Over the course of the decade, Xiaoyun Temple recruited a growing number of disciples, eventually surpassing 500,000 in total population, becoming a large and renowned sect.
They expanded the sect's actual core control area to a radius of five thousand miles, while also controlling two hundred large and small spirit stone veins and owning seven thousand cultivation shops related to formations, talismans, and elixirs.
In the seventh year, in order to cope with the increasing number of disciples in the sect, Lu Zhouming also proposed the "Expansion of Xiaoyun City" plan, investing a lot of manpower and resources within the sect to build a large city under the rule of Xiaoyun Temple to support mortals and disciples' relatives.
Its construction site is located in a town outside the sect, a place that was acquired and occupied by Xiaoyun Temple long ago, where a large number of outer sect disciples reside year-round.
In the ninth year, Xiaoyun City was initially completed, theoretically capable of accommodating up to one million people. In the same year, Lu Zhouming launched the [Xiaoyun Chamber of Commerce] plan, aiming to deeply cultivate the economic framework system within the sect, with three core products as the core, to continuously obtain more cultivation resources.
By the tenth year, Xiaoyun Temple had exceeded the ten-year development plan set by Xiao Linlin, achieving comprehensive development results in all areas of the sect's development.
It is worth mentioning that Lu Zhouming followed Xiao Linlin's sect population plan for the first few years, and only took the initiative to change the strategy in the sixth year.
Since reaching the 500,000-person mark, Lu Zhouming has intentionally slowed down the number of disciples he recruits, making a more selective approach to recruitment. At the same time, he has reduced his efforts to annex the interests and territories of other sects, shifting his focus to the economic and developmental aspects of the sect's internal and external circulation.
This move was intended to lower the guard of the immortal sects. The sects in the world have a clear internal classification and rating system within the Tian Shu organization, which is mainly determined by population size, and secondarily by the highest cultivation level of the cultivators within the sect, magic treasures, financial resources, foundation, and so on.
According to the Tian Shu organization's classification, a small sect of independent cultivators has no more than 1,000 members, a small sect has no more than 100,000 members, a medium-level sect has no more than 500,000 members, and a large sect has no more than 1 million members.
Above the large sects are the nine great immortal sects, with an average population of 2 million to 5 million, comparable to the population of a small country in a typical gaming world.
These demographic statistics not only count the number of disciples practicing within the sect, but also include the population size of servants, ordinary people, and those residing in different areas.
In reality, most sects have a limited number of true disciples, with most not exceeding half of the sect's total population.
But Xiaoyun Temple is different!
The 500,000 inhabitants of Xiaoyun Temple are all true cultivators; there are no servants! There are no ordinary people! Everyone is a cultivator!
In addition, the rapid development of Xiaoyun Temple has long attracted the attention of major immortal sects.
Looking across all sects in the world, any sect with a medium-sized population will be contacted by the Tian Shu organization, either destroyed or subdued, without exception.
Not to mention large sects, as long as there are still large sects in the world, they all have the shadow of being controlled by the Immortal Sect.
The nine major immortal sects will never allow the emergence of a new immortal sect power. The potential of all large sects is reflected in their population size, which is to never exceed one million people per year. Furthermore, no cultivators with a cultivation level of Void Realm or higher are allowed to appear within a sect.
Forget about the Mahayana stage or the Tribulation Transcending stage, they don't even allow Void Transformation stage cultivators! Even Nascent Soul stage cultivators might be taken away; only Nascent Soul and Golden Core stage cultivators are allowed to roam outside the control of the Immortal Sect!
Therefore, when the population of Xiaoyun Temple exceeded 300,000, Tianya Mountain frequently sent people to contact it, repeatedly confirming and deepening the connection between Xiaoyun Temple and Tianya Mountain, to ensure that Tianya Mountain could maintain long-term control over Xiaoyun Temple.
Xiaoyun Temple naturally cooperated, not only accepting up to 200 disciples from Tianya Mountain to serve as stewards and a small number of elders within the sect, but also handing over the sect's annual operating accounts to Tianya Mountain, and contributing a very generous percentage of Xiaoyun Chamber of Commerce's revenue to Tianya Mountain each year.
In short: Absolute obedience! Absolute compliance! Absolute cooperation!
Furthermore, although Xiaoyun Temple has a large population, its sect's strength is extremely weak, merely a facade of numbers.
The strongest person in the entire Xiaoyun Temple is only at the Golden Core stage; the rest are at the Foundation Establishment stage, and the new disciples are only at the Qi Refining stage.
It is said that Xiaoyun Temple only accepts geniuses?
But these geniuses, it seems, are nothing special.
The reason for this was that Lu Zhouming promoted a reform of the internal cultivation atmosphere, encouraging all cultivators to learn from Abbot Su Lin, emphasizing that cultivation should not be rushed, but rather a gradual and steady approach.
Within the same realm, every extra day of cultivation is a day, every extra year of cultivation is a year.
As a result, in the eyes of outsiders, Xiaoyun Temple is just a place with a large population, but it has virtually no great cultivators who can be put on the table, and it is even inferior to a medium-sized sect.
It is said that Su Lin, the abbot of Xiaoyun Temple, could only barely break through from the early stage of Golden Core to the middle stage after ten years of arduous cultivation.
Such a ruler is at most an average person and is nothing to fear.
Tianya Mountain was reassured by the Xiaoyun Temple's development, and thus regarded it as a landmark achievement within the mountain. This great achievement naturally belonged to the patriarch and the young sect leader.
They brought another obedient and promising large sect to Tianya Mountain, further enhancing Tianya Mountain's influence and overall strength among the nine sects.
It's no wonder that Tianya Mountain looked down on Xiaoyun Temple. It's like how the Americans could never have imagined that the people in the East, who worked day and night, tightened their belts and bought airplanes stitch by stitch, could create such incredible industrial miracles.
However, even if Tianya Mountain doesn't value Xiaoyun Temple, it still reflexively exerts strong control over it.
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