Su Junyu's connections were indeed extensive—in this respect, he was nothing like the Myriad Dharma Sect cultivators rumored to have hardly any friends.
The very next day, he dragged Zhao Qingtan along to negotiate with a group of merchants.
These merchants were considered the greatest power among ordinary folk. In the past, the Immortal Alliance had concerned itself only with cultivators. For mortals, it merely supplied seeds and fertilizer, opened some lecture halls to spread Modern Dharma cultivation, and paid little attention to anything else. Aristocratic families such as the Ai Family and the Bo Family did run some businesses, but most of those served cultivators alone.
This was why Feng Luoyi had once spoken of an "eternal class." No matter how flourishing cultivation became in the past, it had nothing to do with mortals. Cultivators were cultivators, and mortals were mortals.
But now, everything had changed.
As the barrier between "cultivators and mortals" was gradually broken down, the first to benefit were actually some small and tiny sects. Unlike the Five Supreme Sects and the many first-rate schools, these sects did not hold unwavering ideas about the Great Dao. Most cultivators who joined them merely sought a better background, or at most hoped that their children would receive better schooling and be able to test into a major sect.
They were the first to venture into businesses involving mortals, and they made a roaring success of it.
Zhao Qingtan was somewhat puzzled by this step. According to the Immortal Alliance's rules, all Daoist books and scriptures were uniformly printed by official Alliance institutions. So long as they did not involve "specific cultivation methods," they were so cheap as to be nearly free. Only students who had not yet left the Immortal Academy would care about which book to buy.