Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather Chapter 1750 - 1065: Spiritual Energy Conservation, Zhongli Xiayi’s Core Formation

~4 minute read · 997 words
Previously on Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather...
Yang Zhenshan strategized population growth for the Spirit Source Land through encouraging early marriage and a large-scale migration of youth. He then commissioned the refinement of the Divine General Chessboard, harboring a long-term ambition to command a hundred thousand Divine Generals. Meanwhile, Yang Zhenshan continued his alchemical endeavors, securing vital resources for his clan.

Inside the Jade Sky Hall.

Yang Zhenshan had just handed the storage bag containing elixirs to White Cloud True Monarch, and White Cloud True Monarch took out a jade scroll and another storage bag to give to Yang Zhenshan.

"Haha, take a look at this." White Cloud True Monarch laughed heartily.

Yang Zhenshan checked the jade scroll and storage bag, revealing an expression of "as expected" in his eyes.

"As expected from Hengshan Sect, this is another big deal!"

This time, the quantity was even larger than last time, not just by a little bit, but three times as much.

The variety of elixirs was greater and their numbers had increased.

White Cloud True Monarch said, "You might not know, but recently the number of elixirs sold by Ten Thousand Treasures Store has decreased significantly!"

"Decreased?" Yang Zhenshan was slightly surprised.

"Yes, not only has the quantity decreased, but the prices have also increased significantly!" White Cloud True Monarch said.

Yang Zhenshan immediately understood the situation.

As one of the top forces in Wanhua Domain, Ten Thousand Treasures Store is generally unaffected by fluctuations in circumstances.

But this time, the fluctuations came from a top force and affected virtually the entire Wanhua Domain.

No matter how powerful Ten Thousand Treasures Store is, it cannot remain unaffected.

Ten Thousand Treasures Store, also known as Ten Thousand Treasures Sect, although they have their own alchemists, artifact refiners, and talisman masters, most of their products come from guest elders.

Guest elders are just guest elders; they provide various materials to Ten Thousand Treasures Store but retain considerable autonomy; the store cannot force them.

Take Yang Zhenshan for example; he is still a guest elder at Ten Thousand Treasures Store, but in recent years, he has provided fewer and fewer elixirs.

Especially in the past two years, he was busy refining elixirs for Hengshan Sect and did not provide a single elixir to Ten Thousand Treasures Store.

Yang Zhenshan is surely not an exception; possibly, most of the guest elders are like Yang Zhenshan, now busy refining elixirs for others, having no time to supply goods to the store.

With reduced sources of goods, the goods available for sale naturally decrease, leading to a price increase.

It’s not just elixirs; the prices of magical treasures and talismans surely have increased as well.

This is a good thing for Spirit Source Land because it belongs to the production type forces, exporting resources from basic spirit medicine and spiritual fruit cultivation to mining, refinement of magical artifacts and elixirs, and talisman drawing, array construction, etc.

Conversely, Hengshan Sect is a force that consumes resources, using its accumulated heritage accumulated over thousands of years to buy various resources from other forces for the war against the South Sea Demon Clan.

This is what is called making money from war.

However, Yang Zhenshan thought of a deeper issue, which is the consumption of spiritual energy.

All resources originate from spiritual energy.

Spiritual Spring, Spirit Grass, Spirit Fruit, Spirit Ore, etc., all resources originate from nature’s spiritual energy.

Spiritual energy is both conserved and not conserved.

From the perspective of a single realm, spiritual energy is not conserved.

But from the perspective of realms and the void, spiritual energy is conserved.

Because spiritual energy will dissipate into the void during its circulation in a realm.

Yang Zhenshan discovered this issue when he controlled Life Realm Immortal Palace.

The spiritual energy of Life Realm Immortal Palace kept dissipating into the void, though the rate of dissipation was slow, the palace continually lost spiritual energy.

The same applies to the realm of Wanhua Domain.

Moreover, the more frequently the spiritual energy circulates, the faster it will dissipate.

What is spiritual energy circulation?

Growth of spirit plants, refining elixirs, refining magical treasures and artifacts, drawing talismans, consuming elixirs, enhancing cultivation, casting spells, etc., all involve spiritual energy circulation.

During these activities, spiritual energy will dissipate into the void.

If it’s just a simple refining of an elixir, the lost spiritual energy is negligible.

But if tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of elixirs are refined, the lost spiritual energy might equate to the amount of several hundred to several thousand low-grade spirit stones.

It seems not much!

But what about battles?

The spiritual energy lost from casting a spell once is negligible; what about casting a spell ten thousand times?

That might just be equivalent to dozens of low-grade spirit stones, insignificant compared to the spiritual energy contained in an entire realm.

But herein lies the problem: what about a war? A prolonged war?

It’s not just about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of spells; elixir consumption, magical treasure damage, cultivator demise—all these are part of the spiritual energy circulation, and all contribute to the loss of spiritual energy into the void.

Plus, battles between Golden Core cultivators; note that Golden Core cultivators often fight in the void, where a single spell from them might consume tens of thousands of spirit stones’ worth of spiritual energy, these stones effectively being thrown into the void.

Fighting in the void, yet unable to replenish mana there, requiring reliance on elixirs, or slowly absorbing spiritual energy back in the realm.

The more frequent the spiritual energy circulates, the quicker the spiritual energy loses, and Golden Core cultivators fighting in the void is akin to dumping spirit stones into it.

Therefore, war becomes an accelerator of spiritual energy loss in a realm.

One or two wars might not affect much, but ten or a hundred could affect the spiritual energy concentration of the entire realm.

Power struggle is a war that encompasses the entire realm.

Is the power struggle an accelerator for a realm’s spiritual energy loss?

Even a once-in-ten-thousand-year power struggle acts like a poison, continuously lowering the spiritual energy concentration of the realm.

Why did Wanhua Domain in the ancient world have so many powerful divine beasts?