Peeping into the Immortal Road

Chapter 41: Life in the Market
After a while, they arrived in front of the towering pavilion.

The door of the pavilion was open, and there were few people inside, making it seem particularly quiet.

Chen Yinghu walked in first and turned back to signal Ji Chang: "Daoyou, please."

Ji Chang nodded and followed him.

They walked through the empty lobby. The floor beneath their feet made a dull echo. The air was filled with a faint scent of sandalwood, which made people feel peaceful.

The interior decoration of the attic is simple and elegant. There are some patterns embroidered with gold threads on the walls, flickering with a faint light, which seems to be used for lighting instead of candles.

Occasionally, a few figures hurried past them. They were all monks who came to handle formalities, but there were not many of them, and the entire attic seemed very deserted.

Chen Yinghu brought Ji Chang to a long table, behind which sat an expressionless old man.

He looked up at Ji Chang, then turned his gaze to Chen Yinghu.

"This fellow Taoist is visiting our Cangyu Market for the first time." Chen Yinghu said to the old man, "Please, Mr. Qian, please issue him a certificate."

The old man raised his head slightly, but did not take out the certificate immediately. Instead, he asked, "My friend, how long do you plan to live in the market?"

Ji Chang raised his hand and saluted, and replied respectfully: "I plan to live in the market for a long time."

The old man nodded to show that he understood, and then took out a talisman-like certificate from his storage bag.

The old man handed the voucher to Ji Chang and reminded him, "My friend, keep it well. Come back here with the voucher to exchange your bracelet after one year."

"You cannot leave the market for the next year."

"After I replace my spiritual bracelet, I will need to come to the market once a year."

Ji Chang took the certificate and nodded to show that he understood.

He had carefully studied these regulations in "Jiaozhou Fengwuzhi", but when he was actually there, his feelings were different.

Among the two markets in Jiaozhou, even the Cangyu market, which has the most relaxed atmosphere, has strict requirements on the residence rights of monks.

Although there is no need to pay spirit stones, cultivators need to live in the market for one year before they can obtain permanent residency in the market.

Moreover, after obtaining permanent residency, one must come to the market once a year to maintain the permanent residency.

Compared with monks, life in the market town is more difficult for ordinary people.

They can only obtain the right to live in the market town if they find a job in the market town, or get a guarantee from a monk and pay a sum of spirit stones.

And under normal circumstances, mortals who obtain the right of residence must live in the market forever and cannot leave the market even a step.

As for the spiritual stones, they were jokingly called the cost of "cleansing the tendons and cutting the marrow".

Another market town in Jiaozhou, Zhuya Market Town, which was established by the Wang family of Jiaozhou, had even stricter regulations.

Even if a cultivator wants to settle down in Zhuya Market, he has to hand over a sum of spirit stones before he can obtain the right to reside there.

This is also one of the reasons why Ji Chang chose Cangyufang City.

Of course, Zhuya Market is a market with a second-level spiritual vein and a foundation-building cultivator in charge.

Moreover, foundation-building spiritual objects often appear at auctions in Zhuyafang City.

Naturally, it cannot be compared with Cangyufang City.

After completing the formalities, Ji Chang raised his hand and saluted Chen Yinghu and the old man.

Then he turned and left, his figure gradually disappearing at the door of the pavilion.

After walking out of the door, Ji Chang took out the certificate from his sleeve.

The certificate is white in color and similar in style to a talisman, with green talismans painted on it.

According to the "Records of Jiaozhou Scenery", the voucher of Cangyufang City was originally a basic talisman.

The only effect is that once you leave the formation coverage of Cangyufang City, the certificate will spontaneously combust and disappear.

However, Ji Chang still felt it was quite fresh.

After all, this was the first time he saw a real talisman.

After looking at the certificate for a few seconds, Ji Chang put it away and walked into the street of the market.

...Half a year later, in the spiritual field area outside the market town.

"Master Immortal."

Several mortal warriors bowed slightly and greeted Ji Chang in unison, their voices full of respect.

Ji Chang nodded slightly as a response to them.

Ji Chang glanced at the spiritual field in front of him where all the weeds had been hoed clear, raised his hands, made hand gestures and chanted a spell with his movements skillfully and fluently.

Soon, streams of water vapor condensed into thick clouds above the spiritual field.

After a while, a drizzle began to fall.

After the spiritual rain, Ji Chang used his spiritual eyes to observe the growth of the spiritual plants.

After making sure there was no problem, Ji Chang turned and walked towards the market town.

In half a year, Ji Chang has settled down in Cangyufang City.

In order to make a living, Ji Chang found a job managing spiritual fields in the market town.

In a sense, Ji Chang can be considered a spiritual farmer, or to put it more nicely, he should be called a spiritual plant husband.

However, unlike ordinary farmers, in Cangyu Market, as a cultivator, Ji Chang does not need to hoe the fields himself.

Most of the odd jobs are done by mortal warriors hired by the market town.

A cultivator like Ji Chang only needs to use the small cloud and rain technique to nourish the spiritual field.

In addition to nourishing the spiritual fields, Ji Chang also needs to use spells to eliminate the spiritual insects when they are infested.

Under normal circumstances, with the coverage of the large formation of the market town, even if there are spirit insects, their number will not be too large, and the mortal warriors responsible for cultivating the spirit fields can handle them.

But sometimes, there will be an infestation of spiritual insects, and at this time, cultivators like Ji Chang will need to take action.

In addition, relying on spells such as the clairvoyance technique to observe the growth of spiritual rice is also one of Ji Chang's jobs.

Mortal warriors do not have magical powers and it is difficult for them to cast detection spells. If the spiritual rice they grow develops any disease, it will be difficult for mortal warriors to detect it in time.

This requires Ji Chang and other monks who are responsible for managing the spiritual fields to take action.

Since most of the chores are done by mortal warriors, the daily work is relatively easy.

But the reward is quite high.

Ji Chang was in charge of managing one hundred acres of spiritual fields, and the market gave him a fixed salary of ten spiritual stones every month.

If the harvest of spiritual rice is good, Ji Chang can also get an extra bonus. The amount of this bonus is not fixed, but it is often quite considerable.

The reason why the treatment is so good is that in addition to wanting to encourage the monks to manage the spiritual fields more carefully, the market also wants to attract more monks to manage the spiritual fields.

Although managing the spiritual fields is much easier than imagined, the monks need to check on the growth of the spiritual rice every four or five days and use magic to make the clouds and rain.

This makes it difficult for monks to practice in seclusion for a long time.

Therefore, many monks would rather choose a job with lower salary than manage spiritual fields.

In comparison, the mortal warriors who worked to cultivate the spiritual fields were treated much worse.

If they were just ordinary farmers, the amount of spirit stones they could earn each year would be less than ten.

These mortal warriors work hard and sweat every day, but can only get a meager reward.

Moreover, if they were found to be lazy or damaging the spiritual rice, their spiritual stones would be deducted.

However, their salaries were indeed paid monthly, but they were paid in more fragmented spiritual sands.

Spiritual sand is the spiritual stone fragments collected during the process of mining and cutting spiritual stones.

Under normal circumstances, one hundred taels of spiritual sand is equivalent to a standard spiritual stone.

Because it is inconvenient to carry and the spiritual energy content is too low, spiritual sand is generally not used in transactions between monks.

However, in the Cangyu Market, spiritual sand has become the currency among mortals.

(End of this chapter)