Chapter 296: Steady Development

Fortunately, the war with the Tianhai Alliance was ten thousand miles away and would not affect the Wei State for the time being. Song Qingming didn't have to worry about this.

On Mount Funiu, ever since Song Qingming promulgated the family rules encouraging everyone to learn cultivation skills, basically all the cultivators of the Song family had learned one or two skills they could show off.

The most common cultivation skills in the cultivation world are alchemy, talismans, artifacts, and formations. After these years of development, the Song family had greatly improved in every direction.

Since Second Sister Song Qingwan was injured a year ago, the family also began to pay attention to cultivating other alchemists. Currently, there were already a few good seedlings. Among them, the one who performed best was Song Xintang, ranked ninth in the Xin generation.

Although he was only a four-element spiritual root cultivator, he had some talent in alchemy. Following Song Qingwan to learn alchemy in the marketplace for only five years, his level had already surpassed that of the clan elders who were earlier than him. Although he was not yet as good as Second Sister Song Qingwan back then, he was not far behind. As long as he was given more time patiently, it shouldn't be too far for this kid to break through to a mid-grade alchemist. Seeing that there were good seedlings, Song Qingwan, who was healing, also felt more at ease.

Besides Song Si, whom Song Qingming had personally taught, the Song family's formation masters had increased by three or four in the past few years. Although these people's talents were not as good as Song Si's, there was no big problem for them to set up some ordinary formations. As long as they could persist, they would also have the opportunity to raise their formation level to high-grade in the future.

The skill of a formation master was very difficult to earn spirit stones in the early stage, so most people would not prioritize this skill. After the Great Elder of the Song family passed away, the demonic beast turmoil occurred, and the Twelfth Aunt suddenly died in battle, the entire family was suddenly left with only Song Qingming, a formation master with an average level, almost cutting off the inheritance in this regard.

Fortunately, now that there were rewards for learning cultivation skills, many relatively cold skills in the early stage now began to have people take the initiative to develop in this direction. With the family's spirit stones to help, as long as you had talent in this regard, it would be easier to learn.

As for talisman making and artifact refining, these two were relatively common skills in the cultivation world. Nowadays, there were even more people learning them in the Song family. There was more than one high-grade talisman maker and artifact refiner in the entire Song family. The Song family's marketplace shops were never short of magic tools and spiritual talismans all year round. Sometimes when business was bad, there would even be many items piled up in the shop.

Not only this, but other relatively cold cultivation skills also began to be explored by the Song family. Skills such as spiritual planting, beast taming, puppets, spirit searching, etc., had already begun to have talents in this regard. Although their level was not very high now, as long as there was inheritance in this regard, it would always be useful in the family's smooth development in the future.

No matter which cultivation skill, as long as you could raise the level to first-tier high-grade, you could easily earn spirit stones. This was also Song Qingming's biggest original intention back then, to let them have at least one way to support themselves. This was also a major help to the family's development in the future.

If a cultivation family wants to develop steadily, it is best to prepare several paths in advance. Now the family can still have some surplus every year relying on the marketplace and several mines, but if the family situation is not good in the future, even if these assets are gone, as long as everyone has some skills to make money, they won't have to worry about a few spirit stones at that time.

Besides this, the Song family had also increased its investment in spiritual fields and spiritual medicine gardens over the past twenty years.

Cultivating spiritual fields is the most practical and stable investment return project in the cultivation world. Cultivators must eat spiritual rice before Foundation Establishment. This kind of spiritual item basically doesn't have to worry about sales. Besides satisfying their own cultivators, they could also take out a portion to sell in Qinghefang every year. This was a very stable income for the family. Although it was not much compared to other places that made money, it was stable, and it was also very considerable over time.

The Song family's original dozens of acres of spiritual fields had expanded to two hundred acres after more than ten years of expansion. Although it was still far behind families like the Huang family, which had more than eight hundred acres of spiritual fields, this had also accumulated a lot of foundation for the future Song family.

However, with more spiritual fields, the Song family's cultivators were not enough. Every time it was busy farming, the Song family had to draw manpower from everywhere, sometimes even having to hire some from the vassal families below to help.

The Song family now had a total of only fifty cultivators, and they had to be dispersed to several places to manage family industries. The people left on Mount Funiu were indeed a bit tight. It was estimated that it would take another few decades for the next generation of family cultivators to grow up before they could slowly get rid of this trouble.

After staying on Mount Funiu peacefully for more than a year, news came from Qinghefang again, forcing Song Qingming to come out of seclusion and arrive at the marketplace.

After Lu Yuanfeng was transferred away, the impact on Qinghefang was not very big. Feng De, who was stationed in the marketplace, was relatively respectful to this old senior, and he reused his disciples and confidants left in the marketplace. He did not try to abolish some marketplace regulations set by Lu Yuanfeng before, and he didn't have any conflicts with Song Qingyu.

Not long after Feng De arrived at Qinghefang, Song Qingming took the initiative to visit him. Although this new Foundation Establishment Xiaoyao Sect cultivator did not act as shrewdly as Lu Yuanfeng, he could be considered a steady and capable person. After Song Qingming communicated with him, the relationship between the two also pulled closer, and before parting, they exchanged cultivation insights with each other.

After arriving at the Xianfeng Building, which he hadn't visited for a long time, Song Qingming looked up at the signboard and found that it seemed to be much newer than before. It was estimated that it was smashed during the last marketplace turmoil and had now been replaced with a new one.

Although it was still the same name, Song Qingming felt in his heart that it seemed different from before, and he thought of what he looked like when he came here before.

After walking in, he saw that the seat where the old man Li Quan used to sit had been replaced by this mixed kid Song Xinhu. He and Li Hongyu were now managing this restaurant with a decent look, and the business was not worse than when Huang Siyuan was there.

Li Quan was relatively lucky to survive in the battle of Qinghefang a year ago, but he was also injured. An old bone like him was indeed difficult to fully recover from the injury. Now he had retired to the second line, and he rarely participated in the affairs of the restaurant, basically having handed them over to Song Xinhu.

"Hongyu, Seventh Uncle has already come. Don't be busy first, let them handle it!"

Seeing Song Qingming walk in, Song Xinhu hurriedly ran to the back kitchen to call Li Hongyu, who was busy. Now that the business of Xianfeng Building was so good, naturally, she was not the only spiritual chef.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 297 =====