Xu Yi accepted it. "I'm Xue Xiang. May I ask your name?"
The middle-aged man in a brown robe replied, "I'm Liu Yinglin."
Xu Yi said, "I don't need to know where Brother Liu's connections come from, but I do need a reasonably plausible explanation."
It was true that all he needed was for the man to supply Wind element Talisman Paper when the time came, and there was no need to ask so many questions. But Xu Yi had always been cautious. He absolutely refused to take even the slightest unnecessary risk.
The middle-aged man in the brown robe said, "There's no harm in telling you. How do you think talisman paper is obtained? It doesn't simply grow out of the ground. Someone has to refine it. I have a circle of contacts, with several people skilled in the art of making talismans. Of course, they can only produce crude, first-grade talisman paper."
Xu Yi's expression changed abruptly. He suddenly realized he had overlooked an enormous problem: the supply of talisman paper. He had been trapped by conventional thinking, assuming that talisman paper, like spirit stones, was naturally formed and beyond human control.
At that moment, the middle-aged man's words felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head in the heat of midsummer.
Making talismans was extremely difficult for him now. Five Elements Spirit Stones were hard to find, and talisman paper was even harder to come by. By comparison, drawing Talisman Patterns and mastering Talisman Art ranked relatively low among his concerns.
That was because the first two were external conditions that he could do little to change, while the third depended on his own abilities—something he could improve through practice and cultivate over time.
Now, the middle-aged man's words had undoubtedly revealed a glimmer