She couldn't be blamed for losing composure. The vivid cluster of multicolored crystal formations pulsing with dense spiritual energy was enough to stun anyone.
If these weren't spirit stones, then what were they?
But how could such a vast deposit be hidden beneath Xiaozhu Mountain?
Song Miaozhu had once wondered the same thing. Since spirit stones existed, perhaps the underground world still held spirit stone veins like in the previous cultivation era.
She had long since received reports from her little paper servants stationed in the SEIU. Apparently, the agency had shared the same suspicions. Ever since the recovery of spiritual energy, they had tried everything to detect changes underground.
But the results were fruitless.
At that time, Song Miaozhu hadn't yet developed the Earth-Piercing Paper Drill, a spirit tool capable of tunneling through solid ground. So she let the idea go.
Yet now, standing inside this cavernous underground space, it seemed that in the one place no one had thought to truly explore, a spirit stone vein had taken shape.
Her mind buzzed with possibilities. But as she circled the outer rim of the deposit, something felt off.
The structure resembled a mountain. In fact, it looked remarkably like Xiaozhu Mountain itself.
What was more suspicious, the "base" of the deposit abruptly ended in a straight line.
Song Miaozhu tunneled toward the surface along the edge. She emerged precisely at the boundary where the Ninefold Paper Spirit Formation enclosed Xiaozhu Mountain's aura.
All these clues pointed to one conclusion—this so-called "vein" of spirit stones was not naturally formed.
Her thoughts turned at once to the spiritual rain and mist that had seeped into the ground for years.
To confirm her theory, she tunneled from the mountain's summit down to the depths below.
There, she saw it with her own eyes. Wisps of spirit rain flowed deep into the earth and soaked into the crystal veins. As the moisture was absorbed, the stones glowed more brightly.
Mystery solved. All the leftover spiritual energy had condensed into rain and pooled underground, gradually forming a man-made spirit stone deposit.
And spirit energy drawn from a stone was far easier to absorb than from the air.
Even if this new deposit couldn't rival the towering hills of high-grade spirit stones she had stored in her ghost-run treasury, it was still an unexpected windfall.
Now that she understood the origin of these underground formations, one thing became clear. The current cultivation era might never produce naturally occurring spiritual stone veins again.
If the transformation required spiritual energy so dense that it liquefied, then seeped underground and crystalized over time, then Xiaozhu Mountain was likely the only place on earth where such conditions existed.
After all, even during the earlier years of the recovery, when ambient spiritual energy was abundant, no region had ever reached a concentration high enough to form spirit rain or dew.
Any buildup was always consumed during the next lull.
In this era, cultivation was far more accessible than before, but spiritual surges were far more stingy.
Reaching the peak of cultivation—becoming a true immortal of legend—was now harder than ever.
To have even a sliver of hope, one had to gather as many cultivation resources as possible and climb the path one step at a time.
Song Miaozhu didn't know what immortals truly looked like. She had never seen one from the previous era. But she believed one thing: in her spiritual platform, she needed to build a staircase of spirit crystal steps high enough to reach the radiant multicolored gate that had existed within her spiritual platform since the moment she began cultivating.
Was that the gate to the immortal realm?
Maybe. But she wouldn't know unless she reached it.
She didn't mine the spirit stones beneath Xiaozhu Mountain. Not yet. The world still wasn't starving for spiritual energy.
For now, her only goal was to ascend as quickly as possible. If she could reach the multicolored gate before the last of the spiritual energy vanished from the world, all the better. If not, then she would at least get close enough—before she ran out of the top-grade spirit stones she had stashed away.
To gather more energy, Song Miaozhu diverted another batch of Spirit-Gathering Dolls and tunneled underground using the Earth-Piercing Paper Drill. She buried them throughout the mountain.
These dolls absorbed spiritual energy from every corner of the world and funneled it into their paper bowls. When the bowls overflowed, the excess leaked out.
The Ninefold Paper Spirit Formation gathered that energy again, drawing it to the mountaintop and turning it into spiritual rain. The droplets then fell back down, nurturing the hidden crystal deposit below.
At first, when she brought back all those relics from overseas, Song Miaozhu had thought it was too many.
But now, after researching spirit souls and extracting their essence, she realized the consumption was immense.
Over two million spirit souls had gone into refining new paper-crafting methods and designs. That work had finally pushed the white crystal staircase in her spiritual platform toward completion.
As she continued developing new techniques, striving to ascend further, a congratulatory notice arrived from the SEIU. A cultivator had successfully advanced to the peak of the Blue Spirit Stage and broken through to the Yellow Spirit Stage.
She took a brief moment to check the global spiritual surge data, only to find disappointment.
That breakthrough hadn't triggered a worldwide surge.
"So only breakthroughs above the White Spirit Stage can cause global spiritual eruptions," she muttered.
That was terrible news.
Breaking through to the Yellow Spirit Stage was a hundred times easier than reaching the White Spirit Stage.
In other words, once the spiritual tide entered its final phase and natural surges vanished, breakthroughs would no longer be enough to replenish the world's spiritual energy.
And without that, everything would collapse into a vicious cycle. No breakthroughs, no surges. No surges, no energy. And once the last of the spiritual energy was gone, the world would slip into a new dark age—one without cultivation at all.
Song Miaozhu sighed and went back to harvesting spirit souls.
Thankfully, she was close to a breakthrough herself. Her next step would trigger a global spiritual eruption, just as it had before. That would buy more time for everyone.
Xiaozhu Mountain would gather more spiritual energy and refine more stones. Other cultivators would also be able to ascend on the wave of spiritual density.
Once she had gathered enough souls and begun designing her next paper creations, she could clearly feel it—this breakthrough would be far harder than the last.
Still, she wasn't worried. One new paper design wasn't enough? Then she would craft two. Or three. Or eight. Or ten.
She still had a trove of relics, and a stockpile of spirit souls to fuel her ascent.
With steady accumulation, everything would fall into place.
And when the first jet-black crystal coalesced at the top of her spiritual staircase, a fresh global eruption of spiritual energy swept across the world.
Cultivators who had been worrying about longer intervals and weaker surges finally breathed a sigh of relief and basked in the tide of power.
The spiritual eruption at Xiaozhu Mountain was so immense that it formed clouds of pure energy, locked within the mountain by the Ninefold Paper Spirit Formation. Rain poured down without end, dripping into the earth and feeding the spirit stones below.
Under that nourishment, the spirit stone vein buried deep beneath the mountain rose to a whole new level of quality.
===
Wait, Miaozu... You haven't taken any disciples or adopted children yet...
Why do I feel panicked?