Chapter 706: Medicinal Garden's Spirit Plants

In the Marketplace at the foot of the Qingyuan Sect’s mountain, within a large, four-courtyard garden estate, Huang Jing was in the Pill Room of the left wing, inspecting the various grades of Spiritual Medicine acquired by the front counter that day.

This estate was a property of the Qingyuan Sect. He had been assigned here as a Steward, tasked with processing, grinding, and sorting Spiritual Medicine. He co-managed the business with Ge Xuan of the Qingyuan Sect.

Ge Xuan was a disciple of the Qingyuan Sect and the Chief Shopkeeper of this establishment. He was responsible for daily operations, distributing tasks from the sect, and buying and selling various Spirit Grasses and Spirit Plants to balance supply and demand.

As for Huang Jing, a second-tier, mid-grade Spirit Plant Cultivator, being transferred here to identify and process various medicinal ingredients instead of tending to Spirit Plants was, admittedly, an underutilization of his skills.

But Huang Jing had no complaints. The Qingyuan Sect had scarce Spiritual Land, so there weren’t many Spirit Plants to cultivate. Besides, as an outsider, how could he compete with disciples of pure sect lineage? Being put in charge of such a major enterprise was already a recognition of his abilities.

‘Once I’ve put down roots here for a few decades and earned the Qingyuan Sect’s trust, life will be much easier.’ Huang Jing hadn’t forgotten the circumstances that brought him to the sect. Compared to him, several of his fellow Spirit Plant Cultivators had already perished in the recent war. Considering that, what did he have to be unsatisfied about?

Inside the Pill Room, besides Huang Jing, there were three Qi Cultivation Cultivators. They all looked young, only about seventeen or eighteen. These were Qingyuan Sect disciples who had just completed their foundational studies within the sect and had been assigned to Huang Jing as apprentices.

The Qingyuan Sect’s disciple training was divided into three stages. The first was the primary academy, with a new intake every three years. Here, children who had just been tested and found to possess a Spirit Root were grouped into a single class, regardless of their innate aptitude.

According to the rules for Spirit Root detection, a child had to be at least three years old before they could be assessed. Therefore, the children in the primary academy were generally between four and six years old.

After completing the six-year program at the primary academy and finishing their initial general and cultivation-related education, the children would be between ten and twelve years old. This was when they entered the second stage: the assessment and evaluation period.

During this five-year period, as the children matured, they could begin to choose their own paths. Those with superior aptitude who were dedicated to cultivation would strive to become True Disciples.

Those who knew their aptitude was insufficient and that the path to the Great Dao was likely beyond their reach would prepare to learn a trade—be it Alchemy, talisman crafting, or becoming a Spirit Plant Cultivator.

A Cultivator with a practical skill could always make a living, no matter where they went. At worst, they wouldn’t be reduced to becoming a Loose Cultivator. Although the Qingyuan Sect could still support all its members for now, the burden was substantial. Thus, learning a trade for the sake of a better life was a necessity.

Currently, the Qingyuan Sect operated on a guaranteed placement model. Once the second stage of training was complete, disciples would enter the third stage: a five-year apprenticeship.

This part of their training didn’t take place within the main sect grounds. Instead, they were dispatched to the Qingyuan Sect’s various enterprises to gain preliminary experience in production and operations.

Huang Jing was currently responsible for instructing three such apprentices. The best Spirit Root aptitude among them was merely lower-mid-grade, which was nowhere near the standard required for a True Disciple.

The competition to become a True Disciple had become so fierce that the standard had been raised to the upper tier of Top-grade Spirit Roots. Therefore, these three had no choice but to pursue a career as Spirit Plant Cultivators.

A Top-grade Spirit Root’s aptitude ranged from thirty to forty points. The standard for becoming a True Disciple in the Qingyuan Sect had, due to intense competition, risen from twenty-eight points ten years ago to the current thirty-six.

This eight-point increase over the last decade was entirely due to Fang Qingyuan’s successful Core Formation and the addition of Bear Wind to the sect—a development that had actually taken Fang Qingyuan by surprise.

However, the sect’s resources were finite, so it was impossible to distribute them equally among all Cultivators. To do so would be to act irresponsibly toward the Qingyuan Sect’s future.

Cultivators with better aptitude were worthy of a greater investment of resources. This was considered perfectly fair.

High-level Cultivators were a sect’s greatest assurance of security. No number of Low-tier Cultivators could stand against a single Golden Core Cultivator. This was a consequence of the fundamental principles of cultivation, which was why this model of resource allocation was universally adopted throughout the Cultivation Realm.

Fang Qingyuan had no intention of implementing concepts like equality or “everyone becoming a dragon.” The rules of this world were different; divorced from the fundamental realities of production, such ideals were nothing but castles in the sky.

Nevertheless, Fang Qingyuan did introduce some changes based on his own understanding. He professionalized the “Hundred Arts of Cultivation,” making it a requirement for basically every Qingyuan Sect disciple to master a practical cultivation skill, rather than just training arduously like the True Disciples of other sects.

Among the so-called Hundred Arts of Cultivation, the most prominent were naturally the five major categories of Array, Pill, Artifact, Talisman, and Control. Following these were professions like Puppet Master, Spirit Plant Master, Vein Seeker, and Physician, as well as skills like astrology, divination, and Observing Wind and Water.

Many other crafts—such as tailoring, mirror forging, painting, carving, music, calligraphy, the tea ceremony, and the Incense Dao—had also been adapted and elevated by Cultivators, eventually becoming part of the Hundred Arts of Cultivation as well.

In Fang Qingyuan’s view, this was a form of mental and spiritual cultivation. He didn’t want his sect’s True Disciples to be simple-minded drones who did nothing but train. Honing a skill would be a great benefit when they eventually had to face their tribulations.