A Cheat for Talisman Drawing

Failed again!

Zhao Sheng felt a little frustrated.

This time, he had failed to connect the Talisman Apertures in time, obstructing the flow of Spiritual Power and causing the spell to leak away.

He had always thought talisman crafting was not difficult, but reality had slapped him hard across the face several times.

Zhao Sheng believed he had completely mastered the Spring Breeze Rain Spell, yet whenever it came to crafting talismans, some flaw would always arise.

After two hours, he had drawn eleven Spring Breeze Rain Talismans in total, but only four had succeeded.

His success rate was actually below thirty percent.

One had to know that he could only turn a profit with a success rate above fifty percent. Below that, he would only lose money without earning any.

After pondering for a moment, a flash of insight struck Zhao Sheng, and the corners of his lips curled into a faint smile.

With a sweep of his long sleeve, invisible Spiritual Power scattered outward and dispersed the moisture in the room.

Zhao Sheng picked up the talisman brush again and dipped its tip into the pale-blue spirit ink inside the Talisman Ink Bottle.

This spirit ink was a basic Water Element Spirit Ink developed by the Zhao Family two hundred years ago. Its raw ingredient was essence refined from Azure Blue Grass, and it provided a slight enhancement to water-element talismans.

He took out a blank sheet of Talisman Paper the length of his palm.

Zhao Sheng held his breath and focused, suspending his wrist with his right hand. Once Spiritual Power had been poured into the brush tip, it swiftly descended onto the Talisman Paper and began to draw with quick, rustling strokes.

Before long, an exceptionally beautiful talisman pattern gradually appeared on the paper.

When only the final few strokes remained, Zhao Sheng felt the Spiritual Power at the brush tip suddenly grow turbulent. Specks of blue light flickered, on the verge of bursting from the Talisman Paper.

Just then, divine light flared in Zhao Sheng's eyes as Bullet Time abruptly activated.

In an instant, the world seemed to freeze. Time stretched immensely, and everything became incomparably slow.

In this strange state, Zhao Sheng's perception rose to an unimaginable level.

He "saw" wisps of Spiritual Power flowing from the talisman brush's tip. The Spiritual Power flowed onto the Talisman Paper in fits and starts, becoming an uneven spiritual line that linked each Talisman Aperture and Spiritual Network node one by one.

Zhao Sheng was extremely excited. Bullet Time had actually played a tremendous role.

With time stretched out, Zhao Sheng was able to calmly mobilize the Spiritual Power within his body, making its output steadier.

As spiritual patterns of even thickness and consistent shade poured from the brush tip, the talisman quickly returned to normal.

In the blink of an eye, Zhao Sheng suddenly stopped his brush. The surface of the Talisman Paper instantly shone with renewed spiritual radiance.

The Spring Breeze Rain Talisman was complete! Once Bullet Time ended, time resumed its normal flow.

Zhao Sheng's body trembled, and his gaze dimmed slightly.

Bullet Time's effect was astonishingly good, but its aftereffects could not be ignored.

Each activation of this innate ability consumed a considerable amount of Zhao Sheng's mental energy.

Recalling his previous state, Zhao Sheng tried putting brush to paper again.

This time, his strokes flowed smoothly as silk, and another Spring Breeze Rain Talisman was completed.

Zhao Sheng's expression was full of excitement. Just as he was about to press on while the iron was hot, he suddenly felt a wave of emptiness in his Dantian.

Only then did he realize that the Spiritual Power in his body had already been nearly exhausted.

Zhao Sheng sighed, thinking that Qi Refining Level Two was still too low. He had to raise his cultivation as soon as possible!

With that thought, he put away the talisman brush, spirit ink, and five Spring Breeze Rain Talismans, then left the Talisman Room and headed toward Dragon Carp Lake.

The Zhao Family's Water Vein Cultivation Rooms were all located beneath Dragon Carp Lake, carved out along a first-rank water-element spirit vein.

Zhao Sheng took a boat to an area seven or eight li out into Dragon Carp Lake.

More than a dozen wooden boats had already gathered there.

Zhao Sheng had long since stopped finding this strange.

He took out a Water Avoidance Pearl and placed it in his mouth before jumping into the water.

Dragon Carp Lake was a vast lake spanning more than two hundred li, with an average depth of over ten zhang. The lakebed where the spirit vein lay was nearly a hundred zhang beneath the surface.

As he dove deeper and deeper, the underwater light grew increasingly dim. Once he passed fifty zhang, the waters around him had become so black he could not see his own fingers.

Just then, several points of light suddenly appeared in the darkness below.

Zhao Sheng continued diving. The patches of light in the darkness quickly expanded, eventually revealing the outlines of "bubbles" three or four zhang in diameter, radiating dazzling white light.

Pop! Zhao Sheng passed through the luminous membrane of one of the bubbles and entered the land of the spirit vein.

The area was not large, and the ground was slightly wet and slippery. In the middle, someone had excavated a large pit three or four zhang deep.

Within the pit stood a cultivation Stone Room built from Water Ripple Stone.

Zhao Sheng had arrived somewhat early. After waiting for roughly half an hour, the Stone Room's door finally opened.

The moment Zhao Jinpeng emerged and saw Zhao Sheng, his old face immediately became somewhat embarrassed.

He usually looked down on Zhao Sheng the most, yet this time, he had happened to benefit from Zhao Sheng's favor.

"Sixth Uncle!" Zhao Sheng greeted him without lacking courtesy.

"Mm," Zhao Jinpeng replied vaguely, then immediately sprang out of the Water Avoidance Barrier.

Seeing this, Zhao Sheng shook his head and stepped into the cultivation chamber. The Stone Room door was shut again behind him.

In the blink of an eye, a month passed, and Zhao Sheng's path of cultivation gradually fell into the right rhythm.

Aside from six shichen of cultivation and two shichen of sleep, Zhao Sheng devoted all his energy to talisman crafting each day after handling his miscellaneous chores.

It couldn't be helped—even as the family head, he still had to make money.

With Bullet Time assisting him, Zhao Sheng's talisman-crafting skill swiftly rose from proficient to skilled, then from skilled to masterful.

In just three days, the success rate of the First-Order Spring Breeze Rain Talisman was forcefully raised from thirty percent to ninety percent.

The Spring Breeze Rain Talisman was a First-Order Talisman commonly used to irrigate Spirit Fields. Once activated, the moisture rich in Water Spiritual Energy could nourish roughly half a mu of Spirit Field.

Its price was therefore exceptionally stable. Ten talismans made a bundle, and one bundle could be sold for three Spirit Stones.

Zhao Sheng could draw eight to ten talismans a day. After deducting costs, he could earn about half a Spirit Stone per day.

Over a year, he could earn more than one hundred and seventy Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

For an ordinary Rogue Cultivator, that was enough to cover their daily cultivation needs.

However, for someone like Zhao Sheng, who ate Spirit Essence Pills like candy beans, this little bit of Spirit Stones was nowhere near enough.

Half a month later, when the success rate of the Spring Breeze Rain Talisman reached one hundred percent, Zhao Sheng quickly cast it aside and shifted his efforts toward the more profitable Invisibility Talisman.

To craft talismans, one must first learn spells! The prerequisite spell for the Invisibility Talisman was the Light Refraction Art.

The Light Refraction Art was an upper-grade First-Order water-element spell. Its principle was to condense a transparent film of water around one's body and use it to refract the surrounding light, thereby achieving the purpose of "invisibility."

It was only that the Invisibility Talisman's grade was too low. It could conceal a cultivator's figure, but not isolate their aura. Moreover, once the light in the surroundings changed rapidly, the cultivator would immediately be revealed.

Even so, the Invisibility Talisman based on the Light Refraction Art was still greatly sought after by cultivators in the Qi Refining Realm.

Compared with the lower-grade First-Order Spring Breeze Rain Spell, the Light Refraction Art was far more difficult to cultivate and placed certain demands on a cultivator's comprehension.

Without an expert to point out the way, an ordinary cultivator might spend ten years without even finding the entrance.

Zhao Sheng naturally had no such concern. A year ago, following the spell annotations left behind by his forebears, he had already successfully mastered the Light Refraction Art.