Ten Thousand Years in Seclusion

Faced with Elder Li’s suspicion, Qi Tian hurriedly waved his hands. "Please, don’t misunderstand. I just thought..."

He scratched the back of his head and gave an awkward smile.

"I just thought that if I could set up a third-tier formation in Heaven One, it would look a little more impressive."

Elder Li stared at Qi Tian’s utterly unruffled, harmless-looking face. He studied him for a long moment before finally laughing in exasperation.

"You little rascal. Do you have any idea how precious a third-tier isolation formation is?

Only the Halls have one. Even the Sect Master’s residence has none. And you have the nerve to ask for one in your own room? Forget it. Get that thought out of your head!"

His tone softened slightly.

"I’ll lend you a second-tier isolation formation plate. That’s already making an exception. If you don’t want it, then forget it."

Qi Tian pondered silently. At present, the strongest cultivator openly known to be in the Falling Cloud Sect was that half-step Golden Core expert at the summit of the mountain. But ultimately, he was still a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

As for the Sect Master’s actual cultivation level, Qi Tian still had no idea. The man had yet to return.

For now, a second-tier isolation formation was enough.

"I’ll take it, of course." Qi Tian smiled and cupped his fists. "Thank you, Elder Li."

Elder Li nodded and took out a transmission jade slip.

"Guo Qing, take the two of them to the Talisman Chamber and teach them the basics of talisman drawing first."

A moment later, Guo Qing returned with Lin Ye.

"The Talisman Chamber is at the rear of the hall downstairs. Come with me."

The four of them went downstairs, crossed the main hall, and arrived outside the innermost room in the rear hall.

Qi Tian looked up. The moment the three characters "Talisman Chamber" came into view above the door—

BOOM!!!

A deafening explosion suddenly erupted from behind the Formation Hall!

Qi Tian’s heart tightened. He could clearly feel a violent surge of spiritual energy sweeping in from behind.

Qian Duobao’s face changed drastically.

"What happened? Did an enemy break in?!"

Guo Qing shook his head helplessly.

"It’s Junior Sister Zhuang. She blew up another formation plate again."

Guo Qing walked to the end of the Formation Hall, and Qi Tian and the other two followed curiously. Guo Qing pushed open the heavy stone door at the back.

Beyond it was a gentle slope. It was easy to tell that the area had once been a grove of green bamboo, but now only charred, broken stalks remained scattered across the ground. Bamboo trunks lay fallen in all directions, with only a sparse few still standing, their stalks blackened and scorched.

Crater after crater dotted the slope, some as wide as a tabletop, others no bigger than a washbasin. All of them were blackened, with not a blade of grass growing anywhere.

At the far end of the slope, a fresh crater roughly ten feet across still billowed white smoke. Its walls were charred black, and the heat warped the air above it.

A figure stumbled out of the column of smoke, still clutching half of a charred formation plate. Though covered in soot from head to toe, she was clearly a young girl.

Guo Qing lowered his voice slightly.

"Her name is Zhuang Lili. She was taken in during the previous disciple-recruitment ceremony. The Sect Master forced her into the Formation Hall. As for her talent in formations... well, it’s hard to put into words. Master has already expressly forbidden her from inscribing formation plates inside the Hall."

Qian Duobao nodded solemnly.

"Master was right to do so."

Lin Ye nodded along, clearly in complete agreement.

Only Qi Tian, staring at the disheveled girl, found his thoughts drifting involuntarily back to the years when he had followed his master in cultivation as a child.

His master not only had a high cultivation realm, but was also familiar with nearly every other art—alchemy, artifact refinement, formations, and so on. He was not proficient in all of them, but there was hardly an art he did not know.

Back then, besides teaching Qi Tian his cultivation techniques, his master had taught him these various arts as well, one by one.

That was why, just the other day at the Yue Lai Inn, he had been able to spot the flaw in the damaged second-tier Spirit-Gathering Formation at a glance.

It was just that... all he knew how to do was "look."

Because—in truth, he and the Zhuang Lili before him were cut from the same cloth.

Inscribing formation plates? He blew them up.

No, that wasn’t all. He blew up alchemy furnaces while practicing alchemy, and artifact-refining furnaces while refining artifacts. There was practically nothing he had not managed to blow up.

And unfortunately, his master was not a patient man. After watching him blow things up several times in a row, he finally spoke to him earnestly.

"Tian, you should just focus on cultivation."

After that, his master never allowed him to touch any of those things again.

"Senior Brother Guo!"

Zhuang Lili hurried over to the group, taking three steps in two. The moment she spoke, she broke Qi Tian out of his thoughts.

Guo Qing looked her over with concern.

"You all right? Didn’t get blown up anywhere, did you?"

"I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ve got tough skin and thick bones. A little blast like that can’t hurt me." Zhuang Lili casually patted the soot off her clothes, sending up another cloud of dust that made her cough twice. She leaned forward and peered at Qi Tian and the other two, her eyes lighting up.

"Huh? New junior brothers?"

"Yeah. They were assigned to the Formation Hall today." Guo Qing nodded and introduced the three of them. "Qi Tian, Lin Ye, and Qian Duobao."

"Oh, oh! Welcome, welcome!" Zhuang Lili grinned, her teeth looking especially white against the soot covering her face. "I’m Zhuang Lili. From now on, you have to call me Senior Sister."

"Uh..." Guo Qing was just about to explain that the three of them were essentially all going to be personal disciples, meaning she should actually be calling them senior brothers.

But before he could say anything, Zhuang Lili suddenly slapped her forehead as if she had remembered something.

"Ah, never mind. I’ve already blown most of this month’s spirit stones on formation plates, and now they’re all gone. I’d better hurry to the Mission Hall and take a few tasks to earn some more."

She waved at them as she ran off.

"Senior Brother Guo! New junior brothers! We’ll talk another day!"

Qi Tian watched her retreating figure, disheveled yet full of vitality, and the corners of his lips lifted slightly.

She certainly had a straightforward personality. It reminded him a little of his junior sister from years ago.

Only after Zhuang Lili had gone some distance did Guo Qing finally turn his gaze away. He led the three of them back into the rear hall and into the Talisman Chamber.

The Talisman Chamber was quite spacious. Rows of long tables stood neatly arranged, each equipped with brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones.

A disciple on duty sat behind the table beside the door. Seeing Guo Qing bring them in, he rose and cupped his fists.

"Senior Brother Guo."

Guo Qing nodded and gestured for the disciple on duty to hand each of the three a set of brushes, ink, and talisman paper.

"The brushes and spiritual ink are provided by the Hall. They’re free," Guo Qing said.

Qi Tian looked at the brush in his hand. It was an ordinary violet bamboo beast-hair brush, with a shaft made from common violet bamboo and bristles of the most ordinary beast hair. At a glance, it was clearly the most basic beginner’s grade.

"Talisman paper is issued free of charge each month, limited to thirty sheets. Once you use them up, you’ll have to buy more yourself."

Qian Duobao looked over the things in his hands and clicked his tongue.

"How come... they’re all Yellow-tier?"

"This is the Formation Hall." Guo Qing could not help but laugh. "We’re only teaching you to recognize formation patterns and get a feel for drawing them. We’re not trying to train talisman masters. Low-grade Yellow-tier is more than enough."

Guo Qing led the three of them to a long table, picked up a brush, and loaded it with spiritual ink.

"You’re beginners, so we’ll start with the simplest talisman—the Dust-Cleansing Talisman."

"The Dust-Cleansing Talisman has only seven strokes in total." As he slowly moved the brush, Guo Qing explained, "The principle is simple. You guide a tiny amount of spiritual energy into the talisman paper. When activated, it produces a gentle pulling force that lifts the dust and grime from the surface of an object and gathers it together."

"The important part is these three turns—" His brush paused briefly. "The spiritual energy has to be evenly distributed. Too much, and the formation pattern overloads; too little, and the pulling force won’t activate."

A Dust-Cleansing Talisman was completed in one smooth motion beneath his brush. As the talisman took shape, the paper gave off a faint glow before quickly returning to normal.

"There. Done. Give it a try."

Lin Ye and Qian Duobao followed his instructions, picking up their brushes, laying out their paper, and carefully copying the pattern.

The first few attempts either had crooked patterns or uneven spiritual energy. Their Dust-Cleansing Talismans either showed no reaction at all or simply went "puff" and fizzled out with a wisp of green smoke.

After wasting seven or eight sheets of talisman paper, the two finally managed to complete one each. The paper gave off a faint glow, barely enough to count as a success.

"It worked! It worked!"

Qian Duobao held up his hard-earned Dust-Cleansing Talisman as though it were a priceless treasure.

Qi Tian alone remained motionless, holding the brush in his hand without putting it to paper.

Seeing this, Guo Qing could not help but smile.

"Junior Brother Qi, what’s wrong? Is there something about the formation pattern you don’t understand?"

Qi Tian lowered his gaze to the brush in his hand.

In that instant, a distant memory suddenly surfaced.

It was the first time he had followed his master to learn how to draw talismans.

And then...

His master had been so furious that he had beaten Qi Tian until his face was black and blue.