Chapter 957: The Dao of Immortality Must Center on Economic Construction

With the fall of the Great Snow Mountain Holy Land and the deaths of two Soul Transformation Canghai Tianjun of the Ice Phoenix clan, the Western Desert War came to an end.

Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting of the Northern Plain achieved a complete victory!

The work that followed focused mainly on clearing out the remnants of the man-eating demon clans of the Western Desert, settling accounts with guilty humans and demons, and establishing grassroots governance and taxation.

At present, the most important task in the Western Desert was naturally to restore the population.

Under the demon clans' rule for several thousand years, combined with the demons' frenzied slaughter of human slaves in the Western Desert in recent years to vent their fury after defeat, the number of humans in the Western Desert had already dropped below a million — less than one-thousandth of its peak — and could be said to be on the brink of extinction.

If mortals were in such a state, then the cultivators born from the mortal population were naturally in the same boat.

Across the entire Western Desert, it was uncertain whether the number of cultivators above Foundation Establishment even reached a thousand; the human immortal civilization of the Western Desert had essentially ceased to exist.

Without outside influence, it would take at least several hundred thousand more years of decline and rebirth, with the wisdom and blood-bones of countless prodigies piling up, to slowly rebuild the immortal civilization that existed now.

And that was under lucky circumstances; with worse luck, the outright extinction of the race was entirely possible.

This was the greatest difference between the human race and other races — bloodlines meant nothing to them; they relied entirely on acquired civilization.

The height of immortal civilization directly determined the local humans' strength.

Without civilization, humans were weaker than even the weakest pig-demon clan — ants among ants — and could not even qualify as slaves.

Because without civilization, pig-demons and ox-demons were both stronger than humans, grew flesh faster than humans, and were an utterly useless race.

In the present Western Desert, the local human civilization was essentially ruined.

But that did not matter — one only needed to migrate population over from the Northern Plain. The same went for cultivators; many cultivators would be overjoyed and willing to trade military merit for such an opportunity.

Because the vast Western Desert was filled with spiritual veins, spiritual mines, and spiritual herb gardens of every rank!

From first-rank to fifth-rank, all were present.

There were boundless opportunities and an enormous, substantial war dividend here. As long as one had military merit, everyone could carve out a substantial share of spoils for themselves—use their merit to advance their cultivation and pass it down to their descendants; all of this was free.

Of course, paying taxes was unavoidable.

Every cultivator of Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting should understand that in one's life, only birth, cultivation, and paying taxes were unavoidable. The taxes were also very heavy — mostly above fifty percent, and seventy or eighty percent was not uncommon.

This was not high.

The entire Western Desert could be said to have been nearly all conquered by Tushan Tian Jun, who bore over ninety percent of the battlefield pressure and slew the enemies before him; the military merit of over a million low-rank cultivators was little compared to his.

It could be said that over ninety percent of the entire Western Desert was Tushan Tian Jun's spoils of war.

Fairness must exist not only among low-rank cultivators, but also among high-rank cultivators!

What cultivators exchanged for with military merit was merely the management rights to various spiritual lands and spiritual herb gardens; if one's ability was insufficient, one could give them up at any time and hand them over to cultivators with stronger management ability.

In the present Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting, management-type spells began to spread — for instance, the Great Earth-Splitting Art, which could till dozens of mu of spiritual land at once; the Great Cloud-Rain Art, which could water dozens of mu of spiritual herb gardens at once; the Insect-Removal Art, the Artifact-Refining Art, the Alchemy Art…

Such management spells as these began to spread, no longer placing combat arts and struggle arts first.

Whoever's management spells were better and raised output more would receive greater rewards.

Developing new management spells was the same — a single harvest might yield more than dozens of highway robberies in the past!

Whoever managed better, whoever researched and developed better, would obtain more heavenly materials and earthly treasures and merit.

And heavenly materials and earthly treasures and merit,

To a cultivator, meant future, meant life!

Weighing the two, it was not hard to understand that many cultivators had shifted the cultivation of combat arts to a secondary position, and instead spent great amounts of time painstakingly studying management spells and developing management spells suited to the local area.

The economy was the foundation of social customs and culture.

In the Cultivation World of Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting, the old custom of using a cultivator's combat ability as the sole standard of judgment began to change; many female cultivators began to favor cultivators accomplished in management arts, and many elders began to favor junior cultivators talented in management arts, and so on.

This left many traditional cultivators resentful, believing that they had lost the foundation of cultivators and harmed the world.

In the end, the most important thing in the world was still strength.

If one's strength was insufficient, no matter how skilled at management, one would be seized by foreign races or demonic cultivators — it was putting the cart before the horse.

This debate raged for quite some time and had not subsided to this day.

Jiang Ding had also heard of these heated discussions, and dismissed them with a smile.

Cultivators applying powerful magic power, divine sense, and spells to developing production rather than fighting and killing — this was the result he had guided bit by bit.

These measures greatly benefited increasing the output of heavenly materials and earthly treasures across the entire world, and greatly benefited the circulation of spiritual energy throughout the entire world.

This world was already damaged.

It could be said that what might originally have required over a hundred thousand years to recover and give birth anew to peak Soul Transformation cultivators could now be recovered in just several tens of thousands of years — this was the benefit of the world's immortal ecosystem operating in a virtuous cycle.

As for the delay in cultivating combat arts, causing cultivators' strength to decline until they could not hold their own and ended up as servants of foreign races?

That was even more of a joke!

What was the Northern Plain Cultivation World like in the past?

Families and sects endlessly fought and killed one another; every cultivator, even the most gifted alchemists, had to spend the majority of their time honing combat arts — they had no choice, because no matter how wealthy, without strength to back it up, one could at any moment become fat sheep for other cultivators.

A single careless step outside, and being killed for one's treasures was commonplace.

It could be said that every cultivator was caught up in a mad arms race, with no choice but to do so.

In the end, what had been developed?

A bunch of beggar-like, wretched cultivators; most cultivators did not even have a few magic treasures or Fa Qi Fa, and those they had were all low-grade.

The so-called combat arts they had honed all their lives were only passable in terms of viciousness, cruelty, and adaptability; the true spell structures, spell magic power utilization efficiency, the efficiency of mobilizing heaven and earth spiritual energy… such indicators were utterly unsightly and worthless.

Only with wealth could one speak of strength!

With many cultivators honing management spells, the overall wealth of the Cultivation World greatly increased; using this increased wealth to exchange for more powerful Fa Qi Fa and magic treasures, for cultivation pills, for talismans, and combined with exquisite military formations —

Were these not improvements to strength?

It could be said that in the present Northern Plain Cultivation World, cultivators of the same rank, status, and aptitude fighting against Northern Plain cultivators of the past might indeed be somewhat lacking in vicious decisiveness — after all, they had honed less, had not constantly faced life and death and struggle; this was a fact.

But in a real fight, the present Northern Plain cultivators could absolutely crush the past Northern Plain cultivators!

There was no suspense about this.

Because the present Northern Plain cultivators comprehensively surpassed the past Northern Plain cultivators in every aspect — Gong Fa, spells, Fa Qi Fa, talismans, and all else!

As long as they do not lose their minds and suddenly go mad, the cultivators of the Northern Plains today can absolutely crush and defeat the latter.

This is the importance of economic development in the Cultivation World.

Only when the economy of the Xian Gao Jie develops and prospers can one discuss the Dao path and discuss strength. Otherwise, it is a group of beggars comparing treasures, talking about how exquisite their methods were today and how decisively they snatched a large bowl of rice, making people laugh.