Chapter 434: Chapter 289 Kongsang Nascent Soul
Presumably, everyone present knows that the game truly begins at max level.
When leveling up, there’s no time to go around doing quests, but once your combat power is maxed out, you have to farm materials, equipment, entries, mounts, reputation, achievements, and join group dungeons to earn DKP, there’s just too much to do, you can’t finish it all!
The same principle applies to people in the Mystic Sect, Nascent Soul True Man is just the entry point, if your level isn’t maxed, skills aren’t fully unlocked, who would accept you into the core circle for group dungeons?
To put it plainly, before forming a Nascent Soul, the thresholds you can pass relying on natural talent, Daoist Heart, and Immortal Fate, others can’t help you much, you have to rely on yourself. After forming a Nascent Soul, facing the unsolvable problem of resource scarcity, no one can help you either, everyone’s stuck at resources.
Thus, you have to use every method possible, by any means necessary, taking by force if needed. And to avoid being at a disadvantage like two fists against four hands, you have to form alliances and stay united.
But why is there resource scarcity?
There’s no way around it, though the Central Plains are vast and resource-rich, the pressure here is too intense.
The Immortal Palace stretched over millennia, with billions of people under the sky, but few nobles can sit and eat till the mountains are empty without worrying about resources.
Even for hereditary clans, having three generations serve as ministers, the accumulated wealth of several generations is only enough to support one or two Divinity Transformation Ancestors. If they perish halfway, or fall in the middle path, the investment is all for naught, and the family’s prosperity declines.
But you can’t stop investing; neighbors stockpiling grain, while I stockpile weapons, the neighbor is my grain warehouse. If you don’t exhaustively invest your family assets to cultivate your own ancestor, when someone like Tie Dan comes to talk about rules, your family assets won’t be safe.
Thus, every household practices cultivation, even if they can’t get a Mystic Sect Dao Seed, they settle for cracking a Heterodox Path Golden Core, at least having the face of a Nascent Soul protects the family and ensures peace.
This results in capital cities like the Three Constellation Capital where there is no shortage of True Man Ancestors, each one a gold-devouring beast, leaving no trace of Heavenly Materials Treasures on the roads, everything is swept clean, forcing people to mine into the depths below.
Because if you don’t become a big fish, you’ll become a shrimp, there’s no second path to take.
Once this competition begins, not just commoners can’t survive, men farming and women weaving, paying grain taxes and labor, digging the whole year with no rest. Even landlords, aristocratic clans, and religious sects don’t have days of rest, having to exploit more and more, stripping flesh, and bone, for offerings to the ancestors. Those ancestors, in turn, make offerings to the Three Great Sects at the peak of the ecological niche.
The same goes for the Mystic Sect, where even the inner mountain over-exploits the outer mountain, sometimes even more excessively.
After all, in the Mystic Sect’s Inner Sect, each one is a Nascent Soul, all from the same sect, sharing the same origin and law, even the cultivation expenses and resource gathering preferences are generally the same, all competing for the same kind of mineral, leading to more intense internal conflicts.
Thus, conflicts like those between Nine Yin Mountain’s inner and outer mountains are not exceptional, but rather typical. Teachers and senior brothers are mentors leading the way in the Dao, while uncles and other seniors become enemies fighting for Immortal Fate.
The resources are finite, in the end, it comes down to expanding sources and reducing expenditures, if your lineage takes a bit more, mine gets a bit less.
It ultimately boils down to the issue of fair distribution, fundamentally, it’s a matter of contention.
How to contend? Some rely on sect contributions, some compete in the Five Arts, and others speak through the sword.
If you’re strong enough to kill all your same-sect peers in the mountain, then naturally no words are needed, my things are what’s in the mountain, and what’s in the mountain is mine.
But if you don’t have that ability, you have to listen to orders, gather materials, improve performance, and contribute to the collective to have the privilege to sit at the table and share the resources.
This also leads to a unique situation in the Mystic Sect.
Although disciples from the same sect but different branches are as hostile as fire and water, fellow Daoists from different sects but the same Mystic Sect often have a good relationship. It’s common for disciples from the nine major sects to team up, combine forces, and go through challenges together.
After all, if you’re cultivating Divine Gang for gold essence, and I’m refining Xuanming for cold ice, our main cultivation techniques differ, our primary resource choices don’t conflict, we can trade, team up for dungeons with no distribution issues, and even support each other, partnering for Dual Cultivation to progress together!
So joining with Jun Cen and arriving at the gate of the Blood Clothes Sect’s Daoist tradition, meeting four other Mystic Sect Fellow Daoists who agreed to dungeon together, greetings were exchanged, and when I unfurled the sword light on my back, an Immortal’s eyes immediately shone brightly and came over with an invitation...
"Kongsang Yuan Ying, greetings Sword Immortal. Although the Blood Clothes Sect’s fortune has ended, it is still an ancient demon sect, rumored to have some law ties with the Divine Sect. For this demon-slaying, why don’t we go together?"
Tie Dan didn’t immediately refuse.
Because this woman was quite strong, though at first glance she appeared to only be in the Nascent Soul realm, with about the cultivation of one or two levels of thunder.
But Tie Dan, who has combined the Nine Luminaries into one, excels in all aspects, naturally saw at a glance that this person exuded a cohesive and refined aura of Xuanming True Qi, exceedingly fine-tuned, at least all her Dao Seeds had evolved through a Third Transition, developing changes never seen before, thus inspiring deeper inquiry and discussion on the Dao.
So he nodded,
"Alright."
Seeing Tie Dan’s agreement, the Kongsang Mountain Nascent Soul True Monarch approached with a smile, but Hui Ming Zhan Tie behind immediately became like facing a great enemy.
Because Tie Dan’s eyes were looking at a mass of Qi, while what they saw in their vision was a person.
An exceptional beauty.
As the poem says,
Cape swayed in the wind like saffron, dress in pomegranate hue under the sun. Corals on the lips like treasures to cherish, cheeks akin to pluckable hibiscus.