I Can Travel between Two Worlds-Chapter 129 - 107: Puppet’s First Test, a Blundered Foundation Establishment Celebration!
"What’s the matter? Let’s talk inside!"
Lin Chen revealed a reassuring smile and gestured toward the shop.
Once inside the shop, he poured a cup of tea for Huang Xin.
After Huang Xin’s nervous expression gradually eased, Lin Chen asked:
"Why don’t you start by telling me what’s going on?"
Initially, Huang Xin was quite tense, but under Lin Chen’s influence, he couldn’t help but relax a lot.
"Senior Brother Lin, it’s like this... Didn’t you previously ask me to find Sect disciples for the medicine garden?"
"Recently, quite a few outer disciples have contacted me, but..."
More than a year ago, when Lin’s Small Pavilion first opened, Lin Chen contemplated establishing some medicine gardens to provide Spiritual Medicines for Blue Star.
Later, he gradually recruited dozens of outer disciples, contracting a mountain and a medicine garden.
Usually, Huang Xin was in charge of managing the dozens of disciples.
But as the range of the Great Xia Spirit Gathering Array expanded, it trained thousands of cultivators.
So there was no longer a need to rely on the medicine garden for Spiritual Medicine supply, and thus Lin Chen hadn’t paid much attention to it since.
He simply distributed Spirit Stones regularly, and Huang Xin would hand over the medicinal herbs to him.
But in the past six months, due to the unrest in the Yanlai Realm...
The Changchun Sect and the Wild Wolf Sect were almost on the verge of open war, and Inner Sect disciples, with their strong skills, naturally enjoyed certain privileges.
However, the outer disciples found themselves in a pitiful situation...
Originally, many of them gathered at the shops at the base of the mountain doing odd jobs, or mined, or occasionally went up the mountain to pick herbs for a living.
But now, with the unstable situation, many disciples have found themselves "unemployed."
Firstly, they didn’t dare to stray too far from Changchun Mountain, fearing attacks from Tribulation Cultivators and the Wild Wolf Sect.
Secondly, many loose cultivators left the marketplace at Changchun Mountain, resulting in declining business for the shops.
Some outer disciples even lacked the supply to continue their cultivation.
Thus, over the past one or two months, more than a hundred outer disciples approached Huang Xin, hoping to secure a livelihood in the medicine garden.
The outer disciples had heard of the good welfare in Lin Chen’s medicine garden, and with Lin Chen, a Foundation Establishment Expert, overseeing, they were eager to join.
Some even tried to bribe Huang Xin with Spirit Stones and pills to gain favor through the back door.
Huang Xin had never encountered such a scene before, and after contemplating in the medicine garden for about a fortnight, he still couldn’t make a decision, so he hurriedly sought out Lin Chen.
After hearing Huang Xin’s account, Lin Chen smiled and calmly said:
"So that’s what it is!"
"This is actually a good thing, I can always use more hands in the medicine garden... How about this, you take me to see those people first?"
Upon hearing this, Huang Xin’s eyes lit up, and his previously worried demeanor relaxed.
"Senior Brother, I’ll take you there right away..."
Lin Chen spent the afternoon following Huang Xin to meet those over one hundred outer disciples.
Most of them were at the second and third layers of Qi Refining, and would likely only be at the mercy of Tribulation Cultivators if encountered.
But these disciples had some skills, able to expedite the maturation of Spiritual Medicine or mine on the mountain.
Lin Chen assigned these disciples according to their specific skills to the medicine garden and the mountain.
In this way, the number of disciples under his wing reached two hundred and thirty.
The wages for these two hundred and thirty disciples were no less than one hundred Spirit Stones daily.
Yet at the same time, they brought Lin Chen significant benefits.
Lin Chen estimated the monthly extraction of Cold Iron Stone would approach ten thousand pounds.
Meanwhile, they could provide Lin Chen with nearly a thousand low-tier herbs monthly.
...
By evening, after dealing with the day’s trivial matters, Lin Chen returned to the shop.
He reflected on the day’s events.
"From Huang Xin’s perspective, these more than one hundred disciples are a burden for me."
"But in reality, that’s not the case..."
Lin Chen thought silently in his heart.
It’s not difficult to imagine, in these wartime circumstances.
Human lives are cheap, and the labor of low-tier cultivators even cheaper.
Yet the three to four thousand Spirit Stones expense each month is very real.
Let alone Lin Chen, even the Changchun Sect couldn’t possibly support that many useless low-tier disciples.
After months of inflation, the price of Cold Iron Stone gradually receded, even dropping lower than before.
After all, sects and cultivation forces had previously purchased enormous quantities of Cold Iron Stone.
This led many later-reacting loose cultivators and small forces to hire people to mine Cold Iron Stone.
A flood of Cold Iron Stone entered the market...
But the number of Artifact Refiners is limited, and even if they worked day and night, such a huge amount of ore was bound to exceed demand.
After all, Artifact Refiners in the cultivation realm are not like those on Blue Star, mass-producing Magical Artifacts with full machinery.
Similarly, low-tier herbs face the same situation.
From an economic perspective, this surplus of Cold Iron Stone and herbs makes the labor of low-tier cultivators even cheaper.
Originally, the businesses run by loose cultivators in Changchun Sect were declining, with many fleeing to seek refuge outside the Yanlai Realm. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
From Huang Xin’s viewpoint, Lin Chen was his benefactor.
He couldn’t watch so many useless cultivators work under Lin Chen, earning Lin Chen’s money.
After all, in his view, Lin’s Small Pavilion couldn’t possibly sustain such a large number of low-tier cultivators.
But from Lin Chen’s perspective, it was a different story.
He wanted as much low-tier labor and raw materials as possible!
As long as there were materials, Lin Chen wasn’t worried about transforming them into Magical Artifacts or pills.
And that several thousand Spirit Stone monthly expenditure was insignificant to him.
"Right now, it does feel like the beginnings of a small power..."
Lin Chen thought silently.
"However, those outer disciples are still just hired workers, a disorganized bunch... They can manage to grow herbs and mine usually."
"But when real issues arise... I’m afraid Huang Xin is the only one I can trust."
He shook his head slightly.
"Even mosquitoes are meat."
"Moreover, a monthly yield of ten thousand pounds of Cold Iron Stone is quite a feast for Blue Star!"
"It seems that later, if there’s a chance, I’ll need to contract two more mountains... With my current Foundation Establishment Cultivator status, I should be able to protect these industries."
