Enormous Expenses

Not only was Ning the Little Girl with her deep background untouchable, but Li Mu also turned a blind eye to the junior sisters within the sect.

Make no mistake, any female disciple who managed to enter the sect was definitely a connection hire. Influenced by traditional Confucian culture, noble families and great clans would only send their sons to join the sect.

Those who could tolerate their daughters entering the jianghu were either commoners who couldn't even afford a meal, or families whose elders were already people of the jianghu.

The current Mount Hua Sect was not the Mount Hua Sect in the hands of Yue Buqun, where there were only two or three kittens and puppies, and they dared to accept anyone into the sect.

Not only were excellent aptitudes required, but a clean family background was also demanded, and the age of entry was strictly limited to under ten; most disciples joined at seven or eight years old.

If any condition was not met, one would at most enter the outer sect; it was useless to ask anyone for favors. The Sword and Qi factions were currently watching each other, both wanting to catch the other's slip-ups, so no one dared to openly violate the sect rules.

Setting aside the restrictive conditions, practicing martial arts required building a foundation from a young age—nurturing the body, training basic skills, learning to read and write, and so on. Commoners couldn't even guarantee three meals a day, so they clearly lacked such conditions.

Most commoner disciples first entered the outer sect. Only after their basic qualities improved in all aspects would they have the chance to be apprenticed to an elder and enter the inner sect, or automatically promote upon breaking through to the second-rate realm.

It was very realistic and very true; the sect was not a charity, so naturally, it had to select disciples with the best comprehensive qualities.

Possessing a perfect promotion mechanism ensured that geniuses were picked out; ordinary people with average comprehensive qualities were not worth much.

For disciples from most ordinary families, staying in the outer sect was also a good way out.

Although struggling in the jianghu was dangerous, wealth was sought amidst peril. Even as an outer sect disciple, the income was not low.

According to what Li Mu knew, the minimum monthly salary the Mount Hua Sect paid outer sect disciples was three taels of silver, and the highest could even reach over a hundred taels, depending on specific factors like cultivation level, position, and contribution.

Of course, the treatment for inner sect disciples was even better, but overall, the gap was not extreme.

If they had the same cultivation level, performed the same tasks, and held the same positions, the difference in salary and treatment would not exceed twenty percent.

Furthermore, inner sect disciples received no money for the first ten years because this was a learning period where they didn't need to go on missions and were purely consuming without contributing to the sect.

After coming of age and stepping into the jianghu, the treatment for inner sect disciples started at ten taels per month, with high earners receiving over a hundred taels; it still depended on cultivation, contribution, position, and seniority.

There was no need to envy those with high incomes; this money was their "life-selling" money. The higher the income, the more dangerous the tasks they undertook.

If one truly wasn't afraid of death, they could choose to go undercover in the Demonic Cult; as long as they achieved some results, their treatment was guaranteed to start at three digits.

Unfortunately, such missions were usually a one-way trip. Even if one were lucky enough to escape unscathed, they would face targeted retaliation from the Demonic Cult in the future.

They had to offer high pay; on average, the Mount Hua Sect lost double-digit numbers of disciples every year to various causes, dying in foreign lands. In the end, less than one-fifth of Mount Hua disciples could retire from the jianghu unscathed.

With the treatment of sect members and disciples being so high, the treatment for sect elders was naturally no lower. It was no wonder the Mount Hua Sect had to expand outward; if they continued to develop like this, they wouldn't be able to afford to support their members.

A quick mental calculation revealed that with over a thousand outer sect disciples, hundreds of inner sect disciples, and dozens of elders, the monthly expenditure on salaries alone was at least fifty to sixty thousand taels of silver.

In fact, salary expenses were only a part of the sect's spending. The members' clothing, food, housing, transportation, cultivation resources, and injury/death compensation all cost money.

Martial artists were all big eaters, especially beginners who could only absorb energy from food; they were all "meat-drying machines."

Those practicing external martial arts had an even greater demand for meat. Generally, these guys didn't use bowls to eat; they used basins.

Livestock in this era wasn't as fat as in later generations; not only was the breeding time super long, but there wasn't much meat either.

A three-to-four-hundred-jin (sixteen taels per jin) native ox would only yield a little over a hundred jin of meat; sheep were even worse—a big, fat sheep would yield thirty jin of meat at most.

Native pigs were even less productive; without improved breeds, it was hard for them to reach a hundred jin even after two or three years of raising.

On average, the Mount Hua Sect consumed three oxen, ten sheep, thirty "Wanliheng" (pigs), and various amounts of chicken, duck, and fish every day.

With low productivity, meat was naturally not cheap.

In the Guanzhong region, an ox was worth about a dozen taels of silver, a sheep two and a half taels, a "Wanliheng" two taels, a five-jin big carp one mace, and a live chicken four candareens...

Besides meat, there were vegetables, fruits, firewood, rice, oil, salt, spices, alcohol, tonics, and so on; many of these things were not cheap either.

A preliminary estimate showed that for food alone, the Mount Hua Sect spent three to four hundred taels every day, totaling around ten thousand taels a month.

And this was an underestimate. The Mount Hua Sect didn't just support sect members and disciples; the servants and laborers had to eat too. Even if they lowered the standards, it still cost money.

The jianghu was also about human relationships and social graces, so naturally, there were banquets and hosting guests. For example, the last Martial Arts Assembly involved over ten thousand mouths, which was also a significant expense.

As for cultivation resources, that went without saying. This stuff couldn't be measured by money; most precious resources were in the hands of major powers and were simply not for sale.

Including the Mount Hua Sect, the auxiliary medicinal herbs needed for cultivation by major sects were mostly organized and grown by themselves; only a small amount not produced locally was purchased externally.

Li Mu didn't know exactly how large these expenses were. However, according to his master Zhou Qingyun, the cultivation resources he obtained from the grand competition could be sold for tens of thousands of taels on the black market.

Of course, such prices were the result of monopolies by major powers. Unless absolutely necessary, no one would normally take them out to sell.

Everyone was a martial artist, and what they valued most was their own cultivation. If they were truly driven to poverty, they could go out and rob; there was no reason to sell cultivation resources.

It was hard for outsiders to know how high the costs of planting and compounding medicine were, but judging by the number of people employed in the industry, Li Mu estimated that an annual investment of less than a hundred thousand taels of silver wouldn't cut it.

Clothing was also a significant expense. As martial artists, bumps and bruises were inevitable, so one could imagine the frequency of clothing damage.

Four sets of clothes for each of the four seasons meant tens of thousands of sets; inner sect disciples and sect elders also used high-quality materials, so it clearly couldn't be done without fifty or sixty thousand taels of silver.

Housing didn't need to be mentioned; it was mainly when going on missions, as there was no cost while on the mountain.

Additionally, weapons were a huge expense. Influenced by the imperial court's salt and iron monopoly policy, the price of ironware had always remained high.