"This... must be the twentieth talisman paper already, right?" Xiao Hua's face darkened somewhat as he looked at the uneven, distorted rune patterns on the talisman paper, his spirits sinking considerably. He was incomparably familiar with the Fireball Talisman's runes; he could draw them with a casual gesture of his hand. Yet once he used the talisman brush, either his spiritual power slipped out of control, or the force of his strokes varied in strength. Though he held that weightless talisman brush, it felt like a colossal object weighing ten thousand jun, and he had no idea how to make the next stroke!
"Pah!" As Xiao Hua brooded, the talisman paper burst into flames with a bang. He spat fiercely, flung the talisman brush to the ground, and clapped his hand. A sheet of high-grade talisman paper appeared. He immediately dipped his fingers in talisman ink and flicked them repeatedly. In a moment, the Fireball Talisman's runes took shape. Then he formed the unusual hand seals once more, and with a hiss, a Fireball Talisman appeared at his hand!
"Phew..." After forming the final hand seal and seeing the Fireball Talisman successfully refined, Xiao Hua let out a long breath, expelling the frustration from his twenty failed attempts to refine a Fireball Talisman with the talisman brush!
"This is truly strange! Refining talisman paper with my fingers goes rather smoothly, so why... do others insist on using talisman brushes? Oh, it should be called drawing them! How can using a talisman brush be called refining?" Xiao Hua was utterly baffled. "No wonder Senior Ma said talisman crafting was difficult, that success only came after countless attempts. I... have only wasted twenty sheets of talisman paper. That is nothing!"
Xiao Hua glanced at the talisman brush on the ground and could