Cultivation Permissions

He had no idea that this had always been a source of frustration for many low-level cultivators in the Mortal Realm. A lot of things simply weren’t worth an entire spirit stone, yet they had no way to break spirit stones into smaller pieces. More often than not, they had no choice but to scrape together funds from one person or another, which made it all too easy for problems to arise.

As a result, many low-level cultivators often found themselves in a difficult position whenever they wanted to buy something.

The spirit beads produced by Xiushui City were practically tailor-made for low-level cultivators.

Without intending to, Xiushui City had won itself a tremendous amount of goodwill among low-level cultivators. After all, no one in the entire Mortal Realm had paid attention to this problem for so many years, much less thought of a way to solve it.

Yet Xiushui City, backed by a Deity Transformation expert, had easily come up with a solution and created spirit beads that were so convenient for low-level cultivators.

By now, Xiushui City had practically become a sacred land in the hearts of all the rogue cultivators in the Mortal Realm.

Here, they could find work to earn spirit beads, buy inexpensive cultivation resources, and no longer had to worry about being robbed or slaughtered in the city.

Even many rogue cultivators from various regions who had cautiously chosen not to move to Xiushui City had benefited from its flourishing development. The various sects and imperial families had begun offering them numerous opportunities to work and earn spirit stones.

With the arrival of the new year, even the cultivators imprisoned in the Prison Cage Compound—who could do nothing but clear wasteland, farm, and manufacture various items each day—were given a holiday. During those few days off, even the spiritual energy within the Prison Cage Compound was temporarily restored.

This came as a great surprise to the prisoners. They had never expected Yuan Jinsheng, who appeared so overbearing, to give them a holiday, much less restore their spiritual energy during it.

For a time, these cultivators no longer felt as much resistance toward the Prison Cage Compound—or Xiushui City—as they had at the beginning.

This was especially true of the many low-level cultivators. They suddenly felt that working here was actually pretty good. They were paid according to how much work they did each day. The pay wasn’t much, but neither had they earned much when working for Wanwantong. Back then, they had also been exploited by their superiors and constantly ordered around.

It was nothing like Xiushui City, and especially nothing like the Prison Cage Compound. What sort of superior? What sort of high-level cultivator? At most, they could only clear wasteland a little faster than the others. Once they returned to the Prison Cage Compound, those people couldn’t do anything to them anyway.

Even the spiritual energy restored during the holiday was limited to the area inside their individual rooms. The moment they stepped outside, it disappeared. Every room was also protected by restrictions, making it impossible for anyone else to enter.

Clearly, the Prison Cage Compound had no intention of letting them gather together, thereby preventing any possibility of trouble.

As for the high-level cultivators, they obviously looked down on the meager wages Lingxian Sect paid them. But while living under someone else’s roof, they had no choice but to bow their heads. In their hearts, they continued to hope that the cultivation world would discover something was wrong in a few years and send people to rescue them.

Thus, once the holiday ended, most of the cultivators in the Prison Cage Compound not only avoided the usual post-holiday slump, but actually worked even harder.

Over the past year, they had increasingly felt that staying here might not be so bad after all—if only the place could provide them with a stable, long-term environment for cultivating with spiritual energy, rather than cutting off their supply from time to time as it did now.

After so many cultivators had cleared, irrigated, and tended the vast stretch of primeval forest beyond the Northern Mountains, it had long since been transformed into broad expanses of fertile farmland.

Farther out, there were still endless mountain forests as far as the eye could see. However, after inspecting the area, the Spirit Farmland Division decided that they had enough land for the time being. Any more would exceed the maximum range of the protective barrier around their fields.

The farmland district and the urban district shared Xiushui City’s protective barrier. Although the barrier covered a vast area, it still had its limits.

Thus, after the cultivators in the Prison Cage Compound finished clearing the wasteland, their work changed to farming.

There were simply too many of them—more than ten thousand. If the Spirit Farmland Division had sent people to teach them one by one, it would have taken an unknown amount of time and effort. In the end, Yuan Jinsheng simply printed a stack of farming manuals produced by the Spirit Farmland Division and handed one to each of the spy cultivators.

“These manuals are free of charge. I hope you’ll study them carefully and farm diligently. From now on, whether your wages are high or low will depend on the yield and quality of the spirit fields you clear,” Yuan Jinsheng said, standing with his arms folded in the square of the Prison Cage Compound as he addressed the more than ten thousand spy cultivators gathered there.

The cultivators who had just received their farming manuals began flipping through the small booklets in unison.

Yuan Jinsheng continued, “Each person gets only one copy. If you lose or damage it, deal with it yourselves. The purchasing standards for spirit grain, along with the corresponding purchase prices, are all listed inside. These prices are nearly the same as those outside. Whether you want to earn these spirit stones is up to you.”

“As for the spirit fields outside, whoever clears a plot will be responsible for cultivating it. The identity plaques we gave you before are the restriction jades for your respective fields. No one can take away land that you cleared yourselves.”

In other words, however much land they cleared before would be the amount of land they could produce from in the future.

At those words, many of the cultivators who had previously worked diligently grew excited, especially the low-level cultivators.

They had already skimmed through the manuals. If the purchase prices listed inside were genuine, then as long as their harvests were not disastrously poor, they could earn quite a lot from the land they had cleared.

Wasn’t that far better than running around outside as spies through wind and rain? They received only a fixed salary, rarely saw a bonus even after many years, and still had to curry favor with their superiors.

If they carefully cultivated the fields they had cleared themselves in the future, they could live quite comfortably!

Many of the spy cultivators had already begun imagining their happy lives ahead.

Seeing their delighted expressions, a small number of people wore looks of disdain instead. Yuan Jinsheng’s voice turned harsh and gruff as he said, “But don’t think that merely because you’ve been given the right to cultivate these plots, you can do whatever you want with them. If we discover that anyone has allowed their fields to become overgrown and failed to plant them properly, we will immediately distribute that person’s land to others who are diligent and skilled at farming.”

“Anyone without land to cultivate will not be permitted to leave!”

Upon hearing this, not even the Golden Core cultivators among them dared to voice an objection.

They had been here for a year already and knew what the consequences of resisting would be. They had long since grown accustomed to obeying. After all, the first thing most newcomers learned at Wanwantong was obedience.

They could not help but tighten their grip on the restriction jade plaques that belonged to them. From now on, these would be the foundation of their lives here.

Some cultivators who had previously been sent back to the Prison Cage Compound for slacking off or violating the rules wore expressions of resentment and regret.

If only they had known, they would never have tried to pull those little tricks!