Chapter 37: The Closed-System System Has Stolen Too Much Mass From the Greater World

Thirty-five spirit stones to buy one piece of alchemical material for weapon forging.

This thing? Basically impossible.

The Wang family’s face value with Wu Jinyan only extends to him being willing to smile and speak to Yulou—but he would never let Yulou lose even a single spirit stone.

“Yulou, you should know that in recent years, prices for all kinds of spiritual items and materials have skyrocketed. Thirty-five spirit stones won’t buy you even a basic forging material.

How about this—if you have anything else you can trade for spirit stones, I’ll take a look. The Ghost Market doesn’t pay taxes to Qingxi Fang, so I can give you the best price.”

The cultivation economy of Wunan is extremely peculiar: even slightly better cultivation resources are in severe shortage, and spirit stones—the currency of the cultivation world—are also in short supply.

It’s a double overlap of insufficient supply and insufficient demand.

But major clans, various sects, and the Immortal Alliance maintain their own internal circular economic systems; combined with Wunan’s unique governance model, this creates an economic scissors gap where organizations exploit cultivators outside their ranks, and large organizations exploit smaller ones.

Applying this logic, when the Red Lantern Society delegated its Merit Hall branches to subordinate Qi Refining market towns, it effectively established a system of harvesting from all its vassals and lone cultivators within its sphere of influence.

In essence, the harvesting system centered on the Red Lantern Society’s closed-loop system has stolen too much mass from the greater world.

Vast quantities of existing and future resources were exchanged for merit points, becoming the Red Lantern Society’s harvest gains, further tightening market supply.

And since the Ten Sects each control their own territories, take Qingxi Fang as an example—the Red Lantern Society’s stationed cultivators strictly police even the Ghost Market.

Cross-regional circulation of goods from other factions is crushed underfoot; importing goods from outside the Red Lantern Society’s territory requires paying exorbitant tolls.

Perhaps major clans and certain Foundation Establishment cultivators can bypass this by carrying goods physically from external regions to subsidize their faction’s closed system and reduce the backlash from the Red Lantern Society’s scythe.

But most people can’t—and dare not—do it.

Thus, resource supply is critically tight, yet demand has not vanished.

The original, relatively scarce stock of currency has become relatively excessive within the region due to extreme resource scarcity.

With such supply-demand dynamics, the price hike of hard currency was inevitable.

(This model exists—recent XLY’s situation is an example... many Third World nations operate this way; their currencies, like spirit stones, cannot expand supply due to various reasons.)

“Senior Wu, it’s just... what spiritual materials do you have here, and at what prices?”

Yulou was wary; Wu Jinyan kept circling without quoting a price, and Yulou felt uneasy.

This wasn’t excessive caution—it was necessary in the cultivation world, where deceit and trickery were rampant.

“Hahaha, two types of ninth-rank spiritual metal: purple copper and refined gold. Purple copper is one hundred thirty spirit stones per piece; refined gold is pricier, one hundred forty per piece.

Three types of ninth-rank stone: mottled agate, blood-green stone, tiger-striped rock. These are cheaper, but even the cheapest mottled agate costs ninety spirit stones.

These materials come in solid chunks—I can’t split them up for sale.”

After hearing the prices, Yulou was momentarily stunned.

Compared to three years ago, spiritual material prices had risen by at least fifty percent!

Take purple copper: its price had nearly doubled. Remember, even inferior eighth-rank spiritual materials used to sell for around one hundred fifty spirit stones.

Hongmei had gifted his brothers a piece of black jade and a blood-soaked purple copper piece as materials for their Dao Trial, and even gave them the resulting magic treasure—unquestionably generous.

“Senior, how many spirit stones is this purple copper bead worth?”

Yulou pulled out the purple copper bead from his sleeve and handed it to Wu Jinyan.

After examining it for a while, Wu Jinyan said:

“This purple copper bead is too small, and its six-layer sealing isn’t high—it’s neither here nor there. I’ll give you seventy-five spirit stones. How’s that?”

Seventy-five spirit stones was slightly low, but not unreasonable; bead-type magic treasures are the low-end, low-value category, so the price was fair.

But seventy-five plus thirty-five only adds up to one hundred ten spirit stones.

That would only buy one piece of the cheapest mottled agate or another stone—this was embarrassingly insufficient.

Stone-type spiritual materials differ from metal ones like cold iron or purple copper—they’re hard to cut into multiple pieces to forge into several low-grade magic treasures...

With only one piece, if you accidentally blow the forging, you’ll lose everything.

Yulou wasn’t greedy; just one piece of spiritual metal would do.

Later, he could cut it into multiple pieces and forge them into several low-grade items—even if some failed, he’d still get two or three to sell and recoup some spirit stones.

That way, his and Yuan’s Dao cultivation could stay balanced, sustainable long-term.

He couldn’t keep asking the clan for subsidies; even the Wu clan’s patriarch had started hawking talismans on the street, and the Wang family wasn’t faring any better—the Red Lantern Society was cutting too deep.

He pulled out the golden cup the patriarch had given him and asked:

“How much is this golden cup worth?”

“Three-layer sealing, useless in combat. The only redeeming quality is it’s forged from refined gold. I’ll give you forty-five spirit stones.”

That brought the total to one hundred fifty-five spirit stones.

Yuan thought for a moment and pulled out his own purple copper bead.

“Senior Wu, add this purple copper bead too.”

He figured they needed at least two pieces of spiritual metal—buying just one would be too humiliating.

“Five-layer sealing, market value around sixty spirit stones. Now you have two hundred fifteen spirit stones.

That’s no small sum—what spiritual materials do you want?”

Hearing Wu Jinyan say Yuan’s bead had only five-layer sealing, Yulou stared at Yuan in surprise; Yuan puffed out his chest proudly.

What’s the big deal? I’m your own brother—it’s nothing!

Suppressing his shock, Yulou asked:

“Senior Wu, could you give me two pieces of purple copper? I’ll pay back the forty-five spirit stones later—I’ll even pay fifty.”

“Credit... Yuanzeshang , I can’t agree to that, Yulou.”

Hearing this, Yuan grew anxious and pulled out his turtle shell, thinking to use it as collateral.

While Yuan still didn’t grasp the situation, Yulou understood instantly.

“If Senior Wu agrees, Yulou will forever be grateful and will continue buying spiritual materials from you.”

“ Yuanzeshangbuxing ” means “it’s possible.”

“ Yuanzeshangkeyi ” means “it’s impossible.”

Wu Jinyan wanted to agree to Yulou’s request; now that Yulou had shown proper deference, he naturally took the easy way out.

“Hahaha, you’re a Wang family scion and Hongmei’s prized disciple—I trust you completely. Here, take the two pieces of purple copper.”

On the way back, Yuan was already excitedly calculating.

“Brother, I think we can split these two pieces of purple copper into ten parts.

Forge them into simple purple copper beads—three-layer sealing is enough.

Master doesn’t forge this kind of special low-grade magic treasure anymore; if we make them, we can create a price gap with the other magic treasures from Huafengju.

Every day, plenty of lone cultivators come to Huafengju, but many are desperately poor—they’re our best customers!”

Yulou shook his head and analyzed:

“Purple copper’s material is inherently awkward, and bead-type magic treasures are the hardest to sell at high prices.

Forging purple copper into beads won’t come close to the price of Master’s cold iron flying knives.

To fully leverage purple copper’s properties, we should pursue the anti-magic flow path—those sell better.

Split into six pieces, add one extra anti-magic sealing layer—so each becomes a four-layer anti-magic purple copper artifact.

We’ll break even with two, repay Senior Wu with three, and profit big with four!”

Playing with the purple copper in his hand, Yuan worried:

“What if we ruin five of them?”

Yulou laughed.

“Then borrow some spirit stones from your father... to improve in Dao cultivation, you must forge often.

But we’ve both already forged mid-grade magic treasure blanks—forging low-grade ones shouldn’t be hard.

And when forging the fourth layer, be careful—if you can’t complete it, abandon it early and preserve the original three layers. Even a three-layer purple copper artifact selling for forty spirit stones won’t lose us money.

Even if we’re terribly unlucky and blow five, collect the scrap purple copper and the one successful piece—we can still buy another piece.

So, no need to worry.”

Yuan thought carefully—his brother was right.

Six pieces, five ruined—they could still buy another and try again.

What was there to fear?

Just forge!

Yuan couldn’t wait.

“Brother, let’s go to Huafengju and start forging now.”

Yulou replied:

“Hahaha, don’t rush—tomorrow, Master is taking us out of Qingxi Fang. Remember to bring your Bailli Xialiao Talisman.”

“With Master around, there shouldn’t be any trouble, right?”

“Hard to say.”