"Brother, is that you?"
Hearing the strange noise outside the cave, Duoduo sounded a little nervous.
"Yes! It's me!"
Seeing that his younger sister was safe and sound, Chen Mu breathed a sigh of relief. He took the bulging waterskin from his waist and sat down to rest.
He was glad he had managed to get water, but every trip to that place put his life in danger. Clearly, it was not somewhere he could rely on for long. He would have to keep looking for a water source tomorrow.
Chen Mu noticed that while he had been away, five-year-old Duoduo had cleaned the cave and made a nest of dry grass and leaves in the corner. They would be much more comfortable sleeping there at night.
Though the cave was crude, Chen Mu found it unusually cozy. He silently resolved to protect his sister and keep her alive.
While it was still light, Chen Mu took two pieces of wood from the campfire to use as torches, picked out a handy stick with his other hand, and climbed down from the cave.
They still had some food in reserve, but they couldn't sit around eating until the mountain was bare. Heavenly God Cave was a complex of more than thirty caves, large and small. Many people had died in each cave, and large numbers of creatures gathered in them.
Chen Mu was already familiar with dealing with poisonous creatures. As long as he didn't let them bite him, they were not hard to handle.
Before dark, Chen Mu collected some more snake and rat carcasses and returned to his den.
After eating and drinking his fill, Chen Mu built a tall barrier of earth and stone near the cave entrance. Like an entryway screen, it blocked the firelight from shining outside and made the cave even safer.
Only after all that was done did Chen Mu have time to begin cultivating the True Explanation of Runes.
After Chen Mu had merged all the runes in the starry sky into one last night, he found a point of light in his mind. All he had to do was focus his attention on it, and he could learn the knowledge of talisman cultivation.
The contents recorded in the point of light were as vast as a sea of mist. For now, Chen Mu focused on cultivating his Divine Soul. As for the rest, he merely skimmed the surface and hadn't looked at anything in detail.
Just as Chen Mu was about to immerse himself in cultivation, he noticed that the White Turtle at his chest had woken up again and crawled onto his shoulder.
"Chen Mu, are you very short of water right now?"
Chen Mu nodded, puzzled. "Yes! Grandpa Turtle, even though I filled the waterskin today, the water will only last two or three days at most. I'm planning to look around tomorrow to see if there are any other water sources."
The White Turtle thought for a moment and said, "Originally, I wanted you to focus on cultivating your Divine Soul and learn how to use runes after reaching the One-Mark Talisman Master realm.
"But now that the water source concerns your safety, I think you can learn how to use the Water Condensation Talisman first."
"Water Condensation Talisman?"
Chen Mu's heart stirred, and he looked at the White Turtle expectantly.
"You don't need to look at me. The inheritance you received contains the details of the Water Condensation Talisman. If you want to learn it, search carefully."
With that, the White Turtle curled his lip and crawled back into the clothes over Chen Mu's chest.
Chen Mu didn't dare delay. He immediately immersed his mind in the point of light in his mind.
A moment later, Chen Mu found the information on the Water Condensation Talisman. After reading what it did, he was overjoyed.
The Water Condensation Talisman could extract water Spiritual Qi from the air and turn it into liquid. It was commonly used to make mechanisms and was one of the simplest attribute-type runes.
Once he mastered this rune, he would no longer need to go outside to find water. For Chen Mu, it was like charcoal delivered in the snow.
It was not easy for a Talisman Master to fully master a rune. One needed a profound understanding of its structure, and only when one could condense the rune in one's sea of consciousness with one's Divine Soul could the task be considered complete.
The sea of consciousness, also known as the upper dantian, lay between the eyebrows. It was the dwelling place of the Divine Soul and the foundation of a Talisman Master's cultivation.
Chen Mu grasped the rune's structure extremely quickly, but his Soul Power was very weak. Even the simplest rune was difficult for him to condense. He spent the whole night without sleep or rest and barely managed to condense sixty percent of the Water Condensation Talisman.
In the morning, Chen Mu stayed in the cave. He roasted some meat and ate his fill with Duoduo, then continued using his Divine Soul to condense the rune.
Around noon, Chen Mu finally succeeded in condensing the Water Condensation Talisman and mastering the rune.
With his current cultivation, Chen Mu could not yet draw talismans in the air, so he still needed a medium to bring out a rune's power.
The materials for drawing talismans were generally extremely precious and clearly beyond Chen Mu's reach at present. After searching the inheritance's point of light for a long time, he finally found one material he could obtain: blood.
The blood of any living creature was rich in Spiritual Power, and humans, as the foremost of all living things, had even more. It was perfectly suitable for drawing the Water Condensation Talisman, and runes drawn in blood also consumed less Soul Power.
Without delay, Chen Mu found a smooth stone in the cave, bit his finger, and drew the Water Condensation Talisman on it.
When clear water flowed down from the rune, Duoduo, who was watching from the side, widened her eyes in amazement.
"Water's coming out of the stone! Water's coming out of the stone! Brother, water's coming out of this stone!"
Chen Mu withdrew his Soul Power, and the Water Condensation Talisman on the stone immediately stopped producing water. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and grinned. "Haha, that's a skill your brother just learned. Impressive, right?"
"So impressive! Brother, you're so impressive!" Duoduo danced with excitement and praised him again and again.
Having solved the water problem, Chen Mu found that things had suddenly become much easier. Though there were still many difficulties to overcome, as he saw it, if their original chance of surviving the year had been ten percent, it had now risen to fifty percent.
There was less than a month before the depths of winter arrived. Snow would fall outside, and food would become harder to find. Chen Mu's next goal was to store enough food for the winter.
The venomous snakes and rats in Heavenly God Cave remained Chen Mu's main source of food. Besides that, he set some traps around the area to catch small animals.
A few days later, Chen Mu made some spears and stone axes. With those, he had the confidence to stand up to large beasts.
The short knife Third Uncle had given him was sharp, but it was too small and suited only to close combat. It was not suitable for fighting large beasts.
Though Chen Mu was still young, he was nimble. With sufficient preparation, he was already capable of protecting himself against ordinary jackals, wolves, and other fierce beasts.
A month later, the first snow arrived on schedule. Chen Mu had stored nearly enough food and had also stockpiled plenty of firewood.
Whenever Chen Mu went out, Duoduo was responsible for handiwork, drying meat and making cloaks and coats from rat skins, among other things. She learned quickly.
Once the depths of winter arrived, body heat was lost extremely quickly outside. Though Chen Mu had a rat-skin coat, it did not help much, so he mostly stopped going out and focused on cultivating the True Explanation of Runes in the cave.