Spirit Crystals as Ink

The next day, the Mysterious Bookstore began its business.

Early in the morning, as soon as Ma Feifei opened the door, Zhou Guanyu rushed in.

"Shopkeeper, I want to read The Legend of the Condor Heroes," Zhou Guanyu said excitedly, handing six Spirit Crystals to Yun Qingyang, whose face was as cold as ever.

Yang Chengzhi's comeback had a significant impact on him. On his way back from the imperial capital, he had been thinking constantly about The Legend of the Condor Heroes. He had sat waiting for the bookstore to open, eating steamed buns at the shop opposite, even before it opened that morning.

"Didn't your sister come today?" Ma Feifei was clearly more interested in Zhou Zhuling.

He was planning to transcribe Thousand Gold Formulas today. Thousand Gold Formulas is a medical book, and Ma Feifei guessed that the benefits readers gained from it would be healing abilities.

For example, it might even cure Zhou Zhuling's illness.

So, Ma Feifei planned to transcribe Thousand Gold Formulas today and let Zhou Zhuling try its effects. But she hadn't come today.

He had to admit, he was used to Zhou Zhuling sticking to him every day, and now that she wasn't here, Ma Feifei actually missed her a little.

Zhou Guanyu sat down with The Legend of the Condor Heroes, opened the book, and replied, "I heard that a living Buddha has arrived in Yuanfang City. It's said that he not only has the ability to save all living beings but also possesses heavenly medical skills that can bring the dead back to life and heal grievous wounds. My mother heard the news and took my sister to Yuanfang City early this morning."

"Oh? Is that living Buddha more powerful than Medicine Saint Shaoyao?" Ma Feifei was somewhat surprised to hear this. He knew that Medicine Saint Shaoyao had long ago declared Zhou Zhuling's illness incurable. In this world, Medicine Saint Shaoyao's word was practically the authority when it came to treating illnesses. If she said you were incurable, you were incurable, and no one else could help.

Zhou Guanyu shook his head and said without looking back, "I don't know about that, but I heard that the living Buddha is from Leiyin Temple in the West. Perhaps he has some secret methods. Anyway, my sister said that whether she can be cured or not is secondary; it's just a trip to accompany my mother."

After listening, Ma Feifei saw that Zhou Guanyu was completely engrossed in The Legend of the Condor Heroes, so he didn't ask further, though he was still a little curious.

The so-called living Buddha was a monk, and there were indeed monks in this world of cultivation.

However, according to rumors, monks were actually very rare. After all, this world was a world of cultivation, and immortals were their faith.

Therefore, it was rare to encounter monks on the Azure Dragon Continent. People only knew that in the far west, that was the base camp for these monks.

But precisely because of this, these monks seemed somewhat mysterious to everyone. They never interacted with the secular world, hiding in the distant far west, and sometimes they weren't mentioned for thousands of years.

Ma Feifei had heard of the monks in this world mainly because he had once heard adventurers tell a story about a strange event from two thousand years ago in a tavern.

It was said that two thousand years ago, Qin Taizu, the founding emperor of the Qin State, had invited a living Buddha from Leiyin Temple into the Qin palace. The specific reason was unknown, but all they knew was that Qin Taizu later enfeoffed this living Buddha as the Imperial Advisor. From then on, Qin Taizu lost interest in governing the country and spent his days tinkering with this living Buddha.

But after only a few years, Qin Taizu passed away, and the living Buddha disappeared without a trace.

The most widespread theory circulating among the public was that the living Buddha had killed Qin Taizu. However, this theory didn't hold water, because Qin Taizu's cultivation at the time had already reached the extraordinary level of Spirit Saint stage five. There wasn't anyone on the entire Azure Dragon Continent who could have killed him without him knowing.

Qin Shi Huang, who succeeded him, never mentioned the matter. The official news only stated that Qin Taizu had reached the end of his lifespan.

Although Qin Taizu was already over three thousand years old at the time, it was indeed possible that he died of natural causes. However, most people rejected this explanation.

This strange event continued to be passed down to this day, and adventurers would bring it up whenever they talked about the Qin State.

"I wonder what's different about the monks in this world," Ma Feifei mused, stroking his chin.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Ma Feifei picked up a brush and paper and began to transcribe Thousand Gold Formulas.

Thousand Gold Formulas was a medical book compiled by the Medicine King Sun Simiao. The entire book consisted of thirty volumes and was a comprehensive clinical medical work, hailed as the earliest clinical encyclopedia of China.

Of course, Ma Feifei would never have read such a book. He only knew that it was very famous, extremely famous. In his past life, Ma Feifei had a friend who actually had nine copies of Thousand Gold Formulas at home.

"Huh? Why does it feel a bit off?" After writing four characters, Ma Feifei felt something was wrong, and he stopped, staring at the paper, a little confused.

"Why are the characters so faint?"

The characters he wrote were very faint, so faint that they were almost disappearing.

"Is there no ink?" Ma Feifei looked at the ballpoint pen in his hand and held it up high, staring at it.

"Huh." Suddenly, Ma Feifei noticed a line of small text appearing on the ballpoint pen.

"To transcribe books of yellow quality or higher, Spirit Crystals must be infused!"

"As expected, there are higher quality books than blue quality." Ma Feifei looked as if he had known this all along. After the bookstore released books of blue and white quality, Ma Feifei had speculated that books would have different quality levels. Now that the system indicated that the Thousand Gold Formulas he was transcribing was yellow quality, it proved that his previous guess was correct.

It was certain that since Thousand Gold Formulas had reached yellow quality, the benefits hidden within it would definitely be of higher quality compared to blue-quality books.

Simply put, the benefits readers could gain from yellow-quality books would be greater than those from blue-quality books.

"But what does 'infusing Spirit Crystals' mean?" Ma Feifei glanced at the ballpoint pen in his hand and suddenly thought of a possibility: 'Spirit Crystals as ink?'

With that thought, Ma Feifei took out the bag he had privately stored.

Yun Qingyang's gaze shot over from not far away.

"Mine," Ma Feifei said.

Yun Qingyang remained silent, continuing to stare.

"Mine!" Ma Feifei raised his voice.

Yun Qingyang pouted, withdrew her gaze, and went back to staring blankly at her sword.

Ma Feifei withdrew his gaze, opened the bag, took out a Spirit Crystal, and placed it with the pen.

The Spirit Crystal began to emit specks of white light, which flowed into the ballpoint pen.

In the blink of an eye, the Spirit Crystal disappeared.

"It's gone already?" Ma Feifei took out another Spirit Crystal.

Just like last time, the Spirit Crystal turned into white light in the blink of an eye and flowed into the ballpoint pen.

This repeated over and over until all the Spirit Crystals in Ma Feifei's bag were gone.

Ma Feifei picked up the brush and wrote "Thousand Gold Formulas, Tang Dynasty, by Sun Simiao" and "Eight" large characters on the paper.

The handwriting was clear, and it even emitted a faint fluctuation of spiritual power. This "Spirit Crystals as Ink" was real!

Although he had proven the four words "Spirit Crystals as Ink," Ma Feifei couldn't bring himself to be happy.

"You promised this was a special pen! Why do I still need ink? And it's Spirit Crystals, of all things! How many Spirit Crystals does the bookstore earn a day? Is that enough to write a book of nearly a million characters?"

"Do I still want to live? Do I still need to pay my employees?"

Ma Feifei had always thought that the profits earned from people reading in the bookstore should belong to him personally. The system's purpose was only to have him transcribe books to complete tasks. The system wouldn't care about vulgar things like Spirit Crystals.

But now, it turned out he had to use Spirit Crystals as ink just to transcribe a book. This meant that every character in the Thousand Gold Formulas would be written with Spirit Crystals!

How many Spirit Crystals would it cost to write the nearly million-character Thousand Gold Formulas? Only heaven knew.

"Sigh!" Ma Feifei sighed and began transcribing the Thousand Gold Formulas with his brush.

However, this time, he no longer wrote with the bold, unrestrained strokes and splashing ink he had used when transcribing books before. Instead, he wrote meticulously, his handwriting resembling a copy, small and neat.

He had to save wherever he could!