Chapter 91 - 88: Soul Mirror
Chapter 91: Chapter 88: Soul Mirror
Li Yuan walked back the way he came.
He passed through the checkpoints in the Wang family’s territory without issue. The guards waved him through after seeing his Token. Once past the final outpost, the road ahead returned to the wide, rammed-earth thoroughfare he had walked before.
After about a mile, he saw someone squatting under a crooked tree by the roadside, flipping through something.
He wore a grayish-blue cloth robe, and his fingers were stained with the faint red marks of vermilion.
Yu Talisman Master.
A piece of coarse cloth was spread on the ground in front of Yu Talisman Master, on which lay several small porcelain bottles and a bundle of herbs. It looked like he had just purchased them somewhere.
As Li Yuan approached, Yu Talisman Master looked up and recognized him.
"What are you doing here," Yu Talisman Master said, getting to his feet.
"I went to the Treasure Pavilion to pick something up." Li Yuan didn’t elaborate.
Yu Talisman Master patted the dirt off his clothes and bent down to gather up the things on the coarse cloth.
Li Yuan got straight to the point.
"Can you teach me how to make Talismans? I can pay with Spirit Stones."
Yu Talisman Master’s movements paused. He looked up at Li Yuan, then shook his head.
"Not right now. I have too many tasks from the Wang family. I don’t have the time."
Yu Talisman Master stuffed the herbs into his cloth bag, thought for a moment, and then spoke again.
"If you really want to learn proper Talisman making techniques, there is a way."
Li Yuan glanced at him.
"The Wang family’s Talisman Hall is recruiting, and they’ve set up an assessment." Yu Talisman Master slung the cloth bag over his shoulder. "Before, they not only had an assessment, but they were also picky about who they chose. Now, as long as your skills are up to par, you’re in."
He looked Li Yuan up and down.
"If you pass the test, you’ll be able to systematically study talisman creation in the Talisman Hall. You’ll have a master to guide you and materials to practice with, which is much better than trying to figure it out on your own by trial and error."
Li Yuan asked, "What are the requirements?"
"It’s difficult. Your Talisman Making Skill has to be at least at a proficient level." Yu Talisman Master paused, then added, "But I don’t think you can get in."
He didn’t sound mocking, but rather like a craftsman making an objective judgment of skill.
Li Yuan nodded without arguing.
"I understand."
Yu Talisman Master grunted, then carried his bag and headed down the road in the other direction.
Li Yuan stood by the roadside, watching Yu Talisman Master’s retreating figure, then turned and continued toward the market district.
It was already afternoon when he returned to his residence.
He bolted the door, sat down on the edge of his bed, and took the Soul Mirror from his robes.
The oval mirror lay in his palm, its dark silver frame polished perfectly smooth. The milky-white, jade-like surface of the mirror shimmered with an exceptionally faint glow.
’This thing is mine now.’
The moment his fingertip touched the mirror’s surface, a panel appeared.
[Equippable item detected: Soul Mirror (Complete)]
[Entry Preview: Soul Light Tempering (Blue)—Strengthens Divine Soul strength and control precision. Base enhancement is 10%, maximum is 50%. The degree of enhancement increases along with Divine Soul strength.]
[Permanence Conditions Preview (Choose one of two): 1. Consume one Tier Two or higher Divine Soul Class Demon Beast Core (0/1); 2. Accumulate one hundred years of life experience (the richer the experience, the less time required) (0/100)]
[Current Equipment Slots (3/3). Replace a currently equipped item?]
’A blue entry.’
’Soul Light Tempering—a passive enhancement for the Divine Soul.’
’It’s not a one-time boost, but a continuous enhancement. As long as it’s equipped, it keeps growing. A base of ten percent, a maximum of fifty percent, and it scales with my Divine Soul’s strength.’
’Two paths to make it permanent.’
’First, consume a Tier Two Divine Soul Class Demon Beast Core. A Tier Two Core corresponds to the Foundation Establishment Stage, so the price won’t be low. Plus, Divine Soul Class Demon Beasts are already rare, and their Cores are practically impossible to find on the market. That’s not realistic in the short term.’
’Second, accumulate one hundred years of life experience. Even if having rich experiences can speed it up, a hundred years is no small amount of time. This path is even more long-term.’
’Both conditions are a long way off.’
’But the entry itself works without being made permanent. As long as it’s equipped, the passive enhancement is active.’
Li Yuan didn’t hesitate. With a thought, he unequipped the Nourishing Essence Skill.
’Equip the Soul Mirror.’
The mirror transformed into a streak of milky-white light and entered his body.
The next instant, an extremely subtle change seeped down from the top of his head.
It wasn’t warmth, nor was it a chill, nor was it the feeling of Spiritual Power flowing.
It was more like a layer of blurry fog in his mind had been gently wiped away.
His consciousness became clearer, more lucid.
Li Yuan closed his eyes and felt it for a moment.
Before, when he closed his eyes, his perception felt like it was behind a thin veil. He could feel the circulation of Spiritual Power in his body, the flow of his Qi Blood, and the pulsing of his meridians, but all these sensations had a slightly blurry edge.
Now, that blurry layer had thinned.
Which node his Spiritual Power had reached in his meridians, in which branch meridian his Qi Blood had slowed by a fraction, the density distribution of Spiritual Power at the edge of his Dantian—all this information was a little clearer than before. Not by much, but he could feel it.
A ten percent enhancement wasn’t a huge effect, but it was continuous.
Li Yuan opened his eyes and flexed his fingers.
That night, Li Yuan continued making Talismans.
He spread out the talisman paper, dipped his brush in ink, and began to draw.
He was still drawing a Fireball Talisman.
He started the brushstroke, laying out the first few Fire Patterns—then, at the point where the Fire Gathering Patterns overlapped in the middle section, he pressed his Spiritual Power into the paper.
The sensation was different from before.
It wasn’t that his control over his Spiritual Power had improved significantly, but that his perception of the Spiritual Power flowing at the tip of the brush was clearer.
Previously, when he put brush to paper, the conduction of Spiritual Power from his fingertip to the brush tip had a section in the middle that was guided purely by feel. He would send out the Spiritual Power, it would probably reach the brush tip, and it would probably be infused into the talisman paper. He wouldn’t know if he’d succeeded until he finished the final stroke.
Now, there was less of that "probably."
When the Spiritual Power reached the brush tip, he could more clearly perceive how it spread across the paper’s surface, how wide it spread, and whether its concentration was sufficient.
It wasn’t a huge improvement, just that the blurry edges had sharpened slightly.
But in terms of practical application, it meant that for those error-prone spots—the overlapping of the Fire Gathering Patterns, the convergence of the Talisman Core—the probability of success was a bit higher.
Over the course of the night, he drew fourteen Fireball Talismans and succeeded with seven, achieving a fifty-percent success rate.
This was nearly ten percent higher than before he equipped the Soul Mirror.
There was a similar improvement when he cultivated the Spirit-Introducing Skill and the Hundred Veins Returning to Origin Skill.
His Spiritual Power control became more precise. The time for each cycle shortened by a tiny bit, and these small gains added up. Over a two-hour period, his cultivation efficiency was a small notch higher than before.
The Microelement Meridian Introduction Skill benefited the most.
This Cultivation Technique already demanded an extremely high degree of mental focus. The strands of Spirit Silk had to be compressed to an extreme fineness to probe into those hair-like micro-meridians, relying entirely on perception to find the way. After his Divine Soul was enhanced, the perception at the tip of the Spirit Silk became sharper, and his judgment when encountering the entrance to a micro-meridian was also faster.
For the next few days, Li Yuan maintained a fixed rhythm.
Making Talismans, cultivating.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, as Li Yuan was at his desk drawing a Talisman, he heard a flurry of footsteps outside his door.
It wasn’t a knock, but several people walking past on the path through the residential area. Their steps were hurried, and their voices were much louder than usual.
Li Yuan put down his talisman brush, walked to the entrance, and pushed the door halfway open.
A few Inspector Generals and Loose Cultivators were on the path, hurrying toward the eastern street.
One of the Inspector Generals stopped for a moment when he passed by and saw Li Yuan at his door.
"What’s going on? Why the hurry?"
"Something’s happened. You haven’t heard, Vice-Captain?"
"What is it?"
"The Wang family and the Li family have started fighting."
The Inspector General lowered his voice, but he couldn’t hide the tension in his eyes.
"It’s not just a small skirmish. I heard a squad from the Wang family ran into some people from the Li family at the border between their territories, and they started fighting right away. Several people died, on both sides."
Li Yuan’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"When did this happen?"
"The news came back this morning. The fight probably happened last night or the day before." The Inspector General glanced toward the eastern street.
Li Yuan grunted in acknowledgment and didn’t ask any more questions.
The Inspector General didn’t linger and left in a hurry.
Li Yuan stood in the doorway, watching the man’s retreating figure, then glanced at the stream of people coming and going in the direction of the eastern street.
The atmosphere in the market district had grown even more tense. The calls of the street vendors were quieter, the pedestrians walked with quicker steps, and occasionally, you could see twos and threes of Loose Cultivators gathered at the base of a wall, talking in low voices with grim expressions.
Li Yuan closed the door and returned to his desk.
A half-finished Fireball Talisman still lay on the desk, a small dot of Spiritual Ink congealed on its surface.
Li Yuan picked up the ruined talisman and set it aside, then laid out a new, blank sheet of talisman paper.
He picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, and brought it to the paper.