The Programmer Cultivator

Zhang Deming stared at the information, his eyes fixed on the price. ’So this is how Spirit Nurturing Beads are really sold?’ he thought.

The phrase ”no upper limit” hit Zhang Deming with the overwhelming scent of new money.

’So, after officially becoming a Spirit Nurturing Master—that is, once you can create Tier Two Spirit Nurturing Beads—custom orders are the real path to earning Spirit Stones?’

’Everything I learned in the Outer Sect about selling Spirit Nurturing Beads in sets... was that just grunt work?’

’Private customization, *that’s* the key!’

The so-called customized Inheritance Bead Set involved creating a full set of Spirit Nurturing Beads that guaranteed a person wouldn’t need to comprehend Techniques on their own as they progressed on their Cultivation path.

For example, a basic Inheritance Bead Set for the Tai Chi path could consist of the Agility Technique, the Spiritual Shield, and a Tier Two Technique capable of being used for Foundation Establishment. The corresponding Spirit Nurturing Beads would be created from these three Techniques.

If the Spirit Nurturing Beads were Entry Level, a set would require at least twenty of each bead.

For Control Level, a set was ten of each bead. For Mastery Level, it was five.

Of course, these numbers were for standard, basic cases and couldn’t be taken as a universal rule.

Such a combination constituted a so-called Inheritance Bead Set, and this was the primary way Spirit Nurturing Masters in the Sect made their money.

As for selling them individually, as Zhang Deming had been doing, that was typically something left to novice Spirit Nurturing Masters who could only create Spirit Nurturing Beads for Tier One Techniques.

Of course, some large chain stores also sold them individually as a flagship product to attract customers.

And as for the Spirit Nurturing Masters of the Celestial Spirit Sect—aside from Zhang Deming—they were required to produce a certain quota of individual Spirit Nurturing Beads each month, as well as complete a certain number of Glove Bead orders.

It was for this reason that the profession of Spirit Nurturing Master had appeared, and the ”Second Generation of Cultivators” social circle was now booming in the Hongmeng Realm.

Take Qian Xiaogong, for example. Without Spirit Nurturing Masters and Inheritance Bead Sets, a person with his seventeen-point Spirit Root would have found it difficult to ever reach the Tai Chi stage in their lifetime.

It wasn’t an issue of resources; the main problem was that he would be unable to form the Rune Core for Foundation Establishment.

But now, with Inheritance Bead Sets, he could be pushed to Apprentice Peak through a massive investment of resources.

Then, once he chose a Cultivation path, he could use a deluge of Spirit Nurturing Beads to brute-force a Tier Two Technique to at least the Control Level.

After that, by using countless more resources to form a Rune Core, someone with a seventeen-point Spirit Root achieving Foundation Establishment Tai Chi wouldn’t be difficult at all. Even reaching the Duality stage would be highly possible.

As a result, over the last few millennia, the class system within the Cultivation Realm has slowly begun to semi-solidify, not just in the Celestial Spirit Sect, but across the entire Hongmeng Realm.

It became increasingly difficult for those from Humble Families to get ahead as resources were progressively locked down and exploited by the upper echelons. The competition between Sects and Noble Families also slowly shifted from scrambling for talent to fighting over resources..

One could say that the Spirit Nurturing Holy Land and the profession of Spirit Nurturing Master had changed the entire landscape of the Hongmeng Cultivation Realm.

The fact that the Celestial Spirit Sect’s Resources Department could surpass the Law Enforcement Team in status, second only to the Inheritance Hall, spoke volumes.

As an Upper Sect and a mid-level power in the Hongmeng Cultivation Realm, the Celestial Spirit Sect was, in fact, a microcosm of the entire realm.

All these factors, combined with the top-down, vigorous support for Spirit Nurturing Masters and the high difficulty of Technique Cultivation, meant the population of Loose Cultivators from Humble Families throughout the Cultivation Realm was beginning to shrink.

In response to this, the Strategy Grotto Heaven of the Nine Great Blessed Lands—ah, it should be called the Celestial Secret Grotto Heaven, as ”strategy” is a more recently popularized term—

The Celestial Secret Grotto Heaven performed a calculation spanning ten thousand years, which concluded that if things continued on this path, the Hongmeng Cultivation Realm would inevitably reach its zenith only to fall into decline.

Based on this result, the Holy Lands issued multiple directives to support those from Humble Families, covering everyone from Loose Cultivators to ordinary Disciples within Sects who lacked the backing of a Noble Family.

They even mandated that Sects maintain a certain percentage of Disciples from Humble Families at the rank of Inner Sect Disciple and above.

However, this did little to improve the situation.

Under these circumstances, and at the suggestion of the Celestial Secret Grotto Heaven, the Three Great Holy Lands slowly relaxed their policies on contact with the Outer Realm in order to stimulate the Hongmeng Cultivation Realm, leading to the various changes seen today.

The effects were exceptionally significant. In recent years, many incidents had occurred due to contact with the Outer Realm.

But overall, not only had the Hongmeng Cultivation Realm avoided decline, but it had prospered even further. The Array Artifact Dao, in particular, had seen an explosive boom in recent years, creating countless legends.

Of course, Zhang Deming only learned all this after the so-called ”discussion meeting,” when he had gone to the information office on Spirit Nurturing Peak to cram.

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Zhang Deming stared at the orders, at the prices listed in the tens, even hundreds of thousands of Spirit Stones. Suddenly, the idea of running a shop didn’t seem so appealing anymore.

Compared to these Inheritance Bead Sets, he had been selling his Spirit Nurturing Beads at cabbage prices!

No wonder so many of the Noble Families who had bought his Spirit Nurturing Beads never actually used them.

’So that’s what it was! They were piecing together their own Glove Beads to build up their family’s foundational collection!’

For example, the information listed a basic (2+1) Three-Technique Tai Chi Inheritance Set, which consisted of two Tier One Basic Techniques and one Tier Two Foundation Establishment Technique.

If he were to sell the components individually—ten Tier One and five Tier Two Spirit Nurturing Beads—at his shop’s current prices, he would make just over a thousand Spirit Stones at most.

And that was on the condition that the five Tier Two Spirit Nurturing Beads were Mastery Level, like the ones he made, and that they were sold via auction to even reach that price.

But if he were to craft them as a custom Inheritance Bead Set, especially through a platform like the Celestial Spirit Sect...

Heh, the starting price was two thousand Spirit Stones!

And for a set made entirely at the Mastery Level, like the ones Zhang Deming could create—a Tai Chi Mastery Level Inheritance Set—the reward wouldn’t just be a few thousand Spirit Stones, but also a wealth of personal connections.