The Grandmasters already knew the systems on both sides and their respective characteristics well, yet Li Chen's remarks still struck them as refreshingly new.
He treated spirit peak blessed lands as mundane cultivation provisions and the relationship between high-rank and low-rank cultivators as one of production and exploitation, laying bare the essence of many phenomena in the cultivation world.
On closer consideration, there was indeed some truth to it.
The cultivation world, the cultivation world...
Did attaching the word "cultivation" really make it transcendent and free of worldly concerns?
It was merely mortal society with stronger powers!
Cultivators were people too. They had yet to attain immortality and godhood. If they wanted to escape the laws of mortal society, they could talk about that after attaining the Dao and becoming immortals.
But once they attained the Dao and became immortals, they would be immortals and gods, not cultivators. If they were already immortals and gods, what was there left to cultivate?
In ordinary people's eyes, the cultivation world meant the company of cool breezes and a bright moon, roaming the Northern Sea at dawn and Cangwu by dusk, swallowing the sun and moon with Heaven and Earth in the Sleeve, spending one's days in secluded cultivation and contemplation of profound mysteries, and occasionally traveling to gain experience, slay demons, and vanquish devils.
In Li Chen's eyes, however, the cultivation world meant spirit mountains and blessed lands, mines and medicine gardens, research and production. Without those, where would its supplies come from?
The cultivation world's ethereal detachment and transcendence were, at best, aristocratic luxuries supported by the labor and contributions of cultivators at the bottom. Even in the classical era, when spirit peak blessed lands and spiritual essence resources were almost within easy reach, people still had to gather them. They