Over the next few days, Andy didn't see Liu Yingying at all. Whether she was holed up in her lodgings unwilling to come out, or had quietly left Liuyun Market altogether, he had no way of knowing.
One evening, as he sat down to resume talisman making, Andy made an irritating discovery: that frustrated sweep of his arm the other night had shattered the jade saucer he had always used to mix and hold his cinnabar.
He had nothing suitable to replace it with. The only dishes in his lodgings were ordinary mundane ones, which wouldn't do—if the container wasn't a magical artifact, the spiritual energy in the cinnabar would gradually weaken over time, and that would compromise his talisman crafting. The market was currently between sessions, with the next trading days still twenty-odd days away. There was simply nowhere to buy a new jade saucer in the meantime.
After rummaging through his lodgings and storage pouch, Andy did find one item that would serve perfectly—the Heaven and Earth Bowl, tucked away in his storage pouch and nearly forgotten.
He still had no idea what the bowl's origins or true function were, but during the ambush it had effortlessly blocked a blow from that young man's mid-grade crimson sword, so it was clearly no mundane object. Yet unlike every other magical artifact he had encountered, the bowl gave off no spiritual energy fluctuations whatsoever—not even the faintest trace. As Andy had learned more about spirit treasures over the past two years, he had also ruled out that possibility. By all accounts, spirit treasures radiated spiritual power so immense that anyone could tell at a glance they were no ordinary artifact. This bowl did nothing of the sort.
Unable to determine its function or decipher the meaning of the "heaven and earth" characters inscribed on its base, Andy's curiosity had gradually faded. He had all but forgotten the thing.
Now he realized that the bowl's shape, size, and fitted lid made it an ideal vessel for mixing and storing cinnabar. Whether it could actually preserve the cinnabar's spiritual energy remained to be seen—but cinnabar was cheap enough. It was worth a try.
He placed a small amount of dry cinnabar powder into the bowl, added the right amount of spirit spring water, and stirred the mixture smooth with his talisman brush. Then he set to work. Perhaps because his state of mind had settled, he produced seven or eight Diamond Talismans over the course of the night, maintaining a success rate of around three or four in ten.
After casting the Diamond Shield spell more than twenty times in a row, Andy felt his spiritual power running noticeably low. He set down his brush, placed the lid on the bowl, and retired to his meditation chamber to rest. This had been his routine for the past two or three years. Apart from the few days at the start of each month when the market was open, he generally spent his nights making talismans or cultivating, then rested for half the day. This was simply the reality of being a fifth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator—his cultivation was still too low to go without sleep for extended periods. For high-stage cultivators, days or even months of unbroken meditation were perfectly normal.
The following evening, Andy prepared two dozen sheets of blank talisman paper, planning to make a few more Fireball Talismans. But when he lifted the lid of the bowl, something happened that he would remember for the rest of his life.
A surge of refined spiritual energy wafted up from within the bowl. Andy drew a deep breath, and his entire body felt instantly soothed. When he looked more closely, he discovered that the cinnabar inside had not only retained its spiritual energy—it had grown more vibrant in color, and the spiritual energy it contained was remarkably potent, several times stronger than ordinary cinnabar.
For reasons he couldn't explain, the cinnabar's spiritual energy had increased so dramatically that it was an open question whether it could even still be used for talisman making. Andy suppressed the surge of shock and excitement in his chest, picked up his brush, dipped it into the transformed cinnabar, and began crafting one Fireball Talisman after another.
To his delight, the transformed cinnabar could indeed still be used. His success rate didn't seem to have changed, but even a casual comparison showed that the talismans made with this cinnabar contained noticeably more spiritual power than his previous ones.
For someone who made his living crafting talismans, this was cause for near-euphoria. The low-grade talisman market was crowded with sellers, and prices had long since been squeezed to the point where profit margins were razor-thin. If his talismans were clearly a cut above everyone else's, he would never have to worry about sales again. At his current skill level, he could easily produce around twenty talismans a day—six hundred a month. If he could sell them all, that would mean a profit of at least two hundred low-grade spirit stones per month.
Two hundred spirit stones a month—for a fifth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator like Andy, this was staggering. It meant he could take a Spirit Clarity Pill every three days, spend a day or two absorbing it, and then immediately take another, cultivating at essentially maximum efficiency. With pills practically becoming a daily snack, even someone with his terrible spirit root aptitude would see his cultivation advance at an extraordinary pace.
Andy had used cinnabar countless times before. Naturally, the cause of the transformation leapt to mind at once—it had to be connected to the mysterious bowl. The bowl's origins were already extraordinary, linked in ways he couldn't fathom to the ancient civilization of his past life. Now that he had discovered it could enhance the spiritual energy of cinnabar, his interest in the bowl intensified further. He was certain that enhancing cinnabar was not the full extent of its abilities. It was time for a series of proper experiments.
First, a replication test. He placed a fresh portion of cinnabar into the bowl, sealed the lid, and watched from outside using the Spiritual Eye Art. He detected nothing unusual on the bowl's exterior. An hour later, even Andy's considerable patience reached its limit. He opened the lid—and sure enough, the cinnabar's spiritual energy had increased significantly, though not quite to the level of the previous batch. After a moment's thought, Andy deduced that the difference was related to how long the cinnabar had been inside. He left it in, replaced the lid, and waited another hour.
This time, when he opened the lid, the cinnabar's spiritual energy was very nearly equal to the first batch—only marginally less.
Andy leapt to his feet. The bowl's ability to upgrade cinnabar was now a confirmed fact. He had a growing sense that his path of cultivation was about to take a very different turn.
He replaced the lid and continued letting the bowl nurture the cinnabar, but discovered that no matter how much longer he waited, the cinnabar's spiritual energy reached the same ceiling as before and would not rise further. There was evidently a limit to how much the bowl could enhance it.
Too excited to waste any more time on cinnabar, Andy moved on to a new set of experiments. If cinnabar could be enhanced, what about other things? He mentally listed dozens of items, sorted them into categories, and decided to start with mundane materials. For a cultivator, even the most precious mundane treasures were easy to obtain—they simply lacked spiritual energy and were therefore useless for cultivation. If this bowl could defy the natural order by imbuing objects with spiritual energy—turning ordinary jade into spirit stones, or transforming common gold and silver into spirit-infused gold essence and silver essence—then Andy would never want for anything in the cultivation world.
Unfortunately, he tested gold, jade, and ordinary rock one after another, and none showed any change whatsoever. Mundane objects remained mundane, without so much as a wisp of spiritual energy. The bowl could not simply bestow spiritual energy upon anything placed inside it.
Next, Andy tested a Diamond Talisman. If the bowl could upgrade talismans, he could produce mid- or high-grade talismans at low-grade cost. The profits would be astronomical. But that dream was short-lived as well. Two hours later, the talisman in the bowl was still a perfectly ordinary Diamond Talisman.
His next subject was a low-grade spirit stone. If the bowl could continuously enrich a low-grade spirit stone's energy until it became a mid-grade stone, it would be the ultimate investment—he would never worry about spirit stones again. With this thought firmly in mind, Andy placed a pale blue low-grade water-attribute spirit stone into the bowl and sealed the lid.
Half an hour later, his patience already worn thin, he opened the lid. The spirit stone's energy did seem slightly stronger—but only by a small margin. Not enough time? Andy wondered. He had been running experiments for two straight days and nights by now, and fatigue was creeping in. He replaced the lid and went to sleep.