Isn't This a Game? Why Are You All Cultivating for Real!

Chapter 108: Chapter 108: Major Good News

After purchasing the Ice Butterfly Ore, Song Jiulai placed the batch into her Jiezidai.

She looked at the female cultivator with a warm smile. "Since we’re acquainted now, I’ll introduce myself. I’m Song Jiulai. What’s your name?"

After all, you’re bound to run into people from familiar sects all the time here. Hiding her identity wasn’t realistic.

The female cultivator had never met a Cultivator as enthusiastic as Song Jiulai. She replied coolly, "Xue Dan."

Xue Dan?

’Definitely never heard of her.’

Song Jiulai, ever the enthusiast, subconsciously stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Seeing the stunned look in Xue Dan’s eyes, she remembered this was the Yunzhou Continent and quietly pulled her hand back. "Never mind, just a friendly gesture. Besides Ice Butterfly Ore, what else do you sell? Feels like you have a pretty wide variety. You even had Vajra Silk last time."

"Just some general goods."

Xue Dan didn’t seem like much of a talker, but she still patiently answered this repeat customer who had now completed two transactions with her.

Song Jiulai didn’t mind her curtness. "If you get any other well-known but hard-to-find materials, you can sell them to me. Or anything similar to the Ice Butterfly Ore. I’ll buy it all."

Xue Dan raised an eyebrow. "You’ll buy anything?"

Song Jiulai replied, "It never hurts to have too many skills. I like to dabble in a bit of everything."

’It’s mainly because I have so many players.’

’If I stock up on some uncommon items, maybe the players will surprise me with what they create.’

’Besides, the Sect’s exchange system needs to be restocked. I can’t just keep selling the default items.’

Take the Ice Butterfly Ore she just acquired, for instance. She had no personal interest in it, so she listed it in the Sect Points exchange.

Eight Mid Grade ores were equivalent to eight hundred low-grade spirit stones. In points, that would be a whopping eight thousand.

’As the middleman, she wouldn’t earn a markup, just the original price. One hundred points per ore—perfectly reasonable, right?’

System: "...As long as *you* think it’s reasonable, who would dare object?"

Song Jiulai shot back in her mind, ’If I hadn’t bargained, she wouldn’t have sold the lot for eight mid-grade stones! Besides, the players don’t come out this far. I see no problem with charging a little extra to cover travel expenses!’

’Besides, exchanging for points is a great system.’

’If I sold this stuff directly for Spirit Stones, the players would feel like it’s a ripoff.’

’But if it’s for points...’

’Hmm, if I just grind a little, it’s not completely out of reach.’

Besides, Song Jiulai was the one who issued points in the first place. If she gave out too many, it would be like handing out freebies to the players. In the long run, she’d go bankrupt. She definitely had to find ways to recoup them wherever she could.

A healthy market was essential for the Sect’s sustainable growth.

After the Ice Butterfly Ore was posted, Fan Guzhou was the first to see it.

But he was a brewer and had no interest in the stuff.

Artifact Refining generally required a minimum of four ores; any less and the results would be poor. The whole process was a massive money sink that most current players couldn’t afford.

Just as Fan Guzhou was thinking this, he saw that four pieces of the Ice Butterfly Ore on the list had disappeared.

Huh?

’So there really is a sucker out there.’

Fan Guzhou blinked. It seemed he had underestimated just how wealthy the players were these days.

He just wondered how they were getting all their points.

Then again, considering you could now use real money to buy points from other players, perhaps a whale had flexed their "cash-ability."

The one who had redeemed the Ice Butterfly Ore was indeed Liang Xueyao.

It was only after he started Artifact Refining that he understood why some sects chose to pursue a single specialization.

Because it was just too damn expensive.

Alchemy was just as much of a money pit.

When you failed, the materials were consumed for nothing. It was a total waste.

Still, it was undeniably useful. He could clearly feel his Spiritual Energy improving, and the rate of progress felt no slower than adventuring outside the Sect.

The ore was gone, and that was that.

He hadn’t even started on the Jiezidai, but the refining materials had already cost him nearly a thousand points.

Of course, he didn’t have that many points on his own. He had used his "cash-ability" to buy 1,000 points from other players in the group chat.

Buying the four pieces of Ice Butterfly Ore completely wiped out his resources.

And all he got for it was a single Mortal Treasure.

A small Butterfly Knife.

It only resembled a normal butterfly knife in shape. It was forged from materials of the Cultivation World, and its power far surpassed its real-world counterpart.

Sharp and deadly.

But in the Cultivation World, it was just an ordinary Mortal Item.

It couldn’t even scratch the hide of some demon beasts.

The Butterfly Knife was a memory from his childhood, a gift from Jiang Tianya.

He had always loved to play with dangerous things as a child, but his family never allowed it. Back then, Jiang Tianya had gone behind their backs to give him this Butterfly Knife, wishing him, "May you achieve all that your heart desires."

Unfortunately, the original was destroyed in an accident.

The palm-sized Butterfly Knife slid back and forth across his fingertips. He could even control it with his Spiritual Energy.

For instance, at this very moment, he was guiding the Butterfly Knife to fly toward the only Blue Elf in the Sect.

The blade hovered in front of Su Daqiang, whose eyes went wide. "What are you doing?! How dare you bully your senior brother! You disrespectful brat, watch it or I’ll beat you up!"

Liang Xueyao chuckled. "Senior Brother, when is your blue skin ever going to return to normal?"

Hitting a sore spot, Su Daqiang retorted, "None of your business!"

’As if I don’t want to change back!’

Su Daqiang noticed the flying blade. "You refined this?"

Liang Xueyao nodded.

Su Daqiang gave him an envious look. "Brother Fu."

The Sect had built an Artifact Refining Room and an Alchemy Room a couple of days ago. Artifact Refining was now possible, but very few players had the resources to buy a Pill Furnace for Alchemy. Chen Miaomiao was trying to figure out how to graft Spirit Grass, so she hadn’t gotten around to using them yet.

The materials for Artifact Refining were also exorbitantly expensive for the current player base. Anyone who could afford it had definitely bought points from other players.

It made sense to call him Brother Fu.

Liang Xueyao just chuckled lightly. "I’m still thinking of heading out to train for a while."

As they spoke, A Wu suddenly came running over, looking overjoyed.

"It’s a success! A success!"

Seeing A Wu’s ecstatic expression, Su Daqiang immediately asked, "What’s a success?"

A Wu ran up, absolutely thrilled. "Miao Miao’s grafting experiment was a success! Half of the test fields are filled with Second-stage Spiritual Grass Seedlings now! It’s incredible! If we can stabilize this, our Sect is going to be rolling in money!"

Su Daqiang’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Holy shit, is this the power of a master researcher? She actually managed to figure it out."

’Just as I thought,’ Liang Xueyao mused.

’This success will probably set Chen Miaomiao on the path to even more extraordinary scientific breakthroughs.’

’Forget Second Rank; in the future, even Third Rank might not be out of the question.’

’Doing scientific research in the Cultivation World... The thought alone is pretty thrilling.’

Down the mountain, arrangements were already being made to pave the roads with concrete. They had actually found a coal mine. Although the stuff was polluting, coal in the Cultivation World seemed to be slightly different from its real-world counterpart. They could even extract a trace of Spiritual Energy from it, so maybe the pollution wouldn’t be so bad?

As for why they were paving roads, it was said to be for the mortals.

The road construction was aimed at increasing the population. If it allowed their mortals to connect with mortals from other sects, they would eventually meet, perhaps even intermarry, making future consolidation and management much easier.

The Sect Master was out scouting locations. The players couldn’t be a dead weight; they had to get the logistics in order.

Besides, once the road was paved and traffic increased, that whole vast stretch of land in between...

...you tell me, wouldn’t it all belong to the Longevity Sect?