Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Begin Making Talismans! Thunderstrike Talisman!_1
The next day, early morning.
As the sky began to brighten.
Luo Qingshan arrived at the courtyard where Luo Changfeng resided.
“Patriarch Changfeng…”
Inside the courtyard, beneath the Stone Pavilion.
Luo Qingshan stood up straight, silently standing.
“You’re here?”
Luo Changfeng glanced at Luo Qingshan beside him, put down the book “Introduction to Talismans” he was holding, and then picked up three white porcelain bottles from the table.
He stuffed them all into the hands of the youngster, Luo Qingshan.
“These…are they all for me?” Luo Qingshan looked at the three white porcelain bottles in his hands.
His expression seemed somewhat surprised.
“Calming Heart Pills, mortal upper tier level, ten in one bottle, use them sparingly.”
“Whenever you feel annoyed or disturbed, take one.”
Luo Changfeng said calmly.
After handing over the elixirs, it wasn’t long before the youngster, Luo Qingshan, left the courtyard.
The main reason was his reserved nature; he spoke very little and there was quite a generation gap between him and Luo Changfeng.
Therefore, there wasn’t much they could talk about.
…
Time passed, and soon it was noon again.
However, today’s noon was different from the usual noontime.
Today, unusually, dark clouds overcast the sky.
There was even a rare, light rain that began to fall.
The drizzle rained down on the desolate land, bringing a sense of vitality to the earth.
But, the rain didn’t last long.
Just a half-hour later, the dark clouds gradually dissipated.
Instead, a fierce sun appeared.
Continuously casting warm sunlight down upon the land.
“Today’s weather seems rather special…”
As the rain stopped and the sun reappeared,
Luo Changfeng silently walked out from under the Stone Pavilion.
He slightly stretched his withered body.
Squinting his somewhat cloudy eyes a little.
He just stood so, silently looking off into the distance.
But just moments later, he returned to the shelter of the Stone Pavilion.
Just now, the items Luo Ping had prepared for him had gradually started to arrive.
Ink brushes, rice paper, cinnabar.
These three items are the most basic necessities for creating talismans.
It’s not to say that the ink brushes, rice paper, and cinnabar purchased are the best quality.
But at this stage,
he could only acquire these low-quality materials that were barely usable.
“Shall I give it a try?”
Patriarch Changfeng thought to himself, then he picked up an ink brush from the stone table.
This brush seemed to have a history of a thousand years.
There were rumors that it had been with an unknown literary giant for a lifetime.
As to the truth of this rumor,
Luo Changfeng wasn’t quite sure.
In any case, all he knew was that to purchase this worn brush, Luo Ping seemed to have spent a full fifty thousand taels of gold.
Its price was so high that it was comparable to a second-hand Furnace Cauldron.
The ink brush was more expensive, while the rice paper and cinnabar were much cheaper.
The total cost of the two was less than five thousand taels of gold.
…
Creating talismans is often referred to by outsiders as gibberish drawing.
But this isn’t the case in reality.
To successfully create a talisman,
one needs the mind to move with intent, the body to move with form, and the hand to move with spirit.
Only when intent, form, and spirit, these three elements,
are all in place,
can a talisman capture the authority of heaven and earth and gain its wondrous powers.
By then, even if the individual making the talisman simply scribbled a few lines on the talisman, its might would still be extremely potent.
…
Because Luo Changfeng considered that he had some innate talent for the art of talismans.
So, when he began making talismans,
he was, to an extent, calm and collected.
A single failure was no big deal.
Two failures were still no big deal.
After the third, fourth, fifth failures, the problem still wasn’t too severe.
After all, the three major secondary professions of talisman making, alchemy, and artifact refining were all equally difficult.
No one could have a smooth sailing right at the outset.
Thus, Luo Changfeng embarked on a continuous journey of making talismans and failing repeatedly.
It was only after failing for the hundredth time that
he gradually began to sense that something was amiss.
When he failed for the two hundredth time,
his emotions had gradually started to become numb.
After failing three hundred times,
his mood became even more tranquil.
Finally, after failing a staggering thousand times,
and as it became the dead of night, with a bright, graceful moon hanging in the sky,
Luo Changfeng finally succeeded in making his first talisman.
The appearance of the talisman was somewhat ugly.
To say he had simply scrawled on it was not an overstatement.
But that was not important.
What mattered was that he had succeeded; the talisman in front of him had successfully usurped authority from the heavens and earth, and obtained the power that rightfully belonged to them.
“Let’s test its might…”
Luo Changfeng held in his hands the Thunderstrike Talisman, which was of a quality that was merely considered upper tier among the substandard.
He walked toward an open space to see the effects.
The method to activate the talisman was quite simple.
All he needed to do was to channel the Qi-Blood Force within him and infuse a bit of it into the talisman.
Of course, there were talismans that activated actively, and some that were passively activated.
For protective talismans, the vast majority were passively activated.
Once the talisman sensed an approaching force, it would trigger the power of heaven and earth stored within it.
…
After channeling the Qi-Blood Force and activating the Thunderstrike Talisman in his hand,
a brilliant flash of lightning suddenly striking within the courtyard.
And it swiftly headed toward the direction of a rockery.
[Boom!!!]
A tremendous sound suddenly erupted.
The rockery instantaneously shattered into countless pieces.
“This power…”
“It’s comparable to the full force of a Bone Refinement Initial Realm!”
Luo Changfeng, looking at the talisman in his hand now turned to ash, couldn’t help but sigh silently in his heart.
At the same time, he was pondering a question.
Was it possible for all talismans of this substandard upper tier quality to unleash a full-force strike of a Bone Refinement Initial Realm cultivator?
Or was it not always the case?
…
Returning to the Stone Pavilion,
Luo Changfeng picked up the book “Introduction to Talismans” and began to read it carefully again.
Indeed, the situation was as he had surmised.
Not all talismans of the same grade had the same power.
It was just that higher grade talismans could usurp more of heaven and earth’s authority and store more of their power.
And the strength of a talisman, apart from the skill of the person who made it,
depended on several other important factors: the quality of the rice paper and cinnabar.
And also… luck.
Yes, luck.
Even if every talisman used the same materials and the creator was in the same state while drawing,
the authority over heaven and earth each talisman could capture, and the power of heaven and earth, were all different.
The talisman he had just made happened to be one that had captured a greater portion of heaven and earth’s authority.
Otherwise, its power couldn’t have reached the full-strength blow of a Bone Refinement Initial Realm.