Chapter 78: Chapter 78: Year-end Accounts and the Enlightenment Skill

Wanfeng 2nd Year.

During the slack season after the Spring Festival, thousands of people visited the front hall of Qianmu Temple every day. In just half a month, pilgrims donated a massive thirty thousand silver taels. While this was enough to cover the daily expenses of the Temple Disciples for a year, their cultivation still relied on the income from the sect’s enterprises.

Qianmu Temple’s current enterprises mainly consisted of medicinal fields and elixirs. Its stable income came from the hundreds of hectares of fertile land developed around the foot of the mountain and along the banks of the Five Divine Rivers.

In addition, during the first month of the year, some wealthy households in Shang’an Prefecture who had received aid from Qianmu Temple in the past would send people to deliver gifts.

Liu Shuang received the most gifts among all the disciples. This was partly because she was Wang Ping’s disciple, and partly because she had genuinely helped many people during her decade-plus of training out in the world. Some families had even erected Longevity Tokens for her. Moreover, her own family, which had benefited from her status, would also send lavish gifts.

If converted to silver taels, these gifts were worth around five thousand taels.

After the lively first month, Wang Ping celebrated a simple fiftieth birthday with his disciples and grand-disciples, and everything returned to a state of tranquility.

「Early March.」

Zhao Qing came to the mountain peak with a ledger to review the past year’s Power Pill sales with Wang Ping.

"Senior Brother, you refined a total of 730,000 Power Pills over the past year. The average price for the first three months was seven taels. It later dropped to five, then four, then three taels. Overall, the average price was four and a half taels, for a total of 3,285,000 taels. Costs and labor came to 620,000 taels, for a profit of 2,665,000 taels."

"The temple’s accounts have taken 600,000 taels. The rest will be converted into gold ingots and sent to you as soon as possible." While Wang Ping flipped through the ledger, Zhao Qing summarized the sales status of the Power Pills over the past year, then added, "I’ve received word that the upper echelons of the Daoist Scripture Hall have taken notice of our business. It seems... they intend... to bring this business under centralized management."

"What do you mean?" Wang Ping paused from looking at the ledger, stunned.

"It basically means... from now on, we’ll have to sell our Power Pills through the Daoist Scripture Hall. It’s actually not that different from how it is now. Apart from the portion we sell to the Court, most of our business has relied on the Daoist Scripture Hall’s sales channels anyway."

Zhao Qing quickly explained, "Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. With the Daoist Scripture Hall paving the way, our Power Pills might even be sold in other continents. We also wouldn’t have to worry about market saturation. The only issue is... production..."

"Once I’ve finished refining the puppets, production will naturally increase. So, is there any news on the Celestial and Earthly Treasures I asked you to acquire?" Wang Ping interrupted Zhao Qing, looking up from the ledger to glance at him.

"I estimate it’ll be difficult to buy them in Xia Country. Last month, I sent people to look in other regions. Hu Mountain Country has an abundance of Wood Spirit Celestial and Earthly Treasures." Zhao Qing replied earnestly, "We should have news back within three months at the most."

Wang Ping nodded in satisfaction. He continued flipping through the ledger and said, "About the Nine Extremes Array I mentioned last time, have you had someone survey the terrain around Qianmu Mountain? Have you prepared a budget?"

Zhao Qing’s brow furrowed slightly. He studied Wang Ping, who was still looking at the ledger, and fell silent for several breaths before carefully choosing his words. "Senior Brother, the array you’re talking about would require enclosing an area of dozens of li. That’s equivalent to the entire mountain range north of Qianmu Mountain. The county officials naturally wouldn’t object, but building all the infrastructure would be a massive expense. A conservative estimate would be over 3,000,000 taels..."

He swallowed and continued, "And that’s before adding the Celestial and Earthly Treasures for the auxiliary arrays, the supporting Spirit Veins, and the corresponding Qi Cultivation Techniques. Even if we use Master’s status as one of the four seats in the Daoist Scripture Hall to purchase them, it would still cost over 8,000,000 taels. That’s almost two years’ tax revenue from all the southern Inspectorates of the Court."

"Without counting the revenue from Power Pill sales, it would take us thirty years of scrimping and saving—without eating or drinking—to accumulate that much money from our existing enterprises alone." Zhao Qing sounded deeply conflicted. On one hand, he was inspired by the future Wang Ping described; on the other, he felt crushed by the reality of their situation.

He looked at Wang Ping, who had now set down the ledger, and his speech unconsciously quickened. "The 1,200,000 taels for building the Yige Pavilion—we only just settled that debt the year before last! If we were to really start construction now... I think it would be extremely difficult. Unless... unless we negotiate with the county to use corvée labor during the slack season!"

Wang Ping looked at Zhao Qing and thought for a moment before saying, "You might have misunderstood me. I don’t intend to build it all at once..."

He also chose his words carefully. "We can build the infrastructure slowly. We can source the materials locally. There are plenty of trees behind Qianmu Mountain. When they have free time, we can have the disciples chop wood, and fire bricks and tiles."

"Then we can gradually build bridges, pave roads, and construct housing and Dao Fields. We can save money slowly during that time. If we can’t afford Celestial and Earthly Treasures, we can use Spiritual Objects as substitutes for now. Besides, we already have a Water Spirit Vein."

Zhao Qing was taken aback. He had assumed Wang Ping wanted to construct the array quickly, just like the Yige Pavilion. He never expected they could take their time. This immediately lifted his spirits, and he asked, "May I ask, Senior Brother, do you have a specific timeframe in mind?"

Ever since Wang Ping’s breakthrough, many people had become subconsciously reverent around him. Zhao Qing, for instance, now spoke to Wang Ping with the same tone he used when addressing Yu Cheng Taoist.

Wang Ping thought for a moment and replied, "Within thirty to fifty years, I suppose. The disciples will also need to have their own breakthroughs around that time."

For an ordinary person, this might be half a lifetime, or even a whole one. But for a Qi Cultivator, it was merely the time it took for Foundation Establishment and Qi Gathering.

"In that case, it’s worth a try! I’ll arrange for people immediately!"

Zhao Qing was instantly filled with motivation, as if he could see the hope of his own breakthrough.

Wang Ping paid Zhao Qing no further mind and lowered his head to focus on the ledger again. With his current mental acuity, he only needed to go through the accounts once to sort them all out.

A half-hour later, Wang Ping returned the ledger to Zhao Qing, who then eagerly departed from the Mountain Peak Dao Field.

Wang Ping then took Yu Lian and Tongyu Taoist to a southern island to practice the Sword Array for four hours. After returning to the temple for lunch, he did not rush into alchemy in the afternoon. Instead, he took out the Wood Spirit Magic Book that Yu Cheng Taoist had given him and began to study it.

The first thing he practiced was, of course, the Enlightenment Skill:

[Enlightenment Skill: Through the unique properties of Wood Spirit Qi, you can imbue a puppet with certain survival instincts and a basic consciousness. You must carefully control the memories and Wood Spirit Qi imparted during enlightenment, or it will easily collapse.]

[1: Nurture your puppet just as you nurtured the locust tree before. Remember to first condense its spiritual soul; it won’t be long before you can resonate with your puppet.]

[2: After resonating with the puppet, immediately use Wood Spirit Qi to grant it survival instincts and a basic consciousness. You can then slowly teach it to do things. Please be careful with this step, as failure is very likely. If you fail, you will have to start all over again, or the puppet you spent years, or even decades, creating will collapse.]

[Note 1: Remember, it is a puppet. In the basic consciousness you grant it, it is best to make it aware of this fact. Otherwise, you will find yourself wanting to smash it!]

Wang Ping certainly couldn’t refine Tongyu Taoist’s puppet directly right now. His current test subject was a simple puppet he had built himself. However, even that had cost him a considerable number of Spiritual Objects. For this purpose, he had even specifically sought out Tongyu Taoist to learn Artifact Refining and carpentry and mechanics.