Chapter 958: The Dao of Immortality Must Center on Economic Development

With the fall of the Great Snow Mountain Sacred Site, two Nascent Soul True Persons of the Ice Phoenix Clan were slain, marking the end of the Western Desert War.

The Tu Mountain Central Court achieved total victory!

The next tasks focused on eliminating the remaining man-eating demon clans of the Western Desert, punishing guilty humans and demons, and establishing grassroots governance and taxation.

The most critical task in the Western Desert at present is naturally population recovery.

Under millennia of demon rule, compounded by recent demon defeats and their mad massacres of Western Desert human slaves in revenge, the human population of the Western Desert has dropped below one million—less than one-thousandth of its peak, bordering on extinction.

This is true of ordinary humans, and naturally so for cultivators born from them.

In the entire Western Desert, the total number of cultivators above Foundation Establishment may not even reach a thousand; the Western Desert’s cultivator civilization has essentially vanished.

Without external influence, it would take at least tens of thousands of years of stagnation and rebirth, with countless prodigies’ wisdom and blood and bones piled up, to slowly rebuild the current cultivator civilization.

This is even under favorable circumstances; under worse luck, the entire race could easily go extinct.

This is the greatest distinction between humanity and other races: bloodline is nothing; everything depends on postnatal civilization.

The height of cultivator civilization directly determines the strength of the local human population.

Without civilization, humanity is weaker than the weakest pig demon clan—a mere ant among ants, not even worthy of being enslaved.

Without civilization, pig demons and ox demons are stronger than humans, grow flesh faster, and are utterly useless as a race.

The Western Desert’s native human civilization is now essentially ruined.

But that’s fine—population can be relocated from the Northern Plain; cultivators too. Many cultivators would be ecstatic, willing to exchange battle merits for this opportunity.

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

From first to fifth rank, all are present.

Here lie endless opportunities and immense war spoils; whoever holds battle merits can claim a share of the loot, use them to advance their own cultivation, or pass them on to descendants—all freely.

Of course, taxation is unavoidable.

Every cultivator of the Tu Mountain Central Court must understand: birth, cultivation, and taxation are inevitable in life—taxes are heavy, often exceeding fifty percent, with seventy or eighty percent not uncommon.

This is not high.

The entire Western Desert was nearly all conquered by Tu Shan True Person, who bore over ninety percent of the battlefield pressure and slew the opposing enemies; the battle merits of hundreds of thousands of lower-rank cultivators pale in comparison.

It can be said that over ninety percent of the Western Desert is Tu Shan True Person’s war spoils.

Fairness must exist not only among lower-rank cultivators but also among higher-rank ones!

What cultivators exchange with battle merits is merely the right to manage local spirit lands and spirit herb gardens; if one lacks ability, one may freely relinquish it to a cultivator with greater managerial skill.

In the current Tu Mountain Central Court, managerial spells are becoming popular: Great Split Earth Spell for cultivating dozens of acres at once, Great Cloud Rain Spell for watering dozens of acres of spirit herbs at once, Pest-Extermination Spell, Alchemy Spell, Artifact Crafting Spell…

Such managerial spells are gaining popularity, no longer overshadowing combat and struggle techniques as the primary focus.

The better one’s managerial spells, the greater the yield increase, and the higher the reward.

Discovering new managerial spells is even more profitable—single harvests may exceed the gains from dozens of past highway robberies!

Whoever manages better, whoever innovates better, gains more rare treasures and merit.

And rare treasures and merit,

mean future and life to cultivators!

Given this trade-off, many cultivators have shifted cultivation of combat techniques to secondary status, dedicating vast time to mastering and developing managerial spells suited to local conditions—this is not hard to understand.

Economy is the foundation of social customs and culture.

In the Tu Mountain Central Court’s cultivator realm, the old custom of judging cultivators solely by their combat prowess has begun to change; many female cultivators now admire those skilled in management, and many elders now favor young cultivators with talent in management, and so on.

This has angered many traditional cultivators, who believe they have abandoned the essence of cultivation and harmed the world.

In the world, strength is ultimately the most important.

If one lacks strength, no matter how skilled in management, one’s wealth will be seized by foreign races or demonic cultivators—it is putting the cart before the horse.

This debate raged for a long time and has not yet faded.

Jiang Ding had heard of these heated debates and dismissed them with a smile.

The fact that cultivators now channel their powerful spiritual power, spiritual sense, and spells toward production rather than combat is precisely the result he gradually guided.

These measures greatly benefit the world’s production of rare treasures and the overall spiritual energy cycle.

This world is broken.

What once might have taken over a hundred thousand years to recover and rebirth a Nascent Soul peak cultivator now takes only tens of thousands of years—this is the benefit of a healthy, self-sustaining cultivator ecosystem.

As for the delay in combat technique cultivation causing cultivators to weaken and eventually become slaves to foreign races?

That’s a joke!

What was the Northern Plain cultivator realm like before?

Families and sects fought endlessly; every cultivator—even the most gifted alchemists—spent most of their time honing combat techniques, forced to do so because no matter how wealthy, without strength, one could be slaughtered and robbed at any moment.

Going out carelessly and being killed for one’s treasures was commonplace.

Every cultivator was locked in a mad arms race—forced to do so.

What did it ultimately produce?

A group of beggar-like cultivators, most possessing few artifacts, all of low quality.

Their so-called lifetime-honed combat techniques were merely somewhat fierce and adaptable; their actual spell structures, spell efficiency, spiritual energy utilization, and celestial spirit energy mobilization—all these metrics were utterly abysmal and worthless.

Only wealth can speak of strength!

As countless cultivators hone managerial spells, the cultivator realm’s overall wealth has greatly increased; this wealth is used to acquire stronger artifacts, cultivation elixirs, talismans, and refined battle arrays.

Are these not enhancements of strength?

It is true that today’s Northern Plain cultivators, when compared to their predecessors of the same rank, status, and talent, may lack a bit in ferocity and decisiveness—after all, they have less combat experience, having rarely faced life-or-death struggles.

But in actual combat, today’s Northern Plain cultivators would utterly crush their predecessors!

There is no doubt about it.

Because today’s Northern Plain cultivators surpass their predecessors in every aspect: cultivation methods, spells, artifacts, talismans, and more.

As long as they don’t suddenly lose their minds, today’s Northern Plain cultivators will crush the old ones without exception.

This is the importance of economic development in the cultivator realm.

Only when cultivator economics develop and flourish can one speak of the Dao path and strength; otherwise, it’s like beggars comparing treasures, boasting about how cleverly and decisively they snatched a bowl of rice today—laughable.