Seeing the look on Aether's face, Morax already knew what he was thinking.
"Very good. With this, the people of Liyue will no longer have to struggle over food."
"Farming is far more stable than hunting and gathering," Morax evaluated.
Aether laughed. "Of course!"
With this, Liyue's people no longer had to worry about what they would eat tomorrow.
Hunting and gathering could gradually be phased out.
Of course, in Aether's view, hunting could easily be transformed into capture—catching herbivorous beasts rich in meat and domesticating them.
Wouldn't that solve the problem of animal husbandry as well?
People could eat their fill and even enjoy meat from time to time. In this ancient era, such a life was practically paradise.
The happiness of Liyue's people was already maxed out for this age.
"Zhuang, can I trade you some sweet potatoes for part of your potatoes?"
Li looked toward his neighbor Zhuang and made a proposal.
The situation was simple: most of Li's fields were planted with potatoes, while sweet potatoes and wheat made up only a small portion.
Zhuang's planting was the opposite—mostly sweet potatoes and wheat, with very few potatoes.
After hearing Li's proposal, Zhuang thought it over.
He indeed didn't have many potatoes, so trading some sweet potatoes and wheat for a portion of Li's potatoes made sense.
"Sure. One potato for one sweet potato. I won't accept anything if the sizes are too mismatched," Zhuang said.
If Li tried to trade a tiny potato for a huge sweet potato, that clearly wouldn't be fair.
Zhuang wasn't foolish—he wasn't about to take a loss like that.
Li had no intention of taking advantage either. He laughed.
"Of course. Don't worry—I'll pick the best ones for you."
Their exchange began.
This scene happened to be witnessed by Aether and Morax as they passed by.
Only then did Aether realize that in this ancient era, before the Demon God War had even begun, the concept of currency did not yet exist.
Naturally, people still relied on the most primitive method of barter.
So…
Could he introduce the concept of currency?
With that thought, Aether's gaze shifted quietly toward Morax.
Morax noticed Aether looking at him and asked in confusion, "What is it?"
"Did you see how they traded just now?"
"Of course I saw it."
Morax paused.
He wasn't blind. Standing beside Aether, if Aether could see it, then so could he.
"Don't you think that method is troublesome?"
"Ah… it is somewhat inconvenient. Do you have another idea again?"
Barter was indeed cumbersome, but it was the commonly accepted method at present.
Morax naturally understood its drawbacks.
If one person wanted something another possessed, but the other had no interest in what the first offered, then the transaction simply couldn't proceed.
In many cases, someone might never be able to obtain what they truly wanted.
But hearing Aether phrase it this way, Morax instinctively sensed that Aether had another sudden idea.
He was already used to it.
"Hehe. I really do have an idea."
"Tell me—what if there were a single item that could replace all exchangeable goods? When trading, you would simply give a corresponding quantity of this substitute instead."
As Aether spoke, Morax was reminded of something.
In certain inland demon god territories, their people once used a special type of shell as currency for transactions.
If someone wanted something, they could purchase it with those shells.
However, later on, large quantities of those shells were discovered elsewhere, which directly caused their value to collapse. The shell currency could no longer be used, and people returned to barter once again.
So was Aether talking about something similar?
"A medium of exchange… currency?" Morax said.
"Ordinary objects cannot fulfill that role. Anything too plentiful or easily replicated will eventually cause the system to collapse."
"A solution might be to create something that others cannot counterfeit and that itself carries a certain degree of inherent value, and let that circulate as currency within Liyue."
Morax spoke as he thought.
As expected of the one who would one day create Mora—Aether had barely mentioned the idea, and Morax had already grasped the core of it.
Still, Morax was young.
Back when Mora was created in later ages, vast quantities had been issued directly into circulation.
This would eventually lead to severe inflation.
The solution to inflation was simple: anchor currency to scarce, valuable real-world resources, converting tangible assets into monetary backing, so that currency derived its value from those assets rather than from sheer issuance.
Aether patted Morax on the shoulder with a grin.
"Heh, not bad, Morax. You're already on the right track."
"But if we only do it that way, people won't know the actual value of this currency. They won't know how much one unit can buy."
"More importantly, the currency itself has no inherent usefulness to the people."
"So why would they accept someone using such a valueless object to exchange for something truly valuable? If it were you, would you agree?"
After all, you couldn't eat it. For the people at this stage, aside from being a divine creation, it held little real value.
They might obey divine instruction and use it for trade, but to avoid personal loss, situations like charging over a hundred units for a single potato would inevitably arise.
Aether's words plunged Morax into thought.
…That did seem to be the case.
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