what is the meaning of "transaction"?

What is the meaning of transaction in the sentence? Is it a deal or a process? I guess it's process, but the dictionary says it's uncountable if it is process, so I'm confused.

......So far as you are wholly concentrated on bringing about a certain result, clearly the quicker and easier it is brought about the better. Your resolve to secure a sufficiency of food for your self and your family will induce you to spend weary days in tilling the ground and tending livestock:
but if Nature provided food and meat in abundance ready for the table, you would thank Nature for sparing you much labor and consider yourself so much the better off. An executed purpose, in short, is a transaction in which the time and energy spent on the execution are balanced against the resulting assets, and the ideal case is....

Thank you so much, that's what I thought, but I wasn't convinced, and you made me so. I appreciate it!