It seems that being an Immortal is quite difficult. As a disciple, one must face life and death situations, investigate, cultivate, and strive hard. Even after achieving success and becoming the Sect Master, there is still no ti for quiet cultivation; one must continue to struggle with heaven, earth, and people, engage in cunning sches, fight for the sect’s developnt, and seek benefits.
There’s no denying that this night’s discussion, albeit not deeply involved, has indeed been significantly beneficial for Tie Dan, learning a lot from the two won. Witnessing many sights previously unseen, the kind of scenes only a Sect Leader could observe.
How to operate a sect, how to rally loyal elders, manage resource allocation, and teach inner and outer disciples, these cannot be solved by the sword alone, even if you are an invincible Sect Leader Supre, having all kinds of Magic Materials at hand to do whatever you wish. But if you don’t know how to operate sect powers, how to expand Daoist Inheritance, in the end, it’s all for nothing.
Of course, Yun Jiangli and Chu Ruowei’s sect operation level probably isn’t very high either, otherwise, they wouldn’t have been beaten up by Lingxu for hundreds of years. But they were still a lot better than Tie Dan, who had received no relevant education. At least things like Spirit Silk, Jade Mines, dicine Fields, and various resource points fought over by Cultivation Sects were all new to Tie Dan.
Fortunately, Tie Dan himself has incredible natural talent, quickly piecing together the general idea from fragnts.
The Mystic Sect’s competition for resources ultimately boils down to the practical needs of cultivation in the Five Arts.
In this, arithtic is still fine; pen, ink, paper and inkstones are enough, other arithtic tools like compasses and counting rods aren’t overly expensive, truly a legacy passed down through three generations, people leave but the trigrams remain. The sect’s arithtic level depends more on Inner Sect arithtic classics, teaching strength, and the disciples’ personal talent and comprehension. Therefore, the most important resource is talent.
And array is even more situational, depending on the sect’s geomancy of Earth Vein. Given that cultivators themselves select places where Spiritual Qi gathers and minerals are rich to establish sects and retreat for cultivation. Unless the sect has extrely many mbers in the Divinity Transformation stage, occupying all Earth Veins, otherwise, it generally doesn’t need to open new veins.
As for Artifact Refining and treasure making, it’s considered a high-end demand, most sects don’t have the technology to create magic treasures, it’s all cultivators themselves collecting various Heavenly Materials Treasures and asking Great Grandmasters of Artifact Refining to refine them, not sothing the sect needs to consider.
However, talisman making and alchemy are the main expenses for a sect. Elixir Pills go without saying, they’ve always been the largest consumable in the cultivation world, all kinds of demons, Heavenly Materials Treasures, Immortal Fruits, Spiritual Vegetables in the end all end up in the pot for concoction, forming elixirs. Therefore, from the sect’s perspective, the most fiercely contested asset is the dicine Field.
Yes, dicine Fields; although each sect’s elixir prescriptions and spiritual dicines might differ, to grow various rare herbs, a land with extrely rich soil fertility and gathering Heaven and Earth Spirit Qi is indispensable. The better the quality of a dicine Field, the higher the output of spiritual dicine, naturally providing more resources.
Therefore, cultivation sects will prioritize ensuring the output of dicine Fields, dispatching disciples day and night for patrol, farming, and fertilizing. But the quantity of top-grade spiritual fields is as rare as Heavenly Materials Treasures, the output from low-grade fields is limited, how many dicines a field can grow, how many elixirs can be refined, how much can be allocated to how many disciples is ultimately finite.
Thus, to expand the sect, cultivate disciples, and enrich the Daoist Collection, one must naturally open and seize more new fields. Where to seize them from? Of course, the Immortal Palace.
After tens of thousands of years, the Central Plains have been developed to the extre, those top fields and properties are mostly in the hands of Gate Valves, registered in the Immortal Records and Divine List. Therefore, Independent Practitioner Sects volunteering to act as dogs for Gate Valves of the Immortal Palace is to gain an extra share of the fields and more yields.
Naturally, Mystic Sect wouldn’t act as dogs for the Immortal Palace; if they want sothing, Mountain n would directly rob. But the problem is, fields aren’t things that can be carried away, they require constant managent to yield.
And Mystic Sect Disciples are few in number; these elite talents co to cultivate, not to farm, how could they waste their primary energies on farming? It ultimately depends on the local rich family landlords to manage and regularly offer tributes to the mountains.
Thus, to ensure receiving these tributes from ordinary people, one must naturally provide security guarantees, preventing Demon Palace, Demon Sect, demons from harming their villages.
Therefore, the current governance thod of Mystic Sect in Qianzhou, is by using the backing of the nine major sects, signing agreents with local landlords and rich family village chiefs, leaving talisman barriers for protection. In case of demon attacks, the village chiefs can summon Immortals for help, and Mystic Sect Disciples naturally would co to aid.
And the yield allocation of spirit fields and farms is modeled after the system of the Immortal Records and Divine List, subdivided according to counties and villages established in the Immortal Palace era, distributed by the nine major sects to each mountain, each sect, each gate. Naturally, it’s still based on the mission requirents of the head; whoever contributes the most to the Mystic Sect is rewarded the most.
And the Qingtang Sect has achieved major rits with various investigations during the Tiangang Era and received great rewards, but in the Lingxu era, it almost had no chance to act, suffered suppression and cold storage, had its spiritual fields and lands reduced over many years for these reasons.
As for another resource monopolized by the Sect Leader, it’s Spirit Silk.
Spirit Silk is the silk spat by Immortal Silkworms and Spirit Spiders, not only for making magic treasures and vestnt robes, but importantly used for making talismans. Especially above the Nascent Soul Realm, Daoist talismans carry too much Spiritual Power, and paper simply cannot be used, Spirit Silk is necessary for crafting them; the more top-notch Cloud Seal Star Talismans demand higher Immortal Silk quality.
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