Reading Can Purify Spiritual Power

Strangely enough, whether it was Thirty Poems, Half a Mu of Flower Fields, or even Andersen's Fairy Tales, no one's cultivation level changed after finishing them.

Zhao Xiaodao was a Spirit Master Sixth Stage. After reading Half a Mu of Flower Fields, she only felt that the spiritual energy within her had become purer; her cultivation had not increased at all.

"That shouldn't be!" Zhao Xiaodao was somewhat puzzled.

As someone who had benefited from it, no one understood the Mysterious Bookstore better than Zhao Xiaodao. All that talk about twelve years of bitter cultivation and sudden enlightenment in a single day was nonsense. Why hadn't she attained enlightenment sooner or later, but precisely after finishing Andersen's Fairy Tales?

But why had there been no change after she finished Half a Mu of Flower Fields? She had clearly felt the spiritual power inside her stirring.

As for Thirty Poems, that was even more ridiculous. She felt nothing at all after reading it, though the poems themselves were quite good.

"Maybe not every book can increase one's cultivation?" Zhao Xiaodao pondered.

Zhou Guanyu had also finished Half a Mu of Flower Fields. As a young man with artistic tastes, he rather liked the book. While reading it, he became completely immersed in its world. Sometimes, he even found himself drawn into its emotions, feeling sorrow and pity for the young woman in the story.

Once Zhou Guanyu had finished it, he too discovered a change in the spiritual power within him. His cultivation had not increased, but he could feel that the purity of his spiritual power had risen.

If reading could suppress Zhou Zhuling's illness, that had brought Zhou Guanyu surprise. But the increasing purity of his spiritual power left him utterly shaken.

"Not even the Tranquil Pool in the Chu Kingdom's imperial palace has such powerful effects, does it?" Zhou Guanyu felt as though the purity of the spiritual power in his body had reached its peak.

As everyone knew, spiritual power was the foundation of a cultivator. Its purity also determined how far a cultivator could travel on the path of cultivation. The purer one's spiritual power, the faster and easier one's cultivation journey would be.

Take the Tranquil Pool in the Chu Kingdom's imperial palace, for example. It was a place countless cultivators longed to visit. Why did they all desire it? Because it could cleanse spiritual power.

The Tranquil Pool was one of the three treasures of the Chu Kingdom. It could wash away a cultivator's violent aura, calm the mind, and nourish the spirit. Soaking in the Tranquil Pool would purify a cultivator's spiritual power.

Of course, the higher a cultivator's stage, the weaker its effects became.

Every year, the Chu Kingdom granted the descendants of meritorious officials, as well as students admitted to the Seven Great Academies, the chance to enter the Tranquil Pool, wash away their violent aura, and purify their spiritual power.

As the son of the Limitless Spirit Emperor, Zhou Guanyu had naturally soaked in the Tranquil Pool before. In comparison, he found that the purity brought by this book was even greater than what he had gained from the Tranquil Pool.

On that point alone, the Mysterious Bookstore was enough to surpass the Tranquil Pool, one of the Chu Kingdom's three treasures.

This tiny bookstore became increasingly mysterious in Zhou Guanyu's eyes.

The most peculiar people in the bookstore were Gongsun Qiong and Zhou Zhuling.

Gongsun Qiong spent several days reading every book in the bookstore, yet there was not the slightest change in her. However, she noticed the changes in Zhao Xiaodao and Zhou Guanyu. After finishing their books, the spiritual power within both of them had continued to fluctuate.

"Their spiritual power is becoming increasingly pure. Could reading really count as cultivation?"

"Too bad I can't cultivate. Otherwise, I should be able to feel some changes too," Gongsun Qiong thought.

Her constitution was special—so special that it did not even have a name. It prevented her from cultivating, but it also gave her many advantages, such as a pair of eyes that could see through all things and a photographic memory.

Lastly, there was Zhou Zhuling. What made her unusual was that she had spent three days reading Half a Mu of Flower Fields and had not even finished a third of it.

As the bookstore owner, Ma Feifei had been constantly observing the changes in these customers over the past few days. The system was amazing, yet it did not even come with an instruction manual. He had to observe many things himself. Ma Feifei even felt that he needed to investigate after customers finished reading and ask everyone about their impressions.

Really, he just wanted to figure out what these customers had gained from the books after finishing them.

As the system's owner, Ma Feifei only knew that reading could raise cultivation and suppress illnesses. Beyond that, he knew absolutely nothing, which made him feel rather embarrassed.

According to Ma Feifei's observations, there were four customers in the bookstore.

Gongsun Qiong read the fastest, finishing all three books in two and a half days.

Zhao Xiaodao spent a day and a half reading two books.

Zhou Guanyu spent two days finishing two books.

Zhou Zhuling had been reading for three days and still had not finished...

"The same book seems to take different people different amounts of time to read." That was Ma Feifei's first conclusion.

"This time, it seems no one broke through." That was Ma Feifei's second conclusion.

"And why do I feel like Thirty Poems is being looked down on?"

The next day, Ma Feifei was still bent over his work in the bookstore. Original writing seemed simple enough, but the Blue Quality requirement made Ma Feifei feel that a book's color must be connected to its depth—its quality, in other words.

Only by creating books with depth and quality could a book's grade rise and meet the system's requirements. Otherwise, he could casually write a novel hundreds of thousands of words long, only for it to end up as another white-covered book like Thirty Poems. Naturally, the mission would remain incomplete.

Besides Ma Feifei, Zhou Zhuling was the only one left in the bookstore.

Zhao Xiaodao and Gongsun Qiong had not come. Even if they had, there would have been no books for them to read.

Zhou Guanyu had not come either. He had heard that Great Chu and Great Qin would soon go to war, and Zhou Guanyu needed to head to the front lines. They might not see him for quite some time.

Zhou Zhuling's condition had improved greatly. With her illness suppressed, she no longer coughed up blood, and she did not even need help walking. Every day, she arrived at the bookstore on time to read, making her more diligent than Ma Feifei, the owner himself.

But the girl's reading progress truly made Ma Feifei anxious.

Nearly half of the one-month deadline had already passed, and he still needed two more reading points to complete the mission. Zhou Guanyu clearly would not be coming, while Zhao Xiaodao and Gongsun Qiong were even less reliable. The remaining two reading points now depended entirely on Zhou Zhuling.

Yet she remained completely unhurried, holding Half a Mu of Flower Fields and reading at a leisurely pace. Her expression was quite vivid too—sighing at times, sorrowful at others, and then suddenly relieved. Ma Feifei was left staring in bewilderment.

She was reading with genuine feeling, so Ma Feifei could not really say anything. He could only place his hopes on the novel he was writing and stop paying attention to Zhou Zhuling.