Starting as a Talisman Master

"This spiritual liquid is comparable to the elixir of creation for spiritual plants, so what effect would it have on living beings if they consumed it?"

Lu Chi couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation. If this spiritual liquid could be consumed directly to accelerate the circulation of spiritual energy and temper the meridians, wouldn't even the worst aptitude be able to be forcibly built into a medium to high level of talent?

However, he ultimately did not take it rashly; to be on the safe side, it would be better to try it with other living creatures.

Lu Chi's gaze swept around the courtyard and finally landed on the old locust tree outside the courtyard wall. A gray-brown bird was perched on the treetop, tilting its head and pecking at the insects on the bark.

The bird was small in size and usually foraged in the bushes on the edge of the market. It was not particularly fierce, but it was still a living creature.

In the marketplace, cultivators are generally cautious, and ordinary livestock are rare, let alone being caught for experiments. This sparrow is the perfect choice.

With a thought, Lu Chi took out a small porcelain dish and spent a lot of effort to condense a drop of spiritual liquid again, which he then dripped into the dish.

He lightly made a hand seal, and a wisp of spiritual energy transformed into an invisible thread, silently capturing the bird and gently placing it on the edge of the dish.

The bird was startled and flapped its wings, but his spiritual power gently held it down, so it could only tilt its head and suspiciously sniff the spiritual liquid in the dish.

A moment later, it stretched out its little beak and tentatively pecked at the ground.

Lu Chi held his breath and observed carefully.

After pecking at a drop, the bird blinked, seemingly unaffected, and then lowered its head to peck the remaining liquid in the dish clean.

Then, it shook its feathers, flapped its wings, and flew back to the treetop, continuing to tilt its head and peck at insects.

His expression was exactly the same as before; there was no sudden surge of spirituality, no rotting of flesh, and no explosion of death. He was as if he had just drunk a mouthful of dew.

Lu Chi's lips twitched, and any lingering hope in his heart vanished completely.

It seems that the spiritual liquid produced by this innate dew has an amazing effect on accelerating the growth of spiritual plants, but it offers no benefit to ordinary living things. It neither harms the body nor aids cultivation; it is purely for plants.

Even so, the use of this talent was already clear to Lu Chi. He felt a little regretful, but he was not discouraged.

A single drop of spiritual liquid can accelerate the growth of spiritual plants, enabling them to rapidly reach a quality equivalent to a hundred or even a thousand years.

In the future, whether you use it yourself, sell it in the market, or use it to refine pills, you can exchange it for a huge amount of spirit stones, pills, and talisman materials.

Spiritual rice nourishes the body, green grass is used to refine Qi-nourishing pills, purple calyx flowers ward off evil and calm the mind, moon dew vines condense dew to nourish the meridians... As long as spiritual plants are produced continuously, he can exchange them for resources, thus completely eliminating his disadvantage in aptitude.

Furthermore, if we can accelerate the maturation of high-level spiritual herbs in the future, what worries will we have about Foundation Establishment, Golden Core...?

He's daydreaming again. Foundation Establishment and Golden Core are still a long way off... Lu Chi gathered his thoughts, forcibly suppressed the chaotic ideas, and sat cross-legged.

Activating the [Condensed Dew] technique consumed far more of his energy and spirit than he had imagined. His brow was slightly swollen, and his dantian felt somewhat empty. If he didn't recover in time, he feared he wouldn't be able to draw another talisman today.

Lu Chi closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply, slowly circulating his energy according to the nameless technique. His breaths were long and short, drawn out very slowly. His spiritual energy seeped into his meridians like fine threads, but it was intermittent, and the speed at which it replenished his deficiencies was even slower. After a long while, he finally regained some of his vital energy.

While adjusting his breathing, he carefully considered how to allocate his time each day from now on.

Cultivation cannot be neglected; only after they grow can they be exchanged for spirit stones and elixirs. Drawing talismans is the current way to make money, and the experience of a talisman master must continue to be accumulated. Cultivation cannot be neglected either; low-grade spirit stones are slow, and if one is not diligent, it will take several years to reach the mid-stage of Qi Refining.

All three are indispensable... Lu Chi suddenly felt that a day was too short. Even if he fasted and did not eat or sleep, he would inevitably lose sight of one thing and another in the future. Twelve hours were ultimately too few.

Once his spiritual energy had recovered to about 70-80%, he opened his eyes, gave up on continuing his meditation, dusted off his robes, walked to the table in the room, took out talisman paper, talisman brush, and spiritual ink from his storage bag, rolled up his sleeves, took a deep breath, and dipped the brush in the ink.

He had already made up his mind. He only had a low-grade spiritual root, and his cultivation technique was just an ordinary thing he picked up from a dilapidated temple. Cultivation was as slow as a tortoise crawling. Forcing quick progress would only make his foundation unstable and backfire.

In that case, it's better to put cultivation as the lowest priority, just do nine cycles of breathing exercises every day to solidify the foundation, and spend the rest of the time drawing talismans and then condensing spiritual liquid to accelerate the growth of spiritual plants.

Once the mind was made up, only the soft rustling of the talisman brush touching the paper remained in the room. As the night deepened and all was quiet, the sound continued.

Time slipped by unnoticed, and several days passed in the blink of an eye.

That day, Lu Chi unfolded his dark talisman robe and draped it over his shoulders; the moon-shaped patterns on the hem of the robe shone faintly in the morning light. He then walked to the corner of the courtyard, his gaze falling on three patches of fresh soil.

After several days of nourishment from the spiritual liquid, the Moon Dew Vine has grown to more than ten feet tall. Its body is crystal clear, and every drop of dew that condenses on the tip of its leaves seems to contain moonlight, with spiritual light flowing endlessly.

The stems of the green grass are straight and nearly half a person tall, with bright green awns and newly emerging spikes, and a faint medicinal fragrance spreads in the wind.

The purple calyx buds are full and ready to bloom, with a rich purple hue and a subtle sheen at the edges of the petals, as if they will burst into full bloom in a few days.

With such vigorous growth, if sold directly in the market, it would surely attract many spirit farmers and alchemists eager to inquire about it.

Lu Chi's heart stirred slightly, and he thought to himself: If Zhou Jinyan saw this, he would probably be so shocked that his jaw would drop.

The other party had been farming for many years and had seen all kinds of spiritual plants grow, but he had never seen any spiritual plant grow from a seed to such a state of abundant spiritual energy and excellent quality in just a few days.

Then, a thought crossed his mind, and he muttered to himself, "It's best not to let anyone else step into this courtyard during this time."

The matter of the spiritual liquid is too bizarre. Once it is discovered, not only will it be difficult to explain, but it will also attract covetousness, which would be a loss for everyone.

Thinking of this, Lu Chi raised his hand and took out several stacks of talismans from his storage bag, pasting them on the four corners of the courtyard wall, inside and outside the door, and above and below the window frames.

The outermost layer consists of three mid-grade warning talismans, their surfaces stained with blood-red cinnabar. If any outsider attempts to force their way in, they will immediately light up with a red warning light.

The middle layer consists of overlapping concealment talismans and silence talismans, which conceal the fluctuations of spiritual energy and sounds within the courtyard. Even if a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator were to pass by, it would be difficult for them to detect anything unusual.

The innermost layer contained two trapping talismans he had personally hand-drawn. The runes were interwoven into a net, and once activated, they could trap intruders, enough for him to deal with them calmly.

After setting up the talismans, Lu Chi walked around the courtyard to make sure nothing was missed before nodding in satisfaction. He turned and went back into the house, picked up the storage bag that had been prepared earlier from the table, and weighed it in his hand.

Inside were the talismans he had painstakingly drawn over the past few days, mostly of medium quality with stable quality. He kept only a small portion for himself, and the rest were to be handed over to the Moon Shadow Pavilion for sale.

The ten low-grade spirit stones I obtained from the last trade with Cao Zhen have been used up. They were spent on pills, storage bags, cultivation... and so on. Now that I'm short of money, I naturally have to think about how to get more spirit stones.

Lu Chi pushed open the door and stepped out. With a flick of his sleeve, he rose into the air, riding the wind, and headed straight for the East Street of the market.

The scene in front of the pavilion was quite different from that on the day it opened.

The place was bustling with people on the day it was crowded and lively, but now it was much quieter, with only a few cultivators stopping in front of the shelves to browse, either whispering about prices or taking talismans to examine them closely.

Seeing that there weren't many people, the Moon Shadow Pavilion disciple behind the counter leaned against the counter and dozed off. Only when a customer came up would he lazily get up to greet them.

Lu Chi glanced at the scene and understood immediately.

This quietness is actually quite reasonable. On the opening day, most cultivators came to watch the excitement and join in the fun, and also bought a few cheap talismans to test the waters.

Those who truly have a long-term need for talismans purchased a batch in those few days, and with some repairs, they can last for several months or even half a year. They won't turn back so quickly.

The fact that there are fewer people right now does not mean that MoonHidden Pavilion's business is bad.

However, from Lu Chi's current perspective, Liu Qing's talisman, while stable, was indeed not particularly impressive.

The quality is average, the patterns are clear, and the spiritual energy is sufficient, but compared with the mid-grade goods from those established talisman shops in the market, there is not much difference.

The true advantage of MoonHidden Pavilion lies solely in its price: low prices, small profits, and high sales volume attract customers from independent cultivators and those at the bottom of the cultivation hierarchy.

However, in the long run, relying solely on price lacks strategic depth. Once Luo's Talisman Shop or other shops lower their prices to retaliate, or launch talismans of superior quality, Moon Shadow Pavilion will be put on the defensive.

As Lu Chi stepped across the threshold, he suddenly felt a familiar aura sweeping over from not far behind him, carrying a hint of sharpness that was deliberately concealed yet could not be hidden.

He turned his head slightly and saw Liu Qing walking slowly from the street corner, his storage bag bulging, obviously also carrying goods.

Although his face was still somewhat pale, the arrogance between his brows had returned, and there was even his usual faint sneer on the corner of his mouth, as if the humiliation of the past few days had never happened.

"Brother Lu? You've come at just the right time." Liu Qing's voice was neither too loud nor too soft, carrying a hint of condescension, yet he feigned composure.

Lu Chi remained calm and nodded slightly.

Liu Qing snorted softly, her gaze intentionally or unintentionally sweeping over the corner of the storage bag vaguely visible in his sleeve. Her heart sank slightly: How many talismans did this guy bring today? Judging from its bulging appearance, it must be quite a lot.

Although the turmoil of the past few days has passed, Liu Qing is like a powder keg that has been lit. These past few days, he has hardly left his house, working hard and drawing mid-grade talismans day and night.

Stacks of completed talismans piled up on the desk, their quality much more stable than before, even showing signs of a breakthrough. He even attempted to draw a superior talisman, but of course, he ultimately failed.

He knew that his position as chief was in jeopardy, and if he didn't show some real skill, he was afraid that the newcomer "Lu Fu Master" would overtake him.

Today happened to be the day he had gathered a batch of goods, which he planned to personally deliver to Yueyin Pavilion for shelving, and also to check on the shop's recent situation.

When Liu Qing saw Lu Chi looking at her calmly, she felt a sudden sense of unease and subconsciously took a half step back.

As soon as the thought arose, he realized something was wrong: Why should I be afraid of him?

He raised his chin, his expression turning cold, a hint of provocation in his eyes, and cupped his hands, saying, "Brother Lu, you've come at the right time. I've also brought a few talismans with me today; perhaps we could take a look together?"

Lu Chi remained expressionless. "Alright, Master Liu, please."

In fact, he didn't care about Liu Qing at the moment. Instead, his mind was filled with the three people who caused trouble that day. Did Qin Su Niang manage to find out the mastermind from them?