My Merchant Guild Has an Immortal Emperor as a Shareholder

During the Xuanhe era of the Great Song, immortals and mortals coexist. The Nine Heavens Immortal Sects command spiritual resources through bloodline inheritance, and sword flight reigns supreme. Meanwhile, ordinary people toil to make a living, seeing streaks of light as immortal masters passing overhead. A hidden current tears through the old order: spirit stones, the foundation of cultivation, are flowing out of the immortal sects and becoming gold in the eyes of mortals. Merchants trade grain and cloth for spirit stones and grow rich overnight. Seafarers and horse caravans form a cross-regional trade network, and the gray market gradually turns golden. The old order comes under attack: even a Golden Core True Person's will cannot sway the abacus of ordinary people; an agreement in a teahouse can shrink a small sect's monthly allowance; hoarding can cut off a cultivator's path to advancement. The immortal sects sneer at mortals as ants, yet have no choice but to trade spirit stones for medicinal ingredients. Mortals may not understand thunder arts, but through calculation, contracts, and logistics, they control the flow of resources. More astonishing still, “commercial formations” emerge, streamlining circulation and encrypting information. A new force winds like a vine around the pillars of the old order. Families struggle to survive in the cracks, facing both the immortal masters' capricious demands and the shifting tides of commerce and officialdom. A bowl of hot soup, a dimly lit lamp: outside the cold laws of the world, they are the only warmth that cannot be priced. Abacuses and flying swords resonate together, tea mingles with the scent of alchemical flames. The battle to reshape the balance of power between immortals and mortals is slowly drawing back its curtain.