Chapter 35: The Talisman Painting Hangs
Another failure!
Zhao Sheng felt somewhat depressed.
This time, it was because he hadn't promptly connected the spiritual acupoint, leading to an obstruction in the transmission of spiritual power and causing the spell to leak out.
In the past, he always thought making a Spirit Talisman wasn't difficult, but reality had harshly slapped him several times.
Zhao Sheng believed he had completely grasped the Spring Breeze and Rain Technique, but when it came to the talisman-making step, there would always be some flaws.
After four hours, he had drawn a total of eleven Spring Breeze and Rain Talismans, but only four were successful.
His success rate was actually less than thirty percent.
He knew that only with a success rate exceeding fifty percent would he turn a profit; below fifty percent would mean losses without gains.
After pondering for a moment, an idea flashed through Zhao Sheng's mind, and he couldn't help but reveal a slight smile.
He waved his sleeve, and invisible spiritual power scattered out, dispersing the water vapor in the room.
Zhao Sheng picked up the talisman pen again, dipping its tip in the pale blue talismanic ink from the bottle.
This talismanic ink was a low-grade Water Element Spirit Ink developed by the Zhao family two hundred years ago. Its base material was the essence extracted from the Ethereal Bluegrass, which had a slight amplifying effect on Water Element Spirit Talismans.
He took a blank talisman paper about the size of a palm.
Zhao Sheng held his breath and concentrated, suspending his wrist as he right hand, and after infusing spiritual power into the pen tip, he swiftly brought it down to the paper to resume the swift talisman painting.
Suddenly, a beautifully crafted talisman shape gradually formed on the paper.
When only a few strokes remained, he felt a disruption in the spiritual power at the pen tip, as specks of blue light threatened to flash from the talisman paper.
At that moment, divine light surged in Zhao Sheng's eyes, and "Bullet Time" suddenly activated.
Instantly, the world seemed to come to a halt, with time stretching considerably, and everything moving in extreme slow motion.
In this strange state, Zhao Sheng's perception heightened to an unimaginable level.
He "saw" strands of spiritual power flowing from the tip of the talisman pen. The power moved "intermittently," flowing onto the paper and forming an uneven spiritual pattern line, connecting each talismanic point and Spiritual Network node.
Zhao Sheng was extremely excited at the moment; "Bullet Time" had indeed played a significant role.
With time elongated, Zhao Sheng managed to smoothly regulate the output of the spiritual power within his body.
As each line of uniformly thick and dense spirit patterns emerged from the pen tip, the Spirit Talisman quickly returned to normal.
In a flash, Zhao Sheng suddenly stopped the talisman pen, and in an instant, divine light shone bright on the surface of the paper.
The Spring Breeze and Rain Talisman was completed!
Once "Bullet Time" passed, the flow of time returned to normal.
Zhao Sheng's body shuddered, and his gaze became slightly dim.
The effects of "Bullet Time" were impressively good, but its side effects were not to be underestimated.
Every activation of this talent ability consumed a significant amount of Zhao Sheng's spiritual power.
Recalling the state he was just in, Zhao Sheng tried to draw another talisman.
This time his strokes were smooth and fluent, and once again, the Spring Breeze and Rain Talisman was completed.
Zhao Sheng's expression was very excited, and he was about to push forward when he suddenly felt a sense of emptiness in his Dantian.
It was then that he realized that almost all of his spiritual power had been depleted.
Zhao Sheng sighed, thinking that being at the Qi Refining Second Level was still too low; he must quickly enhance his cultivation!
With that thought, he put away the talisman pen, the spiritual ink, and the five Spring Breeze and Rain Talismans and left the talisman room to head towards Dragon Carp Lake.
The Zhao family's Water Vein Cultivation Rooms were all located at the bottom of Dragon Carp Lake, carved out along a First-rank Water Spirit Vein.
Zhao Sheng took a boat to a part of Dragon Carp Lake that extended seven or eight miles.
Here, more than ten boats had already gathered.
Zhao Sheng had long since become accustomed to this.
He took out a Water Repelling Magic Bead and popped it into his mouth before jumping into the water.
Dragon Carp Lake was an enormous lake spanning over two hundred miles in circumference, with an average depth of more than ten zhang. The lakebed where the Spirit Vein lay was nearly a hundred zhang deep from the surface.
As he dove deeper, the light underwater grew dimmer, and by the time he had reached a depth of fifty zhang, it was so dark that he could not see his own fingers.
Just then, a few spots of light unexpectedly appeared in the darkness below.
Zhao Sheng continued to dive deeper, and the area of light in the darkness quickly expanded, eventually revealing the contour of bubbly air pockets about three to four zhang in diameter, emitting a dazzling white light.
Pop!
Zhao Sheng passed through the light film of one of these air pockets and entered the land of the Spirit Vein.
The place was not very large, the ground slightly wet and slippery, and at the center, a large pit three to four zhang deep had been dug by someone,
Within the pit, there was a Cultivation Stone Chamber constructed from Water Wave Stones.
Zhao Sheng had arrived a bit early and waited roughly a quarter of an hour before the doors of the stone chamber were opened by someone.
On seeing Zhao Sheng, Zhao Jinpeng, who had emerged from the inside, couldn't quite save face.
He usually looked down on Zhao Sheng, yet this time he had benefited from Zhao Sheng's success.
"Sixth Master!" Zhao Sheng greeted him without losing any courtesy.
"Hm," Zhao Jinpeng grunted vaguely in response before leaping out of the Water Repelling Barrier.
Seeing this, Zhao Sheng shook his head and stepped into the Cultivation Room, and the stone doors were then closed again.
A month passed in a blink of an eye, and Zhao Sheng's path of cultivation gradually became more established.
Besides six hours of cultivation and two hours of sleep each day, Zhao Sheng put all his energy into talisman making after dealing with various chores.
It couldn't be helped; even as a Family Head, he needed to make money.
Because he had the Bullet Time spell to assist him, Zhao Sheng's talisman making skills quickly improved from skilled to proficient, and from proficient to masterful.
In just three days, the success rate of the First-rank Spring Breeze and Rain Talisman had dramatically increased from thirty percent to ninety percent.
The Spring Breeze and Rain Talisman was a commonly used first-rank magic talisman for irrigating spirit fields,
Once released, it could nourish half an acre of spirit field with its water spiritual energy-infused vapor.
As a result, its price was exceptionally stable: twelve for a dozen, with a dozen selling for three Spirit Stones.
Zhao Sheng was able to create eight to ten magic talismans a day, which, after deducting costs, allowed him to earn roughly half a Spirit Stone every day.
In a year, that would amount to more than one hundred seventy low-grade Spirit Stones.
For the average Loose Cultivator, this was enough to satisfy their daily cultivation needs.
However, for someone like Zhao Sheng who popped Spirit Origin Pills like candy, this amount of Spirit Stones was far from sufficient.
Half a month later, when the success rate of the Spring Breeze and Rain Talisman reached one hundred percent, Zhao Sheng quickly abandoned it and turned his focus to more profitable Invisibility Talismans.
To make talismans, one must first learn the spell!
The prerequisite spell for the Invisibility Talisman was the Refraction Technique.
The Refraction Technique was a first-rank top-grade Water Technique, its principle being to condense a transparent layer of water film around the body and deflect the external light through the film, thereby achieving "invisibility."
However, the grade of the Invisibility Talisman was too low; it could only hide a cultivator's shape but not their aura. Furthermore, if the light around them changed rapidly, the cultivator would immediately be revealed.
Even so, the Invisibility Talisman, based on the Refraction Technique, was highly sought after by cultivators in the Qi Refining Realm.
Compared to the First-tier Lower Grade Spring Breeze and Rain Technique, the Refraction Technique was harder to master, requiring a certain level of perception from the cultivator.
Without guidance from someone knowledgeable, an average cultivator might spend ten years or more without finding the right path.
Zhao Sheng naturally had no such concerns. A year ago, following his ancestor's spell annotations, he had successfully mastered the Refraction Technique.