Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

While the most prosperous worlds of the Imperium of True Human Beings were devoted to the meaningless attritions such as power struggles and coups, the seemingly insignificant and harmless Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors rose quietly in the remote lands at the edge of the Imperium.

The situation in the Pangu universe at this moment was entirely different from a hundred thousand years ago.

During the first hundred thousand years after the birth of mankind, every Sector basically met the conditions of self-sufficiency. Every habitable planet boasted enough water, air, minerals, and a steady ecological system. Even without trades with the outside world, it could still maintain an internal circulation of the minimal degree.

However, since the end of the ancient Cultivators, from the war that consumed the three thousand Sectors, to the rise and decline of demons, going down to the “Armageddon Rebellion” fought between the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God. The fire of war never truly died out in the Pangu universe.

The self-circulating systems in many worlds were destroyed in the wars. The atmosphere was gone, the mines were emptied, the water was contaminated, and the docile, mild animals turned into ferocious demon beasts.

It was needless to say that technological progress enabled people to conquer the resource planets that were previously unconquerable. In the places absolutely unsuitable for the survival of mankind, massive settlements that could accommodate millions of people had been established.

The result was that at the edge of the Imperium where the resources were limited, most of the habitable planets lost the ability of total self-sufficiency, if they had the ability in the first place at all. They had to count on the busy interstellar trades to bring them the resources necessary for their survival.

Therefore, the importance of interstellar trades couldn’t have been more highlighted. Many specialists had even pointed out that the future was not just an age of the Spiritual Nexus but also an age of the logistics network and an age of the “Internet of Planets”. Whoever controlled the trades among the habitable planets would be controlling the whole universe!

In the traditional, prosperous areas of the Imperium, the trade routes were dominated by the four families and the merchants affiliated to them.

However, to build a complete logistics system from scratch in a barren, remote, and unprofitable worlds at the edge of the Imperium and to develop the local market until it was profitable, it required tremendous time and effort.

The four families who had been used to earning extraneous profits through monopolization and taxes were too lazy to deal with the hicks and bumpkins of the peripheral worlds. Therefore, the local trade groups and logistics sects grew wildly on their own. After developing for hundreds of years, they weaved a web of trade, logistics, and finance that seemed unattractive but was in fact impenetrable. Later, the loose forces gathered together and surfaced as “Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors”.

The peripheral worlds of the Imperium were a chaotic, lawless area. Space pirates, merchants, privateers, and regular armies were totally the same thing. Having fought a way out in such a bloody jungle, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors naturally boasted the most audacious sailors and captains, the most sleazy businessmen, and the most brutal space pirates.

They monopolized the business routes that were like capillary vessels. They could bring incessant resources and talents to a planet, allowing the planet to rise and thrive quickly. They could also turn into space pirates and completely block a planet’s sailing routes to the outside world, forcing the planet to submit to them obediently.

Other than anything else, as long as the warships under the command of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors could blow up all the spiritual towers and the remote communication bases around a planet, casting the planet into a network blackout, it would be enough for the civilization on the planet to degenerate for decades in one year.

With such capabilities, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was naturally unwilling to wander around only at the edge of the Imperium as the supplier of the hicks and bumpkins.

Besides, the leader of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors also knew very clearly that in the eyes of the powerful nobles of the Imperium, the merchants such as them were just pigs to be butchered. The fatter they were, the sooner it would be for them to be sent to the slaughterhouse.

In the past, the four families hadn’t seen the profits in the trades at the edge of the Imperium, and therefore, they turned a blind eye to them. Now that they had developed the market through all the hard work and it was profitable, would the four families be Immortal Cultivators at all if they did not come and pick the fruits?

It was better to attack than to be attacked. The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors that was born before long realized intuitively that it had to fight the “old Immortal Cultivators”, namely the powerful lords and magnates at the center of the cosmos, who exploited the ordinary people crudely and violently through the traditional and nontechnical approaches, until only one party stood!

The free coin was exactly the sharpest weapon that they had chosen.

They were about to launch a war, one that was not fought with crystal suits, starships, and Colossi but through money with no blood shed. It was a war of currencies!

Taking advantage of the enormous military pressure from the Covenant Alliance and the virulent inflation in the Imperium, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors secretly began the monetization of the free coin in the peripheral worlds of the Imperium.

At first, naturally, nobody viewed the free coin as real money. However inflated, the crystal coin of the Imperium was the “real money” after all. The regime in the Imperium hadn’t been changed yet. Who on earth would trade for those worthless free coins with real money?

Naturally, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors could not force the peripheral worlds to use the free coin, nor did they think to replace the crystal coin with the free coin in the very beginning. They merely stipulated that the stores under their name accepted both currencies, but there was a certain discount if the trade was conducted through the free coin. Also, the most demanded goods would be supplied to the buyers who used the free coin first.

Such a measure finally kicked off the process of monetization.

But the real effective moves were sales on account and microcredit.

The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was best at making profits in the long run. The “South Spirit Planet”, Huo Dongling’s hometown, was the perfect example.

First of all, they purchased the planets with the potential for preliminary development using their tremendous wealth and connections. Then, by half selling and half offering, they attracted many colonizers to settle on such planets. When the settlements were well-built and the colonizers had devoted their everything, regarding the planets as their new homes with no turning back, they would earn the money back through all kinds of consumables.

In order to develop those “egg-laying hens”, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors provided technical support, microcredit, and even magical equipment on account for the colonizers during the process with enticing conditions, but they did have one requirement, which was that the loans must be paid off with the free coin in the future.

Paying the loans with the free coin would enjoy a discount on the interest rate, while paying the loans with the crystal coin would be charged with a punitive transfer fee. Of course, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors solemnly promised the stability of the value of the free coin, making sure that its exchange rate with the crystal coin would not change much.

During the period when the crystal coin was most devalued, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors even associated the free coin with compressed air, water cleaning pills, synthetic food, and other indispensable assets, stating that one free coin could be exchanged for a designated amount of water and food. It was then known as “air coin”, “water coin”, and even “meat can coin”.

“Meat can coin” was such a rustic name that the erudite economists of the Imperium who knew all the theories would be laughing aloud if they heard it.

However, for the uneducated common folks at the edge of the Imperium, it was an appropriate, readily understandable name. The free coin was the real money that could be exchanged for air, water, and meat cans, bringing the hope of survival!

Such measures earned the first batch of real users and believers of the free coin besides the space pirates. It also empowered the free coin with real credit.

Ever since then, the free coin had been rising and snowballing unstoppably. By the time the Imperium finally caught its breath from the economic crisis caused by the failure of the Black Wind Fleet, the free coin was already spreading out at the edge of the Imperium like a wildfire and couldn’t be extinguished at all.

Besides, even though the economic crisis had passed, the war between the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance wasn’t over yet. In the first fifty years, the army had been engaged in active defense under the leadership of Lei Chenghu, but in the second fifty years, they were gritting their teeth preparing for a battle of revenge. As the war machine fulminated, the unnecessary taxes were soaring too.

When the central government intended to levy one dollar of special war tax, the bottom-level branches were bold enough to collect twenty dollars, from the hominoids and the low-level Immortal Cultivators alike. In such days, it was impossible for ordinary people to live well or for the low-level Immortal Cultivators to complete their primitive accumulation for advancement without tax evasion. The only possible means of tax evasion was to use the free coin.

The plethora of taxes was the most incredible assist for the free coin. It was almost like pouring fuel on the fire.

Naturally, it was impossible to entirely abandon the crystal coin. Most of the deals in real life had to be conducted through the legal tender. However, the crucial, clandestine deals became the fields that the free coin infiltrated and corrupted.

For a hundred years, the free coin was like a “kindhearted plague” that most of the people and the low-level Cultivators would like to see, corroding the body of the Imperium. At first, it was only spreading on a small scale at the edge of the Imperium. Then, it gradually went deep into the traditional central areas of the Imperium. In the end, even a lot of Immortal Cultivators within the four Kurfürst families began to use the free coin in secret. Could there be any Immortal Cultivator who never killed other people and looted their belongings? Could they trade with the crystal coin when they sold the items on the black market? They would be asking to be caught by doing so!

Trading with the free coin wouldn’t leave any trace behind when they were robbing other people of their treasures, working as assassins or bounty hunters, or secretly purchasing tremendous resources preparing to kill the nemesis in the family after successfully advancing into a new level. It couldn’t have been more convenient!