Chapter 1212: Chapter 514: Three Suns True Flame Pot [8000 words, please subscribe]_3

This forced Zhou Xinyi to raise the exchange price of the Foundation Establishment Pill, which has now risen to twelve thousand merit points per pill.

Yet even so, with the possibility of borrowing merit points for exchange, there are still quite a few late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators who meet the conditions for exchange.

These people use various methods to obtain exchange qualifications.

Some seek help from familiar Foundation Establishment elders to exert pressure on Zhou Xinyi, while others attempt to bribe Zhou Xinyi to favor them, with even female cultivators willing to sell their bodies for this!

These chaotic scenes made Zhou Chun exclaim at their absurdity.

But he also knew that when faced with something like a Foundation Establishment Pill that can change one’s destiny, any absurdity could indeed happen.

Therefore, to resolve this issue, he specifically convened several family elders and some core clan members at the Foundation Establishment Stage to discuss solutions together.

“Junior believes that perhaps prohibiting Foundation Establishment cultivators from lending merit points to Qi Refinement cultivators might improve the situation!”

Elder Zhou Xinlan was the first to express his thoughts and suggestions.

Hearing this, Zhou Xinyi smiled wryly and shook his head, saying, “The elder’s suggestion is good, but it’s somewhat troublesome to implement and there would be considerable resistance. After all, Foundation Establishment cultivators have descendants too; we can’t prevent them from helping their own children, right? Even if they can’t lend merit points directly, they can still achieve the transfer of merit points through missions!”

“Then slightly modify it, stipulating that each Foundation Establishment cultivator can only exchange one Foundation Establishment Pill for their own descendants, and charge a commission for issuing missions, how about that?”

Zhou Xinlan pondered briefly and voiced his insights again.

Unexpectedly, the first to oppose was his own father, Zhou Zhengyong.

Zhou Zhengyong glared at him with a cold expression and reproached, “Foolish! We are a cultivator family, not a cultivation sect. Doing as you say is tantamount to cutting off the family’s roots! You best shut up!”

After scolding his son, he then smiled bitterly and cupped his hands toward Zhou Chun and the other family cultivators present, saying, “Please forgive me, my son usually only knows cultivation and alchemy, and doesn’t even have a dao companion, let alone understanding the feelings of parents, so please don’t hold a grudge against him!”

Hearing this, Zhou Xinlan was a bit stunned, standing there confused, not knowing what to do.

Fortunately, Zhou Chun intervened in time to smooth things over: “Brother Yong, don’t get excited, Xinlan was just making a suggestion. I have always told the clan members that they can speak freely in family meetings without fear of saying the wrong thing.”

Having said that, he nodded to the others, saying, “Alright, everyone else, continue with your thoughts.”

Seeing this, everyone tacitly avoided mentioning Zhou Xinlan’s suggestion and shared their own opinions instead.

In the end, it was Lin Wan’er’s words that reminded Zhou Chun.

According to Lin Wan’er, given the current situation of too many monks and too little porridge, and the inability to increase the amount of porridge, all they could do was let everyone compete for porridge based on their abilities.

Thus, after some discussion, everyone finally agreed on a plan.

That is, except for clan members with superior Spirit Root Aptitude, other clan members with cultivation levels reaching late-stage Qi Refinement, and who are under sixty years old, could participate in a family competition every three years.

Only those who achieve the top two in the family competition could obtain the qualification to exchange for the Foundation Establishment Pill, while those in third to fifth place could obtain the qualification to exchange for other Foundation Establishment Spirit Items.

This exchange qualification is only valid for the current term and expires if not used.

This way, those cultivators looking to use connections could give it a rest.

However, to appease those Foundation Establishment cultivators with descendants, Zhou Chun still gave them a chance to benefit their descendants, meaning they could exchange for Foundation Establishment Pills at market procurement prices.

According to the current market price, a Foundation Establishment Pill has been inflated to fifteen thousand Spirit Coins, or even higher.

After the reform, now the annual welfare and offerings for initial-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators in the Zhou Family amount to only four hundred merit points, meaning if they rely solely on basic welfare to exchange for a Foundation Establishment Pill, it would take them thirty to forty years to accumulate enough!

This way, even if they don’t spend any merit points themselves, they could only benefit their descendants three to four times in their lifetime.

But in reality, this is hard to achieve since Foundation Establishment cultivators will generally think about opening up their Purple Mansion.

Unless they have realized that there’s no chance for them to open up their Purple Mansion, they might then turn to supporting and nurturing descendants.

Once the upper echelon reached an agreement, the new rules for exchanging Foundation Establishment Pills were quickly disseminated.

Regarding the new rules, the low and middle-tier cultivators of the Zhou Family naturally had mixed reactions; some approved, and some opposed, basically based on their interests.

But Zhou Chun and the elders had come to a unified understanding and provided the core clan members at the Foundation Establishment Stage a privilege to care for their offspring, making the opposing voices hardly noticeable.

After handling this significant family matter, Zhou Chun left a wisp of his Divine Soul Power in a “Lifebound Soul Plaque” refined by Zhou Mingde, activating this soul token, and then returned to the Great Zhou Kingdom.

Regarding the exchange meeting held by the Nascent Soul loose cultivator “Huangyun True Person,” Zhou Chun still needed to find someone to introduce him.

Of course, he already had a target in mind.

Upon returning to the Great Zhou Kingdom, Zhou Chun visited Sun Yuanjing of the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion, requesting him to act as his introducer.