect was not afraid that the cultivators of the Mortal Realm would grow stronger. What they feared was that these people would remain too soft and weak, and thus lack the courage and strength to face the cultivation world in the future.

After all, even if the matter of Wanwantong could be delayed for ten or twenty years, no one could say what would happen after that.

So exchanging cultivation insights would not take much time. Naturally, they agreed.

When the organizers of the various skill-exchange gatherings heard about it, they could not help but beat their chests in regret. Why had they never thought to invite people from the Lingxian Sect?

Fortunately, it was not too late. The skill-exchange gatherings hurriedly followed the example of the cultivation-exchange gatherings and extended enthusiastic invitations to the Lingxian Sect as well, hoping that the sect would send a cultivator in the relevant field to share their expertise each time.

Since they were willing to work hard and improve themselves, the Lingxian Sect naturally welcomed them all.

Over the past year, the entire Mortal Realm had rapidly transformed from its former dull black-and-white state into something vibrant and colorful.

Everyone was striving to make progress in every area.

Even farming was no exception.

After some sects had tasted the spirit grain from the agricultural district of Xiushui City, they purchased large quantities of spirit-grain seeds and spiritual fertilizer from the agricultural district. They also spent an additional sum of spirit stones to buy the cultivation methods produced by the Lingxian Sect.

The quality of the spirit-grain seeds they bought from the agricultural district was inferior to that of the seeds the Qinghe Sect had purchased at last year’s auction. They also did not receive the free, in-person instruction on farming that the Lingxian Sect had provided to the Qinghe Sect. However, everyone now had ways to earn spirit stones, so they were no longer as miserly with their spending as before.

After paying spirit stones for the farming methods, these sects and imperial families even told the disciples responsible for cultivating the spirit fields that, if their harvests were good and the quality of their spirit grain was high, they would receive a commission for every jin of spirit grain produced in the future.

With such an incentive, how could those disciples fail to take their work seriously? Originally, the disciples in charge of farming had felt that guarding a few shabby fields was far less promising than the disciples who possessed various skills and could refine all sorts of things. But after seeing the spirit grain and various spiritual plants brought back by their sects from Xiushui City, they no longer thought that way.

Those spirit grains and spiritual plants were truly packed with spiritual energy. Anyone could tell at a glance that they were highly valuable. And their selling prices were indeed far higher than those of the spirit grain the disciples had grown themselves in the past.

As a result, every one of them wished they could crawl right into the farming manuals that taught them how to cultivate the fields.

As more and more sects and imperial families asked the Lingxian Sect about the precautions and finer details involved in cultivating various spiritual plants, the elders of the Spirit Fields Group, led by Old Master Lin, finally could not sit still any longer. They went directly to Liu Yunan and asked him to inform those sects that, from then on, they would hold an agricultural exchange meeting in Xiushui City every quarter, specifically to teach everyone about their farming experience.

It was no wonder that even the elderly members of the Spirit Fields Group, who had always been poor at dealing with outsiders, could no longer remain idle and had decided to hold an exchange meeting. Xiushui City now had skill-exchange gatherings and cultivation-exchange gatherings as well. In their opinion, farming was also a major undertaking worthy of discussion and the exchange of knowledge. Naturally, it deserved an exchange meeting of its own.

Yet the sects and imperial families of the Mortal Realm seemed not to have thought of this at all. No one had ever suggested it. Instead, they frequently sent voice-transmission talismans to ask about farming, and they asked with remarkable diligence.

The elders thought that most cultivators outside did not eat ordinary grains and would not realize that farming involved so much knowledge worth sharing. Since no one had proposed it, they would organize it themselves!

After all, it would only be held once every quarter. Over the past two years, they had also taught quite a few young people how to farm and had made tremendous progress in communicating and giving instruction. Take the brothers Lin Dashan and Lin Dayou, for example. They were no longer the same people they had been when they first went to the market to sell their goods—back then, they could only keep their hands tucked into their sleeves and hide in a corner, waiting for customers to come to them.

The agricultural exchange meeting might not interest many high-level cultivators, but the junior disciples responsible for farming within the various sects and imperial families were eagerly looking forward to it. They had already prepared their boat tickets and were simply waiting for the day they could attend.

It was not only the cultivators of Xiushui City who were thriving. The lives of ordinary people were also becoming increasingly rich and varied.

At first, ordinary people in the city did not have much contact with cultivators. Only some of the farmers hired low-level cultivators with spirit stones to help them till their land.

However, when the City Lord’s Office and the Lingxian Sect began hiring ordinary people, they allowed the workers to choose whether they wanted to be paid in spirit stones or gold and silver. As a result, the ordinary people in the city gradually accumulated more spirit stones.

Some observant cultivators noticed this and began researching simple talismans, formations, pills, and other items suitable for ordinary people. They put these things up for sale in the city.

This, however, created a new problem.

Many of these simple items suitable for ordinary people were individually worth less than a single spirit stone. If ordinary people used one spirit stone to buy them, they would suffer a considerable loss.

Yet the low-level cultivators who sold these goods wanted to make the trades, and so did the ordinary people who wished to use such convenient items. At first, familiar households could only gather ten or eight families together to pool their money and use one spirit stone to buy ten items.

But as time went on, it became increasingly difficult to gather enough people for a group purchase. This greatly troubled the city’s residents.

Many independent low-level cultivators and ordinary citizens wrote to the City Lord’s Office to report the situation, hoping that the authorities could provide a solution.

When Lin Yun first saw the matter, he also found it rather troublesome. But his mind worked quickly, and he immediately thought of a temporary solution: let people use gold and silver for these transactions.

The City Lord’s Office could exchange spirit stones for gold and silver. The exchange rate had already been set at one spirit stone for one hundred taels of silver.

This way, ordinary people could use gold and silver to purchase items worth less than one spirit stone according to the proper proportion. The cultivators selling the goods could then take the silver they received to the City Lord’s Office and exchange it for spirit stones.

However, this method could only serve as a temporary substitute. It could not be used over the long term, because to cultivators, the value of a spirit stone was naturally far greater than that of one hundred taels of silver. The reverse was likewise true for ordinary people.

They were two entirely different monetary systems. Mixing them together and treating them as equivalent for too long would easily lead to problems.

Although Lin Yun did not have a particularly clear understanding of such matters, he knew that this arrangement could not continue indefinitely. Thus, after setting up the temporary exchange system, he hurried to find Lin Xiao and explain the situation.

“Could we create a type of currency worth less than a spirit stone? That would make it easier for ordinary people to trade with cultivators.” Lin Yun did not immediately ask Lin Xiao what they should do. Instead, he first voiced his own idea.

Lin Xiao looked at him in surprise. “Big Brother, you’re so clever!”

For someone like Lin Xiao, who possessed the knowledge and experience of his previous life, this problem was actually quite simple. Standing on the shoulders of giants from the twenty-first century, he viewed many issues from a much broader perspective.

But Lin Yun was different.

Everything he had thought of had come from observing, learning, and pondering bit by bit on his own.