Chapter 649: The Dragon-Slaying Arts in Immortal Sect Education

Tushan Xiancheng.

Jiang Ding opened his eyes, swept his divine sense in all directions to cover the entire Xian Gao Jie city, and made a simple assessment.

"Seven years."

"Unknowingly, seven years have passed since the recovery of Tushan Xiancheng."

He sighed slightly.

The gloomy mood had persisted for several years without dissipating; perhaps it would take even more, decades of time, to gradually get used to it, forget it, until it was only remembered once after a very long time.

At this moment, as his divine sense swept over the entire Tushan Xiancheng, he immediately discovered the huge changes that had occurred within it.

The slums, which covered nearly half the city district, had vanished; the smell of excrement, urine, and rotting mud was gone, replaced by green bricks and green tiles, trees forming shade, flowers blooming everywhere, never withering all year round.

In the morning, white mist rose faintly; at noon, Jin Chong Guang shone down; in the afternoon, the sunset glow reflected on people; at night, night lotuses bloomed everywhere like lamps.

Although they were all merely first-grade spiritual plants and also possessed medicinal properties, they could be called breathtakingly beautiful, the scenery resembling a flower palace, with tourists streaming in endlessly, mostly cultivation couples.

"It doesn't look good."

"This city is too effeminate."

Jiang Ding complained.

This was the consequence of having mostly women in power.

There was not a trace of the rough and sharp temperament of sword cultivators; without careful attention, one could easily become addicted to the land of tenderness, making it very difficult to emerge and strive hard.

"Pity, I am a cold and ruthless swordsman..."

Jiang Ding took no notice of this, did not intend to correct it, skipped over the scenery, and looked at the people in the city.

Hundreds of thousands of cultivators, ranging from Foundation Establishment, Qi Refining, to Jin Dan; the Jin Dan were the Shang family's Jin Dan—these merchants were famous for wanting money more than their lives.

If the direct lineage feared death, they would send the collateral lineage; if the collateral lineage feared death, they would send the vassals; in any case, business could not stop.

People could die, but business must be done.

The constant murderous intent in the eyes of the passing cultivators had vanished, becoming more peaceful, no longer looking ready to fight to the death at the slightest disagreement.

Whenever a group of thirteen women, wearing long swords at their waists and green skirts, walked by, the surrounding cultivators immediately cast reverent glances; even the most violent people instantly became good-tempered.

Many such people had died over the past seven years.

After multiple screenings, the city had become much more peaceful.

On both sides of the streets, places like Chunfeng Lou and Hongni Yuan had almost completely disappeared, leaving not even a shadow in the dark.

This seemed to be the reason why cultivation couples whispering sweet nothings appeared more frequently.

As for shops like Lianhun Lou, Xuehun Ku, Zombie Cave, and Ghost Pit, not even dregs remained.

Not only did they not remain, but the people who stayed behind had to deny ever having worked in that trade; if there was any sign of resurgence, a large number of related people would be sentenced to death.

In just a few short years,

large talisman shops, artifact shops, pill shops, as well as organized spiritual beast gardens, spiritual plant manors, and spiritual fish lakes had sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain.

No new technology was adopted; it was simply simplifying existing technology, unifying the standards and processes for talismans, artifacts, pills, breeding, and planting, conducting regular assessments, and simplifying the logistics process.

Merely these changes caused the productivity of the entire Three Kingdoms region to skyrocket several times over.

It needs to be noted that,

the total amount of spiritual energy in the world is not fixed.

It comes from the world's conversion cycle from the void chaos, from spiritual veins, and also from spiritual plants.

Of course, too many spiritual plants is also bad; it would cause damage to the soil and the environment.

A well-ordered, cyclical cultivation ecosystem helps raise the concentration of spiritual energy in the environment.

A sect that nurtures a spiritual vein for thousands or tens of thousands of years, even without migrating or plundering other spiritual veins, has the opportunity to upgrade that spiritual vein's tier, from second tier to third tier, from third tier to fourth tier, and so on.

However, this related knowledge is extremely precious.

It often involves thousands of years of cyclical process data for a single region, with countless human and material resources consumed during experiments, frequent possibilities of errors, and a threshold that is extremely high.

These disciplines, which can be called the dragon-slaying arts of cultivation, if any one lineage possesses them, can claim titles like 'Dragon-Seeking Master' or 'Heavenly Master Family', becoming honored guests of major powers.

However, for citizens of the Immortal Sect, this is all common knowledge.

The Immortal Sect successor is no joke.

Any Immortal Sect citizen sent out, as long as they are not too bizarre, willing to learn humbly, work down-to-earth, and apply book knowledge in combination with reality, has a high probability of becoming a qualified ruler of a region.

Jiang Ding made a slight estimate; according to the current cultivation population structure model and industrial structure, the number of cultivators in the Three Kingdoms region could double.

Of course, too many high-level cultivators cannot appear.

The consumption of a single one of them is at least equivalent to tens of thousands of cultivators; low-level spiritual energy and heavenly treasures and earthly wonders are insufficient.

After the cultivation population doubles, the number of cultivators can no longer increase.

Otherwise, it would damage the ecological environment of the Three Kingdoms region; over thousands of years, it is even possible for all the spiritual veins in the Three Kingdoms region to collectively downgrade.

At this time, the response strategy in the Immortal Sect textbooks is to raise the scores for the cultivation track to reduce the number of new cultivators born, wait for the older generation of cultivators to grow old, and then choose an opportunity to increase the numbers again.

This is the reason for the annual increase or decrease in the number of cultivation track slots in the college entrance examination; everything is written openly in the textbooks, with no concealment.

In the Three Kingdoms region, because there is no central array spirit computer to assist, precise regulation is impossible; instead, they raise the prices of pills, spiritual veins, spiritual fruits, talismans, Gong Fa, etc., to conduct macro-control.

There will certainly be errors, and policy collateral damage will appear from time to time, but the effect can still be achieved.

"So many demon cultivators..."

After assessing the mental health status of the Xiancheng cultivators, Jiang Ding noticed that among the cultivators passing on the streets, there were occasionally some with features like rabbit ears and tails, ox horns, snake tails, dog ears, wings, etc.; this was the manifestation of incomplete transformation among low-to-mid-level demon cultivators.

Compared to seven years ago, demon cultivators seemed to have increased, mostly herbivorous demon clans like the Rabbit Clan, Ox Clan, and Bird Clan, because those with cannibalistic habits had been killed; there were also cultivators from the Tiger Clan, Three-Tailed Fox Clan, and Snake Clan, but in smaller numbers.

Observing their state, they seemed to be fine; hatred between various demon clans was originally severe, even internally, and a national consciousness of 'Demon Clan' had not yet been born.

After Tushan Xiancheng implemented the regulation plan given by Jiang Ding, hatred quickly melted away.

Of course, there were those with truly deep hatred, but they were dead.

Plus, now the treatment was almost equal to that of humans, and even considered very good order and treatment among humans; in comparison, many short-sighted demon cultivators instantly thought they had arrived in Xian Gao Jie.

They could freely learn Gong Fa, learn talisman knowledge, learn spells; farming, hunting, and the like were all treated equally, with no need to worry about safety.

This kind of treatment had never existed among their own kind, not even in dreams. The great demon lords above had always only known how to squeeze them dry — better than outsiders, but only somewhat better; overall, it was all extremely cruel.

Now, such a wonderful environment instantly gave many demon race members a strong sense of belonging. No matter who, none of them wanted to leave this beautiful life they now had.

In Jiang Ding's assessment, many demon race cultivators' sense of belonging and loyalty to Master Tushan Xiancheng was even stronger than that of most human cultivators.

"Still, the plain and ordinary is what is true."

"Excessive loyalty and excessive hatred are both not the norm — both are unsettling, unstable states."

Jiang Ding's reaction was plain; he felt no feudal-ruler-like delight at others' loyalty: "The human race is the foundation; this cannot be shaken. The combined strength of all other races' cultivators cannot exceed one-fifth of humanity's."

"Once they get close, macro-level adjustments must be made."