Spirit Stone
Cauldron of the Medicine God
Biodata
| Feature | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Spirit Stone |
| Original Name | 灵石 |
| Type | Spiritual-energy resource and currency 5 6 |
| Documented Grade | Low-grade, also rendered “lower-grade” 5 21 |
| Uses | Cultivation, purchasing supplies, sect rewards, and nourishing the Spirit-Washing Tree 5 6 9 13 |
| Source | Spirit Stone mine veins, including the vein beneath Hidden Dragon Village 34 |
| First Appearance | Chapter 5; Ye Fei finds twenty stones among his sect supplies 5 |
Appearance
- Color: Milky white 5.
- Size: Approximately the size of a quail egg 5.
- When depleted: Crumble into dust after their spiritual energy is exhausted 6.
Abilities & Uses
Cultivation Energy
Spirit Stones supply exceptionally pure spiritual energy that Ye Fei absorbs through his palms while circulating the Free and Easy True Formula 6.
- The absorbed energy requires little conversion before becoming true qi 6.
- Before entering Qi Refining, Ye Fei uses this true qi to break the membranes blocking his acupoints 6.
- After entering Qi Refining, he continues using stones to strengthen his true qi and raise his cultivation 11 12.
- Spiritual-root cleansing improves his absorption speed; after his fourth cleansing, his daily consumption capacity rises from four stones to eight 16 20.
- Stones do not overcome every bottleneck: Ye Fei’s progress stalls at the fourth layer despite continued cultivation, requiring another spiritual-root cleansing 12.
| Documented Use | Consumption | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Initial acupoint opening | Two stones in six hours | Opens eighty acupoints; both stones crumble into dust 6. |
| Continued acupoint opening | Sixteen stones over four days | Opens 321 acupoints in total, with later acupoints requiring increasingly more true qi 6. |
| Advancement to Qi Refining third layer | 150 stones over one month | Advances through two minor realms 12. |
| Advancement to Qi Refining fourth layer | More than 300 stones consumed cumulatively from Liu Yishan’s stock of 500 | Reaches the fourth layer, then encounters a bottleneck 11 12. |
| Cultivation after the third spiritual-root cleansing | Amount unspecified; half a month | Reaches the fifth layer of Qi Refining 16. |
| Cultivation after the fourth cleansing | 450 stones over two months | Reaches the middle stage of Qi Refining’s sixth level 20. |
Nourishing the Spirit-Washing Tree
The Spirit-Washing Tree can absorb Spirit Stones as nourishment, alongside spiritual veins, heavenly treasures, spiritual herbs, and demon beast corpses 9 12.
| Cleansing Supported | Spirit Stone Cost | Other Resources / Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Fifth cleansing | 200 lower-grade stones | Supplements more than forty demon beast carcasses and a harvest of spiritual herbs, allowing five fruits to ripen 30. |
| Sixth cleansing | 2,500 lower-grade stones | Stones alone mature the tree’s next batch of five fruits 30. |
| Eighth and ninth cleansings | Nearly 8,000 lower-grade stones combined | Funds two successive fruiting cycles after Ye Fei obtains the mine’s stones 38. |
- Each successive flowering and fruiting requires 20% more spiritual power than the previous one 9.
- Azure Dragon estimates the total spiritual energy needed for forming a chaos body at over a trillion Spirit Stones; this is a projected requirement, not an amount Ye Fei obtains 9.
Currency
Spirit Stones purchase food, crop seeds, medicinal seeds, cultivation manuals, pills, and treasures. Mature medicinal herbs can also be exchanged for stones 5 21.
| Goods | Recorded Price |
|---|---|
| Bag of rice | One low-grade stone 5. |
| Fifty rehmannia herb seeds | One stone 7. |
| Heaven-Piercing Tyrant Slash manual | One stone 7. |
| Mistlike Step manual | Eighteen stones 12. |
| Nine Leaning Luo Swords manual | Two stones at purchase; Ye Fei later recalls paying ten 12 41. |
| Detailed spirit-herb jade slip | Ten lower-grade stones 21. |
| Shipi grass seeds | One lower-grade stone per five seeds 21. |
| Human-Skin Mask | 200 lower-grade stones 21. |
| Unusual pill furnace sold by Deng Chao | Fifty lower-grade stones 22. |
Sources & Rewards
Sect Distribution
- Ordinary outer-disciple stipend: Five low-grade stones monthly, conditional on completing sect missions 5.
- Ye Fei’s stipend: Twenty stones monthly—four times the ordinary outer-disciple allowance 6.
- Basic herb-gathering missions: No direct Spirit Stone reward; completion qualifies disciples to collect their stipend 13.
- Other low-level missions: Two lower-grade stones and one sect point per mission 13.
- Ye Fei’s hunting earnings: Four hundred low-grade stones and two hundred mission points over more than twenty days 16.
Herb Trading
At the Flowing Cloud Merchant Association, rehmannia herb sells for two lower-grade stones per stalk. Green-mother grass, silverleaf grass, dark frost flower, and golden ginseng each sell for one 21.
- Ye Fei sells one thousand herbs for 1,200 stones, then another two thousand across five shops for 2,400 stones 21.
- The attendant receives a twelve-stone commission on the first sale, equal to his monthly wages 21.
History & Major Events
Ye Fei’s Early Cultivation
Ye Fei first receives twenty Spirit Stones in his sect supply box. Following Li Zaitian’s advice, he cultivates while holding one in each hand and makes rapid progress opening his acupoints. After exhausting his supply, he spends half a month absorbing ambient spiritual energy without opening another acupoint 5 6.
When he collects his next twenty-stone stipend, Duan Hong and three companions ambush him. Duan Hong injures him and takes sixteen stones, leaving four. After recovering and entering Qi Refining, Ye Fei spends his final two stones on medicinal seeds and a sword manual 6 7.
Conserving Stones
The Spirit-Washing Tree’s increasing resource demands lead Ye Fei to conserve his stones. After his fifth cleansing, he cultivates using the top-grade spiritual vein beneath the Azure Dragon Pool; at a depth of one hundred zhang, its energy supports cultivation slightly faster than lower-grade stones. Azure Cloud Pills later prove several times faster than stones 30 39.
Hidden Dragon Village Mine
Wang Changqing discovers a small Spirit Stone vein beneath Hidden Dragon Village during his Qi Refining years and conceals it from the Void-Surpassing Gate. Its resources help him reach Core Formation within fifty years. He later reserves the mine for his descendants, then sends Chen Shi to oversee renewed mining when he suspects Ye Canglong wants it 34.
After killing Chen Shi and Wang Hai, Ye Fei obtains more than five thousand stones from Chen Shi’s pouch and 3,200 from Wang Hai’s. Wang Changqing subsequently reports the mine to his sect, whose disciples finish extracting its remaining stones 34 35.
Ye Fei waits beside the accumulated mining proceeds rather than immediately stealing them, unknowingly avoiding Wang Changqing’s surveillance. When Deng Chao distracts the elder, Ye Fei transfers more than thirty Storage Pouches into the Azure Dragon Sword and escapes. He later counts 123,500 Spirit Stones in the recovered pouches 35 36 38.