Crafting talismans

After ending the livestream, Xiao Yu shut down his computer as usual, then spent the night cultivating.

Unfortunately, although his cultivation had risen considerably again, he failed to break through this time.

Early the next morning, he contacted the livestreaming platform's staff and settled the details of his contract.

From now on, he would receive a fifty-percent share of gift revenue, with another ten percent if he completed his streaming tasks.

That was a considerable improvement over his unsigned rate.

After withdrawing all his livestreaming earnings, Xiao Yu headed out to buy genuine Yellow Talismans.

The money he earned from livestream gifts was still far too little.

It could only tide him over for now, covering urgent living expenses like rent.

Two hours later.

He arrived at a run-down secondhand market.

Old buildings were everywhere, making the place look rather like a neighborhood of privately owned homes from the nineties.

Places like this had become rare in present-day Magic City.

Following the guidance of his divination, Xiao Yu went straight ahead until he reached the deepest part of the market.

It was a shop specializing in foil for offerings. On the surface, it looked no different from the twenty-odd shops Xiao Yu had visited before.

It sold Yellow Talismans too, but those were cheap, factory-made fakes. Anyone who bought them was either thoroughly superstitious or an outright fraud.

But there were exceptions among them.

Xiao Yu spotted the genuine articles he wanted at a glance!

They gave off fluctuations of spiritual energy!

In this age of waning spiritual power, even the faintest fluctuation of spiritual energy stood out like a beacon in the night!

The paper used for the Fortune-Turning Talisman in Zhao Yan's home had come from here!

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

He knocked on the counter and called out.

"Yes, coming!"

A young boy ran out.

He looked about thirteen or fourteen, still school age.

"What would you like to buy, sir?"

Despite his youth, he seemed surprisingly mature.

Xiao Yu pointed at the statue of Lord Guan in the shop. Beneath its shrine sat a stack of the Yellow Talismans he wanted!

"How much are those?"

The boy followed Xiao Yu's finger, looked over, and froze for a moment.

Then he suddenly ran into the back room.

"Sis! Sis, come quick! We have an honored customer! Someone wants to buy our Yellow Talismans! The Yellow Talismans under the shrine!"

He shouted as he ran, then hurried back out as though afraid of neglecting Xiao Yu, wearing an eager smile.

"Please wait a moment, sir. My sister will be right out!"

A little while later.

A pale, unsteady young woman emerged from the back room, clearly in poor health.

She looked only eighteen or nineteen.

As though a gust of wind could knock her over.

She was skin and bones!

"Sir, are you the one who wants to buy them?"

Her voice was soft, and her eyes were full of hope as she asked.

Xiao Yu couldn't help divining her fate.

She was a poor girl suffering from a serious illness, with no money for treatment.

"Yes. How much are those talismans?"

The girl hesitated, apparently wrestling with something. After a long while, she looked nervously at Xiao Yu and said quietly, "One thousand yuan each. If you buy them all, I can give you ten percent off! Twenty-five sheets would be twenty-two thousand five hundred yuan."

"All right. Wrap them up. I'll take them all."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Are these all you have in the shop?" Xiao Yu asked.

"Yes, sir," the girl replied. "These are all we have left. If you need more, I'll have to make another batch."

"You mean you made these? Who taught you?"

"My grandfather taught me when I was little, but he's passed away."

"How long does it take you to make them?"

"One batch a month. Thirty sheets!"

That was hardly a small income, but unfortunately, only cultivators who recognized their worth would buy these things.

Who knew how many years those Yellow Talismans had sat beneath the shrine?

Otherwise, the family wouldn't have been so poor.

"All right. Let's exchange phone numbers. Let me know next month."

"Of course, sir. Thank you!"

"Would you be willing to sell all the talismans you make to me alone from now on?"

She visibly paused, then gave a faint, bitter smile. "Yes, I promise. Honestly, no one but you would buy them anyway. And your willingness to place regular orders is already an enormous help to my family. You're our benefactor. From now on, I'll sell only to you."

After Xiao Yu left, the boy could no longer contain his excitement and gratitude. He shouted and jumped for joy.

"Sis, we have money now! You won't have to just tough it out when you're sick anymore!"

Afterward, he bought cinnabar, brushes, ink, and other supplies.

He had wanted to buy a few pieces of jade as well, but seeing jadeite priced in the thousands or tens of thousands, he could only put that off for now.

"Money really doesn't go far. I can't afford it."

After that rueful remark, he went home to begin crafting talismans.

Crafting talismans meant rendering complex immortal spells and incantations in written form.

The so-called talismans on the market were all fakes and superstition. His were different: they were spells that used talismans as their medium.

It was a way to temporarily store cultivation spells on talisman paper for later use, allowing ordinary people to use them too.

Since this was his first time drawing talismans, Xiao Yu was naturally inexperienced. Fortunately, he had a complete set of cultivation memories to guide him.

He made every stroke with great care and ultimately completed it successfully.

He had chosen the simplest Heart-Clearing Talisman.

If the difficulty of drawing talismans were divided into ten levels, this one would be level zero.

Unfortunately, even level zero didn't mean anyone with hands could do it. Some of his lines had gone crooked, greatly reducing its effectiveness.

Once the drawing was finished, he infused it with spiritual power.

The spiritual power flowed along the black ink on the talisman paper, merging with the paper itself.

The instant it was complete, a faint white glow appeared, as though the inscribed spell had come alive and was about to burst free of the paper!

The higher the talisman's grade and the more perfectly it was completed, the more vivid its colors and the brighter its glow.

"This doesn't count as a finished product. It's defective at best, with less than fifty percent of a perfect Heart-Clearing Talisman's effectiveness!"

He shook his head, set it aside, and began drawing a second one.

This was simply a matter of practice making perfect.

With some experience under his belt, the second went much more smoothly. After finishing the drawing and infusing it with spiritual power, it had roughly seventy percent effectiveness.

He practiced on two more, and from the fifth onward, his drawings gradually improved, achieving over ninety percent effectiveness.

Of the twenty-five sheets, he used ten for Heart-Clearing Talismans, but only two were perfect. Even on the tenth, a tremor of his hand had introduced another flaw. It was a real shame.

He used the remaining fifteen sheets for Evil-Repelling Talismans.

Evil-Repelling Talismans were a little harder, but with the practice he'd gained from the Heart-Clearing Talismans, they actually went much more smoothly.

The first was already quite good, with eighty percent effectiveness. From the third onward, every one exceeded ninety percent.

Yet of those fifteen Heart-Clearing Talismans, only two were perfect.

He was using a brush, after all, and the demands on brush control were extremely high. Knowing how to draw them and having practiced didn't necessarily mean he could draw them well.

At his current level, even if his cultivation were sufficient, he wouldn't be able to produce high-quality advanced talismans.

Practicing calligraphy or finding a capable assistant to help draw talismans had become an urgent necessity.

The hardest talismans were practically like painting an entire landscape.

By the time he finished all the talismans, his spiritual power was completely exhausted.

He set aside four Heart-Clearing Talismans and two Evil-Repelling Talismans as defective pieces. He wouldn't sell those; he would keep them to give away.

He also set aside two perfect Heart-Clearing Talismans and two Evil-Repelling Talismans, which he likewise had no intention of selling during his livestreams.

Whether for his own use or as gifts to build goodwill later, they were all valuable.

After a short meditation session to recover, Xiao Yu entered his livestream room at five that afternoon, ready for the day's broadcast.