"Ah, I already understand what happened. This was not your fault, Ancient Buddha. Zhulong was simply too cunning!"
"Buddha, our Buddhist Sect now owes eighty billion in loans, with annual interest alone reaching one hundred million. We simply cannot bear it. How do you think we should handle this?"
Hearing the figure of eighty billion, Tathagata felt fear rise in his heart as well.
Even the formation Chaos had set up to convert Spirit Stones produced only three hundred million a year, nowhere near enough to repay the debt!
Still, it was enough to cover the interest and the Buddhist Sect's daily expenses.
But they could not go on like this. Otherwise, when would Buddhism ever save enough to repay its debts?
After all, Buddhism could not go without food and drink just to pay off its debts.
For such an enormous sect, its daily expenditure was an astronomical figure.
One could say that Tathagata had wanted to escape the hegemony of Spirit Stones, only to sink deeper and deeper into it.
Now there was no way out. Buddhism could no longer free itself and could only take the initiative to integrate into the system.
Tathagata also felt how difficult things had become. But Buddhism had no shops in Spirit Vine City, and its impoverished lands produced no specialties. That alone doomed Buddhism to struggle for sources of income!
In the Three Realms now, the wealthy fell into several categories: resources, manufacturing, taxation, mining, and services!
The leading example of the resource sector was the Jade Emperor, with his inexhaustible Stellar Essence and Flat Peaches.
Manufacturing was represented by the Taishang Alchemy Pavilion and the Cloud Immortal Pavilion, which refined pills and forged artifacts.
Of course, countless businesses in Spirit Vine City were involved in manufacturing. Those two merely stood