Vindictiveness and jest guided that thought, and a little envy on Yang Qing’s part, because in truth, he wouldn’t mind being a chamber pot cleaner. He was already one of sorts for the Order, given the amount of messes he had to clean up on a daily basis and the pittance he received for his troubles.

Since he was already familiar with the role, it wouldn’t be hard to take it up again for another organization, especially when that organization happened to be the wealthiest in the Southern Continent.

The White Rose Pavilion fed off their scraps, and look where they were.

Yang Qing wasn’t ashamed to admit it; he had daydreamed more times than he could count about being a chamber pot cleaner for the Treasure Coin Palace. And why shouldn’t he?

Given what he had continuously uncovered about them, he would be crazy not to jump at the opportunity to hug that opulent thigh.

The White Rose Pavilion was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the wealth and reach of that palace.

It was said that the appraisal standards used today had been birthed by the Treasure Coin Palace. It would only make sense that the wealthiest organization on the continent would have a certain understanding of the value of things.

Saint Grade. Ascendant Grade. Monarch Grade. Sky Grade. Earth Grade. Mortal Grade. This grading system was said to have come from them. And it wasn’t just the grading system of treasures; even the grading system of expertise across various professions came from them, whether it be purple grade craftsman, formation master, alchemist, all the way down to red grade.

Both systems, the guiding rationale behind the standards that differentiated one grade from another, and the parameters one had to meet to qualify for each, had all been designed by them.

Just from these two aspects alone, one could see how pervasive and instrumental their influence had been. The Treasure Coin Palace had not been around for hundreds of thousands of years, and yet, so many years later, one could still feel how deeply and heavily its influence ran through the present age.

The grading system they had coined back then was still in use today, and was one of the guiding pillars of the cultivation world and the broader system built around it.

That factor alone was enough to make it an organization worth remembering and revering.

And yet, even that grading system paled in comparison to what truly made the Treasure Coin Palace an organization for the ages.

Cultivation was always said to be the act of defying fate, subverting the norm and transforming impossibilities into possibilities. And for the most part, it was true. Whether it be the long lifespans or the abilities and strength that subverted the imagination, all of it spoke to that transformation of impossibility into possibility.

As a mortal, your body needed food and water to survive, but upon reaching the core formation realm, it immediately stopped needing either for sustenance.

As a mortal, you couldn’t see in the dark, but by breaking through the gold body stage of the body refinement realm alone, you not only got to see in the dark like most nocturnal creatures, your vision surpassed theirs as day and night lost their hold on your sight entirely. The hearing improved, along with the sense of taste and smell. And that said nothing of your speed and strength, which received qualitative improvements that pushed your body into territory a normal human body had no business occupying.

Then there were the changes that came with unlocking your spiritual sense. It was like seeing the world anew. Things that had been invisible to you all your life suddenly were not, and every other sense you possessed was amplified to levels you couldn’t have previously imagined. Seeing with your eyes closed. Hearing with your ears closed. Smelling without your nose. Touching without touching.

As a mortal with no cultivation, you can’t fly. As a qi refinement cultivator, you can’t fly. As a foundation establishment cultivator, you can’t fly either. As a core formation cultivator, still can’t fly. But at the palace realm, the body that couldn’t fly now does so as though it had always been born to it.

Spirit beasts can adopt a human form. Humans can adopt a spirit beast’s.

Man can burn like the stars or freeze like the abyss. They can contain an ocean in one eye and a galaxy in the other.

The range of what becomes possible grows as one’s cultivation grows, and what was once considered abnormal becomes the norm.

But... As heaven-defying as cultivation was. As many inexplicable miracles and unimaginable feats it produced. As many things as it shifted from impossible to possible, there were still things that, no matter how high one’s cultivation climbed, remained firmly within the confines of impossible.

Eternal life still remained unproven. Reviving the dead still remained unproven. You could rebuild someone from a single wisp of their essence, but where no essence remained, even that would prove futile.

And on the list of impossibilities, external influence on a dragon vein to form an ancestral dragon vein counted amongst that number.

Dragon spiritual veins could be considered the lifeblood of any cultivation organization. For any organization that held ambitions of improving, or even just sustaining its strength, the environment in which they established themselves mattered greatly. Yes, talent mattered. Yes, the grade of cultivation art mattered. But as important as those two factors were, neither could work without an environment to support them.

Someone could have the natural talent to reach the palace realm, but if they were cultivating in a barren land that could only support them to the qi refinement realm, then no matter how talented they were, they would never reach the palace realm unless they switched environments. It would be a miracle if they even managed to reach the core formation realm.

So for any cultivation organization, whether sect, clan, merchant outfit, or otherwise, even rogue cultivators, provided they held any ambitions of growth, they would seek out environments capable of supporting those ambitions, and there was no better environment than one formed around a dragon spiritual vein.

Dragon spiritual veins simply made everything better. The spiritual qi was denser and richer in both quantity and quality, which in turn meant countless resources cropped up readily throughout the area. And when it came to cultivation itself, the essence of the Grand Dao carried within that qi made progress not only easier but considerably more rewarding.

A dragon spiritual vein, even a lesser one, could produce more talented cultivators and cultivation resources than a single powerful cultivator likely could. When it came to long-term sustainability, the environment mattered, and a dragon spiritual vein mattered even more so than the cultivators themselves. Up to a point, that is.

As such, given their importance, it went without saying that cultivators over the years had sought out places with dragon spiritual veins. But as with precious things of such nature, they almost always had an owner who would not easily let go. So you had one of four options.

Option one: If you had the strength, you could simply take it.

Option two: if you didn’t have the strength, you could endure until you did, and then take it.

Option three: You could formally join the party that already had a dragon spiritual vein.

Option four: if your environment lacked one entirely, you could research how to form one of your own from your current spirit vein.

Safe to say, given the combative and violent nature of cultivators, option one was a highly favored choice among many. But even so, option four held a certain appeal that the others didn’t, and it had no shortage of suitors, especially for those who could afford it, or had the talent and patience for such a venture.