High-quality Foundational Talismans were more than ten times as effective and powerful as ordinary ones, so First-Tier ones had to be even stronger.
Yue Shuo simply could not bear to use his limited number of First-Grade Spirit Talismans to test their power.
But no matter what,
Yue Shuo had no runes that increased speed or defense.
If he crafted them first and saw how the ordinary versions worked, he would gain some understanding of the high-quality and First-Tier versions.
Yue Shuo immediately discarded his plan to focus on grinding spells.
He prepared the talisman paper and Talisman Ink, ready to begin.
First, he would get a feel for it.
As for how to begin drawing without a standard rune or an explanation of how to craft it,
Yue Shuo had long since figured that out.
A single rune—
if others saw it and wanted to study it, transforming it into a Spirit Talisman they could draw themselves would naturally be exceedingly complicated.
Because it was like writing.
Where should each stroke begin?
Where could it not break, where should it be light or heavy, where did the pen first touch down, and where did the final stroke end?
And when that final stroke was completed,
the entire rune had to form a complete energy circuit!
That was the most important point!
The awareness from more than ten years of schooling in his previous life,
combined with his study habits,
meant that from the moment he obtained his Talisman Crafting insights, memorized runes, and began crafting talismans, he had been studying the patterns within runes!
Whether it was the patterns needed for reading comprehension in language class,
or formulas and other patterns from the sciences,
after taking exams for over a decade,
anyone could summarize a thing or two.
A strange rune, one that at first glance looked like a complex mess of ghostly scribbles, truly left one at a loss.
But it could be broken down like characters!
Just as Wubi input broke Chinese characters apart, runes too were assembled from different strokes and components.
Of course, Foundational Talismans were comparatively simple.
They could be broken down.
As for First-Grade Runes, one glance was not necessarily enough to memorize them. At the very least, those without a panel cheat like his could not memorize them at a glance.
Much less break them apart.
At least, he could not do that yet!
His panel cheat was quite useful.
It did not merely grind proficiency.
Of course, there was no need to rack his brains over the cheat right now. Using it first and improving himself came first.
Yue Shuo began by attempting to trace the rune according to his experience of breaking down characters.
He used elimination.
The talisman brush dipped into the Talisman Ink. A thread of Spell Power steadily flowed through the brush, landing on the Yellow Talisman Paper as he began the first stroke...
Sizzle!
Failure!
The first stroke was wrong!
This was a detail he could not sense when using ordinary paper.
Yue Shuo switched to another method of breaking down the character.
He tried again!
This time, he did not feel that immediate failure upon setting down the brush. Yet after drawing two strokes of the simple rune, his Spell Power backlashed again.
It was only a thread of Spell Power.
That tiny clash and fluctuation merely melted a patch of the talisman paper beneath his brush, turning it into waste paper.
He moved the waste paper aside.
He replaced it with fresh Yellow Talisman Paper and tried again!
Failed Talisman Crafting consumed such a negligible amount of Divine Sense that it was almost imperceptible.
It seemed to consume none at all.
Or perhaps some was lost, but because it did not amount to even a single point, the panel automatically smoothed it over.
This feeling, somewhat at odds with real cultivation,
Yue Shuo had long grown accustomed to ignoring.
He had already transmigrated.
Why fuss over something like this?
All he wanted was to cultivate diligently, grow stronger, and attain longevity!
To live long, healthy, and safe!
He never wanted to experience that feeling of hanging by a thread, so weak it seemed he could die at any moment, ever again!
Yue Shuo continuously used elimination to break down the Foundational Talisman rune.
His High-Grade First-Tier Talisman Crafting had given him an indescribable sense of touch and experience in Talisman Crafting.
That was also one reason he dared,
despite having learned only a few runes,
to begin breaking down an unfamiliar rune.
High-Grade First-Tier Talisman Crafting
gave him a certain specially enhanced feel even when drawing First-Grade Spirit Talismans, though naturally it could not compare to the time of Enlightenment.
When he had crafted that last sheet of First-Grade Blank Talisman Paper earlier,
if not for the minor issue with his talisman brush, he estimated that his chances of success would have been high!
"I vaguely remember that in that game back then, every increase in Talisman Crafting rank seemed to raise the success rate..."
Yue Shuo knew that his cheat
seemed to originate from a cultivation game he had played in his previous life.
But more than ten years had passed.
Perhaps his infant body after reincarnation had also instinctively blurred away useless information that would take up too much space in his brain, in the name of survival and self-preservation.
Otherwise,
how could an undeveloped brain hold the immense database of information belonging to an adult?
No wonder he had always been sickly as a child, yet drank milk with such ferocity.
He had heard that he could eat an astonishing amount!
Brain development required a great deal of nutrition.
Some useless information flashed through his mind, relaxing his tense mind after repeatedly crafting talismans and failing.
The unceasing character-breaking elimination method
finally came to an end after several dozen attempts, guided by a strange intuition.
That final failure had not come from breaking down the character incorrectly.
Rather, his nerves had been stretched too tight, and the returning stroke of the final line had failed to connect with the first stroke and form a cycle.
He relaxed his nerves and moved his limbs.
He prepared to complete the next attempt in one go!
From behind the small wooden hut came the sound of Gu Jiu practicing martial arts, his palm strikes splitting the air. It was not particularly harsh.
Yue Shuo had grown used to hearing it.
Gu Jiu was quite diligent. Every morning, afternoon, and evening, he practiced martial arts for hours without pause.
However, Gu Jiu knew Yue Shuo disliked being disturbed.
So he always practiced far from the Spirit Field and small courtyard, on a stretch of flat ground beside the stream behind the wooden hut.
The sound of the stream covered some of it.
It truly was not very noticeable.
But Yue Shuo's five senses were now sharp. His ears keen and eyes bright, no matter how far away Gu Jiu was, Yue Shuo could hear him with the slightest listen.
"My servant works this hard. What reason do I have to slack off?"
Yue Shuo gave himself a bit of encouragement.
He laid out the Yellow Talisman Paper, calmed his mind and focused his spirit, then set his brush down as though possessed by the gods!
Rustle, rustle...
A complex combination of runes took shape beneath his brush. As the final tip of the brush returned to its place, what seemed like a glimmer of light flashed over the rune.
The rune on the Yellow Talisman Paper seemed to possess spiritual radiance.
The entire sheet looked utterly different from a blank sheet of Yellow Talisman Paper.
"Success..."
Yue Shuo was delighted.
He carefully examined the new Foundational Talisman, the Swift-Step Talisman he had personally broken down, then glanced at the time consumed before putting away the Foundational Talisman and continuing his Talisman Crafting!
The success rate for this new talisman he had personally broken down was not low.
Perhaps the earlier process of breaking down the rune
had already tempered his proficiency.
Although the panel did not acknowledge it, between his own feel and what the panel displayed, he naturally trusted his own senses more.
Ten attempts in a row, eight successes!
[Skill: Talisman Crafting (First-Tier High-Grade) (5/1000)] [Swift-Step Talisman (Foundational): 8/10 (Beginner)]
Yue Shuo had been happily watching the Swift-Step Talisman's proficiency, which was about to advance, when his gaze inadvertently swept over his Talisman Crafting proficiency.
A cap of one thousand points was nothing unusual.
Talisman Crafting had initially been proficiency without a rank displayed, at (0/100).
Only after filling those hundred points had it become Tier-One Low-Grade Talisman Crafting.
After filling another two hundred points, he became a Mid-Grade First-Tier talisman crafter.
Then he filled another five hundred points and became High-Grade First-Tier.
To reach the next rank, he needed one thousand proficiency points. That was perfectly reasonable, and Yue Shuo was familiar with those figures.
But the problem was,
he remembered that after completing the crafting of five First-Grade Spirit Talismans during his Enlightenment,
he had already possessed those five proficiency points.
Now that he had successfully crafted eight Foundational Talismans, why was it still at five points?
A bad premonition rose in Yue Shuo's heart.
Perhaps
crafting Foundational Talismans no longer gave experience?
Before you continue