Chapter 343 - 332: Gathering Information
Inside the stone house, a talisman brush hovered in midair, its tip saturated with ice-blue Spiritual Ink.
No fingers touched its shaft, and no visible force held it aloft.
An invisible thread, condensed from Divine Soul power, was coiled around the middle of the shaft, precisely controlling the angle and force of each stroke.
The brush tip touched the paper, and the Spiritual Ink spread out, following a predetermined path of patterns.
This was a Tier Two Spirit Water Talisman.
The fifth line was dedicated to making talismans.
The brush tip drew a smooth arc across the talisman paper. It paused slightly as it passed over two overlapping Gathering Spirit nodes, sinking the pressure of the Spiritual Ink by a fraction before gliding into the next pattern.
The entire process was exceptionally smooth.
The high-quality Tier Two talisman paper he had bought at the trade fair had an excellent feel. The Spiritual Ink permeated it evenly, with almost no bleeding. Combined with the precision of his Master Level Divine Soul Manipulation Skill, every turn of the brush landed exactly where it was supposed to.
A quarter of an hour later, the final stroke was complete.
The Spirit Patterns on the paper formed a perfect, closed loop. A flash of ice-blue light flared and then subsided.
Success.
Li Yuan picked up the Spirit Water Talisman and placed it in a wooden box on the corner of his desk. A thick stack of Talismans already lay inside the box—Spirit Water Talismans, Vajra Talismans, Rejuvenation Talismans, Heart-lock Talismans, a wide variety in all.
He had been in this mode of cultivating while simultaneously making talismans for several days now.
At first, when the fifth Divine Sense Line split off to draw talismans, the main lines cultivating his Body Refining Techniques would occasionally experience rhythmic fluctuations. But with more practice, the coordination between the five lines grew more seamless, and the mutual interference dropped to an almost imperceptible level.
The failure rate of his talismans was also visibly decreasing.
Li Yuan put away the talisman brush and withdrew the Divine Soul power from the fifth line, briefly allowing all five lines to return and rest for a moment.
Then, he stood up and walked out of the stone house.
The main street of the marketplace was bustling with people in the afternoon.
Li Yuan walked halfway down the street through the trading area and stopped in front of a Loose Cultivator’s stall.
A few bamboo slips and miscellaneous talisman-making materials were laid out on the stall. Li Yuan picked up one of the slips, which was inscribed with the method for making a Golden Sword Talisman, and swept his Divine Sense through it.
A Tier One Talisman.
A Metal Element Spirit Pattern structure, offensive in nature. The method wasn’t complicated. Given his mastery of Tier One Talisman Making Skill, the path of the patterns and the layout of the nodes were extremely intuitive.
"How much for this bamboo slip?"
"Twenty Spirit Stones." The stall owner, a young Loose Cultivator, looked up at him and quickly added, "But if Pavilion Master Li wants it, fifteen will do."
Li Yuan tossed down the Spirit Stones, tucked the bamboo slip into his sleeve, and turned back toward his stone house.
He took out a sheet of Tier One talisman paper and spread it on the desk. Activating his Divine Soul Manipulation Skill, he lifted the talisman brush and dipped it into a Spiritual Ink that shimmered with a faint golden luster.
The Spirit Pattern structure of the Golden Sword Talisman unfolded in his mind.
The brush tip fell. In less than thirty breaths, the final stroke was complete.
The golden Spirit Patterns on the paper flared brightly before the light receded, and a Golden Sword Talisman was formed.
A panel popped up at the same time.
[Golden Sword Talisman: Minor Achievement]
His Tier Two Minor Achievement in Talisman Making Skill allowed Li Yuan to reach the Minor Achievement level after drawing just one.
[Equippable Item Detected: Golden Sword Talisman (Complete)]
[Equipment Affix Preview: Incisive Metal Embodiment (White)]
[Effect: Metal Element Magic power increased by 30%]
[Permanence Condition Preview: Kill 10 or more Tier One or higher Demon Beasts using Metal Element Magic]
A white affix. Increases the power of Metal Element Magic by 30%.
Li Yuan glanced at the permanence condition. The progress for this condition, which required killing ten or more Tier One or higher Demon Beasts with Metal Element Magic, would only start accumulating after he equipped it.
’I’ll hold onto the Golden Sword Talisman for now and wait for a suitable slot to open up. There’s no rush on the permanence condition either. I’ll have plenty of chances to kill Demon Beasts with Metal Element Magic during routine clear-outs and patrols. Once I equip it, I should be able to complete the condition quickly.’
Li Yuan put the Golden Sword Talisman into his storage bag.
The next morning, Li Yuan left the stone house and walked straight to the largest shop in the very center of the marketplace’s main street.
It was the largest one under his name, with a wide storefront in a prime location, easily visible to all passing Cultivators.
He had an assistant bring him a smooth, polished slate of bluestone, and he picked up a brush and wrote a few lines on it.
The announcement’s content was brief.
Now taking orders for crafting the Upper Element Pill.
The Upper Element Pill is a Tier Two High Grade Foundation Establishment-assistance pill. Clients must gather the main ingredients themselves. The list of main ingredients is as follows: one stalk of Jade Marrow Mushroom at least 300 years old, three stalks of Tier Two High Grade Foggy Grass, and two Tier Two High Grade Earth Spirit Fruits. The supplementary ingredients will be provided by Li Yuan. The specific fee is to be negotiated in person.
Interested parties may register inside the shop.
The announcement mentioned no details about the pill formula itself, only listing the ingredients. Based on this list alone, no Pill Master could possibly reverse-engineer the complete crafting process.
The slate was propped up in the most conspicuous spot at the shop’s entrance.
The news spread like wildfire.
In less than two hours, the first wave of people flooded into the shop.
"Pavilion Master Li, is the Upper Element Pill a type of Foundation Establishment Pill?" an Early-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator asked in a low voice, squeezing his way to the counter.
Li Yuan nodded.
The Cultivator’s eyes lit up instantly.
For any peak Qi Refining cultivator or family, a Foundation Establishment Pill was something they could only dream of.
Now, someone in the marketplace was publicly offering to craft them to order. This meant that as long as they could gather the ingredients, they had a chance to obtain a genuine Foundation Establishment-assistance pill.
Over the course of the morning, more than thirty Cultivators came by.
Not a single one of them could provide all the main ingredients, which was to be expected.
A second stalk of Jade Marrow Mushroom over 300 years old couldn’t be found in the entire marketplace. Tier Two High Grade Foggy Grass and Earth Spirit Fruits were also extremely rare. Most Cultivators only had one or two Low Tier supplementary ingredients on hand.
But it wasn’t a total loss.
A family Cultivator who had fled from northern Yunzhou provided a lead on Foggy Grass. He said that while passing by the ruins of a cultivator family’s herb garden, he had seen a Spirit Plant on the periphery that he suspected was Foggy Grass, but he hadn’t dared to venture deeper at the time.
Another Loose Cultivator revealed that traces of Earth Spirit Fruit had once been found near a wild Spirit Vein somewhere in southern Liangzhou.
A few others, though they didn’t have any main ingredients themselves, offered to help ask around on the condition that they would be given priority for his services in the future.
Li Yuan noted down each of these leads and contacts.
His intention in putting up the sign for the Upper Element Pill was never just about waiting for people to deliver ingredients to his doorstep. The sign’s greater purpose was to attract those Cultivators who held clues to rare resources but had no way to use them, thereby forming an intelligence network centered around the Upper Element Pill.
As long as he cast his net wide enough, he would eventually gather all the ingredients.
Besides, there was still a 320-year-old Jade Marrow Mushroom waiting for him with Sun Tong.
As evening fell, the crowd of people registering slowly dispersed. Li Yuan had the assistant put the registration book away and lock it in the hidden compartment under the counter, then he walked out of the shop and headed back down the main street.
After returning to his stone house, the five Divine Sense Lines spread out once more.
Inside the stone house, only the alternating CRACKLE of the Pill Fire and the RUSTLE of the talisman brush on paper could be heard.