For a normal Cyber Cultivator, it might take a year—or even longer—to condense a single gold spirit coin.
After all, cultivators cannot spend an entire year doing nothing except gathering spiritual energy to create spirit coins.
People still need to cultivate, train, and live.
More importantly, during the process of condensing spirit coins, one's own cultivation does not advance at all.
It is essentially exchanging lifespan for money.
How many people would willingly do such a thing?
A Qi Refining cultivator only has a lifespan of about 120 years.
And who can guarantee that they will successfully reach Foundation Establishment within that time?
When lifespan is limited, breaking through one year earlier means gaining one more year of opportunity.
In cultivation, falling one step behind often means falling behind forever.
Even advancing one day earlier may allow someone to reach a higher level in the future.
Trading lifespan for money is simply not worthwhile.
Perhaps only those cultivators who have already reached the end of their lives—with no chance of further breakthroughs—would convert their remaining cultivation into spirit coins for their descendants.
Or perhaps those ruthless demonic cultivators who plunder the spiritual power of others.
By killing cultivators and capturing the spiritual energy dissipating from their bodies at the moment of death, they could condense spirit coins far more quickly.
Of course, demonic cultivators had another method as well.
They could raise large numbers of low-level cultivators.
These cultivators would become little more than "piglets" that condensed spirit coins for their masters.
Once the numbers became large enough, quantity could overwhelm quality.
Caine silently performed some calculations.
If a low-level cultivator could produce one copper spirit coin per day—
Then one hundred cultivators could produce three silver spirit coins daily.
And four hundred cultivators could produce one gold spirit coin every single day.
But even without walking the demonic path, there was another approach.
Establish a sect.
Recruit a thousand disciples.
Require each disciple to submit one copper spirit coin every three days, leaving the other two days for cultivation.
With three rotating shifts of disciples—
The sect would still receive one gold spirit coin every day.
Faced with such enormous profits, almost no cultivator could resist the temptation.
They would inevitably recruit disciples on a massive scale.
And those disciples would gradually become tools for harvesting spiritual energy.
As the number of cultivators increased, the importance of spirit coins would only grow.
Ordinary gold, silver, and paper currency were worthless to cultivators.
Spirit coins were different.
They could directly serve as a universal currency system among cultivators.
For cultivators, ordinary wealth had no practical value.
But spirit coins possessed a unique property.
They could be directly converted into cultivation.
Absorbing a single spirit coin could save an entire year of hard training.
Who would refuse such an exchange?
In fact, using spirit coins to accelerate cultivation would soon become an inevitable trend.
Precisely because of their importance, spirit coins were far more likely to be accepted by all cultivators.
Thus they would gradually evolve into a universal currency.
And unlike ordinary money, spirit coins would never lose value simply because everyone could create them.
On the contrary—
Everyone hoped others would produce as many as possible.
The reason was simple.
Spirit coins were consumed just as quickly as they were created.
Cultivation was always in short supply.
Demand would never disappear.
And this was precisely why Caine called spirit coins the Hassan Clan's tool for harvesting cultivators.
Many low-level cultivators would be forced to exchange their lifespans for money.
After all, not everyone was as fortunate as Caine.
He had unearthed a complete Soul Dantian Method on his very first excavation in the Cyber Dimension.
Such luck was almost impossible.
Later, he had entered the dimension more than ten times.
He had only unearthed two incomplete techniques.
Once he discovered a Dharma Eye technique.
The rest of the time he obtained nothing but a small amount of spiritual energy.
Once he had even unearthed the aura of a Cyber Demon, nearly summoning a terrifying entity.
Only then did Caine realize how lucky he had been to obtain the Soul Dantian Method with a single strike of the pickaxe.
Most cultivators were not so fortunate.
They could only dig up fragmented techniques.
Fragments that required years of research, reconstruction, and experimentation.
Many Cyber Cultivators lacked complete inheritances.
They reached a certain stage and then became permanently stuck.
Yet even then, few were willing to abandon the chance to pursue immortality.
Instead, they would desperately gather spiritual energy, condense spirit coins, and exchange them for complete cultivation manuals.
It was obvious what the future would look like.
Those who controlled complete cultivation methods would control unimaginable wealth.
Whenever Caine thought of the dozens of powerful techniques and cultivation manuals owned by the Hassan Clan, envy burned in his heart.
How many spirit coins were those worth?
Simply by relying on their inherited knowledge, the Hassan Clan could effortlessly harvest the spirit coins accumulated by countless cultivators.
With those resources they could raise their own cultivation levels.
And once stronger, they could obtain even more techniques and power.
A perfect cycle.
Even if Caine disliked this reality, he could do nothing about it.
Because those who possessed superior techniques possessed overwhelming advantages.
It was no different from how powerful nations controlled technology patents.
If others wished to use those technologies, they had to pay enormous fees.
The situation was exactly the same.
"Damn it… these cursed capitalists!"
Caine cursed inwardly.
"Even after stepping onto the path of cultivation, I still can't escape exploitation?"
But in the end, he could only accept it.
He lacked the strength to change the rules.
The appearance of The Art of Alchemy and the spirit coin system struck directly at his weakness.
He had no choice but to participate.
No Cyber Cultivator could refuse spirit coins.
Soon they would become an unstoppable tide.
Anyone who refused to join would simply be crushed by history.
And so—
Even Caine himself was already thinking about it.
Returning home.
Establishing a sect.
Recruiting disciples.
And then…
Harvesting their spiritual energy.
Caine had no choice.
The scent of spirit coins was simply too irresistible.
After all—
They represented cultivation.
They represented roaming the stars.
They represented eternal life.
They represented the power to pluck stars from the heavens and seize the moon itself.
How could anyone resist becoming a dragon—
And exploiting the world beneath them?
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