Talisman Arts

With mana now at his disposal, Xia Dong first considered how to earn more cultivation resources.

There are four main paths for cultivators to earn spirit stones: Alchemy, Artifact Refinement, Formations, and Talismans.

After careful deliberation, Xia Dong locked his sights on "Talisman Arts."

Alchemy and artifact refinement have prohibitively high entry costs, often requiring expensive furnaces, earthly fires, and rare spirit herbs or ores.

Given Xia Dong's current meager finances, he couldn't even afford a scrap of medicinal residue.

Talisman making, however, has the lowest threshold and cost among the four arts.

The raw material for the spirit paper required for talisman making is mostly spirit bamboo.

The Qixia Mountain range is overflowing with spirit bamboo that grows rapidly, so in the marketplace, a single low-grade spirit stone can buy a large stack of decent blank spirit paper.

As for the monster blood or cinnabar used to draw the runes, they are not considered rare among mortals and low-level cultivators, making them easy to acquire.

What truly makes countless cultivators shy away from talisman making is the shockingly low success rate.

Drawing a talisman requires one continuous, fluid motion.

When a cultivator puts pen to paper, the slightest fluctuation in their state of mind, a hair's breadth of deviation in mana infusion, or even a slight tremor in the hand will cause the spiritual energy in the entire talisman paper to dissipate, rendering it instantly useless.

The intense consumption of divine sense during the process makes it a thankless task for many low-level cultivators; drawing one successful talisman out of ten is often cause for celebration.

But for Xia Dong, who possesses the Bronze Ancient Bell, this is not a problem at all!

"One Proof Eternal Proof" perfectly covers these flaws.

As long as he successfully draws one high-quality talisman, the perfect mana trajectory and the precise pressure of the brushstroke will be deeply branded into the depths of his soul.

Thereafter, drawing the same talisman will be like the most precise block printing; the success rate will be absolute.

With his direction set, Xia Dong began searching through the vast, sea-like records of the Pingyang County Gazetteer for monster lore, looking for a way to obtain a talisman inheritance.

Soon, a name buried in the dust of old papers caught his eye—Zhang Ping.

Zhang Ping was a resident of Pingyang County over a thousand years ago.

He was obsessed with seeking immortality his entire life, wandering for half his years, yet he failed to be accepted into any prestigious sects, learning only the art of talisman water as a rogue cultivator.

In his twilight years, he returned to his roots in Pingyang County.

In the secret records of the Pingyang County Gazetteer, it is noted that this Zhang Ping specialized in talisman arts.

One year, Pingyang County suffered a severe drought followed by famine, and a plague ran rampant. Zhang Ping used talisman water outside the city to treat the sick and save lives.

Unfortunately, while talisman water could cure evil plagues, it could not cure poverty, nor could it feed the hungry.

As the refugees gathered in increasing numbers, the Pingyang County magistrate at the time, fearing a riot and even more afraid that Zhang Ping would use the opportunity to incite a rebellion, used the charge of "deceiving the masses with heterodox arts" to send troops to forcibly expel him.

Heartbroken, Zhang Ping eventually went into seclusion in the deep mountains of Tiger Hill, eighty miles outside Pingyang County, living out his days in the forests and springs accompanied by wild tigers.

The final fragments of information about him in the county gazetteer state that when villagers went into the mountains to gather herbs, they found Zhang Ping's secluded cave dwelling destroyed, and he himself had likely been devoured by a giant snake demon that had gained sentience.

He died so suddenly; his talisman inheritance is likely still hidden in some corner of Tiger Hill.

The reason he was so attentive to this thousand-year-old rumor was that just last month, Zhao Ting, the commander of the Eagle-Wolf Guard, personally led a team to Tiger Hill to wipe out a group of roving cultist bandits.

They didn't catch the bandits, but they did disturb a terrifying snake demon in the deep mountains.

The snake demon's scales were as hard as iron, and it was not only proficient in poisonous miasma but also possessed astonishing strength. Zhao Ting, a third-level Qi Refining cultivator, along with several Skin Grinding Realm squad leaders, couldn't take it down and instead lost several men, with Zhao Ting himself suffering internal injuries.

In the end, it was Xia Dong who stepped in, using the Evergreen Medical Classic combined with the Dragon-Capturing Hand and Rejuvenating Divine Needle to stabilize their injuries.

Tiger Hill... snake demon... Zhang Ping's inheritance.

Xia Dong connected these clues, and a plan formed in his mind. The snake demon that had given the Eagle-Wolf Guard such trouble was very likely a descendant of the giant snake that had devoured Zhang Ping.

It occupied Tiger Hill, most likely because there was Zhang Ping's abandoned cave or some form of micro-spirit vein there.

Xia Dong decided to make a trip to Tiger Hill.

Of course, he prepared for two possibilities.

If he couldn't find Zhang Ping's inheritance during his trip to Tiger Hill, he would continue to lie low in the medical clinic to accumulate spirit stones, and then go to the Qixia Immortal Sect's marketplace to buy a basic talisman-making jade slip.

Although he could exchange for talisman-making methods using merit points in the Eagle-Wolf Guard's internal treasury, it was not only expensive, but as a mortal medical officer with "no spiritual roots," it would be impossible to explain why he suddenly wanted to exchange for the hundred arts of cultivation.

Going to the marketplace was safer.

Because Qin Wan had mentioned in her recent letter that her master, Lone Moon, had been in complete seclusion since the end of last year and was seeing no one. This great cultivator at Foundation Establishment Perfection was going all out to open her legendary "Purple Mansion."

Opening the Purple Mansion is extremely dangerous, and even if successful, it requires a very long time to nourish. This meant that for a long time to come, Lone Moon would have no time to pay attention to the outside world.

Xia Dong could visit the marketplace during this period without worrying about attracting the attention of this great cultivator.

As for the snake demon on Tiger Hill, as a doctor with superb medical skills, Xia Dong naturally had his own methods.

He needed to prepare some special medicine.

However, considering that the giant snake was already a monster, the specially prepared medicine might not be effective, so Xia Dong was also prepared to run away if he couldn't win.

Moreover, he intended to strengthen his divine sense once more.

A powerful divine sense is immensely useful for self-preservation; most notably, it enhances one's ability to observe the environment and detect the approach of danger in advance.

Over these past three years, the promotion of martial arts in Pingyang County has not, in reality, been a good thing.

This is because practicing martial arts consumes a great deal of food.

To say nothing of ordinary families, even for wealthy farmers, supporting a martial artist is no easy feat.

This has caused the prices of grain and meat in Pingyang County to rise rapidly over the last few years.

As it happens, this year has also been struck by two years of drought.

Consequently, the people of Pingyang County can be said to be living in misery this year.

In other counties, the situation is even more wretched than in Pingyang County.

Thus, over the past two years, the number of disaster victims outside the city has grown, and epidemics are rampant.

Rumors of hauntings have also increased.

Some are true, some are false.

This has also been an opportune time for the gentry and powerful clans of Pingyang County to seize land.

The Great You Dynasty Court may have had good intentions in promoting martial arts, but one must admit that after the new laws were implemented, fueled by the gentry and powerful clans, many ordinary families were bankrupted by the burden of supporting martial artists.

At this time, many of the common people in Linyuan Prefecture have joined an evil cult called the Unborn Cult due to the drought, famine, and epidemics.

Many others pray for the immortals of Qixia Mountain to descend and save them.

They have also heard rumors that the immortals of the Qixia Immortal Sect intend to relieve suffering and save the people, but that the immortals are being suppressed by the government and thus cannot intervene.

This is not without precedent; for instance, the immortal in Pingyang County legends known as Zhang Ping—was it not because he used talisman water to heal the people that he angered the government back then?

Thus, the Great You Dynasty Court has, unknowingly, incurred a great deal of public resentment throughout the Linyuan Prefecture region.

If a skilled cultivator were to observe with the Qi-Gazing Technique, they would discover that this resentment is gathering toward a certain corner.

This place is an altar, where loud slogans drift through the air:

"The Old Mother descends to earth, the masses shall rise."

"Divine arts protect the body, invulnerable to blades and spears."