Crafting a paper soldier took at least forty-nine days.
With the SEIU just having announced the revival of spiritual energy, Song Miaozhu decided to wait a few more days. Once the situation had fully stabilized, she would begin crafting her fifth squad of paper soldiers.
Powerful paper constructs like the soldiers were always useful. The more she had, the better.
What puzzled her was how a single infusion of azure spiritual energy had triggered such a dramatic change in her paper soldier, which had shown no progress for so long. Could it be that azure spiritual energy offered extra benefits when nurturing spirit-bound paper crafts?
The answer should be simple enough. She just needed to test it on another item. She pulled out a top spirit stone to restore the azure spirit crystal's energy. Once the crystal regained its vibrant hue, brimming with power, Song Miaozhu selected two unawakened constructs: a spirit paper kite and a bowl-holding paper figure.
She started by infusing all the azure energy into the spirit paper kite.
The Secret Art of Paper Crafting involved folding, cutting, layering, and binding. These techniques ranged in difficulty, with the kite using only folding. By comparison, the bowl-holding paper figure used folding, cutting, and layering, making it more advanced.
Naturally, the more complex the technique, the greater the spiritual energy consumption. It also extended the time required for nurturing. Based on her past experience and from observing other masters, simple constructs like the kite should be easier to nurture.
She started with the easier one.
As the energy drained from the crystal, its color faded into a translucent pale hue. Suddenly, the spirit paper kite shimmered with a brilliant flash.
It lasted only a moment, but Song Miaozhu caught it. "No way. That was it? It worked already?"
She poked the kite. "What new ability did you gain?"
While the kite had some sentience, it wasn't nearly as expressive as the little paper servants. Its awareness was more like the soldier paper figures, just oriented differently.
The soldiers were all about combat. The kites were focused on navigation and delivery.
She asked it again, but unlike the little paper servants, it couldn't reply clearly via mental link. Instead, it flapped its wings and grew from basin-sized to the size of a small e-bike.
Then it began nudging its head between her legs.
Caught off guard, Song Miaozhu stumbled and landed right on its back.
The kite took off with her aboard.
Was it trying to carry her? Song Miaozhu perked up. "Wait, can you teleport with passengers now?"
If the kite could transport people, it would far surpass her substitute paper figures. Those could only transfer her by linking jumps together.
The kite suddenly tilted and shook her off.
"What? So you can't carry people through space?"
Then it went to the stone bench and knocked it clean over.
"You're stronger now?"
The kite settled down.
That seemed to be the answer.
Originally, it could only carry light-to-medium packages, nothing too heavy. After awakening, its spatial travel became more efficient, using less energy to go farther.
Now, with spiritual nurturing, it could carry significantly heavier cargo. It was evolving into a true delivery beast. Not as flashy as spatial teleportation with passengers, but still quite useful.
And definitely a valid result for spiritual nurturing.
Using only a single unit of azure energy, she had awakened a basic paper kite into a spirit-bound version. Although recovering that unit of energy consumed a lot of spiritual power, the time investment was minimal.
She could now slightly decorate and tweak her remaining paper kites, nurture them into upgraded versions, and sell them for a much higher price. In essence, she could pass the energy cost onto the buyers.
The awakened paper kites had a cost-to-sale ratio of over 25,000 to 1, based on the energy consumed versus their market price. That was serious profit. And the spirit-bound versions would sell for even more. At this rate, she could price them at 50,000 contribution points and still expect buyers.
Spiritual items were in short supply. Even a single sale would be a win. And since delivery wasn't an ability she needed to keep exclusive, monetizing it was a no-brainer. Once she filed the necessary documentation with the SEIU branch in Lingcheng, she would put them up in her spirit merchant shop.
But right now, she was more curious about the azure energy itself. In all her time nurturing spirit-bound items, she had never successfully awakened one using just a single unit of crimson energy. Even the gold ingot she made early on took more than that.
Azure energy was ten times harder to recover than crimson, and required ten times more spiritual power. That meant it was also ten times more refined.
She had long kept aside one kite and one bowl-holding paper figure, filling them with crimson energy daily. Surely, she'd used more than ten units by now.
This proved that, in terms of nurturing efficiency, azure energy held a clear advantage over crimson.
She would have to compare further. Once she awakened a kite with crimson energy, or nurtured a little paper servant, soldier, paper armor, or Grade-4 Yang Paper Clothes using azure energy, the difference would be obvious.
For now, she decided to infuse the bowl-holding paper figure. One full unit of azure energy later, nothing happened. She wasn't discouraged. She recharged the crystal and tried again. This time, only a sliver of energy had been consumed when the paper figure began to react.
She couldn't believe what she saw.
Inside the bowl the figure was holding, tiny sparks of spiritual light appeared. Keep in mind, not just her courtyard, but the entire Xiaozhu Mountain had long been drained dry by her cultivation.
Yet here was this paper figure, drawing ambient spiritual energy from the air, just like a cultivator crafting with the Secret Art of Paper Crafting.
Bit by bit, the glowing particles were drawn into the bowl.
Close particles came quickly. Distant ones, less so.
The earliest versions of the awakened bowl-holding figure weren't very efficient at this.
But now, it was clearly different.