3455: C3455 High Weight

C3455 High Weight

After Meng Fan became the Grand Elder, he immediately moved into the Pill Cauldron Hall. After that day, Grand Elder Red Cauldron assigned all kinds of affairs to the disciples below or other elders, and closed the door to discuss the pill formulas with Meng Fan.

In the span of three hundred years, Grand Elder Red Cauldron had taught Meng Fan all the alchemy techniques and recipes he knew throughout his life, and he had even refined all of the recipes once. In the first century, his Pill Cauldron Hall rose one after the other by six beams of dazzling light, and a strong fragrance wafted through the air.

In the second century, there were seven beams of light.

The third century consisted of two brilliant beams of light.

Three hundred years later, Meng Fan became the master of a side hall of Pill Cauldron Hall and began to handle a series of Pill Cauldron Hall affairs.

All of this was within Grand Elder Red Cauldron's expectations. Along the way, Meng Fan's abilities were seen by all to have created Azure Dragon Mountain Range, and the two times he saved Chen Qin was even more admirable.

After becoming the master of a side hall for fifteen years, Meng Fan entered the main hall and, with Grand Elder Red Cauldron as his assistant, took charge of various matters related to Pill Cauldron Hall. It was also at this time that Meng Fan truly came into contact with the heart of Ninth Gate.

Pill Cauldron Hall had a total of five things to do. First, to refine Pills.

Every year, there would be a need to refine a sufficient number of Pills. If one only looked at the quantity, the number of Pills that Pill Cauldron Hall refined each year was ranked second, a little inferior to the Azure Dragon Mountain Range, but the quality was slightly higher. If all of them were to be exchanged for Pills of the same rank, the number of Pills Pill Cauldron Hall refined each year would probably be about thirty percent more than the number of Pills in the Azure Dragon Mountain Range.

In the past tens of millions of years, the number of Pills that the Pill Cauldron Hall s have been refining every year is very stable, and they have slightly increased. This is also a large portion of the Ninth Gate's finances, which accounts for roughly three to four percent of the Ninth Gate's finances.

The second thing was to gather and arrange the Pills.

In the Ninth Gate, and even in the entire Thousand-Star Universe, Pills and Natural Crystal were hard currency, equivalent to silver and gold from Secular Dynasty. However, Natural Crystal were seeking more than enough, and had too many uses, so their production was never enough. So, although Ninth Gate occupied the place, every year, they still had to purchase a few more Natural Crystal as supplies, because Natural Crystal could not be used as currency.

In comparison, Pills s were much easier to circulate and control.

Therefore, within the Ninth Gate, from the second door onwards, regardless of whether it was an elder or disciple, other than enjoying the various benefits from the Ninth Gate, refining a certain number of Pills was also a routine affair. This was the task of every disciple and elder.

According to the different ranks, statuses, and residences of the clan, the elders and disciples would have to submit different amounts of Pills, which would be collected, counted, and sent to the treasury as rewards or salaries.

The third thing was to borrow and use the remaining Pills.

The Pills that was sent to the treasury did not need to be sealed. What was the meaning of having the Pills sealed? Therefore, every year after collecting and distributing the Pills, there would be at least 30 to 40% of the remaining s. This remaining Pills s had to be sealed for a year, and in the following year, after the Pill Cauldron Hall s were collected and refined by the entire sect, the remaining Pills s would have to be used. Generally, some outstanding disciples or Supreme Elders would have the qualifications to ask for the Pills s from the Pill Cauldron Hall, and similarly, according to their grade, as well as their contributions to the sect, the Pills s that they could borrow would have different uses. The process of borrowing had to be explained in detail, and the attendants of the Pill Cauldron Hall would then decide whether to borrow all of them, or just a portion, and so on.

Other than borrowing Pills, other great hall and powerful Great Clan Elder wanted to expand their sect or do other things. As long as it was something related to the sect and they needed financial support, they would come to Pill Cauldron Hall to approve the expansion and take away a certain number of Pills s. This was not borrowing anymore, it was for the sect's own use, according to the normal rules, Pill Cauldron Hall were something that had to be paid, but Grand Elder Red Cauldron had the authority to question whether or not the fees were reasonable, and to delay the release of the fees.

The fourth thing was to exchange for more.

In the eyes of Ninth Gate, ninety-nine percent of the treasures in the world were not as effective as Pills s. Therefore, as long as a sect produced various things every year, as long as they could not be refined into Pills s, they would sell them. If they were Pills s, then this matter would be left to Pill Cauldron Hall to handle.

However, there were some other things that were more precious than Pills s. Typically, there were Taoist Artifact s, rare pill formulas, ancient books, non-renewable treasures, and Natural Crystal s.

Therefore, every year, Pill Cauldron Hall would still need to exchange the surplus Pills for these more precious things. However, this sort of thing was very rare and normally, there wouldn't be much to buy or sell, so one would need Pill Cauldron Hall to diligently search for it.

The fifth thing was Pill Cauldron Hall's own business.

Of course, these so-called billing houses and banks here, were all made with Pills as currency. These businesses not only flourished the influence of the Ninth Gate, they also increased one's income, which was a way for the Ninth Gate to increase its influence. Right now, there were many empires that followed the orders of the Ninth Gate, and their source of influence was in fact the first few business halls that the Pill Cauldron Hall had established. Therefore, the highest leaders of these empires were all called "Mister", and in reality, they were all business empires.

These five things constituted the power and obligations of Pill Cauldron Hall.

In Pill Cauldron Hall, Meng Fan understood that Ninth Gate's annual revenue was like this.

Around three to four percent were Pills s refined by the Pill Cauldron Hall itself, and about thirty percent were Pills s refined by the entire Ninth Gate's disciples, elders, and Grand Elder every year as per regulations. This portion had to be handed over to the Pill Cauldron Hall, so it was also under the control of the Pill Cauldron Hall.

Two percent was the income from the business that Pill Cauldron Hall did every year.

Seven to eight percent were the yearly tribute, trade and agreed income of the various subordinate states and powers.

It was the annual output of the sect. This included the planting of spirit herbs, the breeding of spirit beasts, various customs duties, the refining of various Taoist Artifact, and so on. It was extremely complicated.

All these added together, made up about seventy percent of the entire Ninth Gate's annual revenue, and this seventy percent was all controlled by Pill Cauldron Hall. In other words, becoming Grand Elder Red Cauldron meant one becoming the sect's chief steward of finances. With such a huge Ninth Gate, more than two million Divine Kings, and seventy percent of the total revenues were all controlled by Pill Cauldron Hall.2

The other thirty percent was a bit more complicated, and wasn't controlled by the Pill Cauldron Hall either. For example, the Natural Crystal s produced by the Northern Desert each year basically occupied ten percent of the revenue from the Ninth Gate, and sometimes amounted to thirteen or fourteen percent. But the Natural Crystal were too important and too scarce, and were under the supervision of the ruling hall and the Pill Cauldron Hall.

As Grand Elder Red Cauldron, aside from being in charge of the entire Pill Cauldron Hall and seventy percent of the sect's revenue, he also had a lot of manpower and authority.

The Pill Cauldron Hall was led by Grand Elder Red Cauldron, and under them were three deputies, and under the other nine side halls, there was one Palace Master. These people all had their own authority and responsibilities, and their division of labor was different.

pqdm.com