"..."
Tanchun, standing nearby, nodded slightly at this, indicating her agreement with Daiyu's view.
"As for cultivation manuals and scriptures, although we have the complete inheritance Master gave us, stones from other hills may be used to polish jade. If we have the opportunity, there is no harm in reading more."
"That money still has to be spent where it should be spent."
"There's one more thing!"
As she spoke, Daiyu picked up another spirit stone to inspect and said faintly:
"Don't forget—"
"Those Like Flowers."
"Though they are mechanical puppet constructs and need neither food nor clothing, nor monthly wages, and though they possess the function of a small spirit-gathering formation, at the end of the day, they still need spirit stones to power them."
"Master said that each Like Flower must have its spirit stone replaced at least once a month."
"At present, our residence only has a hundred Like Flowers, so a hundred one-tael spirit stones a month will suffice. That comes to twelve hundred spirit stones a year."
"But that's only the current number."
"You've seen how large our garden is. If we add more in the future and increase their number to eight hundred or a thousand, this expense will only grow larger."
"Add in possible losses, and we'll be spending at least another ten thousand spirit stones or so on those Like Flowers every year."
By this point, Xueyan's face had gradually turned pale.
Just the annual expenditures they had calculated so far already came close to a hundred thousand spirit stones. Expenses would surely continue to grow year by year, and she was no longer certain whether such a Treasure Bowl could produce enough spirit stones each year to keep them going.
"Indeed!"
"Although we no longer have the monthly allowances, food, clothing,