Don't be fooled by how quickly Anshou Hall racks up hell coins—Song Miaozhu spends them just as fast.
Her ghost market savings had already exceeded 300 million hell coins. At the same time, the top-grade spirit stone she carried was nearly drained, thanks to her constant spiritual crafting, making paper soldier constructs, and casting curses on the Japanese Ghost. Soon, she would need to exchange for another.
In the past, even a low-grade spirit stone could last her several days. Then a mid-grade stone could be stretched over ten to twenty days. A high-grade one might last two or three months. But now? A single supreme-grade spirit stone could only last her half a year.
And keep in mind, the exchange rate between grades was 100 to 1.
Despite that, upgrading her spirit stones didn't result in her usage time expanding by a hundredfold.
Spiritual crafting and cultivating the Secret Art of Paper Crafting consumed the most, but the red spiritual crystals accumulating on her spiritual platform were also expanding its inner space. As a result, the rate at which she absorbed spiritual energy during crafting had increased significantly.
It was easy to foresee—her cultivation would only grow, and her demand for spiritual energy would grow with it. If her income didn't scale up accordingly, there would come a day when she simply couldn't afford the energy she needed.
Song Miaozhu had no intention of waiting until that moment arrived. She had plenty of spiritual paper crafts that were both popular and profitable. Still, since this was her first time testing the waters, she wanted to pick items that would help establish her reputation without posing a potential risk to her later.
Even if someone else took ownership of the items she sold, she still held the power to sever their spiritual link in an instant, destroying the item completely. But ideally, she would never need to do that.
So she wouldn't sell her more advanced creations, like the paper soldier constructs, the spiritually-nurtured invisible little paper servants, the sentient spirit armor paper clothes, or the Grade-Four Yang Paper Clothes that could generate spiritual shields.
These were her blades and shields now, and she wasn't about to turn them into someone else's weapons or defenses. At most, she might sell the unawakened base versions that hadn't been infused with spiritual power.
Her greatest edge in selling spirit-bound crafts lay in her unique point-spirit technique—with it, she could make a paper item appear indistinguishable from a true spirit item.
Normally, it took sustained spiritual infusion over time to nurture a handmade artifact into a spirit item. But with her method, she could instantly transform ordinary paper crafts into spirit-bound paper items. The amount of spiritual power, time, and effort required was vastly lower. If others spent one hundred units of effort to raise a spirit item, she only needed one.
She would be doing the newly emerging spirit-item marketplace a disservice if she didn't get in on this business.
After flipping through the Secret Art of Paper Crafting, she selected two spirit-bound paper items to serve as flagship products for her spiritual merchant storefront: the Bowl-Holding Paper Servant and the Spirit Kite.
The Bowl-Holding Paper Servant was a special technique designed to absorb and store ambient spiritual energy, which could later be released to help its owner restore spiritual energy faster.
In the previous cultivation era, when the world was saturated with spiritual energy, it was often used as a quick recovery tool. But now, during this awkward stage of spiritual revival—where gathering energy required constant movement—its storage function was far more valuable.
These days, mobile cultivation RVs had become standard for many cultivators, who had to constantly travel to absorb dispersed energy scattered across the land. The Bowl-Holding Paper Servant, however, solved this problem neatly.
Just place one in a location with spiritual energy, and it would slowly gather the energy, storing it inside the bowl it held. Then, when you needed energy, simply summon it nearby and let it release the stored energy. Meditate or cultivate beside it, and you could absorb the energy directly to recover or boost your cultivation.
Song Miaozhu didn't find the spiritual energy in the world rich enough for her personal use. Even a fully-charged bowl didn't hold one-tenth the energy of a single low-grade spirit stone. That was why she hadn't bothered learning the technique earlier—it simply hadn't been useful to her. But things were different for other cultivators.
Song Miaozhu was confident this Bowl-Holding Paper Servant would sell well among them. To others, it was a true spirit item. And since spirit items couldn't be replicated, even if someone else mastered the same technique, they likely wouldn't be able to create one exactly like hers.
That rarity only increased its value.
The creator held the key. As long as she remained, more Bowl-Holding Paper Servants could be born. This item wouldn't just earn her money—it would also serve as her shield. Any cultivator who needed one wouldn't dare risk damaging the hands that could create them.
Her second product, the Spirit Kite, was similar but a bit less valuable. According to the Secret Art of Paper Crafting, the Spirit Crane and Spirit Kite were two types of paper crafts used to send messages and transport objects. The crane carried letters. The kite delivered items.
Nowadays, though, messages could be sent instantly via phone, and packages could be shipped with regular couriers. While these methods lacked the speed and safety of the Spirit Kite, they were much cheaper. So in the modern world, those techniques had become obsolete.
But with the rise of spirit-item trading, Song Miaozhu believed the Spirit Kite might find new life. Normal people might scoff at the price, but cultivators sending valuable spirit items would think differently.
In spirit-item transactions, speed and security were everything. The Spirit Kite offered both, and it could easily avoid detection by ordinary people—far more discreet than standard courier services.
For cultivators who regularly bought and sold spirit items, owning a Spirit Kite would be a massive convenience. Over the past few days, Song Miaozhu had already prepared a decent stock of Bowl-Holding Paper Servants and Spirit Kites. She was just waiting for tonight's batch of paper soldier constructs to finish.
Then she would bring a sample to the Lingcheng branch of The SEIU to file for registration. Once registered, she could open her storefront and begin selling on the SEIU app. She hadn't stepped foot off Xiaozhu Mountain in months. Every forty-nine days, she completed a cycle of paper soldier crafting. Tonight would complete her fourth team of paper soldiers.
After this, she would be able to summon 196 super-powered paper bodyguards with a flick of her sleeve. In a world where most cultivators were severely lacking in combat power, that kind of force was overwhelming.
That was the confidence backing her decision to sell a brand-new spirit item that no one else had: the Bowl-Holding Paper Servant. Even if a few foolish cultivators tried to burn the bridge after crossing it, she had no reason to fear them. At midnight, the fourth team of paper soldiers was complete. Song Miaozhu could finally relax. She no longer needed to stand guard on Xiaozhu Mountain.
The next morning, she drove straight to the outskirts of Lingcheng, to the Golden Rose Summer Villa—now the new headquarters of the Lingcheng SEIU branch. Thanks to the branch's development efforts, the villa had already undergone a complete transformation.