Chapter 491 - 463: Deriving Spells from Talismans

Chapter 491: Chapter 463: Deriving Spells from Talismans

The deep sea was dark and murky, the water pressure like a mountain.

Li Yuan followed the route from the Tiger Whale’s memory, traveling through the pitch-black underwater canyon. After more than an hour, Li Yuan stopped at the bottom of a rock formation riddled with massive trenches.

The seawater ahead faintly glowed with an extremely weak blue light, and the Spiritual Qi concentration was a notch higher than in the surrounding area.

’The Spirit Vein really does exist.’

Li Yuan activated the Vein-Stripping trait in his equipment column. A soft blue light shot from his palm, precisely piercing the seabed rock formation and transforming into a net of light that tightly enveloped the Spirit Vein’s main trunk below.

The rock formation trembled.

A miniature Water Element Spirit Vein was extracted whole, instantly drawn into his personal space, and then integrated into the Spirit Vein circulation within his body.

The process was extremely practiced. Li Yuan didn’t linger. He followed the trend of the Earth Vein and continued forward, finding a second miniature Water Element Spirit Vein over ten li away.

He repeated the process. With two miniature Spirit Veins integrated into his body, the Spiritual Qi circulation within him grew a bit stronger once more.

After taking the Spirit Veins, Li Yuan lingered no longer. His figure moved like lightning, darting swiftly upward with the current. Half a day later, he broke through the water’s surface and returned to the outer islands of the Kunpeng Archipelago.

The island’s market was even more boisterous than it had been a few days ago.

Li Yuan walked along a wide stone-paved road. Ahead, a huge plaza was packed with Cultivators. Several disciples in Celestial Peak Sect attire were standing on a high platform, loudly announcing something.

"The Celestial Peak Sect is recruiting Tier Two, Tier Three, and higher Array Masters for a high price! The rewards are generous and will be settled daily."

"Urgent need for large quantities of Spatial Array materials such as Void Stones and Void Sand! If you have them, bring them directly to us. We will purchase them at twenty percent above market price."

Li Yuan stood at the edge of the crowd, listening to the discussions of the Loose Cultivators around him.

"The Celestial Peak Sect is really going all out this time. To think they’re building an ultra-long-distance Teleportation Array here," a middle-aged Cultivator said, his face full of amazement.

"I heard it connects directly to the area near the Celestial Peak Sect’s main vein. They started building it a while ago," another person whispered. "But it seems their project ran into a bit of a snag."

"What kind of snag?"

"Originally, most of the core Array was already laid out. But who knew that the seabed strata here would shift recently, changing the alignment of the island’s Spirit Veins and Earth Veins. As a result, the required scale of the Teleportation Array is now much larger than anticipated," the person explained.

"Now they’re suddenly short on materials and manpower. However, the Celestial Peak Sect’s own people have already handled the core Array. They’re only recruiting Array Masters now to lay out the auxiliary arrays on the periphery."

After listening, Li Yuan’s gaze flickered.

The Celestial Peak Sect’s old ancestor was about to attempt to break through to the Divinity Transformation realm. To start such a massive construction project at this critical juncture, spending a fortune to build an ultra-long-distance Teleportation Array directly to the Sect, was significant. This type of Array consumed an enormous amount of Spirit Stones. Aside from transporting extremely critical strategic resources or mobilizing large numbers of people, there was no way to recoup the cost.

Li Yuan had no interest in joining the Celestial Peak Sect’s Array repair project for the time being. He turned and left the plaza, heading toward the district that sold books and Magic.

As he passed a sundry stall, a yellowed old book caught Li Yuan’s attention.

Water Transport Skill.

Li Yuan picked it up and flipped through it. It was an extremely obscure auxiliary Water Element Magic. When cast, it could slightly adjust the flow of surrounding water vapor for a short time, thereby slightly increasing one’s luck in aquatic environments.

No trait glimmered.

Still, Li Yuan took out a few Spirit Stones and bought it. The legacy he had obtained from the octopus’s cave abode happened to include a Talisman Making Skill for something called a Water Transport Talisman.

Back at the inn, Li Yuan activated the Defensive Array.

Li Yuan didn’t rush to cultivate the Magic. Instead, he took out his talisman-making tools. With the Dust-Cleansing Talisman Brush in hand, he dipped it liberally in specially made talisman ink, and his Spiritual Power flowed slowly from the tip onto the blank talisman paper.

With his introductory Tier Three Talisman Making Skill, the entire process was as smooth as flowing water.

A moment later, he lifted the brush.

A Talisman emitting a faint blue light lay quietly on the desk. The Water Transport Talisman was complete.

Within a three-foot radius, his trait perception triggered.

[Equippable Item Detected: Water Transport Talisman (Complete)]

[Equippable Trait Preview: Water Transportation Skill (Green)]

[Effect: Increases luck by 10%. The deeper one’s cultivation of Water Element Cultivation Techniques, the better the effect, up to a maximum of 30%.]

[Permanence Condition Preview: Successfully create one hundred Water Transport Talismans by hand and use them all.]

’A luck-enhancing trait. Even though it’s only green, it could be enough to change the situation at a critical moment.’

Then, Li Yuan’s gaze fell on the Water Transport Skill book he had just bought.

’Talismans, in essence, are the Spiritual Power circuits of Magic solidified on talisman paper. There must be an underlying correspondence between the Water Transport Talisman and the Water Transport Skill. The Fireball Talisman corresponds to the Fireball Technique, and the Ice Cone Talisman corresponds to the Ice Cone Skill.’

’Since talismans and skills share the same origin, can I reverse-engineer the corresponding Magic from a known Talisman?’

Once this thought emerged, he could no longer suppress it.

Li Yuan got up, left the inn, and went to the market again.

Li Yuan spent half a day scouring the various shops and stalls, buying over a dozen low-tier magic manuals. Among them were several skills that corresponded to Talismans he had already mastered, such as the Fire Arrow Skill and the Golden Saber Skill.

Back at the inn, Li Yuan sat down cross-legged.

He read through all the magic manuals he had purchased.

Li Yuan took out a Guiding Talisman he had drawn and placed it in front of him. Li Yuan already knew the drawing technique for the Guiding Talisman by heart, but he didn’t have the Cultivation Method for the Path-Pointing Skill.

Li Yuan closed his eyes. His powerful Divine Sense split into twelve lines, simultaneously simulating the Guiding Talisman’s Spiritual Power circuits in his sea of consciousness.

The blue trait, Ten Thousand Dharmas Seek Truth, operated at full power.

His mind became crystal clear. The complex cinnabar patterns on the Guiding Talisman began to peel away and deconstruct in Li Yuan’s eyes, transforming into pure Spiritual Power circulation pathways.

Li Yuan compared these pathways with the samples of talismans and skills he had just bought.

He searched for patterns, removed the stabilization nodes required for the talisman paper as a medium, and restored the Magic’s original circulation path within the human body’s meridians.

This was a form of brute-force deconstruction that was extremely mentally taxing. Without the powerful foundation of twelve Divine Sense Lines and the high bonus from his trait, an ordinary Cultivator might not even begin to grasp the method, even after a hundred years.

「Half a day later.」

Li Yuan opened his eyes. He formed a sword finger with his right hand, and the Spiritual Power in his body coursed rapidly through his meridians, following the brand-new pathway he had just deduced.

An extremely faint white light glowed at his fingertip.

The white light shot from his hand, spun once in mid-air, and then pointed steadily in the direction of the island’s center, where the Spiritual Qi was most concentrated.

The deduction was a success.

[Magic Mastered: Path-Pointing Skill (Introductory)]

A sharp glint flashed in Li Yuan’s eyes.

’This path works. It means that as long as I master a Talisman’s drawing method, I can reverse-engineer it into the corresponding Magic through deduction, even without a manual.’

He had forcibly smashed through the barrier between Magic and Talismans.

’Of course, the Path-Pointing Skill is a low-grade skill. If it were a High-Tier Talisman, it would definitely take much longer.’

Li Yuan studied it a bit more and discovered that deriving a Talisman from Magic was even more difficult than deriving Magic from a Talisman.

Talismans have a fixed form, whereas Magic has subtle variations depending on how each individual uses it.

Li Yuan didn’t rest. Instead, he decided to strike while the iron was hot, picking up the Fire Arrow Skill manual from the desk and preparing to learn it to the introductory level.

He recalled the structure of the Fire Arrow Talisman in his mind and combined it with the incantations from the manual. In the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, a sharply pointed, extremely condensed flame formed at his fingertip.

[Fire Arrow Skill: Introductory]

Under the blessing of Ten Thousand Dharmas Seek Truth, his learning speed was simply terrifying.

Time flew by amid his deductions and cultivation.

Li Yuan learned each of the magic skills he had bought to the introductory level, rapidly expanding his internal reserve of Magic. He could feel that as the variety of Magic and Talismans he mastered continued to increase, the beneficial effects brought by Ten Thousand Dharmas Seek Truth were also climbing, albeit extremely slowly.