PtM Book 16 - Chapter 31: Foundation

Yes, I've managed to sneak through the firewall! Another long chapter. 2/3 this week, don't panic if I don't manage to post by end of week, I'll catch up later.

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It took a week to finally tunnel to a safe location and escape the Crosswind Pirates. Holdouts and sects not buying into his system were one thing, but people actively trying to rob, sabotage, and pillage in the middle of a planetary crisis was simply inexcusable, so Cha Ming decided that something needed to be done.

One week later, several guests arrived in Cha Ming’s territory via teleportation circle. Huxian was there, along with his companions Jadefall and Wu. Petros came, and so did Xing Tianlong, and Wei Longshen.

“Thank you for coming over, everyone,” Cha Ming said. “I realize I haven’t offered much in the way of details yet, but I invited you because I need to borrow your strength.”

“Longshen and I came for sightseeing, but I suppose we could lend a hand if you make it worth our while,” Xing Tianlong said.

Petros was much more straightforward. “I owe you a great debt, so just tell me what you need help with, and I’ll see it done.”

Cha Ming looked to Jadefall and Wu. The ochre-haired ox demon snorted like a bull. Steam came out from her nostrils as her body bulked up as she grew several inches. “I’m just here because Huxian invited me.”

“Same.” Wu said, yawning from the top of her golden Xuanwu Turtle shell.

“Long story short, I have a pirate problem,” Cha Ming said. “A pirate problem that needs to end now. The sects hate them too, and they offer bounties for their deaths. But nothing ever gets done because of zones of spatial turbulence.

“I’m hoping that you will all help me sweep my region clean. Huxian and I aren’t strong enough to do it on our own, but with the seven of us teaming up, I refuse to believe we can’t take out a few Tier 2 pirate groups.”

“Putting down pirates…” Xing Tianlong said, fondling his chin. “That’s not a bad idea. Longshen?”

Wei Longshen smiled. “I also happen to have a pirate problem, Clear Sky. Why don’t we just make a wide sweep of it? We’ll scratch your back if you scratch ours.”

Cha Ming laughed. “I’m game if you all are. Do demons have pirates, Huxian?”

“Do we ever,” Huxian said. “And they’re much richer than human pirates.”

“I hate pirates,” Jadefall said. “They make me sick, but they’re just too quick.” She looked to Wu, who was falling asleep. “Wu also hates pirates. Probably.” She kicked the golden turtle shell, but the only thing she managed to accomplish was stub her toes.

An agreement in principle was reached. Armed with Huxian’s teleportation abilities, they proceeded to make a triangular sweep, starting with the northwest, then heading northeast before challenging the pirate-infested south.

Pirates preferred hiding near the spatial turbulence on the south pole. Spatial anomalies were common there, which made it easy enough to find a spatial pocket or a chokehold to establish a base. But these defences were nothing before Huxian, who snuck them into each base like foxes in a hencoop.

They struck like lightning and did not hold back. Huxian tore open spatial folds and bypassed spatial storms. Chaw Ming tore down any formations they encountered.

The weakest in their group were Cha Ming, Huxian, and Petros, who had yet to break through to the law stitching realm. But even with their lesser strength, killing initial law stitching cultivators was relatively easy.

As for the other four, they had long since advanced. Wei Longshen and Xing Tianlong were now initial law stitching cultivators. One dual-cultivated qi and soul, and the other was an imperial Dao God. Jadefall and Wu were no slouches either. They were initial fusion realm demons with kingly bloodlines and a trace of primordial blood in their veins. Jadefall had the strongest offence in their group bar none, while Wu had the strongest defence. With such a lineup, even Tier 1 sects would have to hesitate and wonder whether killing them was worth the effort.

Every time they entered a den, their group killed the strongest and most violent pirates to claim their bounties. They then looted their ships and their treasures, then captured the civilian cultivators in their pirate cities and brought them to the sects as prisoners.

They were so quick and so efficient that even the Soaring Blade Sect, the Crescent Moon God Clan, and the Crimson Ash Sect, who were the final holdouts that refused to do business with Cha Ming or implement his rewards system, remained conspicuously silent as they flew through their lands to enforce law and order.

Drawing on so much external strength was a risky move, since it threatened the sovereignty of the Azure Tempest Sect, but in the end, the Tier 1 sect said nothing and remained silent.

They kept the Crosswind Pirates for last, but when they arrived, there was no trace of the infamous pirate group. Captain Crosswind was gone, and according to the locals, they’d packed up and headed west.

“We should have gone to them first,” Huxian said.

“But then we would have scared away all the others,” Cha Ming replied.

Huxian shrugged. “Well, that’s that. My place next?” As the teleportation portal lynchpin in their group, his words held great sway, so they followed his lead.

They travelled to the desolate lands, and in two weeks, the cleared away all the pirates. Demon pirates had less ships, and the ships were of poor construction, but they had a lot more natural treasures in their possessions.

Their group then alternated between human and demon lands. Jadefall’s territory came first, followed by Xing Tianlong’s, then Petros’s, followed by Wu’s, then Wei Longshen’s.

Three months later, they finished purging pirates from all seven of their protectorates. Roughly half of them were destroyed outright, but the rest of them migrated to adjacent protectorates the moment they smelled trouble.

“I never realized how much money could be made hunting pirates,” Cha Ming said. “I think I just made more than I did in the past five decades.”

“It’s why I always went out of my way to take on bounty missions on the Inkwell Plane,” Petros said. “Crooks and criminals tend to carry all their belongings with them."

Their time together reminded them of their time as a team in the Tribulant Yin Demiplane. They each took the time to discuss the systems they’d implemented during their travels.

Xing Tianlong had a similar system to Cha Ming, but he had somehow convinced the Tier 1 Sect in his area to centralize and establish a war council and enforcement team. Cha Ming had met them, and they were greatly relieved to see the pirates swept out of their territory.

Cha Ming was most familiar with Petros’s system. His Hunter’s Guild had entirely bypassed all the sects and welcomed all cultivators. The guilds posted monster slaying missions and gathering missions, but also posted bounty missions, thereby acting as a middleman law enforcement agency for all the sects in his region. Fiends hunting was naturally the highest priority.

Wei Longshen, on the other hand, had not implemented a points system. He’d immediately recognized the lack of inheritances in all the sects and clans and had used his Soul Piper abilities to summon their ancestors to fill in the gaps. In return, the sects swore to hunt down fiends as they appeared in their territory, and truth be told, they were even more efficient than the hunters in anyone else’s territory.

Huxian might have a diluted bloodline, but he was still a top-tier imperial demon. His spatial affinity was extremely rare, as was his ability to connect distant territories.

At first, the Tier 1 demon tribe overseeing the region he was in had been incensed by his rude and commandeering nature. But then the demons realized that he had a whole stock of inherited techniques to draw on and was basically impossible to capture. He also liked playing incredibly mean pranks in retaliation. The demon tribe therefore gave up on trying to press him into obedient service and came to an agreement with him. A very lucrative agreement for Huxian. Out of all of them, Huxian was the richest.

That only left Jadefall and Wu. Neither of them was a spectacular individually, but they were unmatched in their field. Jadefall was practically born to crush fiends, and Wu was the best defense specialist Cha Ming had ever seen. Huxian had delayed his connection to Cha Ming’s territory in favor of connecting those two to facilitate collaboration. They hunted down less fiend in the north and focused on the southern battlefield instead.

Everyone had their own advantages. Everyone had their own system. Everyone except Cha Ming, that is. And that bothered him greatly. So he spent no small amount of time thinking about how he should fix this glaring deficiency.

Huxian volunteered to set him up a teleportation network, but Cha Ming declined for the time being. “I don’t have enough influence yet,” Cha Ming said. “I need to be on speaking terms with the Tier 1 Sect in my region, and thus far we haven’t interacted.”

“Why don’t you just go see them?” Huxian asked.

“I want them to invite me,” Cha Ming said. “The bargaining position is completely different. Tell me, Huxian, did you go see your local overlords and ask permission, or did you cause trouble until they tried hunting you down before extorting them for all they were worth?”

Huxian saw his point and relented. He kept the offer open – obviously for compensation and taxes – and Cha Ming agreed to it in principle and included it as part of his plan.

Now that the pirates were gone and three more Tier 2 sects had joined Cha Ming’s rewards system, his free time increased greatly. He also handed off distributing and collecting resources and carried out all the trades in bulk in three pre0set location.

With this much free time, Cha Ming was able to finally spend more time training his Clear Rune Battle Arts with Godking Heavenbind and spent much time in the library researching different formation arts he could utilize. Sword formations, talisman formations, star formations – there were many ideas to draw on, and he found suitable ones that could greatly increase the strength of his Clear Rune Arts.

He used sword formations as an inspiration for Clear Rune Strike, classic binding formations for Clear Rune Constriction. As for Clear Rune Steps, he combined something called the Five-Element Escape Technique with spatial formations to create a movement technique that made Savage Deity Rush obsolete.

Clear Rune Defense was perhaps the easiest to implement because the bindings on Cha Ming’s skin. He used the runes outside his body as a diffusion mechanism, which made it so that any attacks his body took were immediately dispersed across a larger area. It followed the same principles as a radiator, which used fins to radiate heat into the lower temperature ambient environment.

Two years after the second phase began, Cha Ming had improved his Clear Rune Arts to the point that his Savage Deity Arts were somewhat redundant. He knew that this was because he’d yet to master Savage Deity Crush and Savage Deity Execution, but there was nothing he could do about it.

The duality of his body techniques bothered him. In his opinion, everything should be interchangeable. When he asked Godking Heavenbind about it, however, he was met with a familiar silence.

Cha Ming’s paintings didn’t improve much in that time either. He’d reached a bottleneck long ago but needed a turning point.

His destruction arts, on the other hand, saw significant improvements. He was starting get a handle on manipulating his domain, and his ability to destroy formations with the Clear Sky Carving Knife and Destruction Edge helped him close the gap and clear the violet technique law trial and the violet combat law trial. Unfortunately, he still fell short in controlling his domain.

It was on the first month of the third year of the second phase that Cha Ming decided that it was time. He’d made ample preparations over the years, and now that the Tier 2 sects were sufficiently intimidated, there was no better time to put his plan into motion.

***

Cha Ming was currently drinking tea with Elder Choking Tide as he often did nowadays. Since their initial rough start, they’d built a strong rapport and actually enjoyed each other’s company.

“I still remember that rascal of a cultivator,” Elder Choking Tide said. “You taught him a very important lesson that day. You wouldn’t recognise him if you saw him again – he’s the most respectful cultivator you could find anywhere. Not an inch of arrogance in him.”

“I wouldn’t dare take the credit,” Cha Ming said. “We have a saying where I come from – a leopard can’t change his spots. For him to transform himself is a testament to his willpower.”

“We can’t change the world, but we can certainly give individuals the opportunity,” Elder Choking Tide.

“In that, we couldn’t agree more,” Cha Ming said. “I came to you today because I wanted to change the fates of a great many individuals.”

“Oh?” the elder asked. “And here I thought you’d sought me out just to drink tea.”

“There’s no reason we can’t do both,” Cha Ming said. “Now remind me again, Choking Tide, because the plane I come from is just too different form this one. I remember you saying at one point that the upper limit for cultivators is the middle of law stitching.”

A hint of grief appeared in Elder Choking Tide’s expression. “It is our great shame and a limitation on all our sects. After all, it is the peak that defines everything beneath it. We might have a thousand middle law stitching cultivators spread out across the plane, and it therefore follows that the plane can only accommodate ten times as many early law stitching cultivators, a hundred times more initial law stitching cultivators, and so on.”

“Is the middle of law stitching a hard limit, or do some try to break through the limitations?” Cha Ming asked.

“Many did in the beginning but they discovered that the heavenly tribulation that followed too difficult to deal with,” Elder Choking Tide said. “In the end, it was far easier to pay for passage to other worlds to continue their advancement.

“That’s possible?” Cha Ming asked, surprised at the revelation.

“Of course,” Elder Choking Tide said. “The upper echelons of every plane are often in contact with other higher powers. Some immortals do business in the transcendent realms – the Heartforge Realm, for example.

“Those that reach the peak and feel they can continue advancing usually join the Three Sects, Four Clans, or Five Desolates as elders. After five hundred years of service, they will qualify to travel to other planes.”

“But who facilitates this arrangement?” Cha Ming asked.

“The Greenwind Pavilion facilitates the process for wealthy individuals that don’t want to go through the sects,” Elder Choking Tide said. “As for the sects, clans, and desolates, they have links to immortal sects and clans that have their finger in neighboring planes.”

“Interesting,” Cha Ming said. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it. Though I disagree with your analogy.”

“In what way?” Elder Choking Tide asked. It wasn’t the first time they’d had a philosophical discussion.

“You argue that the peak is a limitation on the bottom ranks,” Cha Ming said. “I believe that’s a bit backward. It’s not the peak of a pyramid that defines the rest of it, but it’s foundation.”

“Oh?” Elder Choking Tide said. “You mean to say the rune carving cultivators?”

“On other planes, that would be the foundation, yes, but on this plane, that’s somewhere in the middle,” Cha Ming said. “I’ve looked into rune carving rituals for the young and noticed that only cultivators between 18-25 are chosen, and they are those who were born with cores that were close to completion.”

“Youngsters have more mutable cores, this is a fact that has been passed down for tens of thousands of years,” Elder Choking Tide said. “Success is possible at older ages, but we’ve found that at this point, they already have families and are unwilling to sever ties with their mortal roots.”

“I think that’s a shame,” Cha Ming said.

“It is indeed,” Elder Choking Tide said. “There are far fewer cultivators in the world compared to thousands of years ago.”

“I mean I think it’s a shame to completely discard the lower end of the pyramid,” Cha Ming said. “Your plane has a unique power structure, and you’ve yet to adapt to it.”

“Oh?” Elder Choking Tide said. “Please elaborate.”

“On the Inkwell Plane, everyone is born with a core,” Cha Ming continued. “A full core is required for the survival of all mortals. Those with a complete core cannot manipulate much more than basic energies, and even then they require assistance.

“Here, on the other hand, the basic requirement is a partly formed core, and those who grow their cores past this initial amount can become martial artists. Or as I like to call them, qi manipulators. They even have three cultivation stages, I hear.”

“This is true,” Choking Tide said. “That change occurred a few thousand years back. Alas, they aren’t true cultivators. The power they can display is simply too weak.”

“But such abilities are far from useless, and I think it’s a shame to treat them as a subclass,” Cha Ming said.

“I agree, but there’s no changing it,” Choking Tide said. “I recall there being an effort to develop martial artists a few centuries back, but the process was inefficient and resulted in failure. Too few rune carving cultivators were generated from the exercise.”

“How unfortunate,” Cha Ming said. “I happen to have grown up on a mortal plane, after all, and I can sympathize with their plight. In my opinion, this is the reason there are so few cultivators. Not enough people take the time to develop their cores, since on the Chasewind Plane, this is the true first stage of cultivation.”

Choking Tide made a face. “You’re not the first to say it, but like I said, it’s a waste of time.”

“But I’d like to try,” Cha Ming said. “Tell me, my friend – will that cause any problems?”

The elder shrugged. “It shouldn’t. You just need to be careful with how you go about it.”

“How so?” Cha Ming asked.

“That really depends on what you want to do,” Elder Choking Tide said. “Give me a brief rundown.”

“I would like to buy some property in the city and open up a few mortal businesses and sell goods that can help qi manipulators and body refiners,” Cha Ming said. “I know that a few of the bigger chains are owned by cultivators with middling talents. Are there specific rules that I must follow?”

“I’m glad you asked before going out to buy,” Elder Choking Tide said. “There are quite a few rules laid out by the Three Sects, Four Clans, and Five Desolates. They don’t prevent cultivators from investing, but their businesses are not allowed to hire their own cultivators. If cultivators are necessary to the business, then the mortal business must enter an agreement with the local sects. There are also limits to the amount of land that can be purchased. I think you can see why that would be the case.”

“For someone like me, a few mortal cities would be pocket change,” Cha Ming said.

“As long as you understand this and follow the spirit of rules restrictions, I don’t think you’ll run into any issues,” Elder Choking Tide said. “Now come, let me introduce you to a few real estate agents I use. They’re expensive relatively speaking but save me quite a bit of hassle.”

Cha Ming inclined his head. “That’s exactly the kind of agent I’m looking for.”

***

“Let me see if I understand you correctly, sir,” a lazy-eyed shop-owner said. “You want to buy thousands of this root. And several thousands of this plant.”

“That’s correct,” Cha Ming said, looking around what effectively looked like a sketchy medicine shop. Many strange-smelling things could be found inside, and many of them he knew were supplements that felt effective but did not provide actual results.

“Impossible,” a middle-aged lady in the shop said. Cha Ming could sense a strong presence of mortal fire qi in her, and her core was larger than most. “Those things aren’t rare, but no one bothers to cultivate them.”

“Nowhere?” Cha Ming asked. “If that were the case, how would you and the other shops stock so many herbs and roots?”

“I’ve heard that martial artists go out to the woods to find them,” the lazy-eyed man said.

“That’s a crock of crap,” the lady said.

“But I heard – “

“You heard wrong,” the woman said. “Don’t you have some bookkeeping to do? Let me talk to this esteemed cultivator.” The man, dejected, retreated to a back room. “Sorry about that. He likes spewing nonsense. Our suppliers get these from the sects. To them, these are weeds, but to us, they are vital supplements.”

“I’m surprised that the sects deal with this sort of thing,” Cha Ming said. “I recently spoke to someone from a sect that hadn’t even heard of these so-called weeds when I mentioned them.”

“Well I doubt you were speaking to the right cultivator then,” the woman said. “You’re not a weak cultivator. I can tell by the way the air ripples around you.”

“And you have a strong soul,” Cha Ming said. She might still be cultivating her core, but her soul had long since entered the early transcendent realm. “Then what you’re saying is that some sects can help me, and others can’t?”

“From what I’ve been told, our supplier gets his stock from the Shifting Grass Sect, which is a Tier 7 sect,” the woman said wryly. “And judging by the way you strut around, you’re at least Tier 3 sect material.”

Cha Ming looked her over pensively. She was about forty years old, and according to her hair style, married. She was headstrong compared to other core formation cultivators he’d seen. “It’s probably not a good idea to tell me these things, you know.”

The woman shrugged. “You’re the one looking to buy a thousand of everything. If you wanted to capture me and search my soul, there’s not much I can do about it. Maybe this way I can get your goodwill. That’s what they say in the stories anyway. Scorn an immortal and tribulation will strike; aid an immortal and fortune will favor you.”

Cha Ming smiled. “Could you tell me what other sects I might to go in order to find what I’m looking for?”

The woman grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down roughly ten names. “You can visit these places. Who knows, you might get lucky.”

“Many thanks,” Cha Ming said. He grabbed a piece of mortal-grade jade on display – it was expensive to mortals but dirt cheap to transcendent cultivators – then he poured his spiritual sense inside it, taking great care not to shatter it.

He handed the jade to the lady, who immediately poured her spiritual sense into it, then nearly dropped it in surprise. “This is…”

“I inscribed some of my knowledge of herbology,” Cha Ming said. “You are a herbologist, are you not?”

“This… this is too precious!” the woman said.

“It’s just a portion of the original,” Cha Ming said with a smile. “If you study hard, I don’t mind teaching you more.”

The woman calmed herself and gave him a deep bow. “I will most definitely study hard.”

“I look forward to seeing how much you improve in the following months,” Cha Ming said. “What’s your name?”

“This one is called Wei Yin,” the herbologist said.

“Thank you for your help, Wei Yin,” Cha Ming said. “I will be back in a few weeks time. If you are still in the city, I’ll test how well you’ve learned what’s on that slip. If you do well, I might just have work for you.” He then left the shop and appeared a few blocks down the road. He wasn’t just looking for information and herbs, after all, but prospective employees.

***

“I have no idea why you’re interested in such base materials, my boy, but you’re lucky – we have plenty of them in the stacks.” Immortal Heartforge was in a good mood today, as Cha Ming had caught him just as he was finishing a good calligraphy session. “The stacks are in the basement, and they’re a little unorganized. It’s mostly researchers and scribes and the like that come digging down here, but we occasionally let the Invited look through them as well.”

“Why do they call it the stacks?” Cha Ming asked.

“I think you’ll find the answer is self-apparent,” Immortal Heartlock said. They were currently walking down a winding set of stairs, which eventually opened up into a huge spatially expanded basement.

This place did not have shelves. Instead, it contained stacks of disorganized books. Some were over fifty meters tall, and others floated in midair on enchanted platforms.

“This… this is a bit daunting,” Cha Ming said. “I’m afraid I’ll damage the books if I try reading anything.”

“You are specifically forbidden from retrieving anything yourself,” Immortal Heartlock said. He put a hand up and formed a few peculiar hand seals. No sooner had he finished did a familiar clerk appear in front of them. “How can I help the chief librarian?” she asked, eyeing Cha Ming dubiously.

“Daoist Soul Diviner, you are to assist Daoist Clear Sky in finding a procuring research material in the stacks,” Immortal Heartlock said. “He will pay you a thousand points a week.”

At the mention of point, her disdain vanished, and her expression lit up. Replacing books on shelves was a free service, and Cha Ming knew that only librarians ever got to earn points from consultations. “How long does Daoist Clear Sky expect to require my services?” Daoist Soul Diviner asked.

“For now, only a week,” Cha Ming said. Her expression fell slightly, but she maintained her smile. “But after I’m gone, probably a few months.” Vigor returned to her eyes.

“I trust that you will not cause any disasters in this area, and you will keep your demon companion out of here,” Immortal Heartlock said to Cha Ming. “Take your time, and if I see you breaking any rules, I’ll personally toss you out of here.” He vanished, leaving them alone amidst the dusty tomes and scrolls.

Cha Ming and Daoist Soul Diviner shared an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before Daoist Soul Diviner finally spoke up. “You mentioned requiring certain books?” Daoist Soul Diviner said. “I may not be the fastest clerk, but I’m one of the more experienced hands in the stacks.”

Her words brought him back in the present moment, and he nodded before procuring a list. “I don’t know the specifics – I’m open to a lot of different materials. In essence, I’m looking for mortal tier materials related to alchemy, cultivation, and martial arts, and later, all sorts of professions.”

Daoist Soul Diviner gave him an odd look. “Mortal tier? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely certain,” Cha Ming said.

“All right… I can deal with that,” Daoist Soul Diviner said. “I hate to pry, but could you be more specific? You’ve just asked me to retrieve about fifty million things.”

“Ah. That’s my mistake,” Cha Ming said. “I’m looking for core-formation level materials. The emphasis should be on cultivation methods, followed closely by alchemical, weapons smithing, and formation artist reference materials – nothing detailed, because I just want to brush up my memory. A few offensive, defensive, and movement techniques wouldn’t hurt, as well as soul cultivation and body cultivation arts, but grab a few of everything until I know what I’m looking for. We’ll need to hammer those down before we move on to anything else.”

“I’ll have the first of what you’re looking for within the hour,” Soul Diviner said. She took out a golden piece of jade with runes carved onto it and closed her eyes before whispering. Cha Ming saw tiny golden threads shoot out in seemingly random directions and tag the many stacks with glyphs.

“Is that technique of yours available in the library somewhere?” Cha Ming asked.

Daoist Soul Diviner smirked. “You’re not a seer, so it won’t do you any good.” Only now did he notice the familiar red pupils poking out from behind her golden irises.

***

Cha Ming swept across the sects like a swarm of locusts, collecting their weeds and leaving orders for many more should they eventually sprout. He even asked for seeds of said weeds if they could be found, but in the end, he was forced to grow a batch in the Clear Sky World for future planting.

He also tapped Huxian’s demon territory and found much in the way of mortal-grade raw resources. He bought as many as could be found and piled them up in warehouses for future usage.

Once this problem was solved, Cha Ming began crafting non-stop. It had been a while since he’d crafted any mortal-quality items, but at his realm, a brief refresher was all he needed to create goods of perfect quality. He was not as quick as before, as his soul was injured, but in his state, he could craft a hundred thousand mortal items using Words of Creation per ten time-accelerated days.

Doing so was easy and did not strain his cultivation or soul whatsoever. In fact, he didn’t even need mortal materials since his qi and divinity were more than sufficient to create any amount of mortal grade ingredients. Regardless, he kept his mortal agents purchasing and stockpiling supplies, and even planting entire fields to produce a large quantity of these so-called weeds.

None of this was very profitable. Not the farms nor the goods his new mortal employees began producing. The businesses and workshops were not built on spirit veins, and their goods could only be sold for the transcendent realm equivalent of gold and silver.

But Cha Ming did not care about profits. He was liberal with his wages and insisted on high quality mortal materials. As for formations and workshop equipment, he created the first batches using words of creation after reviewing their blueprints, then proceeded to train others in doing the same.

Learning crafts took time, so Cha Ming learned how to craft training obelisks and created a few to train his employees.

Due to the sensitive nature of the industry, Cha Ming had all of them all sign 5-year contracts, after which they could go their separate ways. He did this knowing that countless competitors would start up once this initial grace period was over. In fact, he was counting on it. Changing the world was had to do if it was just yourself.

Cha Ming did not limit himself to hiring craftsmen. He also hired experienced martial artists as trainers and guards.

Most of them, however, had no desire to fight. He hired them regardless, knowing that every type of qi manipulation was useful. Entire city blocks were quickly remodelled, and the first location, the one in Soaring City, occupied a three block by three block square.

This culminated in a grand opening six months later. The speed at which the first Clear Sky Qi Manipulation and Body Refinement Center, Clear Sky Center for short, was built, generated no small amount of interest. This was especially the case since he promised to give away half a million core building pills and basic training methods for core formation cultivators.

“None of this is going to change anything,” Elder Choking Tide said to Cha Ming from the side as both of them overlooked the grand opening from their vantage point on a balcony. “You’re giving away so many things for free. I understand that this isn’t much wealth, but they’re going to need more than a single pill. They’ll probably need ten or thirty of them.”

“And a lot of time as well,” Cha Ming agreed. “The cultivation methods I gave them aren’t that great either. If they want more pills, they’ll need to buy them. If they want better cultivation methods, they’ll need to buy them.”

“Then why even bother with giving so many things away?” Elder Choking Tide asked.

“Because by giving things away, I can generate interest,” Cha Ming said. “And by selling them at a high price, I can establish their value. This realm lacks a foundation, Elder Choking Tide. Do you remember our discussion half a year back? You said there is an upper limit on how many high-level cultivators this realm can support. I believe you are correct in that assessment, but you are wrong in your approach to the problem. It’s not the shortage of high-level resources that’s the problem – it’s the lack of low-level cultivators.

“The Chasewind Plane lacks cultivators. You admitted as much in our many discussions. You think it’s because of the Dao Origins shattering, but in truth, it’s because the Chasewind Plane has no knowledge of mortal qi manipulation, body refining, and soul training. The sects focus their recruitment efforts on the lucky few born with mostly complete cores, thinking this represents talent. But I assure you that it does not. Many born with a partial core have high talent, it’s just that they were born in areas of low qi density.”

The elder frowned but said nothing. Cha Ming knew that it would be impossible to convince him without proof. “You will see if I am right in time, Choking Tide. The transcendents on this plane don’t have the knowhow or the will to train mortal cultivators, but I do. This is because I am an ascendant. I have been where they are now, and I can teach them how to take that next step.”

“Well, I wish you all the best,” Elder Choking Tide said. “Truly, I do. I know many of those working here. Many of them are descendants from those in my sect. How many employees does this Clear Sky Conglomerate of yours employ?”

“Tens of thousands,” Cha Ming said. “We’re still hiring, by the way. Do you know anyone?”

Elder Choking Tide shook. “So many… what an ambitiousproject. But where exactly are you keeping them? This building only takes up nine city blocks.”

“Most of them are in my workshops in the eastern and western district,” Cha Ming said. “And my fields. And the locations that will soon open in other cities. I need anyone who can work or melt metal, who can control temperature, and who can grow crops, heal people, build, or create formations or artifices. If they can manipulate qi or refine their bodies, I want them.

“Your plane suffered terrible damage, Choking Tide. It lost much of its peak capacity. And the only way to fix the problem is to start at the base. The transcendent cultivators also need to realize that these so-called martial artists, these qi manipulators and body refiners, are also cultivators. And that they are worth respecting. That, more than anything, is why I put a high price to these cultivation methods and pills after giving away the first batch. They need to know that they are worth it, and that their efforts are meaningful.”

The grand opening was carried out successfully and without interference. There were many skeptics, of course, but by giving out so many core cultivation pills and basic cultivation methods, Cha Ming was able to drown them out.

Then, a few days later, the first core formation cultivators came back to purchase more pills and see what else the Clear Sky Center had to offer. Most of them didn’t buy anything, but took note of what was up for sale.

But it was enough, because what Cha Ming was selling wasn’t pills or techniques, but an idea. An idea that would soon spread across the entire Chasewind Plane.