Chapter 7
Chapter 7.
[Baby Jiaolong: It took me a whole year just to reach the first stage.]
-Is dual cultivation of body and magic normally like this?
└Yao Immortal (178.1): LOL. We told you not to even look at dual cultivation, and you went crawling right into the cesspit anyway.
└LotsaTails: Baby... Did you hit your head or something? We tried so hard to talk you out of dual cultivation.
└Baby Jiaolong: Hey, even I didn't think it'd be this hard!!
└Black Wind: The shorter the excuse, the better. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, it normally takes decades just to lay the foundation for dual cultivation of body and magic. Be grateful you managed to break through to the first stage in a year.
I was about ready to cry.
The problem was, it was only going to get harder from here.
If the first stage took a year, the second might take ten.
Once you break through one wall, the next is always harder and more difficult to understand.
└Yao Immortal (333.3): That's right. Thunder qi is especially unruly, which makes it even harder.
└Baby Jiaolong: Then how do I break through faster? Any tips?
└Yao Immortal (178.1): For free? Toss in another Purple Heart Grass Fruit.
That damn Purple Heart Grass Fruit.
Even after a year, there was still someone going on about it.
[Baby Jiaolong: As if you'd be able to buy one anyway.]
└Yao Immortal (178.1): Are you trying to pick a fight?
I casually ignored that and looked at the other replies, only to find a bunch of nonsense.
└Yao Immortal (444.44): Where's the naked girl?
└Yao Immortal (124.1): Seriously, can you stop going on about naked girls?
└Yao Immortal (444.44): He who seeks not the naked girl has lost the true path of a Yao Immortal.
└Yao Immortal (777.54): What does a naked girl have to do with being a Yao Immortal?
I took off my clothes, returned to my true form as a jiaolong, and dove into the pond in my cave abode.
The pitch-black pond water washed away my sweat and refreshed me.
“Damn it. Well, at least I made it to the first stage. If I really can't manage it, I can always learn something else.”
There was no need to worry about my lifespan, anyway.
I spent the year cultivating and eating spirit fruits, and even managed to raise my Yao Knot cultivation by a minor level. You could call that an achievement.
If nothing else, sticking stubbornly to the Purple Cloud Divine Thunder Saber had paid off!
[Dao-Bone Scripture (道骨新書) - Observation]
■ Affiliated Realm: Lower Realm
■ Owner: Gyo Ran (蛟瀾)
■ Race: Purple Cloud Jiaolong (紫霞蛟龍)
■ Realm: Yao Knot, 2nd Layer - Yao General
The Dao-Bone Scripture confirmed that I'd reached the second layer of the Yao Knot realm.
“Hehehe! It's only one minor level, but I'm still happy!”
Maybe it was because my days of improving just by eating spirit fruits and sleeping were behind me.
I felt pretty proud, knowing I'd achieved this through my own effort.
Swimming around in the pond in my sleeping quarters had quickly refreshed both my body and my mood.
I felt like if I fell asleep now, I'd be out for a whole week.
A pleasant drowsiness washed over me.
‘Maybe it's about time I went outside.’
It had taken longer than I'd expected, but that wasn't a big problem. If anything, it had been time well spent.
Floating in the pond, I looked toward the training ground. One side of it was charred black from my training and smashed up as if an explosion had gone off.
Purple Cloud Saber Accumulation (紫霞蓄刀).
A one-hit-kill saber technique that stores the power of thunder in the blade to its limit, then unleashes it.
“I'm pretty strong now, right?”
Honestly, I had no way to tell if I was strong or not without anyone to compare myself to.
Anyway, I'd managed to make myself a way to protect my body. If I learned the concealment art Black Wind had told me about, I might be able to buy a storage pouch, at least.
“Just in case, I should learn a flying treasure and... some kind of movement art, too. What else would be good besides the concealment art?”
I wouldn't need to make a flying treasure myself. I could buy one as soon as I had a storage pouch.
I looked around a bit, but there wasn't a flying treasure in the cave abode.
‘I should be able to practice a movement art once I go outside.’
There was one movement art I'd had my eye on.
It was a lightning-type movement art called Thunder-Origin Giant Step (雷元巨步).
The name roughly meant a step that carries the source of thunder with great force.
Basically, I guess it meant taking huge, thunderous strides.
It was a movement art based on treating a bolt of lightning falling from the sky like the stride of a giant, and it was suitable for someone at the middle stage of the Yao Knot realm, so I'd picked it out.
Compared to dual cultivation of body and magic, its difficulty was very low. I could probably learn it just by running around a little, so there was absolutely nothing to worry about!
“The movement art's taken care of. So there's only one thing left now...”
Rustle.
I climbed out of the pond, shook off the water, flopped onto my bed, and opened the Yao Immortal Gallery.
[Baby Jiaolong: You there, Black Wind?]
-I need that concealment art. I'll buy it, so tell me the formula.
I waited, but Black Wind took longer than I expected to answer.
He was usually always there, like some guy on guard duty at the Yao Immortal Gallery, so it was unusual for him to be slow to reply.
“Is he busy?”
He still hadn't appeared after quite a while, so there was no point in waiting longer.
Yao Immortals were like that. It wasn't unusual for one to say they'd take a quick nap and then show up a month later.
TurtleTurtle was especially like that.
Anyway.
“Hmm, Black Wind was so confident, so I was looking forward to it... Maybe he'll show up in a month. Or should I try asking someone else?”
I couldn't receive a cultivation manual with the formula written down because I didn't have a storage pouch, but there was nothing stopping me from learning it if the seller wrote out the key points.
But no one willing to write out those key points showed up, so there was that.
Bored, I was browsing the Yao Immortal Gallery when I accidentally saw something awful.
[HumansSuck: I've relieved some of my murderous poison.]
-So, to celebrate: KILL! HU! MANS!
[An image of human cultivators skewered together, dead.]
“Aagh!”
It was the newest post at the very top, so I saw it before the Yao Immortal Gallery could delete it.
└Baby Jiaolong: Aaaaaaagh!!
└Yao Immortal (997.5): Aaaagh!!
The only consolation was that I wasn't the only one who'd seen it.
Yao Immortal (997.5) seemed like another Yao Immortal who'd grown up pampered, just like me.
“Ah, I'm wide awake now. I was going to browse the Gallery until I fell asleep...”
If I went to sleep now, I felt like I'd have nightmares.
“...Maybe I should fiddle with something else.”
Black Wind hadn't shown up, and I was wide awake anyway, so I got up, grabbed a spirit fruit, and wandered into the Arts Room.
“Hmm, I don't know enough about artifacts yet... Alchemy doesn't really interest me. Formations look like a headache... So that leaves talisman making.”
Talisman-making.
It was the art of making talismans.
Talismans were usually saved as trump cards, so they could unleash power greater than the user's usual strength.
Of course, the maker's skill was important, too.
But talisman-making was delicate work, and you had to observe the workings of Heaven and Earth on that particular day, so it was just as demanding as alchemy and artifact refining.
One continuous stroke.
A talisman had to be drawn in one swift motion, and that was why talisman-making wasn't something you could master with just a little effort.
Even so, it was popular because talismans had their advantages.
“Convenience.”
They weren't great in terms of cost-effectiveness, but they offered considerable flexibility in battle.
And the deeper you delved into it, the more ways you could use them: barriers, traps, assassination, formations, and so on.
There were countless different things you could do with talismans.
Of course, they weren't easy to learn...
“Wasn't it that if you draw ten, making even one good one is a success?”
The yellow paper used as a base.
Yao blood, a spirit brush, and ink, too.
You needed quite a variety of materials.
Of course, I didn't really need to worry about materials.
“I can just use my own blood, too.”
Human cultivators liked using yao beast blood to make talismans. But since I was a yao beast myself, I could save on materials by using my own blood!
Besides, almost everything else I needed was here, too.
“Let's start with some basic first-tier Qi-Concealing Talismans and Concealment Talismans.”
A Qi-Concealing Talisman hid your energy, while a Concealment Talisman hid your appearance. They were basic talismans.
A small bowl of red spirit ink and a talisman brush made from animal hair sat on the desk. I quietly steadied my breathing and spread out a sheet of White Spirit Paper.
Instead of human spiritual energy, I had to draw up the yao energy (妖力) rooted deep in my bones.
From deep in my dantian, cold, sticky yao qi surged upward like a snake coiling.
The first thing I had to draw was a Qi-Concealing Talisman (息氣符).
I held my breath for an instant and swept the brush across the White Spirit Paper in one fluid stroke.
Crackle!
The paper seemed to shriek as soon as the yao qi flowed into the brush. When I passed through the middle link in the talisman script, the thunder qi and yao energy I couldn't control surged out, scorching one corner of the talisman black.
“Why'd that happen?! Did I put in too much power?”
It took more finesse than I'd expected.
But it wasn't impossible.
Maybe because dual cultivation of body and magic had trained my body and mind, there wasn't anything particularly difficult about it.
I just hadn't practiced enough yet.
“One more time.”
This time, I slowly but firmly tightened my grip. I naturally carried the flow of yao qi through the stroke, then finished with a dot.
As soon as it was complete, the rough energy flowing over the talisman settled down.
“Whew. Did I get a Supreme-grade talisman!?”
It was unmistakably a first-tier low-grade Qi-Concealing Talisman.
“You can't expect to get everything right on the first try. I'm Gyo Ran, trained in dual cultivation of body and magic. If I stick with it, I'll beat everyone.”
Without even pausing to catch my breath, I immediately pulled another sheet of White Spirit Paper toward me.
After several attempts, both failed and successful, I managed to draw a Qi-Concealing Talisman.
“Oh! This is pretty good...!”
Looking it over, I saw it was a first-tier mid-grade Qi-Concealing Talisman. Since it was only first-tier, the more I drew, the more familiar it became, and I started getting the hang of it.
I thought I could make a high-grade talisman after a few more tries.
Maybe it was easier than I'd expected, or maybe I had a knack for it. Either way, it was fun.
“Should I try a Concealment Talisman, too?”
The talisman's path came clearly to mind, like a picture.
Swoooosh—!
The surface of the talisman began to char slightly and curl up, but I lightly pressed the center with my palm, sealing its momentum.
Without even wiping away the single bead of sweat on my forehead, I looked down at the two completed talismans.
“A high-grade Concealment Talisman on my first try?”
Maybe I had more talent than I thought?
I hadn't learned any secret technique, but my instinctive intuition let me see the talisman's flow, and I'd completed its trajectory without a single unnecessary stroke.
I gazed at the Qi-Concealing Talisman and the Concealment Talisman, then thought of something.
‘But what if I draw another one on the back?’
It was unlikely to work, but I tried it anyway.
As expected, the talisman couldn't withstand the yao energy and burned up.
Just as expected.
“Maybe if I used White Spirit Paper or Yellow Spirit Paper that can withstand yao energy...”
I thought about it for a moment, but decided to stop. It was pointless.
The truth was, talisman-making didn't have that high a ceiling, and the results weren't all that impressive for the effort it took.
It was useful for low-realm cultivators, but if you asked whether it was just as useful for high-realm cultivators, you'd have to think twice. That was talisman-making for you.
‘It should be enough just to learn it well enough to broaden my horizons.’
I wrapped up the talisman-making and moved on to the Spirit Insect Room, the next thing that interested me.
There were several kinds of spirit insect eggs in the Arts Room, as well as quite a few cultivation formulas for taming spirit insects.
I'd already performed the owner-recognition ritual on some of them by dropping my blood on their eggs.
I picked up a book nearby.
It was called the Hundred-Insect Compendium.
It was a ranking of a hundred spirit insects.
1st: Golden-Shell Insect King
-The progenitor and pinnacle of all spirit insects. Born holding the essence of Heaven and Earth, its entire body is made of an immortal golden exoskeleton, and all insects bow at the sound of its cry.
2nd: Nine-Heaven Poison King Silkworm
-A giant silkworm that grew on the cold poison and murderous aura dwelling in the nine hells of the afterlife. They say the silk it spins can dissolve any magical treasure or barrier.
3rd: Five-Colored Soul-Reclaiming Butterfly
-A spirit butterfly (靈蝶) that can completely unsettle a person's soul with a single flap of its wings, plunging them into an illusion. Its brilliant five-colored scales are a top-grade hypnotic toxin that disables the opponent's dantian and meridians.
4th: Millennium Blood Moon Scorpion
-A giant scorpion that evolved after absorbing the yin energy of nights beneath a red moon for hundreds of years. A single drop of blood poison (血毒) at the tip of its tail can make a cultivator's blood boil in an instant, causing them to explode.
5th: Thunderbolt Purple Centipede
-A centipede-shaped spirit insect that lives in underground thunder pits, imbued with the force of lightning. Purple thunder qi crackles from it with every movement, tearing through everything around it and bringing extreme speed and paralysis.
6th: Underworld Yin-Wind Rat
-A concealment-type spirit insect that grows in corpses or ancient tombs filled with yin energy, perfectly erasing the wind and sounds around it. It excels at assassination, sneaking up on an enemy's vitals while completely concealing its presence.
7th: Blood-River Winged Insect
-Blood-scented, bloodsucking flying insects that swarm by the thousands and turn their prey into a skeleton in an instant. Their destructive power in a swarm is enough to make even most high-realm cultivators flee.
8th: Grave-Spirit Earth Insect
-A defensive spirit insect that buries itself in the earth, feeds on the earth's qi and decayed resentment, and hardens its exoskeleton. Just curling up lets it absorb physical impacts and techniques around it with incredible efficacy.
9th: Talisman-Wing Insect
-A strange spirit insect whose entire body is made of a transparent exoskeleton like White Spirit Paper. Each flap of its wings scatters faint yao script and vermilion-colored scales all around it. It has mastered the principles of talismans on its own, and only a talisman master can draw out its true power. Without one, it can't unleash much strength.
There were all kinds of spirit insects, but the one that caught my eye was the Talisman-Wing Insect.
A lot of the others looked interesting, but not every spirit insect in the Hundred-Insect Compendium was in this cave abode.
Probably the spirit insects with too much will of their own or that were hard to control weren't kept here. That left the Talisman-Wing Insect as the only one among the top ten whose egg was here.
‘The Talisman-Wing Insect eats talismans. Its power changes depending on the effects of the talismans it eats...’
So if I fed it a Concealment Talisman, then drew one on its wings, the effect would be even stronger.
“...Not bad.”
A spirit insect ranked ninth in the Hundred-Insect Compendium.
If I raised and bred it properly, it seemed like there couldn't be a better one.