Chapter 171: The Soaring Phoenix Cries in Urgency

At that moment, Hong Zhi suddenly slapped his forehead and continued, "By the way, you arrived late just now, so you probably still don't know—Ancestor Kunhou was killed on the outer realm battlefield!"

"Ah!" Wei Yuning had learned from Xue Duoduo that the Cloud Hidden Sect had a Golden Core Ancestor slain, but he never knew who it was; he didn't expect it to be Kunhou, who was Qing Cong's bodyguard.

"Alas, Ancestor Kunhou has no chance of advancing; though hope is slim, going to the outer realm battlefield might have given him a shot, but I never expected it to end like this!" Hong Zhi wore a look of regret.

Ancestor Kunhou was not yet at the pinnacle of the Golden Core stage, and "going for a shot" was merely self‑consolation; yet for a Golden Core Ancestor, even with only twenty‑to‑thirty years of lifespan left, his sudden departure still feels profoundly sorrowful.

If he could have broken into a greater realm—Nascent Soul Earth Immortal, vast as the sea—he would have at least ten thousand years to live, but unfortunately he stopped here.

"What about Senior Brother Qing Cong?" Wei Yuning asked.

"Qing Cong should be fine; if a direct‑line disciple dies, Ancestor Xuanmiaozi would definitely be there!" Hong Zhi said confidently.

Wei Yuning gave a helpless smile; over two thousand disciples went this time, and he didn't know how many had perished! The lives of direct‑line disciples matter, and the lives of ordinary disciples matter too; moreover, these disciples are all truly cultivated practitioners who have already established their foundations.

Originally most of them were aiming for inner‑gate disciple slots; who could have imagined such a huge upheaval on the outer realm battlefield—truly bad luck!

At this moment, Wei Yuning reaffirmed his own view: battles may be thrilling, but if it's one's own blood that spills, it's no fun at all; staying in the sect and quietly cultivating is safer.

Just then, a flash of white light passed, and a paper bird gently landed before Wei Yuning.

He had nothing to hide from Hong Zhi, and directly used his divine sense to activate the paper bird.

"Junior Disciple Yuning, hurry to the Hundred Flowers Garden; the ground here has already been turned over three times, and I truly can't find any work for the Cloud Hidden Sect companions!" Feng Ming's voice sounded tearful.

Wei Yuning was startled, then recalled that over 1,900 idle laborers from the Pill Pharmacy had already gone to the Hundred Flowers Garden of Spirit Beast Peak.

"What's the matter? Need any help?" Hong Zhi looked bewildered; it's rare for something to make a cultivator burst into tears.

Wei Yuning hesitated and said, "Not for now; I'll let you know when needed. Farewell, Uncle."

When Wei Yuning arrived at the Hundred Flowers Garden, he was immediately startled by the scene before him.

The entire Hundred Flowers Garden, fields and plots, were gloomy, with black heads everywhere. Though they hadn't established foundations, after all they were cultivators and knew basic rules, so they couldn't step on the spiritual herbs.

Because the Hundred Flowers Garden is heavily used and fertilizer is abundant, virtually every spot is planted with spiritual herbs, leaving little empty ground; thus these cultivators can only squeeze into gaps to stay. In the gaps between the herbs, on rocks or ridges, their figures appear everywhere.

On a barren rock, Wei Yuning found Feng Ming and about twenty female cultivators from the Azure Luan Sect who were on duty today.

"Senior Sister Feng Ming, thank you for your hard work!" Wei Yuning said first.

"Junior Brother, it's not exactly hard work, but what shall we do afterwards?" Feng Ming gestured to the female cultivators beside her. Originally the Azure Luan Sect's women were to rotate shifts, and now so many have arrived—clearly they're here to snatch jobs, no wonder Feng Ming and the others are worried.

"What did you have them do just now?" Wei Yuning asked curiously.

"Besides weeding twice, we caught insects once, and turned the soil three times! One mu of land had over twenty people; they worked too fast, and I really have no way to organize them!" Feng Ming looked aggrieved.

"Sorry, I didn't think it through. I'll let them leave shortly. Rest assured, they're not here to work in the Hundred Flowers Garden; I just gathered them to get acquainted, so we can find a better place to settle them!" Wei Yuning said unconvincingly.

How to settle them? Where does Wei Yuning have any ideas? Yet he trusted himself; with so many things on Earth to draw from, arranging for two thousand people is nothing.

He sat beside Feng Ming, watching the laborers stare blankly.

"Clothing, food, shelter, transportation, pills, artifacts…" Wei Yuning muttered, pondering the goods of this world, but for a moment…

Production is not merely manufacturing; one must also consider whether customers will actually buy it.

If the customers are cultivators, pills and artifacts are naturally more popular, but his subordinates are all laborers, so he can't expect them to handle such high‑difficulty products.

Apart from cultivators, the rest are ordinary mortals.

The number of humans in the Spirit Beast World is considerable, at least several hundred billion in total, yet for this vast world that figure is still too small; the beasts are the true masters of this world.

The world's resources are actually abundant; the massive numbers of herbivores, aquatic products, and plants, as long as safety is ensured, could easily sustain even ten times the current mortal population.

Because of the beasts' strong influence, most mortal villages are isolated islands, making population growth difficult; only around major cities can human numbers slowly increase.

More importantly, these mortals are very poor; they lack sufficient universal currency to purchase any goods.

Fortunately, under normal circumstances, surviving mortal towns each have their own specialties; otherwise they couldn't sustain themselves, and this gives Wei Yuning a possible commercial channel: barter.

Thus, for mortals, safety is their greatest need, and items that improve survival are certainly hard currency.

Thinking of this, Wei Yuning's eyes lit up; he suddenly recalled Qing Chou's mechanical spider. If each mortal town could be equipped with two or three mechanical beasts, their combat power would surely be greatly boosted.

However, he soon grew worried again; the Cloud Hidden Sect no longer had spare land for him to use.

There is plenty of land down the mountain, but these laborers originally stayed because the mountain‑guard formation was safe enough that they didn't want to go out; Wei Yuning cannot let everyone descend the mountain again.

He pulled out the three‑dimensional map of Nine Clouds Peak he had drawn that day, scribbling on it to locate a vacant plot. Nearby, Feng Ming, hearing Wei Yuning's muttering, couldn't help but lean over curiously.

"Junior Disciple Yuning, what is this?" Compared to the Daoist name Qing Mo, the Azure Luan Sect's female cultivators prefer calling him Yuning.

"A map!"

"What a beautiful thing!" Feng Ming praised.

Wei Yuning ignored Feng Ming's praise and kept tapping around the map.

Spirit Beast Peak is out of the question; the Hundred Flowers Garden's area is already squeezed like a tooth gap. Pill Peak won't work either—any place not covered by rocks is already full of spiritual herbs. Moreover, Elder Xu Chen's impression of Wei Yuning is poor, so he likely won't agree.