Naling Pavilion

After all, everyone here could afford the entrance fee. Spending a few more spirit stones on food and drink wasn’t exactly going to put them in a difficult position. They could simply gather more spiritual herbs the next time they went out and earn it back.

Wasn’t the point of earning spirit stones to make one’s cultivation and daily life more comfortable? So, spending spirit stones on delicious, refreshing, and attractive food that put them in a good mood was perfectly reasonable.

That was how everyone consoled themselves.

In its own way, this street had achieved the feat of plucking every goose that passed by. Yet those who had been plucked were still delighted as they took sips of sweet, icy drinks and bites of soft, fragrant pastries, eagerly looking forward to the street’s next new offerings.

Lin Xiao strolled along at an unhurried pace. When he had climbed to roughly one-seventh of the giant tree’s total height, he spotted quite a few cultivators dressed in the pale-yellow robes of the Zhenyang Sect handing out flyers ahead.

He noticed that most of the cultivators who came here were in the late Qi Refining stage or the Foundation Establishment stage.

From this point onward, all kinds of small shops began to appear, and the things they sold and purchased became far more varied. The quality of their goods also seemed considerably higher. Unlike the rows of little houses on the streets below, which mostly bought the lowest-grade herbs and spiritual plants for alchemy, these shops offered much more diverse wares.

Naturally, their prices were higher as well. The cheap goods found at the very bottom of the city were virtually nowhere to be seen here. Perhaps this was what kept most cash-strapped early- and mid-stage Qi Refining cultivators from coming up.

Although many cultivators in this city relied primarily on gathering spiritual plants and herbs for their income, what cultivators of different cultivation levels could gather differed greatly.

Many spiritual plants and herbs required specialized tools, such as spirit hoes, to harvest. Quite a few also had unique harvesting methods. Moreover, almost all medicinal herbs needed special preservation techniques once they were removed from the environment in which they grew.

These three factors alone created a threshold based on cultivation level.

And meeting these requirements generally required spirit stones.

There was no need to mention spirit hoes and other tools. They came in different grades, and naturally, their prices varied accordingly.

As for the special harvesting methods of various herbs, the cultivation world generally had places that specifically sold manuals recording them. Those required spirit stones to purchase as well. The more precious the spiritual plants and herbs whose harvesting techniques were recorded, the higher the price of the manual.

Preservation methods required even more explanation. The most common method was to store herbs in jade boxes. But these couldn’t be ordinary jade boxes made from mortal-grade jade. They had to be spirit-jade boxes capable of locking in spiritual energy.

These jade boxes also came in different grades. Many were even consumable items: their ability to seal in spiritual energy declined with the number of uses and the amount of time they had been used. Some of the cheaper boxes would become completely ineffective after ten uses, eight uses, or even just a few dozen hours. If they were used to store high-quality spiritual plants or medicinal herbs, they would be consumed even faster.

Therefore, even the seemingly simplest task of gathering spiritual plants and herbs was not a cost-free venture for ordinary cultivators.

Other cultivators were nothing like Lin Xiao, who possessed a private treasury where anything could be stored. Even when he lacked the proper tools for certain herbs and did not know their special harvesting methods, he would usually take the easy route and move the entire small space containing the spiritual plant or herb—roots, soil, and all—into his private treasury. The treasury would automatically separate and store everything appropriately.

It was only after Senior Liao had explained many of the cultivation world’s common practices to him that Lin Xiao, with the system backing him, realized how crude his methods had been in the past.

Lin Xiao moved along with the crowd, a flyer handed out by a Zhenyang Sect disciple soon finding its way into his hands.

He glanced at it and saw that it contained a purchasing list for spiritual plants and medicinal herbs, along with recruitment notices.

The recruitment was not for accepting new sect disciples or members. They were simply hiring outside cultivators to do odd jobs for their sect.

For a brief moment, Lin Xiao felt as if he were seeing the way their Lingxian Sect currently operated in the mortal world, working with various imperial families and sects.

He casually put the flyer away and continued forward. Soon, he saw a tall building made from tree branches.

The building occupied a considerable area and looked somewhat like a restaurant, but the sign hanging outside suggested that it was not a place for eating and drinking.

The building was called the Spirit-Gathering Pavilion. A price list stood beside it as well.

The prices were divided into four grades: Heaven, Earth, Black, and Yellow.

A Yellow-grade room cost five spirit stones per day, a Black-grade room cost seven, an Earth-grade room cost nine, and a Heaven-grade room cost fifteen.

Compared to a restaurant, it looked more like the kind of cultivation chamber one would expect to find in the cultivation world. Lin Xiao was simply puzzled because Zhenyang City did not possess a spiritual vein or even a spiritual-vein node.

He promptly chose a nearby cultivator who looked unoccupied and easygoing and asked him about it.

The cultivator smiled at him, taking in his youthful appearance. “First time in Zhenyang City, little brother?”

Lin Xiao nodded.

The cultivator pointed toward the Spirit-Gathering Pavilion ahead. “You may not know this, but the Spirit-Gathering Pavilion provides cultivators with a place to cultivate that is rich in wood spiritual energy. There are five of them throughout Zhenyang City. This is the lowest-level pavilion. The higher the pavilion, the greater the concentration of spiritual energy inside.”

“Zhenyang City is actually willing to use its sect’s own spiritual vein to run these Spirit-Gathering Pavilions?” Since he was presenting himself as a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator, Lin Xiao could not directly tell the man that he had discovered there was no spiritual vein or spiritual-vein node here, so he asked the question in that way.

The cultivator explained, “Since you’ve come here, little brother, you should know that Zhenyang City was built by Elder Danling using her true form as a tree spirit. The Spirit-Gathering Pavilion isn’t operated using the Zhenyang Sect’s spiritual vein. It’s the result of Elder Danling’s own ability.”

“I heard that Elder Danling possesses a kind of innate divine ability that can refine and transform the mixed spiritual energy outside into purified wood spiritual energy with extremely little loss. Not only that, she can further refine that wood spiritual energy, turning it into wood spiritual energy even purer than the purified wood spiritual energy around us. Here, this pure wood spiritual energy is what supplies the Spirit-Gathering Pavilions.”

Lin Xiao understood at once.

What did it mean to refine and transform mixed spiritual energy into wood spiritual energy with extremely little loss? It meant that Elder Danling was not merely extracting wood spiritual energy. She could turn all other types of spiritual energy into wood spiritual energy as well. In other words, she could obtain several times more wood spiritual energy than the total amount naturally present in the surrounding environment.

By that calculation, the concentration would surpass even that of a low-grade spiritual vein.

And that was without considering her ability to produce even purer wood spiritual energy. Greater purity meant greater cultivation efficiency, which would be enormously beneficial to any cultivator or demonic beast attuned to wood spiritual energy.

Who would have thought that Elder Danling’s innate divine ability would be so powerful?

Lin Xiao wondered whether this innate divine ability belonged only to Elder Danling, or whether it was shared by the entire tree-demon race to which she belonged.