"I understand," Song Miaozhu replied, though she gave no clear answer.
What Grandpa Zhao said was true. The current rate at which spiritual energy was returning to the world was far too slow to meet the demands of cultivators absorbing it during their cultivation.
On the SEIU app, complaints from cultivators were frequent. Many had to travel to different locations every day, only to absorb a minuscule amount of spiritual energy.
Now, every SEIU team assigned a mobile workshop van to each master craftsman, allowing them to move throughout the city to cultivate and absorb spiritual energy.
Solo cultivators had no chance of keeping up with the SEIU.
But all of this only mattered if one lacked spirit stones.
Inside Song Miaozhu's spiritual platform, the crimson spirit crystals had already condensed into several thick layers. What started as thin shards had now become large spirit crystal slabs, nearly the size of her palm.
When she asked Grandpa Zhao and her old acquaintance, Elder Wu from Xiangzhigou—both of whom were renowned even before the resurgence of spiritual energy and had already joined the SEIU as master artisans—she learned they still had not fully condensed even the first layer of crimson crystal shards.
Even with the SEIU's assistance, the spiritual energy was simply too thin these days.
While others were still eagerly awaiting the arrival of the great spiritual tide, Song Miaozhu was already living a life free from spiritual energy worries, thanks to her stash of spirit stones. At present, even though most cultivators had weak spiritual power and were slow in nurturing spirit beasts, there had still been some results.
Grandpa Zhao's little wooden bird had already begun to show signs of supernatural abilities. As for what kinds of abilities others' spirit beasts would develop, Song Miaozhu could not even begin to imagine.
Every era of cultivation had its own rules, and those rules would always be gradually discovered and refined.
She realized that this early phase of spiritual resurgence, while spiritual energy was still thin and others were still fumbling through the rules of cultivation and spiritual power use, was the best time for her to pull ahead of the rest.
Once the great spiritual tide truly arrived and spiritual energy became abundant, with clear-cut methods for cultivation and energy manipulation, her current advantage might shrink.
That thought drove her to cultivate even more diligently. Her schedule was packed from morning till night, and still it never felt like enough. Naturally, the more she cultivated, the faster her spiritual power depleted.
Fortunately, business at her ghost shop in the underworld remained steady. The income was more than enough to sustain her cultivation. Lately, she had focused solely on studying the Secret Art of Paper Crafting with the ghost instructors, learning to make Yin Paper Clothes and strengthening her body.
That was until Zhao Huoyan, speaking on behalf of the SEIU Central Bureau, contacted her again.
"What? You want me to examine a paper gold ingot to see what kind of special energy it contains?" Song Miaozhu was puzzled. "What kind of special energy could a paper gold ingot possibly hold?"
To her, it was nothing more than an empty paper mold for coins.
"Master Zhang Yunxi has nurtured a paper gold ingot using spiritual power, and it seems to contain an unusual energy. It's not spiritual energy, but it resembles yin energy—though not exactly the same. Master Zhang suspects it may be a trace of the so-called longevity of the dead.
"But with the realms of yin and yang now completely severed, the living can no longer see ghosts from the underworld or the power within hell coins. There's no way to confirm it directly.
"So the SEIU team in Xiangcheng contacted us in Lingcheng, hoping we could connect them with you for help identifying it.
"If you agree, Master Zhang Yunxi will likely visit Lingcheng soon to consult with you in person. If not, we'll inform them on your behalf."
Zhao Huoyan's words left Song Miaozhu stunned.
"You're saying the ingot that Master Zhang nurtured might really contain longevity energy from the dead?" She could hardly believe it. "I agree!"
Even if there was only the slightest chance, she had to see it with her own eyes. If it turned out to be true, she would be absolutely furious. A real gold ingot filled with longevity energy from the dead would be far more valuable than a simple pure gold one. Moreover, if both were nurtured with spiritual power, why would the results differ?
"Alright. I'll notify the Xiangcheng SEIU team right away," Zhao Huoyan said.
After hanging up, Song Miaozhu kept mulling over the matter.
Just then, the SEIU Central Bureau released a new report on the app:
"Spiritual Power Research Bulletin: The Unpredictability of Spiritual Nurturing."
It seemed they had collected quite a bit of data. The report stated that even when skilled cultivators used the same techniques to craft identical items, nurturing them with spiritual power still resulted in different outcomes.
One example involved the paper gold ingots that paper-crafting masters commonly made.
Some masters' ingots transformed into solid pure gold. Others' versions improved in quality, allowing them to store more hell coins. Some remained paper in texture, but their spiritual energy had begun to change into a trace amount of unusual energy.
Reading this, Song Miaozhu immediately guessed that the one who produced the ingot with special energy must have been Master Zhang Yunxi.
Besides the gold ingots, the report also covered wooden birds. One master's nurtured bird had a piercing cry that could disorient listeners. Another's could fly freely for extended periods with just a bit of spiritual power. Yet another's could deliver dreams of whatever it saw to its owner—but at the cost of significant spiritual energy.
This last ability belonged to Grandpa Zhao's little wooden bird.
He had mentioned a few days ago that the SEIU had asked all the woodcarving masters to raise wooden birds of the same size and shape. Clearly, this was part of an experiment to see whether spiritual nurturing would yield consistent results.
According to this report, the answer was no. Each cultivator produced different outcomes. Even if two cultivators nurtured spirit items with identical abilities, the degree and effect would still vary.
Song Miaozhu was not the only paper-crafting master to produce real gold ingots. Some were hollow, others solid, and a few shrank slightly after the transformation.
So far, the SEIU had not found two spirit items with completely identical outcomes.
Their preliminary conclusion was that each cultivator's spiritual power carried a unique personal trait, which led to variations in the nurtured results.
Their next step would be testing whether one master could achieve consistent results when nurturing the same item repeatedly.
While the SEIU had yet to reach a conclusion, Song Miaozhu already knew the answer: it was stable.
All one hundred of her little paper servants had the ability to turn invisible.
After reading the report, a delayed realization struck her.
"Does this mean my Secret Art of Paper Crafting can be passed off as a form of spiritual nurturing?"
If the results of spiritual nurturing varied from person to person, then she could claim that her little paper servants, paper soldiers, and spirit armor were all nurtured through spiritual power—and no one would be able to prove otherwise.
Even if someone tried to imitate her, they would never produce the same results. Everyone would just assume it was due to the inherent unpredictability of spiritual nurturing, not that she had used a hidden technique.
With this, she would no longer have to worry about exposing her true abilities in the living world.