Andy had a dream of spectacular ambition.
In the dream, he had already reached Core Formation. He stood holding the Heaven and Earth Bowl, routing a crowd of Foundation Establishment cultivators who fled in every direction. One cultivator in particular—a shriveled-looking man in his forties surnamed Lü—he tormented until the man was on his knees, kowtowing and begging for mercy without end.
Andy awoke from this very satisfying dream and immediately opened the bowl's lid.
A brilliant blue, faintly translucent spirit stone sat quietly inside. Judging by the water-attribute spiritual energy radiating from it, its power was a full several dozen times greater than a low-grade water spirit stone. Andy reined in his excitement, replaced the lid, and continued nurturing this stone that he could no longer call low-grade but wasn't quite sure he could call mid-grade either.
About a day and a night later, he found that the water spirit stone in the bowl had become partially transparent. Though he had never seen a mid-grade water spirit stone in person, he could say with certainty that the stone before him now contained spiritual energy no less than that of an ordinary mid-grade water spirit stone.
The experiment didn't stop there. Could the stone be enhanced further? With this question in mind, Andy pressed on. The spiritual energy in the stone kept climbing, seemingly without end.
Five or six days later, Andy held in his hand a deep blue, luminous, semi-transparent spirit stone and examined it closely. Can this really be a high-grade spirit stone? The spiritual energy truly is immense and remarkably pure.
He gripped the stone and drew up the slightest hint of his internal spiritual power. Immediately, a powerful surge of spiritual energy flowed from the stone through his hand and began circulating throughout his body. Andy quickly activated the Art of the Chasing Wave, converting this foreign energy into his own. It took him over ten minutes to fully absorb that single pulse of energy, and afterward his entire body thrummed with a profound sense of comfort. That brief session was equivalent to three or four full days of normal meditation. If he took the time to completely drain this single water spirit stone, the amount of cultivation it would save him could be measured in years—possibly more than a decade of grinding practice.
Having obtained a high-grade water spirit stone, Andy's mood actually calmed down. A treasure this rare was something no Qi Refinement cultivator could legitimately possess. If anyone discovered he had such a thing, the consequences would be fatal. The principle of "a man's guilt lies in the jade he carries" was one Andy understood perfectly well. Given the value of a high-grade spirit stone in the cultivation world, even a Core Formation cultivator would never dare use one carelessly.
Killing and robbing fellow cultivators for their possessions was hardly uncommon—it was endemic. Setting aside cultivators who died of natural old age, those killed over treasure accounted for the majority of all cultivator deaths. If not for Liuyun Market's strict prohibition against fighting, enforced by several Foundation Establishment cultivators who maintained order year-round, with the combined might of the Liu clan, the Yun clan, and the Leaving Fire Sect standing behind it all, a low-level cultivator like Andy who could barely defend himself would never have dared show his face. Even so, outside the market's boundaries, a cultivator caught alone and noticed by the wrong sort of person faced grim odds indeed. Every faction publicly claimed to crack down severely on robbery and murder, but as long as no one was caught in the act, there was no evidence, no way to find the culprit, and the so-called crackdowns remained empty words.
Andy sat down and coolly considered how best to make use of this heaven-defying Heaven and Earth Bowl.
His first thought had been to upgrade cinnabar—but that was clearly a waste of the bowl's potential. He also worried that other cultivators might notice something unusual about his talismans and grow suspicious. After brief consideration, he abandoned the idea. Using the bowl to upgrade low-grade spirit stones to high-grade ones was immensely profitable on paper, but high-grade stones were too dangerous to spend openly. Using them for private meditation was viable, yet at his current cultivation level, absorbing the energy of a single high-grade spirit stone would take him months. That wasn't maximizing the bowl's utility either. Mid-grade spirit stones, on the other hand, were something Andy could cautiously spend one or two at a time when shopping at the market—so long as he didn't do it too often and didn't attract attention. The average Qi Refinement cultivator's entire net worth ran between a hundred and a few hundred spirit stones. Only the rarest handful of cultivators at the twelfth or thirteenth layer possessed a thousand or more, and every last one of those was a core disciple of a major sect or clan.
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To precisely understand the bowl's capabilities, Andy ran careful experiments on several more low-grade spirit stones. He confirmed that stones of any elemental attribute could be enhanced, and that the rate of enhancement accelerated over time. From low-grade to mid-grade took about one full day and night. From low-grade to high-grade took only seven days and seven nights. But once a low-grade stone had reached high-grade, no further nurturing in the bowl would increase its energy. It simply maintained high-grade levels indefinitely. The bowl's enhancement ability had a ceiling.
Having mastered the bowl's capabilities, Andy carefully cultivated a batch of mid-grade spirit stones and a few high-grade ones, then embarked on a unique path of cultivation.
First, he went to the Cloud Immortal Lodge and prepaid five years' rent, explaining that he intended to go into seclusion for an extended period and did not wish to be disturbed. Then he visited the market and purchased a black-veiled hooded cloak and a new storage pouch. The cloak was no mundane garment—it was a cleverly made artifact with a single function: blocking other cultivators' spiritual sense from penetrating the veil, concealing the wearer's true appearance and preventing identification. Quite a few people in Liuyun Market wore such cloaks—some feared running into enemies, others simply didn't want their faces seen. Twenty spirit stones for this kind of artifact was a worthwhile investment. As for the new storage pouch, his old one was starting to wear out and lacked the capacity he now needed. The new one was expensive, but essential.
These purchases ate up several dozen spirit stones—the most he had ever spent at one time. He didn't dare buy anything else, and headed back to his lodgings. There, he changed into a grey robe and a pair of slightly ill-fitting tall leather boots, then put on the black cloak with its veil drawn across his face. With that, Andy was immediately indistinguishable from the cloaked cultivators commonly seen around Liuyun Market. No one would recognize him.
Liuyun Market had two larger pill shops, and the Wondrous Pill Hall was one of them. Its proprietor, Zhang Yu, was a man in his sixties who looked barely past fifty. He had earned the nickname "Zhang the Pill Appraiser." Though he was neither an alchemist himself nor particularly high in cultivation—only the seventh or eighth layer of Qi Refinement—he had been an avid reader of pill-related texts and appraisals since childhood, and possessed an extraordinarily comprehensive knowledge of alchemy and the effects of every kind of elixir. He had been hired as the shop's manager and had held the position for over forty years. Countless pills had passed through his hands, and he was widely regarded as the foremost pill connoisseur in all of Liuyun Market. It was said that any pill placed before Zhang the Pill Appraiser needed only a single sniff for him to identify its name, effects, ingredients, and quality.
On this particular day, a figure in a grey robe and black-veiled cloak entered the Wondrous Pill Hall and asked in a low, husky voice whether they had Spirit Clarity Pills in stock. Zhang Yu glanced at the cloaked figure and detected a fifth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator—someone for whom Spirit Clarity Pills were indeed highly suitable. He quoted the standard price of twenty spirit stones per pill without hurry.
The grey-robed figure hesitated, then asked in a hoarse voice: "If I pay with a mid-grade spirit stone, could I get an extra pill?"
So the customer had money after all—a mid-grade spirit stone, no less. The standard exchange rate for a mid-grade stone was a hundred and five low-grade spirit stones. Spending one on just five Spirit Clarity Pills was indeed a slight loss for the buyer. But giving him an extra pill would cut into the shop's margin.
Zhang Yu considered briefly and answered readily: "How about this—you can purchase five Spirit Clarity Pills with the mid-grade spirit stone, and this shop will give you seven low-grade spirit stones in change. That's about as thin as our margins go. Alternatively, if you'd like more product, one mid-grade stone will get you five Spirit Clarity Pills plus twenty pills of Spirit Clarity Sub-grade."
"Sub-grade?" The cloaked figure's voice rose slightly, clearly interested.