Several virtual panels appeared before her at the same time. Xie Zhiyu widened her eyes, caught completely off guard.
Her gaze landed on the latest message that had appeared.
“System.” She called out to it. “What does the ** on this one mean?”
The previous messages were easy enough to understand, but this particular one left her puzzled.
The two characters hidden behind the symbols seemed to represent something important that could not be described.
The progress seems to have undergone a slight change.
Just that one sentence was enough to make her imagination run wild.
The system’s voice, however, sounded troubled.
“Host, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s just—”
It suddenly fell silent before finishing its sentence, and Xie Zhiyu immediately understood.
“Are you not allowed to tell me?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” The system immediately answered.
A glimmer flashed through Xie Zhiyu’s eyes, and she gained another piece of understanding.
From the moment she had encountered the system until now, there was only one thing it had been unable to talk about: matters related to the plot of the novel.
If that was the case, then this newly appeared virtual panel was also related to the plot. Perhaps its importance was even extremely high.
But what exactly was it?
Knowing that she could not find out the answer for now, Xie Zhiyu could only suppress her curiosity and turn her attention to the other messages.
The first thing she looked at was the商城.
Because this livestream had gone so well and the livestream’s popularity had directly surpassed ten thousand, the shop had consequently unlocked quite a few new items.
Xie Zhiyu roughly browsed through the newly unlocked products.
Aside from some newly unlocked special spiritual roots, most of the new products were related to pills.
Her fingertip tapped on one of the product images, and its description immediately popped up.
[Body Tempering Pill (Basic Version): Greatly increases physical strength and slightly increases the speed of absorbing spiritual energy. Cheap and effective, it is the ideal choice for body cultivators looking to increase their strength.]
[Required Popularity Points: 300 points/pill.]
“So expensive?”
Xie Zhiyu raised an eyebrow and tapped on the product beside it.
[Spirit Tempering Pill (Basic Version): Increases the range of spiritual energy perception, allowing the user to sense the spiritual energy in the air more easily. Suitable for cultivators below the Foundation Establishment stage. Limited to three uses.]
[Required Popularity Points: 3,000 points/pill.]
Seeing that number, Xie Zhiyu immediately sucked in a cold breath.
“How much?”
Her voice rose in shock.
“3,000 popularity points? Why don’t you just rob people?”
She checked her account balance.
11,268.
She could only afford three Spirit Tempering Pills.
She immediately felt helpless.
What a joke.
She had worked herself to the bone to do two livestreams, yet she still had to painstakingly calculate her purchases just to afford a few pills.
What could she say?
She could only remain speechless.
The system comforted her. “Host, you’ve already done very well.”
“It’s just a little unfortunate. If that guy with the ID ‘One After Another’ hadn’t sent so many gifts and caused the livestream to crash, your popularity points might have reached several tens of thousands by now.”
It felt sorry for all the popularity points that had not yet had time to be converted.
“You can’t put it that way.” Xie Zhiyu opened the backend of her Yinfu account and revealed the amount displayed there—it was over six million yuan.
This was all the income she had earned from the livestream.
She said sincerely, “After all, earning over six million yuan from a single livestream… I don’t think even the platform expected me to be this good at making money.”
This was her income before taxes. The amount would not be quite so high after taxes, but there was no denying that it was still an enormous sum.
Perhaps before today, no one could have imagined that someone would actually send such an outrageous amount of gifts within just a few seconds.
It was understandable that the livestream had crashed.
Although she had not been able to capitalize on the subsequent surge in popularity, she had still gained quite a lot.
The system agreed with her and sighed emotionally.
“I can only say that your strategy of freely teaching cultivation formulas was absolutely brilliant, Host.”
Thinking back to how opposed it had initially been when Xie Zhiyu suggested giving away a cultivation formula, the system felt that it had truly been foolish.
Using one cultivation formula to make the livestream’s popularity skyrocket—wasn’t that much easier than racking its brains to increase popularity itself?
Besides, the formula the host had given them was only a weakened version.
But this was not something it and Xie Zhiyu had done intentionally. They genuinely could not withstand the complete formula.
Or rather, top-tier cultivation formulas required top-tier talent to go with them.
Only someone like their host, who possessed a top-tier spiritual root and extraordinary talent, could completely master an entire cultivation formula.
People like that were far too rare.
And even taking another ten thousand steps back, so what if it and its host gave out the complete formula? There were plenty of top-tier cultivation formulas. The one the host had given away was merely one of them.
Their family had plenty of resources, so giving away one wasn’t a big deal.
After all, everything else still belonged to their host.
The biased system thought smugly to itself.
Completely unaware of all the twists and turns in the system’s thoughts, Xie Zhiyu was pointing at the pills and complaining.
“System, your pills are way too expensive. Who can afford them?”
“There’s nothing I can do. Pills are just expensive.” The system declared that it was powerless.
“This isn’t just expensive.” Xie Zhiyu argued reasonably. “At these prices, I can’t afford to buy them either.”
“Are you really willing to let your sales suffer just because of the prices?” she sincerely asked.
The system fell silent.
It was a livestream shopping system. Most of its energy came from the products Xie Zhiyu purchased from the shop. If she bought fewer products, its energy could not increase by much.
Now she was complaining that the pills were too expensive.
The system looked left and right, thought for a moment, and finally adjusted the prices.
“Fine. Host, you’re right.”
Xie Zhiyu then watched as the prices of all the products on the page dropped by several hundred popularity points.
“This is the maximum amount I can reduce them,” the system emphasized.
There was actually still a little room for adjustment, but surely it couldn’t make absolutely no profit, right?
After saying this guiltily, it fell silent and quietly watched Xie Zhiyu’s reaction.
“Thanks.”
Unexpectedly, Xie Zhiyu did not ask it to lower the prices any further. Instead, she genuinely began calculating her popularity points while purchasing the products.
This made the system feel guilty.
It awkwardly asked, “You’re not going to ask?”
“Ask what?” Xie Zhiyu flipped through the shop and silently purchased ten Earth-grade low-tier spiritual roots, five Earth-grade high-tier spiritual roots, and three Human-grade low-tier spiritual roots.
Her account balance of over ten thousand points instantly dropped to a little over eight thousand.
These were the spiritual roots she was preparing as inventory for her next livestream.
She said casually, “After all, we’re on the same side. If you earn a little and I earn a little, everyone is happy.”
The system wanted energy, while she wanted to get the best value when buying things. They could both take a step back and live in harmony.
She continued calculating the products.
After finishing with the spiritual roots, she moved on to the pills.
She chose not to purchase the Spirit Tempering Pills, instead buying three Body Tempering Pills.
The descriptions of the two pills were fairly similar, but the Body Tempering Pills not only increased physical strength, they also slightly increased the speed of spiritual energy absorption. Combined with their lower price, they were, no matter how you looked at it, an extremely cost-effective choice.
After purchasing these products, she was left with just over 7,000 popularity points.
Although seven thousand-plus points might sound like a lot, considering the products she had currently unlocked, she could probably spend it all with just a few purchases.
That was because, aside from unlocking pills this time, she had also unlocked quite a few other things related to pill refinement.
For example, pill furnaces.
Just like spiritual roots, the unlocked pill furnaces came in different grades. Even the lowest-grade Earth-grade low-tier pill furnace cost 5,000 popularity points.
Aside from pill furnaces, she had also unlocked several basic pill recipes.
[Body Tempering Pill (Basic Version): Simple medicinal ingredients and an idiot-proof refining process. As long as you have hands, you can make it.]
[Required Popularity Points: 6,888.]
[This product may only be purchased once.]
The price was within her expectations.
Of course, the recipe for the Spirit Tempering Pill had also been unlocked, but its price was over 70,000 popularity points. Forget about buying it—even dreaming about it was impossible.
These newly unlocked products were like exquisite and beautiful objects displayed inside glass showcases. They made Xie Zhiyu’s heart itch, yet she had no way of buying them.
She looked through them again and again, agonizing over her choices for half an hour before finally deciding to purchase the Body Tempering Pill recipe and another item.
[Low-grade Spirit Gathering Stone: A low-grade spirit stone. Once placed, it will slightly increase the concentration of spiritual energy within a certain range for seven days.]
[Required Popularity Points: 500/piece.]
These two items together cost just over 7,000 popularity points. After carefully calculating everything, Xie Zhiyu was left with a balance of only 9.
It looked pitiful.
Out of sight, out of mind. Xie Zhiyu simply closed the shop.
Of course, she hadn’t forgotten about the spiritual roots she had sold during this livestream.
She had already given the addresses to the system, and the system had long since shipped the products out. There was no need for her to worry about them at all.
What she was more interested in now were the two items she had just exchanged for.
In her left hand was a very thin sheet of paper, while in her right was a silver stone about the size of her palm.
She placed the stone on the desk and first focused her attention on the Body Tempering Pill recipe in her left hand.
To prevent others from peeking at its contents, the surface of the paper was covered by a layer of concealing golden light.
Xie Zhiyu reached out and gently brushed her hand across its surface.
The golden light dissipated, revealing the writing underneath.
Just as the product description had said, the Body Tempering Pill did not require many ingredients. All in all, the paper only contained two lines.
Moreover, considering Xie Zhiyu’s cultivation level, the required materials were very easy to obtain.
She roughly looked through the recipe. There was only one ingredient that required a spiritual plant, and coincidentally, that spiritual plant was directly related to her.
Because the spiritual plant listed in the recipe was none other than the petals of the Venus flytrap.
Seeing those words, Xie Zhiyu couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. Her gaze shifted toward the Venus flytrap lying on the table.
The system sighed in amazement.
“What a coincidence.”
Although the pill recipe had been provided by the system, it possessed far too many recipes. Moreover, it wasn’t a pill cultivator itself, so naturally it had never paid much attention to the ingredients required by this particular recipe.
Thus, it had never expected that the spiritual plant its host had casually brought home would actually turn out to be the most important ingredient for the Body Tempering Pill.
If this wasn’t a coincidence, then what was?
Thinking about the two additional points of Luck Value that Xie Zhiyu had gained after ending the livestream, the system couldn’t help sighing silently.
Her Luck Value hadn’t even completely returned, yet her luck was already this good.
If all of it returned…
Wouldn’t she be unstoppable?
The system sighed again.
“I feel like I hit the jackpot.”
Back then, when it had randomly chosen a host, it had actually managed to bind itself to a super-incredible powerhouse who could continuously provide it with energy without requiring it to worry about anything herself.