The original Yin Paper Clothes served as single-use spiritual armor. Once damaged, they could not be used again. Their defensive power depended entirely on the quality of Song Miaozhu's craftsmanship and her level of spiritual awakening at the time of creation.
But after continual infusions of spiritual power, one piece of this armor, like her little paper servants and paper soldiers, began to develop a spiritual essence independent from its paper shell.
At first, Song Miaozhu did not notice. She simply sensed that this particular armor was glowing more brightly with each infusion and seemed to offer stronger protection. To confirm it, two days ago, she attached the armor to one of her paper soldiers and had another soldier attack it.
The results were clear. This armor outperformed all others made in the same batch. Although the armor was eventually destroyed by the strikes, Song Miaozhu discovered something astonishing: she still felt a lingering connection to it. It had not completely disappeared.
That sensation was all too familiar.
She had experienced the same thing whenever one of her little paper servants or paper soldiers was destroyed. The vessel might be gone, but the spirit remained.
Without hesitation, she cut a new robe from white spirit paper and used the spiritual awakening technique for Yin Paper Clothes to guide that lingering essence into the new garment.
It shimmered with the same spiritual light as the original.
It had returned.
This effect was not described anywhere in the Secret Art of Paper Crafting. It had to be the result of her method of nurturing with spiritual power. Song Miaozhu felt a thrill of excitement. If the spiritual armor could preserve its essence like her paper servants and soldiers, then it had growth potential.
Compared to being entirely dependent on her skill level at the time of creation, this "growth potential" offered a much more scalable path for improving defensive strength. Now that she knew the spiritual armor could evolve through nurturing, she pulled out all the armors stored in her Yinwood chest and began daily infusions of spiritual power.
From now on, she could pursue not just quantity, but quality.
The longer she nurtured a piece of armor, the stronger its defense would become. If she ever layered herself in a full set of nurtured armor, what could possibly harm her?
The thought of walking around clad in spiritual armor no weapon could penetrate filled her with delight. Even if maintaining the entire box of armor cost one medium-grade spirit stone a day, she didn't mind one bit. However, she soon encountered a problem.
She found that she couldn't wear more than one piece of the evolved spiritual armor at a time. If she put one on, any additional pieces would refuse to stick, as if repelled. Oddly, this repulsion didn't happen between evolved and regular one-use paper armor.
She was a little disappointed that she couldn't turn herself into a walking fortress of evolved paper armor. Still, the extra pieces didn't go to waste. She assigned one to each of her little paper servants and paper soldiers.
The nurturing process might be simple, but its effects were remarkable. Both the servants and the armor were now noticeably improved. Finally, Song Miaozhu felt she had achieved enough to record her own insights into the Secret Art of Paper Crafting.
She carefully documented the spiritual-nurturing versions of both the paper servant and the Yin Paper Clothes techniques. She also made notes on the paper gold ingots and golden lotus flowers she had refined.
Seeing such dramatic changes thanks to spiritual nurturing made her increasingly curious about what results other crafting masters might have achieved. Even if their spiritual power was weaker and their nurturing slower, several months had already passed. Surely others would be seeing results too.
Though she had once withdrawn from worldly affairs, focusing only on learning and cultivation, curiosity now drove her to act. She dispatched two little paper servants to monitor her phone, scrolling through social media and the SEIU app for updates.
The SEIU still seemed to be gathering data and hadn't released any formal research on spiritual nurturing yet. However, they frequently posted reminders urging cultivators to safeguard their nurtured spiritual items.
Every time one of these reminders was posted, strange videos would suddenly appear on various platforms—and disappear just as quickly.
The paper servants had seen clips such as "a butterfly hairpin flying off a model's head during a traditional fashion show," "an entire audience fainting at an art gallery," "an unattended hammer forging on its own," and even "a stone lion roaring at pedestrians."
To most netizens, they looked like digital hoaxes. But those with the SEIU app or who had witnessed the phenomena firsthand knew they were real. Otherwise, why would the SEIU issue such targeted warnings?
In the previous cultivation era, materials imbued with spiritual energy were known as spiritual items. Now, with no such resources left, cultivators referred to anything nurtured through spiritual power as a spiritual item.
The fleeting videos rarely showed what these spiritual items could actually do. That changed when one video titled "A wooden bird arguing with sparrows in a treetop" hit the local trending list.
Song Miaozhu recognized the background—it was near the woodcarving shop in Yuanshan Old Town. She called Grandpa Zhao to confirm.
Sure enough, the bird was his creation, made for testing spiritual nurturing.
The ghost problem at the Golden Rose Summer Villa had been resolved. The SEIU team from Lingcheng had moved back to the villa, leaving the woodcarving shop quiet once more.
Grandpa Zhao had traveled to various places to cultivate and had spent several days storing up spiritual power. That afternoon, he poured it all into the wooden bird. To his surprise, the long-dormant bird came to life!
He hadn't been careful enough, and it flew out. It landed in a tree and began chattering with the local sparrows. A tourist happened to film the scene and uploaded it online.
"My little bird," he said with fondness, "can fly and chirp like a real one! Sometimes, I even dream about what it sees during the day.
"It does eat up a lot of spiritual energy though. I saved for days, and even then, it only stayed aloft for less than three minutes before falling. Luckily, it landed on the grass and didn't break."
His tone was full of affection.
"Huaishui'er," he added, "spiritual nurturing really is something else. Don't forget to keep practicing! Spiritual energy is scarce nowadays. If you find yourself struggling, talk to Team Leader Zhao and consider joining the SEIU. It's not the same as it used to be!"