After Luo Ci left, Lin Qi stood where she was, staring at the wooden sword that had been blasted into charcoal by lightning. Her heart ached, and her head hurt.
After cleaning up the remains of the wooden sword, Lin Qi planned to buy another when she went to Tianyi Peak tomorrow.
But her plans to practice swordsmanship were likely about to fall through.
Lin Qi was not someone who could sit idle.
Since she could not practice swordsmanship, she decided to read the books on talisman crafting.
At the thought of talisman crafting, she could not help thinking of the Underground Palace.
Her fingers unconsciously stroked the Phoenix Feather on her disciple jade token. In a moment of distraction, Lin Qi appeared in the Underground Palace again.
But this time, the Underground Palace had changed somewhat from when she had last entered.
An additional mark had appeared on the door bearing the character Virtue. After studying it carefully for a long while, Lin Qi realized that it was similar in size to that drop of Ice Phoenix Essence Blood.
Just as she was pondering how to extract the Ice Phoenix Essence Blood from between her brows, a chill gathered there, and the Ice Phoenix Essence Blood appeared in her palm.
"So I can control this drop of Ice Phoenix Essence Blood with my thoughts..."
Lin Qi took it out and put it back several times, thoroughly mastering the method of controlling the Ice Phoenix Essence Blood.
She controlled the Ice Phoenix Essence Blood and imprinted it into the door bearing the character Virtue. In an instant, the other doors vanished simultaneously.
The Underground Palace shook.
Frost spread from the door bearing the character Virtue, gradually freezing the entire Underground Palace solid.
Lin Qi shivered from the cold air radiating through the Underground Palace.
When her senses returned, she discovered that the Underground Palace had completely changed.
A flood of information surged into her mind, and only then did she learn that the Underground Palace had merged with the talisman-crafting room and the formation array room.
The two rooms each occupied half the space.
Perhaps because Lin Qi had yet to push open the formation array room's door, the space belonging to it was shrouded by a barrier, and she could not make out its exact appearance.
Lin Qi had thought the changes to the Underground Palace would merely make things more convenient for her. Then she turned around and saw a tall, cold, stunning beauty.
She jumped back a step in fright.
Even with her mind frozen stiff, she recognized the person before her in an instant. "M-Mother?"
Who could tell her why Gong Shaojun was in the Underground Palace?!
Only after calling out did Lin Qi realize something was wrong.
This was not Gong Shaojun!
More precisely, she had no aura. She did not seem human, but rather like a... puppet.
Unfortunately, Lin Qi had only just entered the Cangwu Realm and knew pitifully little about such matters.
After hearing Lin Qi's cry, 'Gong Shaojun' rolled her eyes and bowed to Lin Qi. "Master."
With that one word, what was there left for Lin Qi not to understand?
This was probably another gift left behind by her all-knowing, all-calculating 'mother.'
"You... were left behind by my mother?"
"Madam ordered me to guard the Underground Palace and protect Master." 'Gong Shaojun' mechanically uttered the words.
Having received her answer, Lin Qi's fright was barely soothed.
"What is your strength?"
'Gong Shaojun' stared at her blankly, as though she did not understand what Lin Qi meant.
Lin Qi sighed. She should not have held too many expectations for a puppet.
But in the next moment, the puppet 'Gong Shaojun' gave her a surprise.
She presented a Phoenix Feather Bracelet. "This is a cultivation gift Madam prepared for Master."
A gift?!
The moment Lin Qi heard those words, her eyes lit up at once.
The instant Lin Qi's fingertips touched the Phoenix Feather Bracelet, it actively pierced her hand and acknowledged her as its master.
An additional consciousness appeared in her sea of consciousness, and Lin Qi eagerly entered the space to take a look.
The space was not large. It contained only a spiritual field of black soil.
Several balls of light floated beside the spiritual field.
Lin Qi was not particularly interested in farming, so she headed straight for the balls of light, her gaze sweeping across them one by one.
She could not see any of them clearly...
That was not entirely true. She could see two of the balls of light clearly.
One contained an egg, and the other contained an utterly ordinary wooden sword.
When she turned around, the puppet 'Gong Shaojun' was already waiting behind her. Lin Qi asked, "Can I only take the things I can see?"
'Gong Shaojun' quietly nodded.
Lin Qi cautiously took out the wooden sword and the egg.
She pondered over both items for a long time without figuring anything out. When she asked 'Gong Shaojun,' the puppet merely kept shaking her head and saying she did not know.
Lin Qi could only figure them out herself.
In the end... she figured out nothing.
The only consolation was that a wooden sword had fallen from the heavens. She no longer needed to spend money to buy one from the Tianyi Sect.
She should be happy, right?
Lin Qi guessed that all the things in the Underground Palace had been sealed with restrictions. Gong Shaojun had probably been afraid that Lin Qi, being young, would squander these precious treasures at will.
Once her strength improved, these treasures should gradually reveal their true forms.
Lin Qi was no longer in a hurry.
Before leaving, she casually scattered the seeds she had bought into the black soil of the space.
After leaving the space, Lin Qi discovered that the Phoenix Feather Bracelet had actually merged into her arm. On her fair, tender arm was what looked like a vividly lifelike pattern carved into her skin, so beautiful that it seemed ready to leap from her wrist the next moment.
She touched the pattern on her wrist, quite satisfied with the result.
The bracelet was far too conspicuous and would easily draw attention.
After merging into her wrist, no one would likely guess that it was a storage space.
After sorting through her things, Lin Qi eagerly began studying talisman crafting.
She first used the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone on the Underground Palace's desk, along with the scrolls, to practice drawing. Once she had nearly exhausted her spiritual energy, she left the Underground Palace.
While using the Phoenix Feather to restore her divine sense, she meditated to replenish her spiritual energy and, at the same time, pondered the knowledge in the books.
Using one mind for three purposes while also saving time, Lin Qi felt quite clever about her arrangement.
It was also through repeated use that Lin Qi discovered that using the Underground Palace's brush to draw on the scrolls placed exceptional demands on one's control over spiritual energy.
To leave even a single character on a scroll, not only did the spiritual energy need to flow smoothly and evenly as the brush descended, it could not leak in the slightest. There were also requirements for force and stroke direction.
After all that effort, she could finally draw two strokes smoothly this time.
Who knew what year or month it would be before she could create even one talisman?
In the latter half of the night, Lin Qi began cultivating the Pure Spirit Art, slowly absorbing spiritual energy.
Under the moonlight, wisps of cold air burrowed from the High-grade Cold Stone at her waist into Lin Qi's body, surging through her meridians and into her dantian.
When Lin Qi opened her eyes again, a layer of frost already covered the surface of her body.
She unconsciously shuddered.
Rubbing her arms, she thought it over and decided to remove the High-grade Cold Stone first, stuffing it into her storage space.
"No wonder Master said I have to temper my body with Fire Spirit Flowers once every half month. With cold air this dense, I feel like I'll freeze to death soon if I don't temper my body."
But the High-grade Cold Stone's cultivation-boosting effect was indeed obvious.
Previously, Lin Qi had needed to meditate for at least two hours to fill her dantian once. With the High-grade Cold Stone's assistance, the time had been cut cleanly in half, and that was even after she had broken through to the Qi Refining Second Stage.
After cultivating for the entire night, Lin Qi was still brimming with motivation, her heart filled with satisfaction.
Thinking that she would enter the Lübing Abyss with Senior Sister tomorrow, she picked up a brush and noted down some things she needed to prepare.
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