Ria lifted the cloth from the second stand, and the hall's attention sharpened noticeably.
The first item had done its job—the atmosphere in the room shifted, and people found their seats with a sense of determination, realizing that the real competition was about to kick off.
What sat on the stand beneath the revealed cloth was a glass preservation case, and inside it, a single spirit herb, its leaves carrying the deep, almost luminous color of something that had grown undisturbed for a very long time.
"A Three-Hundred-Year Soul Nourishing Spirit Herb," Ria said, and the hall's temperature changed perceptibly. She described its qualities without embellishment: the resource use by Soul Manifestation cultivators for nourishing the spiritual consciousness, recovering mental exhaustion accumulated through prolonged cultivation, and serving as an essential ingredient in several high-grade pills that demanded this exact age and quality of material.
