Talisman Water

Red! The second stage of the inheritance? Only upon seeing the change in the Talisman Water did Yu Chen finally confirm the inheritance method for the Heavenly Gang and Earthly Fiend arts recorded within the Yu Chen Golden Slip Elixir Book.

Come to think of it, when Yu Chen had first received the inheritance of the Yu Chen Golden Slip Elixir Book, he had noticed that every character of the Thirty-Six Heavenly Gang Ways recorded within had gold as its base and blue-gold as its ink, while the more profound ones were accompanied by violet light. The Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Arts were much the same, though most used vermilion elixir script as their foundation; some interwove gold and red, while a very few were wreathed in blue qi.

Yet now, within his golden finger, everything besides Talisman Water was dim and lusterless, practically pitch-black, vastly different from before. On reflection, the Thirty-Six Heavenly Gang Ways and Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Arts should each have several layers of seals. Only by unlocking them layer by layer could one obtain the true inheritance.

With this realization, Yu Chen made a swift decision and immediately headed for the pillars of light erected by the three great totems.

"Who's there?"

A shaman guarding one of the totem light pillars sensed Yu Chen's presence and cried out in alarm.

Yu Chen glanced over and saw that he was a shaman of the Snake Tribe. He could not help frowning. "What poor eyesight! At a time like this, if the chieftains had returned in great victory, they naturally would not..."

Halfway through, Yu Chen abruptly came to his senses. Not only was he no longer the Great Snake Shaman, he was also the traitorous shaman who had killed the totem incarnations. Closing his eyes, he raised a hand and slapped it. Several snake shadows flew from his sleeves, strangling the shaman before he could react.

The other low-ranking shamans and junior shamans who had come here with Poison Fang, White Wolf, and Bald Crow were also alerted. They unleashed their shamanic arts one after another—snake shadows, crow feathers, and wolf souls whirled through the air as they pounced toward Yu Chen.

But due to the earlier blood sacrifice, the totems' power in this place had already been obscured, leaving them unable to offer much aid to the shamans who worshipped them. Shamanic arts without totem empowerment could not place even the slightest pressure on Yu Chen.

Compared to them, the totem warriors were more numerous and retained greater strength, posing a far greater threat to Yu Chen.

Yet compared to shamans, warriors without totem protection had far poorer resistance against shamanic arts, spells, and illusions. Yu Chen easily seized their openings and knocked them down one after another.

After defeating the totem warriors and shamans guarding the place, Yu Chen swiftly broke open the totem light pillars and removed an aged snakescale, a brilliant crow feather, and a wolf fang that gave off a bloody stench.

Once the snakescale and wolf fang landed in Yu Chen's hands, they remained utterly docile, as though they were willing to accept the loss. But the brilliant crow feather representing the Crow Totem was different.

The instant it touched his hand, the jet-black feather emitted a faint sheen. It swayed gently in midair without wind, while mottled colors flowed through its center, giving it an eerie beauty of vivid hues.

Die! A burst of intent surged out of the crow feather, carrying a rotting aura of death. Countless phantom souls emerged in Yu Chen's mind, tumbling up and down as their wails rang without end.

Yu Chen could not help sneering. "Your incarnation itself died at my hands. What use is this preset you left behind in your anchor? Disperse!"

As he spoke, without Yu Chen making any visible move, the souls tangled within his mind shattered one after another. Then, before the crow feather could react, several shamanic characters descended and suppressed the flowing radiance within it. Afterward, he extracted a great amount of Incense and Fire Prayer Power from it.

He treated the snakescale and wolf fang in the same manner. Using the White Lotus Sect's secret method for extracting prayer power, Yu Chen drew strand after strand of prayer power from these totem anchors and merged it into his own golden finger.

The instance-world travel button, which had turned black after one journey through another world, rapidly changed to pale gray as the prayer power filled it. Traces of milky white could faintly be seen within.

Truly, murder and arson bring golden belts! The anchors of three totems are worth more than ten years of my past efforts. Yu Chen found it rather amusing as he watched the travel button change. Then his attention was drawn once more to the words Talisman Water. Red light flowed ceaselessly across the white characters, tinting them faintly red, yet it could never fully solidify.

The power of the Snake, Wolf, and Crow Totems alone is no longer enough to stabilize it?

Having reached a decision, Yu Chen returned to the Daoist grounds. He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, emptied his mind, and let his spirituality ascend.

His spirituality transformed into a thread of five-colored light invisible to the naked eye and rose from his mind, inch by inch emerging from within the crown of his head.

The crown of the head was also known as the crown gate or heavenly gate. It did not refer to any single spot, but to the top of the head centered on the fontanelle point, extending backward to Baihui and forward to Xinhui. It was the most direct passage between the human body and heaven and earth, as well as one of the most important spiritual apertures of a cultivator.

Most Immortal Dao cultivation used the crown of the head as an entrance and exit, drawing the spiritual qi of heaven and earth into the body. The spirituality of shamanic cultivators dispersed from there, while the Primordial Spirits of Immortal Dao cultivators left their bodies from there as well.

The moment Yu Chen's spirituality left his flesh, it merged with heaven and earth.

This mountain was Yu Chen's Daoist grounds. The spirituality of the surrounding mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees had long resonated with him. As Yu Chen's spirituality merged into them, wisps of rosy mist rose from every corner of the mountains and gathered together, fusing with his spirituality. Then, through an unseen connection, they flowed into his golden finger and formed a link with the words Talisman Water.

Stimulated, the words Talisman Water began changing rapidly once more. Specks of red light gradually solidified, ultimately becoming a pale-red precious seal-script talisman that floated uncertainly above Yu Chen's spirituality. It blossomed with hundreds and thousands of rays, casting down specks of radiance like starlight.

In the unseen realm, a piece of information appeared in Yu Chen's mind, granting him a deeper understanding of the Earthly Fiend Art, Talisman Water.

Talisman Water was not simply drawing talismans or burning them in water. It was instead a collective term for talismans and scripts. Thus, the Earthly Fiend Art, Talisman Water, was in truth the art of talismans.

In Daoist scriptures, the second section of the Methods of Qi chapter from Volume Fifty-Seven of the Cloud Register of the Seven Slips recorded: "Talismanic script is cloud seal and luminous writ, the written words of spirits and deities... Water is the fluid of primordial qi, the moisture of hidden yang. Nothing with form fails to rely upon it. Therefore, water is the mother of qi; when water is pure, wealth and qi are clear..."

The records in the game stated—though called Talisman Water, it actually referred to talismans. In the past, the Talismanic Sect was also known as Talisman-Water Daoism. Therefore, the Earthly Fiend Art, Talisman Water, contained not only methods to heal the sick and save lives, but also all manner of secret arts for expelling ghosts and subduing demons. It was one of the true transmissions of the Talismanic Sect, and at its highest level could attain the Dao Fruit of divine immortality.

Now that Yu Chen had unlocked part of the Talisman Water inheritance, he had also obtained a deeper fragment of its true meaning.

Relying on this fragment of true meaning, Yu Chen inexplicably gained a considerable boost in talent along the path of talismans. He acquired the ability to draw talismans in midair, and even many low-grade talismanic arts would become vastly more powerful in his hands.

At the same time, based on this fragment of true meaning, Yu Chen learned that the cultivation method of the Earthly Fiend Art, Talisman Water, could be divided into two types: one centered on divine seal script, and the other centered on true seal script.

The path centered on divine seal script could further be divided into two distinct roads: attaching oneself to an existing system, or establishing one's own divine pantheon. Yet in essence, both were variants of the Divine Dao. If one retained a physical body after entering the Golden Edict rank, one could cultivate the true seal-script method alongside it. If the physical body had decayed long ago, one could only cultivate the true seal-script method alongside it after rising to the Azure Edict rank.

The path centered on true seal script, meanwhile, first used one's own spirituality as its foundation to condense a natal Dao seal-script. This seal-script contained the cultivator's entire life and essence.

During the early stages of true seal-script cultivation, one could cultivate and gain realization alone. But upon reaching the Vermilion Edict rank, one needed to cultivate divine seal script as well, borrowing Incense and Fire Prayer Power in order to advance swiftly. Of course, cultivators had to take care at that point. Divine seal script was only a supplementary cultivation and could not surpass true seal script. Otherwise, Incense and Fire Prayer Power would erode the true seal script, shifting them into a system centered on divine seal script.

After deciphering the inheritance contained in this fragment of true meaning, Yu Chen's Orthodox Three-Mountains Talisman Qi Formula, whose Human Immortal realm cultivation had already been perfected, also derived a new cultivation method. This new method not only added techniques for visualizing talismans, but also gave rise to methods for choosing a path for Foundation Establishment and cultivating the initial stages of the Ghost Immortal realm.

Accordingly, Yu Chen now had to face a rather serious question.

Should he continue cultivating step by step according to the original Orthodox Three-Mountains Talisman Qi Formula, or switch to the newly derived Orthodox Three-Mountains Talisman Qi Formula?