Sage did as told, moving all the Hoplites and their possessions to the vicinity of Ruanfu and the rest of King’s remaining family. He was reminded again of his vengeance, but he kept that burning ember properly concealed for now. Then, Guan Zhenyan started to guide him. The Inner World at this point only had two large continents, and they were both reconfigured very carefully. At this current time, Sage had a pair of both Heavenly Jewels and Heavenly Waters. The Earth and Water would have to be shared carefully or else the balance of the world wouldn’t be maintained. The main mass of water was the oceans, and Sage carefully mixed the Eye of the World and the Green Lifewater to split the seas half and half. That meant making them have an equal amount of influence, but with different source points.

The two different source points were of course the two main oceans between the two continents. The waters were able to mix freely, and the rotation of the planet along with the pull of the other objects in the Life Nebula caused currents and tides. Those ocean currents made the two types of water mix in subtle ways, but the placement of the water sources meant that each ocean was dominated by one of them, but the other was still present. He repeated this process with the underground water sources for each continent, creating a portion of each continent where one water or the other was dominant without lacking the other.

Guan Zhenyan even had him place the Green Lifewater so the ocean and groundwater where it was dominant happened to be the closest coastline to Ruanfu and the Hoplites. That area was of course going to be the most fertile on the Inner World and so it would need the most tending to.

“It’s a shame I couldn’t find any Heavenly Flames. There’s such a great demand for fire treasures, but your world just doesn’t have the conditions to grow any good ones yet. Oh well. Okay, let’s start shaping the terrain.”

After the waters, a similar thing was done with the Heavenly Jewels. The two types of earth were mingled together, but with much less care than the Heavenly Water. This of course was because of their nature. The Sovereign Stone was naturally the ruler of all other Heavenly Jewels, so the Black Enhydros was its subordinate. Also, the Black Enhydros preferred to stay nice and deep, building oil stores underground. It was quite different from the two Heavenly Waters. The Green Lifewater loved rich coastal zones and fast flowing rivers, while the Eye of the World preferred the deep sea, murky swamps and stagnant bodies of water. When the two of them had to share the whole of the ocean they had to be carefully balanced as they were both out of their element.

Sage followed along as he was instructed. Guan Zhenyan surprised him as his instructions didn’t turn the planet into a giant farm or plantation. There weren’t any ordered rows or special arrangements that would be the best for industrial mass growing. Instead, it was more of a holistic approach. Certain plants were put at their most optimal position for the growing conditions and then less valuable plants were positioned around those most expensive plants. These other plants were put in place to support the expensive ones. Their growing seasons complimented each other and their different parts fertilized each other. Others were chosen for their ability to keep pests away from the main plant, either by certain toxins or smells or because they were far more attractive, taking the ‘aggro’ from the main expensive plant.

The amazing thing was that this wasn’t just planned for one or two plants, but hundreds of them. There were hundreds of different expensive plant types, and each had around a dozen supporting companion plants. More amazingly, the locations of these supporting plants were also taken into account. Environments supporting the expensive plants seamlessly linked together. A forest of White Cloud Maples was surrounded by a field of Violet Piercer Bushes, which then led to a grove of Silver Roses. Guan Zhenyan was also careful to pick the plants that could be supported by the Heavenly Materials that Sage had currently.

The Green Lifewater was a great Heavenly Material for growing plants. The water that it created was rich with lifeforce. While it was helpful for extending lifespan and healing wounds, it was most effective at raising the potency of Spirit Plants. It didn’t accelerate their growth, but created very wonderful growing conditions for the majority of Spirit Plants. Of course, this was just the average Spirit Plant. Those of the Wood or Water element were the most populous among Spirit Plants, but there were also many Metal, Fire, and Earth nature Spirit Plants. For all of these, the Green Lifewater was not very effective and so Sage’s Inner World wasn’t set up to grow them.

Guan Zhenyan told him that Fire natured Spirit Plants were quite popular. Among Professions, Refiners(Blacksmiths) and Alchemists were the most in demand. In the Holy Flame Sect, every Profession was nurtured, but in most other big Sects or groups most professions were neglected. Usually only Blacksmiths or Alchemists were welcome in a Sect, depending on their values. Otherwise, only the professions that supported the Alchemists or Blacksmiths were encouraged. For the rest of their needs, they would purchase them from Medicinal Pill Halls in large towns, or from stores like Thousand Treasures in the Dou Kingdom. Both Alchemists and Blacksmiths used Fire in their craft, which made it very popular for them to be fire natured cultivators. As such, they had more use for Fire related Spirit Plants to increase their own cultivation.

Additionally, Fire was one of the more popular offensive oriented Qi nature. For those wanting to be offensively oriented, there was the option of Fire, Metal, Lightning, or something rare and obscure like Darkness, Death, or even pure piercing or cutting. For a cultivator, most had an innate nature, but it wasn’t a limit. As long as the element wasn’t in opposition to their innate nature, they could still practice it, albeit with a slower speed. Now, of the offensive options, Fire and Metal are the most common and easy to pursue. Lightning was a comparatively rare nature and very overbearing to try and use. The rare ones, even if you want to practice them, good luck finding a Cultivation method. They were secrets kept carefully guarded by those who had them and usually required special innate body constitutions to use. So, with both hot-headed battle maniacs and the most populous craftsmen all searching for Fire natured treasures, they were the market with the greatest profit ratio.

Unfortunately, Sage didn’t have any extremely potent Heavenly Flames to nurture them and so he was left with targeting the much larger but less lucrative Spirit Plant market. Even so, he had a whole planet with an accelerated growth rate so he was going to be making a fortune in the future. With enough investment his Inner World would be able to support a dozen Huge Sects in the future. Of course, that depended on a big enough investment and also how fast he could push the time acceleration. Unless he trained a whole army of Hoplites with growth acceleration techniques, it would still take hundreds of years for certain Spirit Plants to reach maturity.

Heh, I guess that’s one area where Guan Zhenyan was right. The Hoplites are definitely only incomplete products.

After the main continent was done, Sage moved all the insects onto a small island and rebuilt the second continent. When the many hundreds of seeds and small plants were planted and properly arranged, Sage sought Guan Zhenyan’s advice on his insect horde. They were sorted into those beneficial to the plants, beneficial to combat, and finally ‘breeding stock’. Sage formed two large islands, in the center of each large ocean. One of them was populated with the combat insects, while the other was left to the ‘breeding stock’. These were all the bugs that Guan Zhenyan thought were useless on their own, but for the sake of not being wasteful they weren’t destroyed. The combat species were of course those most useful for fighting, and their island was far larger than the other. Giving them ample space for hundreds of them to reach full size. Sage was told to monitor them and remove the majority of the matured individuals. He could store them in Beast Bags, or send them to pens for the Hoplites to train.

Lastly, the beneficial insect species. Ants, Silverbees, Spirit Jade Beetles, Alarm Crickets, Steel Silk Webspinners, Thorn Cloud Hornets, Fat Grass Worms, Golden Salamanders, Fire Crested Iguana, Refinery Worms, Succubus Beetles, and also a few types of insects that Guan Zhenyan purchased that were helpful to certain Spirit Plants. Some were released into the wild to naturally tend to the plants, while others were resources in themselves and put into large ranches for the Hoplites to raise and farm. At this point, Sage also consulted with the Hoplites and their villages were split into smaller groups and told to reproduce. They were going to be the caretakers of all the Spirit Plants and ranchers of the many insect species. With their new roles arranged, Guan Zhenyan seemed satisfied, though not completely.

“You need to finish those Hoplites. They should have two castes, Warrior and Worker. They should be infallibly loyal to you, alone. You’ll have to pay extra for any more advice, so the rest is up to you, but don’t screw it up. If one of those villages starts a mutiny they could waste a lot of our profits too easily.”