In the Cultivation World, Spirit Stones were money.
You couldn't eat or drink them. Though they contained vast spiritual energy, they were full of impurities.
Unless cultivators had reached a life-or-death juncture, they absolutely dared not absorb them directly.
Under normal circumstances, major powers used them to activate formations and control large magic artifacts.
The legendary Top Grade Spirit Stones, however, supposedly contained spiritual energy condensed to an incomparably pure degree, allowing cultivators to absorb them directly.
But such treasures were simply beyond the reach of ordinary cultivators.
Leaving Top Grade Spirit Stones aside, ordinary Spirit Stones could indeed serve as universal currency because of their scarcity.
Moreover, the right to issue this currency was basically held in the hands of the great sects.
The reasoning was simple: the stronger the sect, the better the Spirit Veins it could occupy.
And Spirit Stones were produced from all kinds of Spirit Veins.
On Earth, currency itself had no actual value.
It was more a manifestation of a nation's credit, and that credit was forged from powerful national strength and abundant resources.
When a nation's credit went bankrupt, its currency was merely a pile of waste paper.
The same principle more or less applied in this Cultivation World.
The sects were simply too powerful. Thus, when they designated "Spirit Stones" as the means of settling their respective cultivation resources, ordinary cultivators could only accept it.
Not only did they have to accept it, they had to fight with all their might to earn enough Spirit Stones.
The conflict between the Great River Gang and the Mountain Shattering Gang was over the resources in the mountains, resources that represented Spirit Stone after Spirit Stone.
At this moment, within the Great River Gang, Gang Leader Wang Haichao wearily saw off a Foundation Establishment Cultivator.