Five Elements Sect,Internal Affairs Hall
The Hall Master, who we only see a couple of times a year, appeared. Several Deputy Hall Masters and a group of senior stewards also appeared. The Hall Master publicly announced Zhang Wanjing's new job assignment, asking him to hand over 90% of his duties and focus solely on managing spiritual land, specifically the lower-level kind.
The spiritual land in Five Elements Sect is very extensive, spanning millions of acres. Nine-tenths of it is lower-level spiritual land used for cultivating spiritual paddy, lower-level spirit medicine, and other things such as lower-level spirit fruits and spiritual herbs for making lower-level spiritual talismans.
These are the most basic things for cultivators, even an ordinary steward can be in charge of them. It's obvious that assigning someone as accomplished as Zhang Wanjing, who has reached the pinnacle of the golden core stage, to manage them is intended to suppress him.
"Deputy Hall Master Zhang, your position as Deputy Hall Master still stands. Your treatment will remain unchanged. This decision was made by the Presbyterian Church and has already received majority approval. Carry it out and don't make things difficult for me."
(Translated by Gravity Tales 😄)
The Hall Master said to Zhang Wanjing. They didn't completely strip away his privileges and benefits. His position as Deputy Hall Master was still intact. However, he shouldn't expect to touch anything else in the future. If Zhang Wanjing doesn't advance to the Nascent Soul stage, he will spend his whole life farming.
"I will follow the decision of the Presbyterian Church."
"Thank you very much Wan Jing, your disciple and son can stay in the Internal Affairs Hall, with no change in position."
"I inform the Hall Master, I am willing to follow my master."
Lin Jiang immediately stood up and said, if he didn't have Zhang Wanjing supporting him at the Internal Affairs Hall, it would be worthless. The steward has really become a errand boy. He doesn't want to stay here anymore.
"Alright, Shu Hua, how about you?"
"I'll follow my father too."
"Okay, it's settled. Steward it is."
The Hall Master said, leaving room for future encounters. The Presbyterian Church didn't completely eliminate, first, they were afraid that Zhang Wanjing could break through the Nascent Soul stage and have no room to maneuver in the future. Second, they actually have connections and if the Patriarch were to return, it would be easier to explain.
"Thank you, Hall Master."
"The matter is settled, I'll leave first. Vice Hall Master Jin, you take care of the handover."
"Yes, Hall Master."
Vice Hall Master Jin, who was standing by, said with a smile. Usually, Zhang Wanjing holds all the power, but now the power is in his hands, and without Zhang Wanjing causing trouble, won't Internal Affairs Hall be completely under his control?
"Senior Brother Zhang, what do you think..."
"Give me one day to hand over the matters."
"No problem, you can stay for a few more days."
"I just want some peace and quiet."
"Alright, alright, everyone leave and let Deputy Hall Master Zhang have some peace and quiet."
Vice Hall Master Jin actively shooed everyone away, leaving a quiet environment for Zhang Wanjing.
"Your father was greatly affected this time."
"No, you know my father's personality, he is persistent."
"The Five Elements Sect is slowly falling apart."
"Junior brother, can't you hope for something good?"
"You don't understand."
Lin Jiang shook his head. Zhang Wanjing was the flag bearer for getting things done among the higher-ups of the Five Elements Sect. Over the years, Lin Jiang had seen clearly that it was Zhang Wanjing who was pulling the strings in the Internal Affairs Hall, supporting them and doing his best to benefit them. Now that Zhang Wanjing was being suppressed, this group of people would also have to suffer.
No matter how much they did, how much effort they put in, most of the results would be taken away by others. There was no one to support them anymore. When this group of people grew discouraged, everyone would fall apart.
However, this kind of thing won't take effect immediately. It will continue for a long time, maybe three to five years, maybe thirty to fifty years, unless someone like Zhang Wanjing appears again along the way, otherwise everyone will be disappointed sooner or later.
Perhaps Zhang Wanjing had come to his senses. A day later, Zhang Wanjing moved out of the Internal Affairs Hall, which was the headquarters of many institutions, with many branches underneath.
Zhang Wanjing's new office is in a place called Cold Crow Mountain. It is said that there used to be a group of cold crows here, which is why it is named that way.
Cold Crow Mountain is over a hundred miles away from the core area of the mountain gate. It is definitely an unpopular place, even the office space is worn-out.
There used to be more than ten stewards stationed in Cold Crow Mountain. Now that Zhang Wanjing, the great god, has arrived, naturally, he will take the best position.
"Stewards, intermediate stewards, senior stewards, stewards, intermediate stewards, senior stewards, Deputy Hall Master, your dad was demoted six levels all at once!"
Lin Jiang sighed and said to Zhang Shuhua that there are six levels from stewards to Deputy Hall Master. This is the rank of the management personnel within the Five Elements Sect. Zhang Wanjing was suddenly demoted six levels, and if it were him, he would find it hard to bear.
"We're no different. We're doing steward's work under the name of stewards."
"Haha, it doesn't matter to me. I was originally just an outer disciple."
"I'm the same, there's not much difference."
Zhang Shuhua has a good mindset. He starts from scratch as soon as he enters the door, and if necessary, he can start over again.
"Stop talking, come inside and work."
"Yes, Master, what should we do now?"
"The sect asks us to do whatever they assign, whether it's farming or reviewing the records. Find the records of the previous years' lower-level spiritual land, go through them again, organize the data. See how much spiritual land the sect has used over the years, how much spiritual paddy, and elixirs. Don't think you can be lazy just because you were sent here."
"Cough, Master, I just checked. The records alone filled three rooms, all in the form of jade slips. Some of the slips have already disintegrated, so the contents are gone."
Lin Jiang immediately felt overwhelmed. Three rooms filled with jade slips? It would take forever to go through all of them.
"Some will take time to go through. I'll look at them with you. Stop talking."
Zhang Wanjing gave Lin Jiang a stern look, then went to find the original steward and instructed him to take the three of them to the data storage room and bring back piles of jade slips.
Cultivators can quickly glance through jade slips. With a sweep of their spiritual awareness, the information is stored in their minds. But organizing the data is a difficult task. it requires careful examination, extracting and recording the information. It's definitely a huge undertaking.
Zhang Wanjing called together the five stewards of Cold Crow Mountain. The eight of them worked tirelessly for a month to organize the data from the previous hundred years of the Five Elements Sect. Anything older than that was impossible to gather since those jade slips weren't properly preserved, the engraved spiritual awareness was scattered, and the contents were mostly unreadable.
"Master, the data is ready. Would you like to take a look? Do you want me to interpret it for you?"
Lin Jiang combined the data provided by others and used some modern statistical methods from mathematics to create some charts. It took him three days to do this.
"I don't understand what you're saying. Where did you learn that?"
"I figured it out myself. Let me explain it to you. This here represents the annual planting area, which is measured in acres. And here is the quantity of offerings to the sect..."
Lin Jiang explained each chart one by one. Looking at the charts, it can be seen that over the past hundred years, the production of spiritual paddy and low-level spiritual medicine in the Five Elements Sect has not increased. It has even fluctuated quite a bit. However, the total amount remains about the same because the sect requires a certain amount to be planted and offered. Most people are able to complete the task. As for how much is left after completing the task, that's hard to say. It's not recorded in the data.
"Xiao Yi, you've been farming on Qingyang Mountain for twenty years. Tell me, are the tasks given by the sect difficult?"
"Yes, they're very difficult."
"Really?"
"Yes, Master. You can ask any disciple who farms and they will tell you. With a cultivator's ability, one person can farm up to two hundred acres at most. This already takes up the majority of a cultivator's time. Based on the fertilizers and tools provided by the sect, the yield per acre is around five hundred pounds. After fulfilling the sect's task of three hundred pounds per acre, each acre only yields two hundred pounds of spiritual paddy. With two hundred acres, that's a total of forty thousand pounds of spiritual paddy. According to the current market price, it's less than two hundred spirit stones. And this is not the final income because when planting the seedlings, one person can't handle it all and has to spend money to hire help. In the end, only about one hundred thirty-four spirit stones are received."
Lin Jiang said that spiritual paddy can only be grown once a year. If cultivators don't rely on immortal cultivation techniques, they can only earn a little over one hundred spirit stones in a whole year, which is already very cheap.
"If it's only a little over one hundred, then how did you manage to cultivate over a thousand mu in a year before?"
"I hired people, and I basically didn't make much money. I relied on drawing symbols to earn resources."
Lin Jiang was embarrassed to admit that he was lazy when farming, and he cultivated several hundred mu more than what he rented, which meant he didn't have to pay taxes.
"So, it means that growing spiritual paddy barely makes any money, and it's only those disciples without a background or technical skills who grow it?"
"It's more or less the case."
"What about low-level elixirs?"
"I'm not very sure about that. Growing elixirs is much more difficult than growing spiritual paddy. The requirements are much higher. If it's an individual growing them, cultivating twenty mu is the limit. Anything more than that is not possible to handle and take care of."
"I understand now. Cultivating is not easy, not just for independent cultivators."
Zhang Wanjing said, among the disciples of the sect, there are few who enjoy a good life, but most disciples are still struggling to make ends meet. They waste a lot of time trying to earn resources and their cultivation cannot match others.
"Xiao Yi, what do you think if I ask the sect to reduce the amount of spiritual paddy we have to contribute?"
"Master, I'm afraid it won't work. These spiritual paddy need to be provided for tens of thousands of people in the sect to eat. The sect won't agree. Besides, this is also a way for the sect to select talents."
Lin Jiang shook his head. Providing food and being self-sufficient is a small matter. The main purpose is talent selection. In this difficult situation, whoever can break through will be the talent the sect needs.
"So, in your opinion, how can we make achievements in this matter?"
"If it's just spiritual paddy, it's actually not difficult."
"Oh, how so?"
"I'll introduce someone to you tomorrow, and you will know."
Lin Jiang thought of Zheng Yi. They have a technical team. If they can promote their technology, it won't be a big problem to increase the yield of spiritual paddy. Moreover, the area of land per person for cultivation will also increase significantly.
Giving regular farmers a complete set of tools and techniques will allow them to easily cultivate more than just two hundred acres, even reaching thousands of acres.

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