Spirit Stone

Biodata

Functions

Currency

Spirit stones pay for cultivation resources, crafting materials, magical artifacts, techniques, lodging, and trading-gathering admission 9 14 19 27 44.

• Income: Cultivators obtain them through stipends, craftsmanship, hunting, mining rewards, and sales of recovered goods 2 7 25.
• Valuation: Goods can be priced in spirit stones even when exchanged directly. Lu Zhao trades an Ironwood Guard for a defensive formation valued at seventy spirit stones 33 34.
• Barter: Spirit stones are not mandatory for every transaction. The Thousand Stars Tower gathering accepts both currency and direct exchanges 44.
• Compensation: They can balance unequal shares of jointly acquired spoils. Lu Zhao negotiates a forty-two-stone payment for the Snake King’s remnant vines, though the final settlement waives it 31 33.

Spiritual-Energy Supply

Spirit stones release spiritual energy that can be drawn into formations or used to operate puppets 19 24.

• Puppet power: An Ironwood Guard has a prepared slot for its powering spirit stone; inserting it activates the completed puppet 24.
• Operating expense: Buying a puppet does not cover all future costs. Auction attendees explicitly consider the additional spirit stones needed to operate a Frost Rat Puppet 15.
• Cultivation rooms: A low-grade stone at the nexus of the Guest Lodge’s Spirit Gathering Formation releases energy into the room, helping replenish Lu Zhao’s expended spiritual power 19.
• Cave abodes: Stones at the focal point of the Cold Bamboo Court formation supply the abode’s cultivation chamber 40.
• Defensive formations: Stones embedded in eight pillars power the Greenrock Mystic Light Formation. Their energy is consumed as the barrier repairs damage during bombardment 43.
• Depletion: The Guest Lodge’s formation contains a more-than-half-depleted stone, while Lu Zhao also encounters depleted stones at a formation nexus in Green Vine Ravine 11 19.

Denominations

Purchasing Power

Prices depend on the seller, transaction type, availability, and wartime demand; the recorded figures are not fixed universal rates 17 27 40 47.

Goods and Services

Puppet Prices

Income and Resource Constraints

Zhou Household Stipends

Retainers receive a monthly spirit-stone payment and one pill appropriate to their cultivation 8.

Wealth and Availability

• Early savings: Lu Zhao estimates that his stipend and stall income could let him save nearly twenty stones annually. Developing his first Azure-Patterned Rat Puppet consumes almost fifty 2.
• Crafting risk: Before successfully making an Ironwood Guard, he has already wasted nearly eighty stones on attempts, against annual earnings of only a little over three hundred 24.
• Material shortages: Money alone cannot ensure access to rare resources. Cold iron is the only first-tier superior-grade material reliably purchasable in Zhou Household Market; obtaining others depends on availability 33.
• Prewar reserves: Lu Zhao’s remaining three hundred and thirty stones constitute a fortune among middle-stage Qi Refining rogue cultivators, but he spends nearly all of them on pills, talismans, and puppet materials 37.
• Wartime profit: Selling six Ironwood Guards at eighty stones each brings in four hundred and eighty stones. At an estimated crafting cost of fifty-five per puppet, the batch yields one hundred and fifty stones in profit 40.
• Wartime inflation: Ice Jade Pills cost three stones each during Lu Zhao’s prewar purchases. Later, an alchemist asks sixty for twelve; Lu Zhao bargains the total down to fifty-five 37 47.