Chapter 335: Hidden Library

Li Cheng took out another stack of documents and announced loudly: "I specifically consulted top experts in the Cultivation Realm and learned that several small and medium-sized sects had already taken an interest in this before now. It's fair to say the trend spreading is only a matter of time.

All the experts agree unanimously that existing mining techniques still have huge room for optimization — the only thing lacking is the massive upfront investment.

With Lord Xiao Shui Sect's financial resources, they could easily hire seventy or eighty experts and scholars to pool their wisdom and optimize the techniques, while investing thirty or forty million spirit stones to build ultra-large spirit-vein mining machines and recruit volunteers to assist with mining.

Other sects, not wanting to be left behind, will inevitably have to join in. And Lord Xiao Shui Sect can leverage its first-mover technological advantage to sell mining machines — just like selling shovels to gold miners — and make another fortune."

The natives of the Mortal Realm listened in a daze, while the players collectively lost their composure,

This playbook sounds awfully familiar — Nvidia rode the Bitcoin surge, sold compute cards, and overtook Apple to become number one in market cap, right?

"Wait a moment,"

Zhongtian Beiji said, thinking on his feet: "If everyone mines, won't the spirit-stone market be thrown into chaos? Minefields popping up everywhere — what about environmental protection? What about sustainable development?

If you do as you say, the spiritual energy between heaven and earth will run dry, the environment will collapse, and you'll owe an apology to the hundreds of millions of common people in the Mortal Realm!"

"It won't turn into chaos."

Having long anticipated the other's rebuttal, Li Cheng replied unhurriedly: "Just like the water cycle, the spiritual energy of the Mortal Realm also circulates endlessly — it doesn't vanish into thin air, it merely transforms into another form.

Spirit veins give birth to spirit stones; spirit stones are absorbed by cultivators; when cultivators die, their souls return to heaven and earth, restoring the spiritual energy.

At the same time, because the spirit veins are interconnected, and there are occasional spiritual tides or fluctuations, the mining efficiency across the entire Mortal Realm will dynamically adjust. Blindly opening mines will lead to losses until you're bankrupt."

Damn!

Zhongtian Beiji stared at the smiling Master Pi Fu, grinding his teeth in secret.

He had thought that, having gathered ironclad evidence of the illegitimate son of the Star Lord Xuanlei Qilin of Lord Xiao Shui, victory was already in his grasp — he never expected this kid to play by no playbook at all, flipping the table and switching to a whole different track.

"Today, the various business models of the Mortal Realm are already very mature — agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, metallurgy, mining, food and beverage, entertainment, transportation… every industry has reached saturation and is in desperate need of new stories to absorb capital."

Li Cheng said: "Lord Xiao Shui Sect is nominally in the top three of the Mortal Realm, but in reality there are still many old-established sects above it that keep a low profile.

Coinciding with a once-in-a-millennium great upheaval, whether Lord Xiao Shui Sect can take another step forward from where it already stands depends on right now."

Howard took a deep breath, lowered his voice, and said hurriedly to Master Miao Yin: "Master Miao Yin, all of this is just his theory — no reliable evidence or practical proof. He's simply trying to shake your will, to make you concede right now…"

Master Miao Yin raised a hand to cut off her own lawyer's words, thought for a moment, then said to Li Cheng: "Even if I don't concede, I can still obtain actual control of the Lord Xiao Shui Sect Group."

"Correct, but don't forget the timing."

Li Cheng said bluntly: "Equity division is an enormously vast undertaking — it could easily drag on for two or three years or even longer. By then, the other sects' ultra-large mining machines will already be built, and the opportunity will have gone cold.

For both sides, the plan that maximizes benefits is to call off the divorce. In the face of the massive profits within easy reach in the future, enlarging the pie matters more than dividing it."

"…"

Master Miao Yin fell into a long silence, her eyes slightly narrowed, rapidly calculating and weighing the pros and cons. "I choose—"

————

One hundred and fifty years later.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

A jarring, broken-gong sound echoed through the mountains.

A line of pitch-black dump-truck-style mine carts slowly rolled out of a mine pit several thousand meters deep.

Sitting in the carts were nearly a hundred Jin Dan cultivators, dressed in miner's uniforms and covered in grime.

One hundred and fifty years ago, a Jin Dan cultivator could found a sect, could serve as a nation's Grand Preceptor, and even visiting a major sect would earn them an audience with an elder.

But now, with mining machines sweeping the Mortal Realm, mass production of spirit stones, and cultivation becoming far simpler, cultivators had become worthless.

"Your wages — calculated by work for each person. Take them and go."

At the mine entrance, a burly Nascent Soul cultivator held a card reader and swiped it across the work badges of the Jin Dan miners.

"Huh?! Only 0.5 spirit stones?!"

The miner at the very front changed color abruptly and shouted: "Why has the wage been cut again?"

"The economic environment is bad, the market is volatile, the company's operating conditions are being adjusted."

The Nascent Soul foreman didn't even bother to look up, saying coldly: "You know perfectly well why, don't you? Move along, move along, don't block the people behind."

The Jin Dan miner roared: "I spend eight hours a day in the mining machine digging ore for the company, making them so much money, and with this wage I can't even afford the food and medicine to maintain my realm! I protest!"

"If you've got the ability, quit — plenty of people willing to do it. You're already one hundred and thirty-five years old, long overdue for optimization. Go ahead and resign — see if you can find work afterward.

Nowadays, even the cheapest private mining machine costs over a thousand spirit stones, and besides, it damages the environment and breaks the law."

The Nascent Soul foreman glanced up at him, and several more Nascent Soul thugs stepped out from behind. The Jin Dan miner trembled all over with rage, but in the end still took back his work badge and left in silence.

The Nascent Soul foreman sneered, "Next."

The second miner, face covered in dust, looked at the 0.4 spirit stones on his card and pleaded: "Sir, please add a little more — I still have two children at home. I promised them I'd take them to the zoo this week."

"None of my damn business — I didn't tell you to have kids. Next."

The foreman waved his hand impatiently, then paused slightly when he saw the third miner.

The third miner was a frail young girl — even by today's standard that fifteen and above doesn't count as child labor, her face was still far too young-looking.

However, the foreman only paused for a moment.

In these days, every minefield is insanely competitive; gender and age are worth nothing in the face of mining efficiency.

"Your wage."

The foreman swiped the card. The girl named Ruoshui silently took back her work badge, placed her mine safety helmet into a bamboo basket, and stepped out of the pit.

One hundred and fifty years ago, that mysterious man called Master Pi Fu left behind a book — the "Spirit Stone Mining White Paper" — which ushered in the era of universal mining.

In the book, he asserted with conviction that mining would not damage the environment, would liberate productive forces, and make everyone rich.

Yet the truth was that individual cultivators who set up their own mining workshops simply couldn't compete with those massive sects — spirit veins and spirit stones were easily monopolized by a few giant conglomerates,

who used financial power to drive up mining-machine prices, raise the barriers to entry, and influence and manipulate the Immortal Court to amend the laws, citing environmental protection to make it difficult for ordinary cultivators to set up private mines.

During this process, the once-flourishing Lord Xiao Shui Sect, after its early technological advantage was exhausted, was quickly left behind by the major sects and went bankrupt and liquidated fifty years ago.

Watch him raise a grand tower, watch him feast his guests, watch his tower collapse.

Today, the number of cultivators in the Mortal Realm repeatedly hits new highs, and the number of Mahayana-stage cultivators has surpassed even the pre-Celestial Severance era — truly a golden age of cultivation.

But what is the price?

Ruoshui turned around and looked toward the mountains.

As far as the eye could see, all the peaks were barren, not a single blade of grass or tree.

Once a lush, blessed land of mountains and clear waters, now entirely excavated.

Long-burning searchlights made from deep-sea whale oil illuminated the dark mines like daylight.

From above, one could clearly see tens of thousands of cultivators of all levels, like ants, lying within the spirit veins, using their own spiritual souls as computing tools to gather spirit energy and catalyze spirit stones.

This is what is called the golden age of cultivation.

"."

In silence, the girl stepped onto a shared flying sword and headed home.

Sewage flowed everywhere in the slums, crumbling shacks.

The blind old man heard the sound of the lock opening and rasped, "Ruoshui's back?"

"Mm, Grandpa, I'm back."

The girl set down the vegetables she had bought, didn't rush to cook, but instead pulled out several syringes from a hidden corner of a cabinet and injected herself multiple times.

A ironic truth: as miners, the workers themselves could never afford spirit stones.

Now that mining machines dominate, all spirit energy in heaven and earth is concentrated within spirit veins; ordinary cultivators can only sustain their realms by taking various drugs, burning their potential, health, even their lifespan.

Otherwise, if they drop a realm, they lose their jobs and can't even afford the most basic food, which contains the daily minimum required trace of spirit energy—they'd starve to death.

"."

The blind old man heard the sound of the syringe injecting liquid, his face twisted in grief; he slapped himself hard twice. "It's all my fault! Why did I guide that Master Pi Fu back then! I should've killed him!"

The old man was none other than Zi Hong, the young acolyte who had guided both legal teams one hundred and fifty years ago.

As for why he lost his iron rice bowl from the Immortal Court, it was another classic tale: he bet his entire fortune on the spirit stone market and lost everything.

Over the past one hundred and fifty years, this had replayed countless times in the mortal realm.

The old man sank into memory, sitting on the sofa, endlessly cursing Master Pi Fu; Ruoshui had grown used to this daily routine, bending over in the kitchen to cook, occasionally murmuring in response.

One hundred and fifty years is too short—some who witnessed the previous era have not yet died, still able to recall the beauty of the old times.

One hundred and fifty years is too long—so long that the younger generation treats the elders' stories as distant, hazy legends.

Night was deep; Ruoshui lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. She reached under her pillow and pulled out the book said to be the earliest edition of the Spirit Stone Mine White Paper.

The book was well preserved, valued at a thousand spirit stones—the most valuable object in this small household.

Only this book could faintly prove her family's former glory.

As a Jin Dan cultivator, Ruoshui could not light a lamp or afford the spirit energy cost of a light-spell; she could only read by the dim streetlight outside the window.

Through its text, she caught a glimpse of the mysterious figure known as the genius, the demon, the arch-culprit, the originator.

Legend says he personally launched the mining era and foresaw the state of affairs a thousand years hence.

Beyond the Spirit Stone Mine White Paper, he left behind a Black Book, teaching people how to break the monopoly of major sects and empower lowly cultivators to resist.

"How could such a thing be possible?"

Ruoshui shook her head; the weight of life had drained even the strength to smile bitterly. Just as she habitually closed the book, preparing to sleep,

She accidentally knocked over the glass on the bedside table; murky tap water (pure water is also part of the spirit vein, monopolized by the major sects) soaked into the pages.

The ink did not blur—it instead, under the lamplight, revealed hidden text.

"Huh?!"

A shudder struck her soul; Ruoshui sat bolt upright, reading word by word in disbelief.

"Spirit Stone Mine Black Book, Chapter One: Decentralized folk mining machines based on the people's collective will, breaking the monopoly of professional mining machines."