“You misunderstand me,” Cha Ming said, smiling. He then took out his brush and painted dozens of characters in midair. For each character, he withdrew a vial of liquid. “I had an epiphany some time ago. Mo Tianshen and I have been cooperating on a concept called runic alchemy. By using runes, we can enhance medicinal efficacy and manipulate physical properties for application.” He motioned to the runes floating in the air. “These runes are all first-grade runes. They can be made with this medicinal ink or with other normal inks.”
“Amazing,” Jun Xiezi said. “But I’m afraid that none of our talisman artists know these runes. Even I don’t, somehow, and I’m a grandmaster talisman artist. The heritage I have is incomplete, and my master was unable to pass on more knowledge to me.”
“Thus, my offer,” Cha Ming said. “I want you to offer the services of low-level talisman artists, at cost, to Mo Tianshen’s efforts on this project. In return, I will teach the knowledge of all first-grade runes I know to the Talisman Artist Guild.”
Jun Xiezi licked his lips. “All the way up to fifth grade,” he said.
“Come now, second grade is really the best I can do,” Cha Ming said.
“This is an indefinite agreement,” Jun Xiezi said, shrugging. “The cost is astronomical, and the benefit of these low-level runes is limited. Fourth grade.”
“You know full well that this will greatly expand the capabilities of the guild as a whole,” Cha Ming said. “But you are right that low-level runes won’t have such a big effect. Let’s meet halfway at third grade. I truly can’t pass on much more than this. I’m already stretching the limits of my oath. My students, for the full heritage I possess, must have condensed merit halos. By the way, do keep an eye out for people with thick accumulation of merit. As a favor to me.”
Jun Xiezi’s eye twitched at the mention of merit halos. “Fine. But I want them imprinted on knowledge-transmission jades. That way I won’t need to fetch you to teach students all the time.”
“How does that work?” Cha Ming asked.
Jun Xiezi pulled out ten jade plates, which Cha Ming saw were similar teaching jades he already had.
“Pour your qi and incandescent force into these plates,” Jun Xiezi said. “Then pour your whole knowledge of these characters and paint them with your mind. The jade slip will preserve the knowledge, and the ones learning will see you ‘painting’ them and hear your words as they study the slip.”
“So, I’ll be a teacher to most of the guild,” Cha Ming mused.
“As much of a teacher as someone who writes a textbook,” Jun Xiezi said dryly. He watched as Cha Ming poured his knowledge into the slips. “Anything else?” he asked after Cha Ming completed his task.
“I have one last thing,” Cha Ming said. “I always repay kindness, and you’ve given me so much advice free of charge. I felt I should share a discovery I made. But to do that, I need to ask—do you have a bottle of evanescence? Any kind will do.”
Jun Xiezi pulled out a small golden vial with barely ten drops in it. Cha Ming waved his hand, pulling the stopper from the bottle and retrieving a single drop. Then he waved his brush and sprinkled ten thousand drops of liquified elemental essence into the air. One by one, they fused with the liquified gold evanescence until only a pale golden blob remained.
“I call this gold essence,” Cha Ming said. “Likewise, there exists fire essence, water essence, earth essence, and wood essence.”
“And what is it used for?” Jun Xiezi asked.
“Well,” Cha Ming said, drawing a small portion of the blob into his brush. “If you use the classical techniques for creating talismans, it’s beyond useless. The nature of the talisman will be unstable, as though the ink and the technique were incompatible. In fact, the rune might explode due to the instability.” He began to paint a lesser-grade talisman on a slip of paper. “But if the technique conforms with the nature of the ink, the talisman creation will proceed smoothly, almost as smoothly as laying a formation.”
Jun Xiezi watched as Cha Ming painted the talisman from start to finish. A look of enlightenment appeared on his face as Cha Ming placed the last stroke. “This is the technique described in Five-Element Talisman Artistry—A Primer!”
“That’s right,” Cha Ming said, smiling. “By using gold essence to paint talismans, their nature is aligned with heaven and earth. By using a technique that is also aligned with heaven and earth, an artist’s success rate when drawing talismans will increase greatly.
“I don’t know the exact reason, but I have a theory. You see, gold evanescence and liquified elemental essence come from the same source. The same applies to other forms of evanescence. But this is seen as a valuable impurity. The two components are separated on extraction and sold separately. As a result, the liquified elemental essence becomes purer, but it is farther removed from nature. Therefore, the technique required to draw talismans must also be adjusted.
“Formations are more aligned with heaven and earth in the first place. Which means the effect of using liquified elemental essence is less pronounced and almost nonexistent. But for talismans, it has a huge impact. Senior Xiezi, my success rate for lesser-grade talismans is above nine out of ten since I changed my methods.”
Nine out of ten was actually an understatement, but Cha Ming wasn’t one hundred percent sure of the success rate with a normal talisman brush.
After a while, Jun Xiezi broke the silence. “I’ll have to study this further. You need to account for the brush type in addition to those things you just mentioned. Your brush is quite expensive, from what I gather. The composition of the brushes used may need to be changed. But that’s fine—the brush maker enjoys a challenge.”
Cha Ming nodded. “I’ll be off, then,” Cha Ming said. “I have much to do before leaving.”
Cha Ming’s five qi pillars creaked and crackled as they broke past their limits with the help of the improved medicinal pills. Each pill contained double the energy they had previously, swiftly growing his pillars to the next bottleneck and subsequently crushing it.
As the pillars broke past their limitations, his qi seas drained to accommodate their growth. And once they dried up completely, Cha Ming replenished them with a much thicker foundation qi. The seas were turbid and wavy, filled with impurities from his last sub-realm.
Immediately after recovering, Cha Ming summoned thirty-six Dao sigils and practiced many combat formations that he’d read about. He planned to take full advantage of the next three weeks. As he practiced, he also thought about his next poetic talisman. Over the past several months, he had come to a realization.
It wasn’t long before he lit the gray candle and settled into a meditative trance. The talisman he produced, if any, would tell him whether his insights were correct.
Cha Ming was in a dream. This time, he saw two giant blades in the sky. They were wielded by two giant gladiators, gods if their sizes were any indication. As they fought, the heavens trembled. Each strike of their swords brought waves of destruction to the world down below.
As they fought, their swords were covered in nicks. They lost their effectiveness. But one of the gladiators was determined. With every strike of his sword, he improved. And as he improved, the sword grew sharper.
His speed quickened and began outpacing his opponent. Finally, he cut off the giant’s head. Throngs of people came out to greet him, but he wasn’t satisfied. Instead of celebrating, he returned home and focused on his mistakes. He practiced the sword for years before returning to the arena for his next challenge.
Giant after giant was felled by his blade. As his skilled improved, his sword grew increasingly overbearing. It soon reached the point where all he needed was a single strike to cleave through his opponent’s sword and armor.
But many people began to grumble. They said his sword was too powerful, that his position as the number-one gladiator wasn’t deserved. So they challenged him to fight the second-best gladiator with a normal iron sword. They told him they would only ac
knowledge him as the best if he won under these conditions.
Instead of the indignant reply they expected, the gladiator did something unthinkable. He threw his sharp sword at a nearby mountain, where it shattered into 10,008 pieces. Then he picked up a dull iron ruler, an ancient weapon that resembled an edgeless sword, built to incapacitate instead of wound.
The surrounding people laughed at his arrogance. How could one possibly beat an iron sword with an iron ruler? The second-ranked gladiator also laughed. He took up his own iron sword and charged forward, confident in his victory. Seeing this, the lead gladiator arrogantly lashed out with the iron ruler. His opponent slashed out to defend with his sword, aiming to cut the ruler in half. But to his surprise, it was his own sword that was cut in half. And his armor. And his body. And his soul.
The crowd gasped. The gladiator had relied on pure skill. His blade was sharp because his skill was high, and not the other way around.
Do you understand? the voice asked.
Cha Ming woke. He drew out the next talisman with a practiced hand.
Honing his worth through endless practice;
Never questioning his skill.
He called it the Sharp Talisman. The key defining characteristic of metal was shape, and humans shaped themselves through endless practice. That was the epiphany he had gained after practicing talismans and formations for so many months.
“So,” Lu Tianhao said. He held his arms behind his back. “I suppose this will be your last lesson before you leave in three days?”
“I hope I won’t disappoint you,” Cha Ming said, bowing before they began their sparring match.
“Unlikely,” the white-haired, white-clothed man said. “You’re always full of surprises.”
As usual, he made the first move. He sent out thirty-six blue sigils, creating a complex shape filled in with runic lines. Cha Ming countered with an earthen combat formation, soaking up some of the qi used to create them.
“Plundering my qi now, are you?” Lu Tianhao said, chuckling. He instantly summoned three lesser formations that struck Cha Ming’s at key points in the creation process. Cha Ming’s qi was in turn absorbed by these formations.
“Fair is fair,” Cha Ming said, shrugging. He activated Stormchaser Steps and ran toward his opponent. As the man cast out another combat formation, Cha Ming threw out his own, but he also bashed with his staff, slightly disrupting some lines as they extended. They shivered, but the process was far from interrupted.
“You’re learning,” Lu Tianhao said. “You can’t break my formations with your weak fist strength, but you can slow it ever so slightly with no disadvantage to yourself.”
“You told me to use everything I have,” Cha Ming said, throwing out a proper lesser-grade formation. He threw out twelve formation flags and twelve combat formations.
“Competing with speed against power?” Lu Tianhao said, summoning a thirty-six-symbol combat formation.
Cha Ming, seeing the element used, threw out twelve more formation flags. This second formation meshed perfectly with his existing formation, creating a bi-element mid-grade formation. Their formations were completed simultaneously. Cha Ming’s formation was slightly superior, but ultimately, they were mutually destroyed.
Cha Ming didn’t stop. Having just gained the initiative, he continued to throw out one combat formation after another, using his staff to disturb runic lines whenever he could. His advantage grew greater and greater, and finally he created a gold formation that cut down Lu Tianhao’s incomplete wood formation and slammed toward him.
“Fine,” Lu Tianhao said. “Try this!”
As expected, seventy-two water sigils shot out. The difficulty of this next level was a watershed, using twice the number of symbols and double the runic lines. Least-grade formations required up to ninety-nine runic lines, lesser-grade up to 199, and mid-grade up to 299. High-grade formations required up to six hundred runic lines. The power of heaven and earth rippled as the high-grade formation began to take shape.
I need to stop it! Cha Ming thought. He repeatedly hit the formation with his staff while summoning his own earthen formation. Lu Tianhao didn’t stop his, clearly indicating that Cha Ming’s own formation was insufficient.
If only I had more disruption, Cha Ming thought. But have I really used everything? His trained eyes could see several weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Lu Tianhao’s arrangement, but he had no way to attack them. Or did he?
Cha Ming thought fast. He took out seven least-grade talismans from the Clear Sky Space. They were one of his favorites, Lesser Mount Tai talismans. The illusory mountains crushed down on seven of the key weaknesses. The rapidly growing formation shuddered before shattering. The seventy-two sigils flew outward.
“Well done,” Lu Tianhao said in congratulations. “You’re not a high-grade formation master by any stretch of the imagination, but now you know what to do if you need to break formations beyond your level. It’s not always about matching a master’s level against another, it’s about using your knowledge of formations to break them and defeat your opponent.”
Cha Ming bowed. “Thank you for your instruction, teacher,” he said.
“It’s nothing,” Lu Tianhao said. “Now go and prepare yourself. Paint some talismans or something before you leave. And when you do, kill me some devils. And most importantly, don’t forget to come back alive.”
The scenery around Cha Ming faded, and he discovered that he was no longer in the man’s office or inside his domain. He was back inside his own bedroom. And on his desk, he saw twelve thick books from Lu Tianshen’s personal library on high-grade and peak-grade formations. And beside them was a ring. He used his incandescent force to probe the ring and discovered several large stacks of unmarked formation flags. It was the best gift Cha Ming could ask for.
Chapter 34: Friendship
Claws and teeth collided with swords and sabers. Daoist spells clashed with demonic abilities. It was an all-out fight, a battle for survival. The beasts on the mountain could only rely on themselves, as the shipment of resources had not yet arrived, and the contract could not be finalized. This was their final stand.
Even the weakest beasts took part in this struggle. The humans reaped them like wheat on harvest day, but it wasn’t without impact. One by one they piled onto the cultivators, slowing down their blades and delivering potent poisons. They were glad to sacrifice their lives for their sovereigns. Such was the nature of beasts.
The geomantic boa helmed the beast forces, using its superior intelligence and terrain manipulation abilities to trap, surround, and stall enemies where required. Its children assisted on a smaller scale, using their weaker geomantic skills and their poisons to cripple mighty foes. Meanwhile, seven sovereigns were fighting tooth and nail. They held back nothing, and neither did Zhou Li’s forces.
Zhou Li stood at the back and threw curses down on the beasts like they were nothing. Some were blinding curses, while others cursed their luck. Others still cursed the durability of their claws and hides, revealing fatal weaknesses for the humans to take advantage of.
Then there were the tamed beasts. Guo Jia, Xiao Heilong, and various others participated in the battle. Guo Jia controlled his tamed minions to take the Silverwing beasts by surprise. The humans rejoiced, but the beasts wept. They were losing.
But they were buying important time for the eighth sovereign, Sovereign Two Tails. His seclusion was set to end soon, and when he exited, he would martial them and turn the tides in their favor.
“Loose!” a cultivator yelled. His group unleashed Daoist spells in groups, pelting the massive army of beasts with deadly flaming dragons and earthen spikes.
“Hold!” the geomantic boa slithered. A giant earthen shield flew up, blocking over half of the incoming projectiles. Many kings of the forest used their massive bodies and innate abilities to tank the spells, freeing up the lesser creatures, which charged to the front lines.
“Collapse!” the geomantic boa roared. An en
tire ridge crumbled, a gravity trap dragging hundreds of cultivators down. Beasts jumped down as well, using their massive frames to their advantage as they dropped down to crush those cultivators.
“Flames!” Another squad of humans blew fire into the pit the beasts had dropped into.
“Wind!” A massive flock of birds flapped their wings in unison, blowing the flames back into the human cultivators, who used earthen shields to block this counter in turn.
Things changed fast on the battlefield, but the beasts were still getting pushed back little by little. Before long, their eastern flank collapsed, resulting in the rout of their sturdy ferret battalion, and the beasts were forced into disarray. In the middle of the chaotic group, thirty-six blue formation flags pressed down. The surrounding area was covered in a blooming lotus composed of thousands of icicles. They were bloody due to the thousands of beasts they crushed.
“It’s over,” the geomantic boa said, sighing. She was exhausted, and she had done all she could. If their sovereign didn’t come out soon, their forces would collapse within the hour.
“Who said it’s over?” a loud voice said. It projected across the whole battlefield, causing the humans to shudder and the beasts to tremble in excitement.
“Sovereign Two Tails!” the beasts roared in unison. They fought with renewed fervor, ignoring their fatal wounds to deliver one last blow for their sovereign. In the distance, a giant fox with two tails appeared. He was only one hundred feet long, but the mountain trembled as he ran.
“Slay the humans!” Huxian shouted, his eyes bloodshot. A white healing light shot out around him. It suppressed his enemies but healed and invigorated his own forces. Many beasts, who had been on their last legs, took comfort in that healing light. They managed to kill a few more humans before falling.
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