Becoming a Devilish Cultivator's Miko

This is perfectly normal, Yotsuya Miko thought.

"Huh?"

Kyosuke stared for a moment as his older sister clapped her hands and stood up, only then understanding what she had said.

"A cat?"

"Yeah, I saw a stray cat on the way. It didn't want the cat food I bought last time, so I went to buy some fish."

"Is... that so?"

Kyosuke glanced behind Miko, but saw nothing.

"Where's the cat?"

"I told you, you scared it away."

Yotsuya Miko said "irritably," then turned a questioning gaze towards Kyosuke. He shouldn't have been here at this time.

"Speaking of which, why are you here?"

"Eh?"

Yotsuya Kyosuke's expression suddenly changed, and he started to panic.

"Actually, I... I just happened to be passing by, and then... I saw you, sis."

As he spoke, he turned his head to the side, telling a lie that Miko could see right through.

"...Don't try to fool me. Come clean."

Miko walked up to Kyosuke, holding the bag, and looked down at her younger brother with her golden eyes, extending one free hand.

Watching the hand slowly descend, Kyosuke swallowed and reluctantly confessed everything.

Including how he described his sister to his classmates, how he suspected his sister had a boyfriend, and even how he suspected his sister had broken up with her boyfriend.

With every sentence he heard, Yotsuya Miko's face grew a shade darker, but a smile played on her lips.

"...I'm done talking."

"Mm, I'm done listening too. Carry this convenience store bag for me."

"Okay, okay."

Kyosuke obediently took the convenience store bag. After he had it in hand, Yotsuya Miko mercilessly twisted Kyosuke's ears with both hands, using... a little force.

The pain quickly shot up to his head from his ears, causing Kyosuke to cry out.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch... Sis, easy, easy."

"You really are my good little brother, Kyosuke."

The thought of her image being distorted by Kyosuke's gossip and spreading through his class in some unimaginable way was enough to make Yotsuya Miko disown her own brother.

"I'll teach you to talk nonsense. If I catch you talking nonsense again, things won't be this simple."

After a light punishment, Yotsuya Miko released her grip and took the convenience store bag back from Kyosuke. Fortunately, the ink she had already prepared, wrapped in Spiritual Qi, wouldn't evaporate too much and could still be used when she got home.

"I understand."

Kyosuke rubbed his bright red ears, still with a bit of lingering mischief, and asked.

"Sis, do you have a boyfriend?"

"No."

"Then do you have someone you like?"

"Hua."

"That doesn't count, I mean, like that."

"Then, no."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really not."

Yotsuya Miko shook her head, then, carrying her unfinished work, started walking in the direction of home.

After Kyosuke's disruption, her plan to finish crafting the Evil Banishing Talisman in one go here was completely ruined.

"Let's go, we should head back."

"Yeah, speaking of which, where's the fish you bought?"

"A cat snatched it."

It was fortunate she had bought fish; it served as a decent cover story with the stray cat.

"Those stray cats seem pretty shy, and quite pitiful."

Recalling her previous experience finding a home for a stray kitten, Yotsuya Miko mused. The man covered in a cat-like evil spirit, and the man with two Bakeneko standing on his shoulders, had left a deep impression.

"Yeah, they really are."

Yotsuya Kyosuke agreed. The two of them ran towards the sunset, walking on the road home, their shadows stretching long in the setting sun.

Finally home, Miko quickly slipped on her slippers and headed straight for her room, locking the door behind her.

She was quite scared her younger brother would walk in again while she was making talismans.

After closing the door, she took out the dish of thick ink, a brush, and dozens of prepared sheets of white paper from her convenience bag.

Making the raw materials for talismans wasn't difficult compared to drawing them, because drawing talismans was truly troublesome.

She spread a sheet of paper flat on the table and began to outline the shape of the talisman, stroke by stroke, with the brush dipped in the blood-colored thick ink. To ensure that the marks made by the brush wouldn't splash or have too much ink, Miko used some Spiritual Qi to make slight adjustments while focusing most of her attention on the form of the talisman. Even so, with a slight tremor of her hand, the first talisman was still a failure.

"The difficulty is higher than I imagined."

Taking a deep breath and calming herself slightly, Miko set the discarded paper aside and took out another sheet to draw.

This one was even worse than the previous one. The previous one was at least halfway done before it was ruined, but this one was ruined shortly after she started.

After another adjustment, Miko took out the third sheet of paper, then the fourth, then the fifth.

For beginners, drawing talismans wasn't simple. It was like trying to sculpt the face of an exquisite anime character with a toothpick, or using tiny tweezers to slowly peel the shell off a raw egg without breaking its delicate membrane and letting the yolk and white spill out.

Even if she succeeded, it was hard to say when the next success would come; it required a bit of luck.

Miko didn't seem to have that luck. After failing more than a dozen times in a row, she felt an urge to give up.

Looking at the discarded papers piled beside her, Miko rubbed her head, which was tired from the mental exertion, and then took out another sheet of paper.

Through repeated drawing, she gained some insight: when drawing talismans, one couldn't spend too much time; the talisman pattern needed to be drawn quickly and accurately.

So, before picking up the brush again, Yotsuya Miko closed her eyes, recalling the previous drawing sessions and the original appearance of the talisman, and traced its shape in the air with her finger.

After tracing it four or five times until she had it firmly in her mind, she slowly picked up the brush, dipped it in the thick ink, and drew the talisman with a fluid motion. This time, she didn't use Spiritual Qi to maintain the ink marks, but poured all her concentration into the drawing.

In this state, she almost naturally completed a talisman.

"Finished?"

Infusing a bit of Spiritual Qi into the talisman and seeing the red light illuminate, Yotsuya Miko finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's great."

Chapter 24: The Devilish Dao and Reform

The Evil Banishing Talisman referred not to the talisman paper, but to the talisman pattern itself.

Cultivators of the righteous path had always been accustomed to drawing talisman patterns on specially made talisman paper and using them as single-use items. This practice was undoubtedly a great waste in the eyes of Devilish Cultivators like Zhang Qiudao.

Before Zhang Qiudao entered the Devilish Dao, the righteous path had been suppressing the Devilish Dao for a long time. Naturally, the best resources were enjoyed by the righteous path, while those in the Devilish Dao often fought fiercely for meager gains, resorting to any means necessary to extract potential.

To these orthodox Devilish Cultivators, nothing could be misused. They envied the righteous path cultivators who used large amounts of talisman paper as disposable items, yet they scoffed at such behavior. Based on this mindset, a group of Devilish Cultivators first proposed the idea of "Heaven bestows its gifts, enduring use is precious," striving to achieve destructive power while also making various artifacts, formations, and talisman paper more durable, usable even by descendants generations later.

Zhang Qiudao was one of this faction. Building upon the ideas of his predecessors, he and other great Devilish Cultivator cultivators of that era jointly developed a new talisman system centered around "talisman patterns." These talisman patterns relied more on the infusion of Spiritual Qi and manual maintenance, but their effectiveness in terms of usage count was greatly enhanced. More importantly, the new talismans did not require talisman paper as a medium and could be incorporated into various carriers, making the new talismans more concealed and secure.

Following this new talisman system, the old talisman system, which relied on talisman paper as a medium and was extremely costly, was quickly replaced by the new talisman. Shortly after the development of the new talisman, some outstanding Devilish Cultivator cultivators pushed the efficacy of the new talisman to new heights. They incorporated talisman patterns into various artifacts, often embedding several or even dozens of talisman patterns into a single artifact, thus giving rise to "Talisman Patterned Artifacts," which were distinct from the old-style artifacts that purely relied on refining materials and had no other special functions.

Thus, the situation between the righteous and Devilish paths was reversed under the leadership of Devilish Cultivator cultivators like Zhang Qiudao. The Devilish path, which was the first to complete the "New Talisman, New Artifact Reform," greatly increased its strength, and the righteous path soon found it difficult to contend. They were forced to also complete the "New Talisman, New Artifact Reform."

This reform marked the first shift in power between the righteous and Devilish paths in the Xuanhui Realm.

As for subsequent reforms, let's return to Miko for now.

Miko looked at the Evil Banishing Talisman drawn on the white paper, guided Spiritual Qi to peel the talisman pattern off the paper, and then, following the methods in the Soul Nourishing Artifact Path Understanding, slowly infused it into the doll "Eye-Eye." Since a complete system had been formed, this step did not involve complex operations and was quickly completed.

"It's just the process of drawing the talisman that takes too much time."

Holding the doll, Yotsuya Miko didn't immediately try the Evil Banishing Talisman. Instead, she tidied up the discarded white papers one by one, using Spiritual Qi to erase the residual stench.

Through her own experience of drawing talismans, Yotsuya Miko finally understood why the "new talisman" was considered the turning point for the power of the righteous and Devilish paths. It was simply because drawing a single talisman was too difficult.

Moreover, the talisman patterns at that time also needed to be drawn on special talisman paper to enhance their effect. Doing so required a great deal of resources for drawing talismans.

The righteous path, due to their considerations and misjudgment of direction—they always focused on how to increase the success rate of drawing talismans, without achieving a significant increase in the output of old talismans. The Devilish path, however, considering scarcity, focused first on reducing the consumption of resources. To this end, they tried various methods to cut the cost of making talisman paper and, through repeated attempts, discovered the relationship between the efficacy of talisman paper and Spiritual Qi. From this relationship, they concluded: using higher quality talisman paper was not as effective as using lower quality talisman paper and increasing the amount of Spiritual Qi used, because while resources were finite, Spiritual Qi was everywhere. Under this concept, the idea of not using talisman paper, meaning not making special talisman paper, was born. Based on this, they shifted their focus to the talisman patterns themselves, beginning to work on making talisman patterns reusable, even permanently usable.

The second key point was mass production. Yes, it was hard to imagine the concept of mass production being proposed by the resource-scarce Devilish cultivators. Under the influence of the no-talisman-paper concept, the crafting of talismans by some Devilish cultivators began to become more abundant, leading them to consider the possibility of multiple productions. After all, permanent talismans had not yet appeared at that time; their talismans could only be used three or four more times than those of the righteous path, at most a dozen times. Thus, a group of practical Devilish cultivators began to explore how to produce talismans in large quantities at once. They quickly found a solution based on the no-talisman-paper concept: imitation. Since there was no need to consider the quality of talisman paper, this also solved another problem that had troubled cultivators in refining talismans: the person drawing the talisman pattern could not relax their concentration, otherwise, they could not combine the talisman pattern with the talisman paper.

Thus, the method of imprinting a master talisman pattern to create a large number of talismans was born. This technique did not require the cultivator to be involved in the entire process of drawing the talisman pattern; they only needed to refine a master copy, and then use it as a reference, employing various imitation spells developed by cultivators to directly copy and paste. The emergence of this technology brought about a productivity revolution in talisman crafting technology in the Xuanhui Realm.

After this, Devilish cultivators focused on research and development related to permanent talismans and changing carriers.

In summary, similar to the productivity revolution in Western countries in this world, the Xuanhui Realm also experienced a productivity revolution, and more than once.

As is well known, productivity revolutions inevitably lead to power shifts and, consequently, redistribution—in other words, war.

"Miko? It's time to eat."

Outside the door, her mother's voice interrupted Miko's thoughts. She stood up and reattached the doll to her schoolbag.

"Okay, I know."

After gaining a basic understanding of the Xuanhui Realm's history, Miko realized that her master seemed extraordinary. Just like Newton's classical mechanics, her master's "new talisman" theory had become the primary cause of the productivity revolution. However, Devilish Cultivators were still quite evil.

Looking at the text in her mind, which did not disdain to conceal its actions but frankly described its despicable and shameless behavior in several righteous-demonic wars—actions that invariably caused great danger—Miko couldn't help but twitch her lips.

After much thought, she felt that perhaps only "madmen" could describe these Devilish Cultivators.

Like that "Heaven Imprisoning Desire Calculation Scripture," which had a very confident name but whose creator had failed, Yotsuya Miko couldn't quite figure out what these Devilish Cultivators were after.

However, there was a sentence in the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record:

"To walk the natural path, one must replace the Dao."

So, in reality, everyone is a Devilish Cultivator—because of a bug called "intelligence." (lol)

Chapter 25: The Living and the Departed

Early in the morning, the 7 AM alarm clock woke Yotsuya Miko from her sleep.

She rubbed her head, looking somewhat sleep-deprived. The talisman drawing yesterday had taken quite a bit out of her.

However, it would finally be put to use today.

She got up and walked to the window, pulling back the curtains as she always did.

There was no difference from usual; the Ghosts were still mixed in with the street, having become a part of it.

Just as the Devilish Dao knowledge in her mind clearly stated, those Ghosts were still clearly visible, which was annoying.

"I really wish I could drive them all away."

Yotsuya Miko stared, sighing.

These guys are so bothersome. Oh well, let's think of something happy.

Right, that crunchy pudding I bought earlier...

After changing into her school uniform and walking down the stairs, Miko finally thought of something that could make her a little happier.

Looking at the people already sitting at the dining table chatting, along with the pet, Miko rubbed her head again.

"Then, my sister went to the market and bought a fish to feed the cat, saying the cat wouldn't eat cat food."

Yotsuya Kyosuke was telling his mother about what his older sister did after school. His father, Masamori, glanced over from his newspaper, "Oh, speak of the devil and she appears."

His mother, Touko, also saw Miko coming downstairs.