Family Expenditures and Assets
"This can be done."
Chen Nianzhi nodded. In recent years, the cultivation of the Chen Clan cultivators has progressed rapidly, and correspondingly, the resources they can obtain have also increased significantly.
With the Chen Clan's assets and shops spread across several continents, they should have enough to support one or two Nascent Soul Late Stage.
It's just that Chen Nianzhi and Jiang Linglong's cultivation progressed too quickly, so the Five Elements Essence in the clan's treasury is still insufficient.
Once Chen Nianzhi and Jiang Linglong break through to the Nascent Soul Middle Stage, they will each have several natal Life-bound Spirit Treasure that need to be upgraded, and the amount of Five Elements Essence required will be immeasurable.
The Five Elements Essence consumed by just ten Life-bound Spirit Treasure is enough to devour an ordinary Nascent Soul Immortal, not to mention the Natal Divine Ability that also consume it.
Although the Chen Clan has accumulated a considerable amount of Five Elements Essence over the years, several Nascent Soul of the Chen Clan have advanced to the Nascent Soul stage in recent years. In addition, the Five Elements Essence consumed in refining the Duality Treasure Lotus has also been depleted. Therefore, the stock of Five Elements Essence is insufficient.
Moreover, the clan's treasury is running low on Spirit Stone, so they have to distribute Spirit Stone from the clan members first.
After making up her mind, Chen Nianzhi found Chen Changxuan and told him about the situation.
After listening, the Old Clan Leader nodded and said, "Actually, it's not that the Lineage is short of money; it's just that the Lineage's advancement to the Nascent Soul Immortal Clan was relatively recent, and most of the Spirit Stone in the patriarch's treasury have been used for investments."
"Oh?"
Chen Nianzhi's eyes flickered slightly as she listened to Chen Changxuan's detailed explanation.
As the Old Clan Leader recounted his story, Chen Nianzhi gained a general understanding of the Chen Clan's current situation.
Having conquered several Tier 5 Spirit Mountain and slain many powerful enemies, the Chen Clan was actually quite wealthy, and their resources were among the best in the Nascent Soul Immortal Clan.
However, after the Chen Clan advanced to the Nascent Soul Clan, they had too much foundation to accumulate, so the Lineage's Spirit Stone were mainly invested in three areas.
The main investments in these three areas are: loans to clan members, fixed assets, and investments in the Marketplace.
The loan program for clan members mainly covers loans for Lineage who break through to the Foundation Establishment, Purple Mansion, Golden Core realm, and Nascent Soul stages.
This category covers almost everyone, from Nascent Soul True Lord like Chen Changxuan and Chen Xianyan to minor cultivators at the Ninth Layer of Qi Refining.
The main purpose of doing this is to cultivate promising Lineage cultivators. The interest rate is actually very low. Once they successfully break through, they need to work for the Lineage or earn Spirit Stone through Cultivation's Hundred Arts to repay the money.
The second investment is in fixed assets, which also constitutes a major portion of the Lineage's expenses.
In just two hundred years, the Chen Clan has cultivated more than a thousand Spirit Mountain of varying grades in the Vast Sea and the Chen Kingdom, and has also developed more than two million acres of Spirit Field.
These two items alone account for 40% of the Lineage's annual expenditure.
The Spirit Mountain Spirit Field are mainly used to grow spiritual wood for crafting Treasure Ship, as well as various Spirit Fruit and spirit medicine.
For these investments to yield any returns, it would take hundreds or even thousands of years; most of what has matured today are low-grade spirit medicine.
These low-grade spirit medicine herbs don't generate much profit; after deducting the stipends of the clansmen responsible for cultivating them, the actual earnings are not substantial.
The main profits come from mid-to-high-grade spirit medicine of the third rank and above. These spirit medicine can be used as auxiliary ingredients in Nascent Soul Pill, making them quite profitable.
However, it would take at least five hundred years for spirit medicine of this caliber to mature, so it's still a long way off now.
These Spirit Mountain Spirit Field now have hundreds or even thousands of high-grade spirit medicine of the fourth or fifth rank planted on them, including rare treasures such as the Tribulation-Crossing Flower, but it takes thousands of years for them to mature.
However, these investments are indispensable. After Chen Nianzhi broke through to the Nascent Soul Nascent Soul, the auxiliary medicines needed to refine a batch of high-level pills would require the combined resources of the entire continent to gather.
The main ingredients for the Tier 5 pills are all purchased from outside sources at great expense. If the scale of the Spirit Field is not expanded, it is feared that in the future, even the auxiliary ingredients will not be enough to produce a batch of pills, let alone the precious main ingredients.
The Old Clan Leader had a long-term vision, so he invested heavily in this area, and continued to do so every year. In this way, after a thousand years, the Lineage will gradually produce Tier 5 spirit medicine.
Among these spirit medicine, some are even key auxiliary ingredients for the Primordial Spirit Pill. Even if the Chen Clan doesn't use them themselves in the future, they can still use them to establish connections with various holy lands.
Besides fixed assets, there are the Lineage's shops. Over the years, the Chen Clan has opened shops in the surrounding continents through various means such as purchasing, leasing, and exchanging.
Today, the Chen Clan has opened shops in 1,364 Marketplace across 17 continents.
To this end, Chen Changxuan personally traveled to these dozen or so continents, contacted all the major Nascent Soul Immortal Clan sects, and offered them a generous sum of money, which added up to a considerable expense.
These shops were not only for selling Chen Clan's goods, but also for purchasing the Five Elements Essence for Chen Nianzhi.
According to Chen Changxuan's plan, they only need to wait another two or three Jiazi (60-year cycles) for the Five Elements Essence acquired by the shop over the years to solve the problem of Five Elements Essence consumption after Chen Nianzhi advances to the Nascent Soul Middle Stage.
However, Chen Nianzhi had encountered many fortuitous opportunity after breaking through to the Nascent Soul, and now he had obtained the Moon God Pearl. It seemed that his breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Middle Stage stage would be accelerated by several years, leaving the Lineage's Five Elements Essence and stored Spirit Stone somewhat insufficient.
"I see."
Chen Nianzhi sighed. Over the years, he had focused on cultivation and had hardly cared about Lineage affairs.
If he were to handle these matters, it would likely severely hinder his cultivation, and he might not be as capable as the Old Clan Leader.
Thinking this through, he pondered and said, "Although the Lineage's Spirit Stone are insufficient, we cannot delay the cultivation of our clansmen."
"Alright then, those clansmen whose cultivation is not far from breaking through will not be assigned any tasks for the time being."
"If we don't have enough Spirit Stone, let's take some of the more common Tier 5 spirit items from the clan's treasury and sell them."
Chen Changxuan nodded, then said with a smile, "I think the Eight Trigrams Treasure Tree is about to advance, at which point my few Spirit Treasure will be useless. Most of them were given to me by you, so I'll use them to exchange for the Five Elements Essence."
"Thank you for your trouble, Old Granduncle."
Upon hearing Chen Nianzhi smiled slightly and discussed the matter with Chen Changxuan for a while.
Thinking that managing affairs would greatly delay his cultivation, he pondered for a moment and then said, "There are some things you don't need to handle personally. You should focus your attention more on cultivation."
"It doesn't matter."
The Old Clan Leader smiled, waved his hand, and said, "Besides you, Qing Hao is the person I trust the most in the Lineage. Now that Qing Hao is preparing to break through to the Nascent Soul for the second time, I don't have time to spare."
"Oh?"
Chen Nianzhi then realized that, without her noticing, Chen Qinghao's lifespan had already exceeded seven hundred years, and he was not far from breaking through to the Nascent Soul.