After fleeing far away and leaving Black Obsidian Mountain, Chen Sanshi returned directly to the Qingxu Sect.
Along the way, he passed through several mortal towns.
In the countryside lay vast fields. Yet what grew in them was not grain, but spiritual rice.
In recent years, the unceasing border wars had caused the consumption of spiritual rice to increase day by day.
As a primary ingredient in refining pills and even some magical artifacts, spiritual rice was as important as food was to mortals.
Even Nascent Soul Cultivators needed to consume large quantities of pills regularly.
With such an immense amount of spiritual rice required, the major sects naturally could not grow it within their own grounds, wasting spiritual veins and land for nothing.
Thus, it could only be planted in the mortal realm.
When Chen Sanshi had first arrived in Tianshui Continent, half the fields had contained spiritual rice. By now, that had risen to sixty percent!
Sixty percent of every mu of farmland!
What kind of concept was that?
Even in a good harvest year, a family of five with little land would struggle to survive.
Thus, they had no choice but to rack their brains for ways to exchange for food.
Nearly every region had several "Immortal Master Landlords."
These so-called Immortal Master Landlords were mostly Qi Refining cultivators with Mixed Spiritual Roots. Unable to make it in the Cultivation World, they simply came to the mortal realm to act as local tyrants.
They stockpiled vast amounts of grain beforehand. Whenever the time came, they brought it out and, under the banner of "voluntary" trade, forced people into buying and selling, wielding the power of life and death over an entire region.
They experienced the supreme honor that, in the Cultivation World, only Nascent Soul Great Powers