At Li Ling's words, Yellow Cloud True Person fell silent, a rare occurrence.
Only after a long while did she say, "When I said I would meet your needs as far as possible, I meant normal expenses. If you want a few magical artifacts or pills for your own use, that's negotiable. But don't bring up research again. That's a bottomless pit."
Li Ling said, "I wouldn't dare ask for graded Spirit Materials yet. Ungraded ones will do. Those can be gathered through the mortal dynasties."
Yellow Cloud True Person said, "Even ungraded materials are no ordinary goods. Should you have them all to yourself, with none left for anyone else?"
Li Ling said, "The sect has always been fair in its rewards and punishments. If others want them, they can earn them themselves."
Yellow Cloud True Person said, "If you could plant a pole and see its shadow—produce immediate results—that would be one thing. Even piling up Spirit Materials to force yourself into Foundation Establishment would count as an achievement. But what have you done with all those things? Ground them into powder and burned them! What a wastrel!"
Didn't you praise me for being so little trouble last time? Li Ling grumbled inwardly, then hurried to correct her. "Old Ancestor, that's called experimentation, not 'grinding them into powder and burning them'..."
Yellow Cloud True Person said, "It's all the same."
Li Ling was momentarily speechless. He had no idea how to explain it to this old lady.
After some thought, Li Ling simply said, "Didn't you just say the sect intended to grant me a treasure for self-defense? Why not skip the treasure and give me its value instead?"
Yellow Cloud True Person sounded surprised. "You don't even want a treasure for self-defense?"
Li Ling said, "No."
He knew perfectly well what would truly be useful now.
Even taking several steps back, if the Incense Essence of those Spirit Materials proved of little use, that did not mean the materials themselves were useless.
They could help cultivate his wife, the Ninth Princess. If she could quickly advance to the Mid-Stage Qi Refining or even the late stage, his own safety would be better assured.
Some Spirit Materials were even highly beneficial for strengthening the body and prolonging life.
Although he could consume fragrance to practice Soul Tempering, his physical body was still terribly frail and needed nourishment.
Yellow Cloud True Person said, "Very well. I'll speak to the sect and let you have your way."
After a pause, she added, "But just this once. There will be no next time."
Li Ling hurriedly said, "Old Ancestor, I believe there are some Spirit Materials in the Royal City too. Why not have the various households and departments send samples first? Once I've tested which are suitable, we can discuss it further."
"We shouldn't just focus on our own use in the future, either. Let's exchange some of the Spirit-Communing Incense that's already become known for other sects' Spirit Materials. There's no need to keep it secret anymore, anyway."
"I know cultivators seek divine abilities and mighty power within themselves, and these mundane dealings offer little benefit. But at least disciples and mortals can handle the work, and we can recoup some costs. If it becomes a steady livelihood someday, it could even support the sect in return. That would be a wonderful thing."
Yellow Cloud True Person considered it, then finally agreed. "Very well."
She ended the communication immediately afterward.
Li Ling had no chance to ask how the Old Ancestor would put it into practice, though asking would probably have been pointless. The Old Ancestor could not be bothered with such chicken-feather-and-garlic-skin trivialities. Most likely, it would fall to him anyway.
But now even he felt that his own cultivation took priority. Better to leave it to the newly established Incense Affairs Bureau.
The next day, Li Ling summoned Vice Minister Pei and explained his plans.
Vice Minister Pei was overjoyed. "Rest assured, Prince Consort. I will certainly carry out the task you've entrusted to me!"
Collecting Spirit Materials... what did that mean? It meant power!
With the patriarch's decree, the Incense Affairs Bureau had authority to requisition spiritual-material-grade aromatics from the various households and departments. What an opportunity!
Li Ling said, "The immortal masters now know Spirit Incense is useful, but frankly, it isn't all that useful. At most, it offers minor benefits."
"If we can discover a major use for those Spirit Materials, you should understand what that would bring."
Vice Minister Pei said, "I understand."
Li Ling waved a hand. "All right. Go make the preparations."
After Vice Minister Pei had been sent away, Lu Zheng, the Foundation Establishment cultivator who had appeared previously, arrived close on his heels.
He had come under orders to deliver something to Li Ling.
As before, Lu Zheng did not use the main gate, but flew straight into the residence. His expression held a measure of disbelief as he looked at Li Ling. The moment they met, he said, "Incredible, simply incredible. To think those above value you so highly."
Clicking his tongue in wonder, he took an object from the pouch he carried and told Li Ling, "This is from the sect. A great pile of Spirit Materials, including several valuable ones sealed with restrictions. Even I don't know what they are."
It was a magical storage bag. Li Ling accepted it and probed it with his Spiritual Consciousness. Sure enough, there were plenty of things inside.
He handed the bag to the Ninth Princess, who had hurried over after hearing the news. "Qing Si, you're just in time. Help me open this."
Knowing he was a mortal, the Ninth Princess opened it for him, then helped check its contents.
A little later, once the inventory was complete, Li Ling told Lu Zheng, "Senior Lu, everything is in order. Sorry for the wait."
Lu Zheng said little else. He merely urged Li Ling to hand over this month's tribute, then left.
The Ninth Princess looked at Li Ling with some surprise. "Why are there so many Spirit Materials? There must be a hundred items altogether."
Li Ling said, "This is the reward for presenting the Returning Soul Incense last time. It seems that incense has attracted considerable attention from the great cultivators."
The Ninth Princess said delightedly, "Really? That's wonderful! Besides Spirit-Communing Incense, you now have Returning Soul Incense as another source of income. In a while, you'll have Cloud-Producing Incense to submit too. Even granting you a cultivator's future would be nothing out of the question."
Li Ling said, "How could it be that easy? Forcibly raising a mortal into a cultivator truly means defying heaven and rewriting fate."
The Ninth Princess said, "Hasn't the Old Ancestor already promised to temper your mortal bones once she reaches Nascent Soul?"
Li Ling smiled at that, but said nothing.
The Old Ancestor had indeed promised. Cultivators valued their word, and the higher their cultivation, the more they revered cause and effect. She had no reason to go back on it without cause.
But cultivators had an entirely different sense of time from mortals. Who knew whether he might die of old age before the Old Ancestor reached Nascent Soul?
Since Spirit Materials were involved, the two did not summon servants to help. They carried everything into a room in the Fragrant Incense Pavilion and put it away themselves.
Once they finished, Li Ling looked through the list again, deeply satisfied with the results.
The Skycloud Sect had not treated him poorly. It had given him a full hundred Spirit Materials, including quite a few Unusual Treasures that ranked among the finest ungraded Spirit Materials.
There were even two graded items: low-grade spiritual materials that normally only Foundation Establishment cultivators could benefit from.
One was a mint-like plant leaf called purple-veined leaf. Cultivators often used it to refresh their minds and could also chew it to neutralize poison when encountering toxic fog or miasma.
Its effects were miraculous. It could neutralize the vast majority of airborne toxins.
The other was black ginseng with distinctive red spots. It carried the saponin scent commonly found in ginseng.
This substance had to be over a hundred years old to qualify as a spiritual material, and over a thousand years old to qualify for a grade.
However, Li Ling did not prioritize studying those two. Instead, he planned to begin with the Spirit Materials he had gathered before.
Watching Li Ling handle them, the Ninth Princess asked curiously, "Husband, haven't you already obtained these kinds of Spirit Materials for research before?"
Li Ling answered casually, "My skills weren't refined enough back then. I may have missed something."
The truth was that his innate gift had not awakened at the time, so he could not see Incense Essence.
Now his gift had awakened, and his criteria were clearer: analyzing Incense Essence.
Recently, Li Ling had distilled several principles concerning Incense Essence.
All things had scents, and fragrance had its essence. He could classify all usable Incense Essence as active, and unusable ones as inert.
Yet there seemed to be no uniform standard separating active from inert. Certain combinations and processing methods could activate them, just as with Spirit-Communing Incense, which was compounded from numerous ordinary ingredients.
His research would focus on exploring these principles, allowing him to truly grasp the essence of Incense Essence.
This had already made his research highly efficient and would greatly reduce consumption.
This time, I really won't need to squander anything. After the research, I can save some for myself, or for Qing Si...
As he spoke, a new thought suddenly surfaced.
But no matter what, external things remain external things...
The immortal masters have their reasons for showing so little interest in supporting research.
Is there some way to truly turn this into a divine ability, or even find an inexhaustible source of fragrance to consume?
One is an external thing; the other is a divine ability and mighty power belonging to oneself. Their significance is entirely different...
Once this thought arose, he could no longer erase it.
"Prince Consort, Vice Minister Pei of the Incense Affairs Bureau requests an audience."
Eight days later, a servant reported to Li Ling in the Fragrant Incense Pavilion at the prince consort's residence.
"Send him in," Li Ling said, setting down the book in his hands.
Vice Minister Pei had recently become a frequent visitor to the Prince Consort's Residence, delivering several batches of spiritual material samples in succession. Presumably, he had come for the same reason today.
Sure enough, after entering and paying his respects, Vice Minister Pei said, "Prince Consort, the latest batch of samples has arrived. Please take a look."
Standing before the large table where Li Ling usually made and blended incense, Vice Minister Pei carefully placed several brocade boxes on it, then opened them.
The boxes had been neatly partitioned with wooden dividers. Their contents were immediately revealed, each Spirit Materials sample arranged in orderly rows.
Li Ling glanced over them without betraying any emotion and carefully sniffed the scents drifting through the air. Soon, a strand of unusual fragrance he had long yearned for caught his attention.
It was devil finger wood...
He finally had it!
"Excellent. There are several new varieties I haven't seen before."
Li Ling nodded with a broad smile, deeply satisfied.
Vice Minister Pei said, "Your satisfaction is what drives everyone in our Incense Affairs Bureau, Prince Consort."
Li Ling said, "You may go back now. Keep up the good work."
Watching Vice Minister Pei leave in high spirits, Li Ling summoned a servant and instructed that he was concentrating on making incense and should not be disturbed for the time being. Then he shut the door and set to work.
Over the past few days, he had successfully found several substances capable of releasing unusual Incense Essence, though none produced any obvious effect when used alone. He intended to fully explore their effects by exploiting their nature as Spirit Materials containing spiritual essence.
If he could improve the Spirit-Communing Incense formula through them, all the better.
Very soon, however, Li Ling discovered that he had failed.
Blindly mixing aromatics could not produce Spirit Incense. They merely mingled together, unable to fuse and transform.
"No new Incense Essence has been born." Li Ling sighed softly, though he was not especially disappointed.
In fact, it would have been strange if such a haphazard mixture had succeeded.
He had been prepared for this and soon began blending several other ordinary aromatics.
This time, he decided to ignore the other Spirit Materials and focus on devil finger wood first, thoroughly understanding the properties of its Incense Essence before proceeding.
Then he discovered another problem.
"This aromatic wood... hasn't formed incense resin!"
The key to agarwood lay in its resin, not its wood.
Some forms also resulted from fungal infection and required certain conditions to develop.
Li Ling thought back to the piece of incense he had seen last time, then compared it with the twig in his hand. Spirit Materials truly deserved their name. Even a finger-sized twig contained abundant resin, which had already begun permeating the fibers naturally.
"This may already have the potential to form kyara."
Kyara was the finest form of agarwood, also known as ganan incense or agarwood resin.
Usually, only a tiny portion of the essence within a large piece of supreme-quality agarwood could qualify as kyara. Sometimes there was none at all.
Naturally, the piece in his hand could not contain kyara. It did not even contain formed agarwood. It was wood whose properties had yet to transform.
If the effectiveness of the Incense Essence in the Yellow-Wax Agarwood he had seen last time was rated at a hundred, this twig before him would rate no higher than ten.
Even so, that was still ten times the effectiveness of Spirit-Communing Incense.
Moreover, its total quantity seemed far from small.
Li Ling steeled himself. "Whatever happens, I'll use it to replace the ordinary agarwood in Spirit-Communing Incense and treat it as agarwood!"
This might lead to failure, but it might also bring a qualitative transformation!
It was a step he had to take regardless. Even if he obtained more of this material later, he would still need failed examples for reference and comparison.
So he immediately got to work.
After a flurry of activity, a strange, refreshing fragrance emerged, lifting Li Ling's spirits.
"It seems to have mutated..."
"This Incense Essence truly is unlike anything I've ever seen!"
In his perception, this batch of Spirit-Communing Incense's Incense Essence seemed tinged with pale gold. It also had an amber-like, resinous texture, while resembling phantom dragons and snakes tumbling through the air, far more lively than before.
He carefully drew in a little, and an intense reaction immediately arose.
"This Incense Essence... is a hundred times as effective!"
"It really worked!"
Strictly speaking, it was not a full hundredfold improvement. At most, it was only eighty-odd times as effective.
For speed and convenience, Li Ling had not strictly followed the ancient Spirit-Communing Incense recipe by selecting the proper hour and observing every prescribed procedure. Some decline in quality was inevitable.
But by relying on his extraordinary gift for smelling fragrance to finely control the fusion of Incense Essence, he had still achieved a standard above excellent.
He knew he could do even better, which was why he had called it a hundredfold improvement.
This was almost equivalent to the finished aromatic he had obtained in the water monkey's lair last time.
Unable to wait, he burned the incense, consumed its fragrance, and refined his soul. After completing the full series of tests, he finally confirmed that the number of fragrance souls in this improved Spirit-Communing Incense far exceeded a million, reaching as many as one and a half million.
This also meant that just one portion increased the strength of Li Ling's Divine Sense by a full three taels.
More importantly, consuming one portion of devil finger wood as an ingredient had produced a full ten portions of Spirit-Communing Incense.
Its value far exceeded his expectations!