The crow flew and the hare ran:
A month passed...
The Spirit Monsters and martial artists of the Market Ward suddenly discovered that the most sought-after goods were no longer traditional agricultural products such as blood, limbs, and yang energy.
Instead, it was sunlight-sunlight that had been refined once with Dharma Power.
A single ray of sunlight was worth ten Green Beetles.
The price was low, but the buyers purchased without limit.
As long as you had it, they would buy it, no matter how much, and pay cash.
For many Spirit Monsters and New-Method Cultivators, this was quite a good deal.
For the Spirit Monsters, it held even greater appeal:
They discovered that as long as they wanted to refine sunlight, someone would teach them the best sun-gathering spells, as well as methods of worshipping the great sun.
This way, not only could they learn cultivation spells for free, but they could also make money.
The pig demon A Fei saw a business opportunity in this sunlight purchasing operation.
With too many members in his Lineage, not enough food, and not enough warm clothing, he had eventually come to the Market Ward to work.
After a series of ventures, including having his blood drawn and partnering with cultivators who knew the Creation Art to sell pig's trotter rice and pork intestine noodles, his body had been so depleted that even the Creation Art could not heal him, and he was ultimately discarded.
He had thought he would die in some corner, then have his flesh stripped and his skin peeled off by humans and Spirit Monsters, until even his bones were broken down, dying without a sound.
Instead, he had stumbled upon the emerging industry of refining and purchasing sunlight.
After just a little research, he realized, "This sunlight