As soon as Zhao Huoyan received the message, he replied excitedly, "We want them!"
Watching the international cultivation scene fall into chaos over rogue spiritual items, they had felt incredibly fortunate to receive early warning. It allowed them to centralize and secure their artifacts in time.
Even so, China had far too many relics, and the number with potential to evolve into spiritual items was staggering.
During the spiritual surge, local SEIU branches across the country had poured in manpower and resources to ensure that their artifacts were both protected and allowed to evolve in a controlled manner. That left them too understaffed to deal with the wild relics scattered in the wilderness. They had no choice but to mobilize the public to hunt them down.
Rogue spiritual items were troublesome, but the spirit souls they produced were undeniably valuable.
Inside The SEIU, there were already several cases of cultivators breaking through bottlenecks after refining spirit souls.
Unfortunately, demand far outpaced supply.
At every internal meeting, someone would bring up the batch of relics in Master Song Miaozhu's hands, proposing they be reclaimed.
At first, they argued that there was no way one person could make full use of such a large collection. It was a waste of resources.
Later, they insisted that she couldn't possibly manage so many relics once they evolved, and that sooner or later, something would go wrong.
Every day, a dedicated team monitored the situation at Xiaozhu Mountain.
And yet, it remained calm as always. Not a single rogue item had escaped the mountain to cause trouble.
By contrast, even The SEIU—with its vast manpower—had experienced multiple incidents of relics breaking containment across different branches.
Those internal critics were only kept in check because the director held firm.
The director's confidence rested on one thing—Song Miaozhu had once mentioned she might sell spirit souls.
When no follow-up came for a long time, doubts began to stir within the SEIU.
But if they could begin purchasing large quantities of souls from Master Song on a regular basis, those dissenting voices would vanish on their own.
After all, nurturing spiritual items required not only vast amounts of energy but also constant supervision and management. Hunting rogue items took time and effort too. In the end, it was the remnant that mattered most.
If you could spend money and skip straight to the reward, why wouldn't you?
And once the remnant was in their hands, wasn't that the same as acquiring the essence of the spiritual item itself?
So Zhao Huoyan didn't hesitate before replying, "We want them."
Of course, he still had to do his job and try negotiating a better deal.
[Zhao Huoyan]:If we buy in bulk, can you give us a small discount?
[Miaow Zhu]:Nope~ If you can take them all, I'll sell them to you. If you can't, I'll just list them on the Spirit Market window.
[Zhao Huoyan]:We'll take them all! We absolutely can!
He wasn't surprised that his haggling failed. In all his years working with Master Song Miaozhu, not once had he managed to bargain on price.
These two types of souls—one for repelling evil, one for warding peace—were incredibly practical.
There might be no ghosts left in the world, but Yin energy still lingered, especially in buried tombs yet to be excavated.
To suppress the chaos brought on by rogue relics, artifact digs across the country were being fast-tracked. Spirit souls with evil-repelling effects could be used to craft items that cleared out lingering Yin energy.
As for the peace-warding ones, they were even more sought after. Some rogue relics were truly wild and unruly. Even when managed under controlled conditions, there was no guarantee they could be subdued without casualties—let alone the wild ones.
Spirit items crafted from peace-warding souls could block disasters and save lives.
Both types were immensely valuable. So what if they cost a bit more? Besides, Master Song Miaozhu had always exchanged contribution points for cash, rarely for spiritual items. There was no risk of her cleaning out The SEIU's artifact stores just because she amassed too many points.
Having convinced himself, Zhao Huoyan quickly began pushing the transaction forward.
[Zhao Huoyan]:When can we arrange the trade? I'll submit a funding request immediately.
[Miaow Zhu]:Today. Still at the Anshou Hall Paper Shop. That alright?
[Zhao Huoyan]:Perfect!
He was more than eager.
Song Miaozhu, too, wanted to clear out these souls that were now useless to her. Others could make far better use of them, and she could exchange them for more spirit stones to stockpile. It would also free up more space in her spiritual platform to store new souls.
Two hours later, she arrived at the Anshou Hall Paper Shop riding a brilliantly colored paper phoenix. Once the contribution points—1.684 billion in total—hit her account, she immediately used spiritual energy to extract the souls from her spiritual platform and handed them to Zhao Huoyan.
He stored them in his own spiritual platform without delay.
"All done. I'll let you know when I have more," Song Miaozhu said, ready to leave as soon as the deal wrapped up.
But Zhao Huoyan quickly called her back.
"Master Song, there's something important we'd like to ask. We need your guidance."
"Guidance?" she raised an eyebrow. "Sure, ask away. But I name my price first. You pay, I answer. Simple."
With the looming end of the spiritual tide on her mind, her money-minded instincts were in full swing again.
Zhao Huoyan was just relieved she was willing to talk. "Everyone's seen the glow over Xiaozhu Mountain. That much spiritual energy should be more than enough to evolve a massive batch of relics, right?
We just want to know—how do you keep them all obedient?
At this point, the rogue relics have become a nightmare to manage. One slip, and we're dealing with a major disaster."
"That question, huh?" Song Miaozhu paused, then gave in to temptation.
"I can tell you, but fair warning—it probably won't be of much use to you. Still want to hear it? Since it's not exactly a big secret, I'll only charge the price of one evil-repelling remnant. Payment first."
Zhao Huoyan hesitated briefly, then nodded and transferred 4 million contribution points.
You never knew. Maybe it would help.
"I keep the relics in the Underworld. No spiritual energy there, so they don't evolve on their own. I decide when to bring them out, how many to bring out, and how much spiritual energy they get exposed to. I let only a few evolve at a time, collect their souls, then rotate in the next batch."
She said it plainly.
Zhao Huoyan wore a brooch shaped like a Truth Cicada. The artifact remained inert. No lies detected.
Which meant she was telling the truth.
He felt a wave of disappointment.
Since the ghost realm had gone silent, no one had been able to contact it, let alone store artifacts there. As for controlling spiritual exposure to regulate the pace of evolution, The SEIU had tried that long ago.
It just hadn't worked very well.
After all, in the human realm, the only way to reduce ambient energy was to have cultivators absorb it.
During the calm phase, this worked. Energy consumption outpaced replenishment.
But during a surge, cultivators had to craft or train to absorb energy. The more they trained, the more energy surged forth in return.