Luo took some time to write 6 copies of the '36 walls of Soul' cultivation technique and handed it to everyone else. Cai MingZhu took her's and said "Well, I have an idea that will restrict the bought copies to the buyer so that others will not be able to make copies themselves. I'll let you know once I've succeeded."
Luo and the others, armed with a copy each, started to copy more books. Their target was to reach 1000 as that was the strength of the Ancient Zither Abode sect. It took them a couple of days and they pulled all-nighters to finish copying all 1000 copies of the manual. Hua was starting to hallucinate letters and so he stopped in between, but Hao Qi was extremely efficient.
Xun and the Zhong twins were playing around at times but when Luo and Hao Qi glared at them, they would get back to the work at hand.
Cai MingZhu joined them and showed them a set of 1000 papers with 2 simple engraved runes written on them.
"I used some connections of mine to get a Runemaster who is a foreign elder under my family's care to write up these 1000 runepapers. He demanded 5% of the profits in whatever venture we were about to get into. I couldn't erase his suspicions of a venture and had to relent to what he asked. Is that okay, Luo?"
"Yes, yes that's fine. You did your best and thank you for that. But more importantly , tell me how these runes will work."
"It's pretty simple actually. Do you see these 2 runes here? One is for the author and the other is for the buyer. You, as the author, will have to inject your Qi into each of these 'author' runes for all of these 1000 runepapers. We will then stick them onto the manuals that you have copied. Once a copy is bought, only the person who will insert their Qi into the 'buyer' part of the rune and the author will be able to read the contents of the manual.
And no one under the Core formation realm will be able to break the restrictions of these runes, so that's a plus. You just have to put one drop of Qi in all of these runepapers and you are done. Apparently almost all of the cultivation manuals have security measures like this apparently so that they could not be copied willy nilly."
Cai looked very proud and showed a smug expression.
"Wow, that is some fine work indeed. Thank you so much MingZhu. Can you tell me the name of this master who uses runes? They look interesting."
"Hahaha...want to learn runes huh. Well that will be a little hard. You need to have improved the level of your soul and just your technique probably will not be enough to improve your spiritual energy. Even I don't understand the specifics but fine, you can talk to him, I suppose. His name is Duan Jin. I will arrange a meeting soon and let you know."
"Thanks"
Luo then poured some of his Qi into the runes and it did not take a whole drop of Qi to operate the rune. 'This is probably because Chaos Qi is much denser than ordinary Tier2 Qi' Luo thought.
He then sat and proceeded to pour his Qi into the runepapers while the rest of them stuck it onto the copies of the manual. When he was done he was left with barely 5 drops of Qi in his Dantian. 'It's going to take a lot of time to recover' Luo sighed.
Once the batches were ready Cai MingZhu stepped in and said "You should first give 10 copies in the auction and set the price to 10000 gold taels for a copy. On the same day I will take another 10 and with a few contacts sell those for around the same price just before the auction as well.
Then we should wait for a few days….let the word of the technique spread and then we introduce batches into the auction at reduced prices and keep doing it until we have sold it to everyone in the sect. I think this would be the method if you want to sell everything AND if you want it to be accessible to everyone regardless of their riches.
What do you think?"
Luo was impressed that she came up with such a strategy and then said "You know what, take another additional 5% of the profits and I want you to handle all the sales matters. I don't think I would be able to handle it as well as you are doing it."
Cai MigZhu agreed to this.
While all of this was happening Hua, Xun and the others were still stuck mentally at the mention of 10000 gold taels for a copy of the manual. "That...That's sooo much moneyyyyy. Even with the split between all of us. Oh my gooddddd, I am richhhhhh. I am going to buy a cool sword with that. Yayyy' Hua danced with glee.
Xun was counting all of the pretty dresses and equipment she could buy with that much money. The Zhong twins were counting the number of days they would be able to eat delicious food...delicious and expensive..
Hao Qi was counting the number of cultivation manuals she could exchange for that money.
Luo smiled at them but then his attention was once again drawn to the runes. "Master Yin, what are these runes? Can you teach them to me? They seem to have interesting applications."
"Hmmm, well they are interesting. The runes in this lower realm are much simpler and weaker but for you they would seem like a lot of power. And they can be used in different array formations and they have a lot of practical value. All right, I'll teach you , but you will need a lot of supplies for this and you have to at least be in the Qi condensation realm for me to teach you this."
"Ohh, then I will learn about these runes once I break through to the Qi condensation realm master."
"Good. Now I am going back to my slumber."
After the days passed, Cai was busy handling the sales of the '36 walls of soul' cultivation manuals. Just as she suggested she introduced 10 copies through her contacts telling them that their family had gotten this as a reward and wanted to set up opportunities to sell the extra copies that they didn't need.
Her family gained favors from the buyers as well all the while she had not mentioned who was the author or the fact that there were more copies.
Just after that 10 more copies were announced to be sold for starting price of 10000 gold taels and with Soul cultivation techniques being rare, they sold for much higher prices. The buyers who had bought it for just 10000 gold taels and not a tael more were happy seeing at the exorbitant prices that the manual was going for in the auction.
A few days after the auction sales , word had spread about the effects of the technique and people were talking about it. Then Cai went ahead and put 50 copies for sale in the auction for the starting price of 7000 gold taels.
The reason being that they were able to get their hands on 50 more copies somehow. They too sold like hotcakes and all the nobles and rich families snatched the opportunity especially after having heard about the uses of the technique.
Then she waited a few more days and then put a 100 copies for sale for a starting price of 5000 gold taels. And the same process began again and again. By the end of the month, the last copy was sold for just 100 gold taels. By this time everyone in the sect had bought the technique.
The people who had bought it initially though, were both angry and impressed at the way the sales were executed. Angry because of the exorbitant prices that they had paid but impressed by the way the sales were handled.
But nobody was willing to take any action as they would lose face that they weren't even able to pay for a cultivation manual and the sneering comments and laughter from other nobles that they would have to face.
Cai distributed each of their shares from the profits as Luo had discussed earlier and deposited it in the accounts of each of them at the bank. Each disciple was given an account at the sect where they could store their assets and belongings.
Luo and Hua were in closed door cultivation since the start, cultivating the 36 walls of soul technique. As they progressed, they found that each layer was becoming that much harder to comprehend.
After a whole 2 and a half months of cultivation, Luo had broken through to half step Qi condensation. Hua had broken through to the 3rd layer of Qi condensation. Luo's phenomenal cultivation rate was because he had instructed Xun to buy Qi and blood pills from all the money that he had made.
She would go buy huge quantities of pills everyday and then deliver it at Luo's room. He had consumed a huuuugee amount of pills as his Primordial Chaos Qi was much denser and it took time for it to be built from normal Qi pills.
They finally exited the room around the same time; Luo with scraggly hair and a putrid smell of impurities that were expelled from his body and Hua with a disheveled length of hair but he did not smell as much when Luo was also present nearby.
He put his fingers to his nose "Holy dragon's balls, you stink like if someone had puked on already dried up puke and if that was put in a humid environment. Jeeshhhhh"
Luo smelled his armpits and said "How come I don't smell it?"
Xun and the others just maintained a 20 feet distance from them and smiled from afar.