Take the basic Foundation Building Pill as an example, the military families of five thousand households cultivating the path would pool their resources together, and still they would need the annual grand competition to barely manage to provide some medium-quality Foundation Building Pills for their elite descendants to make do with.
At least a Divine Force Golden Pill would require a sect, army, or battlefield merit to exchange. Spirit Infant Pills are only prepared by entities as significant as the twelve countries and are generally bestowed only to court officials of a certain rank and merit. As for the legendary pills for Ascending to Divinity, only families on the scale of the four great clans could muster up the wealth to afford even one for the family head.
And this was after the virtual moon had risen, following the surge in the resources for cultivation. Before that, these resources had to be fought for and seized by force.
