Ordinary People: Starting with the Chen Clan

A faint fire elemental energy was gathering around, and the talisman was not covered with runes as usual, but instead had a crucial core empty in the middle.

Having drawn countless times, it had become muscle memory for Chen Xuanzhou. He didn't need to expend much mental energy to draw the head and tail of the talisman.

The process was somewhat slowed down to facilitate the formation of the hand seals, which will be completed later.

"Imperial command!" With a soft shout from Chen Xuanzhou, a red light flashed across the entire talisman, as if a finely detailed fire serpent was swimming within it.

After placing the basic-level high-level fire serpent talisman properly, Chen Xuanzhou did not stop and continued to draw it.

This was naturally not the first time he had drawn high-level talismans; in fact, there were more than just this one Fire Serpent Talisman, as well as other Earth Prison Talismans, Golden Light Sword Talismans, and so on.

And the success rate is not low, about 60% or 70%. If he adds some incense offerings to help him, he dares not say 100%, but 80% or 90% is still possible. However, he rarely does this.

We should save the incense offerings as much as possible. Although we can collect nearly eight hundred strands of incense every day, we must always save some for later use. When our cultivation level is higher, we will need more in various places, so six or seven tenths will be enough.

This relies on his superb magical skills. When drawing these high-level talismans, he basically uses this set of sealing talismans passed down in the Chen family.

They sealed the magic they possessed into talismans.

Of course, this set of talisman techniques is not some profound secret. There are many similar methods in the Qingxu Sect. Don't think that just because Chen Xuanzhou is so relaxed and has such a high success rate, you can achieve it by mastering the spell and this talisman.

If it were that simple, the other families wouldn't have paid so much attention to the success rate Chen Xuanzhou demonstrated.

His skill level is entirely due to his thorough research into the spells and the sealing technique, and his ability to perfectly integrate the two.

It's estimated that no one in the entire Chen family can match his level; otherwise, the Chen family would have become a family of talisman makers long ago.

. . .

Time flies, and five years have passed since he entered the Qi Refining stage. Chen Xuanzhou's cultivation has now reached the sixth level of Qi Refining, almost the same as his parents.

Three years ago, he entered the fourth level of Qi Refining and learned the Vajra Shield spell through his comprehension. Then, he mastered the method of drawing Vajra Talismans. Before long, he was basically able to meet his current cultivation needs.

He also told his parents to stop hunting demons, as it was dangerous, wouldn't earn them many spirit stones, and would waste a lot of their cultivation time.

Now, the two parents, Zhao Yushuang, have contracted several acres of spiritual fields within the family, where they have planted spiritual plants such as Tianxing grass, Muya grass, and Qingyu bamboo.

These spiritual plants were all carefully selected by Chen Xuanzhou. Among them, the Heavenly Star Grass and the Jade Bamboo can be used to make talismans, while the Shepherd Sprout Grass is a very good feed for low-level spiritual beasts.

His father mainly raised some Fire Cloud Chickens and Snow Jade Rabbits. The former's eggs and meat could provide for his early cultivation needs and nourish his body, while the latter's fur was the best medium for drawing high-level talismans.

Moreover, its meat is also a delicious food, whether for personal consumption or for sale.

Its blood can also be mixed into cinnabar for making talismans, so there is not a single bit of waste.

As for why few people do this, it's naturally because the breeding costs are not small, the initial investment is not low, and most importantly, the difficulty is not small. If you fail to raise them successfully, you will lose a lot of money.

Fortunately, Chen Xuanzhou now has the confidence that his parents dare to go ahead with it. Even if they fail, it doesn't matter. If they succeed, it will be a complete talisman-making industry chain.

Although my parents had never been involved in business or anything like that, they were all monks, and none of them were truly foolish.

Selling these raw materials alone would only earn a meager living, but after Chen Xuanzhou's intervention, their value would far exceed a dozen talismans and a few spirit stones.

Instead, a dozen mid-to-high-level talismans cost over a thousand spirit stones!

Furthermore, because Chen Xuanzhou's talismans were of extremely high quality, many members of the family had to place orders to purchase them.

At the beginning, Chen Xuanzhou had to personally teach him everything little by little. Planting spiritual plants was not too difficult, as they were all low-level spiritual plants.

But those chicks and baby rabbits are not easy to take care of. The Fire Cloud Chicken sounds grand, but when it is young, it is very sensitive. If you are not careful, it will be stressed and frightened, and it will die in groups, not just one or two.

Fortunately, thanks to the calming talismans that Chen Xuanzhou never stopped giving, these little guys were able to get through the first few months safely and figure out some breeding patterns.

The other baby rabbits were better, but the mother rabbit had the bad habit of eating her young. Chen Xuanzhou initially wanted to use calming talismans or similar methods to awaken the mother rabbit's maternal instincts.

Unfortunately, it was all for naught. After failing more than ten times, he finally found a common herbal medicine and applied it to the baby rabbits to make the mother rabbit lose her appetite, which was the only time he succeeded.

Further steps involved preparing talisman ink and talisman paper, which Chen Xuanzhou gradually deconstructed, appropriately extending the originally complex process.

High-grade talisman paper and ink are not easy to prepare, otherwise their prices would not have increased several times over.

Although this resulted in some waste, Chen's parents considered those spirit stones to be precious, and they couldn't help but feel a little heartache. However, thinking that it would help their son share some of the burden, they hardened their hearts and didn't stop him from doing so, no matter how much waste it caused.

Because it concerns their son's path to enlightenment, they cannot let their son's cultivation time be delayed because of these spirit stones; neither of them is so short-sighted.

They simply tried their best to become familiar with the process as quickly as possible, and then worked backwards using the method Chen Xuanzhou had taught them, thereby reducing losses in the process.

In this way, the family gained several new stable sources of income, and the parents no longer needed to go out hunting often, giving them more time to cultivate and eliminating the need to completely abandon their cultivation path for his sake.

Chen Xuanzhou never intended to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage by himself. No matter how much resources he had to invest in this life, he wanted his parents to accompany him on this journey to make up for the regrets of his previous life.

In fact, when he first learned how to make Vajra Talismans, his success rate was only 20% to 30%. What others considered genius was just so-so in his eyes.

However, since his family has been able to reliably provide him with talisman-making materials, he has been able to efficiently transform his insights into real talisman-making experience.

More importantly, with the talisman-making materials at home, his success rate and the number of times he can make talismans can be confused.

This also helps to conceal his terrifying level of understanding.

People can accept someone as a genius, but if that person is too extraordinary, it may not be a good thing if they don't have enough background and strength.

With over twenty years of extensive reading of the Daoist canon on Qidian, this kind of cunning and manipulative behavior is already second nature to him.

Among the talismans he drew, especially the Vajra Talisman and other basic to intermediate-level talismans, he had his parents sell most of them to the family in order to gain their recognition and support.

As for those high-level talismans, he never allowed his father to show one to the family, and he never even used a basic high-level spell in front of the family.

In his view, he could only feel at ease if others guessed that he was on the first floor, while he was on the 999th floor.

If it weren't for his cultivation level, he would have wanted to draw mid-level talismans.