Seeking immortality begins with daily intelligence reports.

"Old man, old man..."

Li Shen's eyes swept over one independent cultivator after another who had set up stalls, and he muttered in a low voice, as soft as a mosquito's buzz.

Soon, he spotted his target at a somewhat deserted stall near a corner.

It was an old Taoist priest in a gray robe with gray hair and a weathered face. In front of him were some yellow talisman paper, ink, and several common first-order talismans. He was sitting on a small stool with a gloomy face, his eyes unfocused, and he ignored the passersby.

Li Shen felt a little more at ease and strolled over as if nothing had happened.

He scanned the stall with his eyes, but apart from talismans and incantations, he did not find any trace of what appeared to be animal hide.

The intelligence couldn't possibly be false, could it?

He was secretly wondering when he suddenly caught sight of the old animal skin in an awkward corner.

This old Taoist priest actually used it to prop up the table legs.

Li Shen's lips twitched slightly, his confidence growing stronger.

He didn't ask directly, but simply pointed to the stack of better-quality talisman papers on the stall:

"Fellow Daoist, how much are these talismans?"

The gray-robed old Taoist priest raised his eyelids slightly, offering a listless price:

"Twenty-five sheets, one low-grade spirit stone."

The price is even a little cheaper than what Shi Yong offers.

Li Shen then pointed to the Fireball Rune, the Golden Shield Rune, and the Ice Cone Rune:

"What about these?"

The former two are talismans included in the book "Basic Explanation of Talismans", which allows you to know their market price in advance, while the latter are talismans that Li Shen can currently draw.

After a brief inquiry and bargaining, Li Shen readily purchased one hundred talismans and two golden shield talismans at a price slightly below market value.

The transaction was completed, and the gray-robed old Taoist's previously gloomy expression softened slightly.

Li Shen took the items but did not leave immediately, seemingly still intending to buy more. His gaze naturally shifted downwards, landing on the roll of brown animal hide used to prop up the table leg:

"Fellow Daoist, the leather used to prop up the table legs looks quite old. What kind of demonic beast's hide is it? The tanning method seems rather unique."

He tried his best to make his tone sound like a casual question, with a hint of the natural interest of a wandering cultivator in antiques.

The gray-robed old Taoist glanced at the rolled-up animal skin, chuckled, a hint of self-mockery and resentment in his voice:

"It's just a piece of old, rotten leather that I dug out of some hole. It's so hard it hurts your hands. It's only passable as a table cushion. I thought it would be useful when I bought it, but it's completely useless!"

The old Taoist's words were full of resentment at being cheated, clearly indicating that he had found the animal hide by chance elsewhere.

Li Shen was secretly delighted, but his face showed great empathy as he sighed:

"Yes, it's hard to tell the real from the fake in this market, and getting ripped off is common. Last time I bought a piece of 'Mysterious Iron Essence' ore that was supposed to be able to forge high-grade magical artifacts, but when I got home and looked at it closely, it was just a hard black rock."

He casually made up a story, following the old Taoist's words, and after closing the distance a bit, he said, seemingly unintentionally:

"I happen to be short of leather for practicing drawing talismans. How about I borrow this piece of leather of yours to test my skills? It's just for propping up table legs anyway. Twenty grains of spirit sand, how about it?"

He quoted a price that was half the market price, neither too low to offend the old Taoist priest nor too high to arouse his suspicion.

The gray-robed old Taoist raised his eyelids and glanced at Li Shen, seemingly finding the young rogue cultivator somewhat pleasing to the eye and noting the straightforwardness of their transaction. He waved his hand and said:

"No need, you can have this rotten leather. I won't be staying here for many more days anyway. There's nothing worth cultivating as an immortal."

After saying this, the old Taoist priest sighed deeply, his eyes filled with both reluctance and helplessness.

Free?! Then I won't be polite!

Li Shenqiang suppressed his excitement, his face growing serious, but his hand had already reached for the animal hide he had been longing for.

He held onto the table leg, pulled out the animal hide, picked up two stones from the side to put back as cushions, and then stood up politely and said:

"Thank you, fellow Daoist."

Seeing that the old Taoist priest ignored him, Li Shen didn't linger and turned to walk into the crowd at the market.

He walked all the way outside the market and turned into a quiet alley before he finally breathed a sigh of relief and his tense nerves relaxed.

He subconsciously touched the animal hide in his arms; the fragment of the ancient talismanic inheritance was inside.

Instead of going home to check immediately, he went to a grocery store in the market that sold spirit rice and spirit beast meat at cheap prices.

After some haggling, Li Shen bought about half a month's worth of food for one spirit stone.

As we left the grocery store, the sun began to set.

Facing the setting sun, Li Shen hurried back to his small house in the southwest corner of the market. He first scanned the surroundings with his divine sense, and finding no suspicious people, he opened the door, went inside, and closed all the doors and windows tightly.

Unlike the inside, the outer perimeter of the market was not patrolled by guards, and anyone could be found there. He had heard before that a cultivator had been killed by a hidden assassin on his way home, and it hadn't been discovered for several days.

Some people were targeted by thieves several days in advance, and were broken into through their windows while they were sleeping at night, losing both their money and their lives.

"We need to draw more talismans and collect more spirit stones so we can move into the market as soon as possible. The demon hunt is coming soon, and this outer area is already close to the Prison Mountain, so it will be even more unsafe then."

He muttered something under his breath, then carefully spread the rolled-up animal skin on the table.

A pungent smell of dust and decay filled the air.

In addition to stubborn black stains, the inside of the animal hide also showed signs of insect infestation and mold.

In many places, the leather was brittle, and some blurry patterns and lines were drawn on it with some kind of dull pigment. At first glance, it really was worthless trash.

Li Shen recalled the description in the previous intelligence and carefully examined every inch of the animal hide, especially the edges, folds and layers.

Before long, Li Shen discovered a very subtle hardness in an inconspicuous spot near the center on the inside of the animal skin scroll, which felt slightly different from the texture of the other leathers.

He carefully used his fingernails to pry open the leather layers that were almost glued together.

A tattered piece of paper, about the size of a palm, yellowish in color, and with a peculiar texture resembling both leather and silk, appeared before my eyes.

The edges of the paper were tattered, as if it had been forcibly torn off, and it was covered with densely packed small runes written in a special dark blue spiritual ink.

Despite its dilapidated state and fading spiritual light, the structure and feel of these runes were completely different from what Li Shen usually saw.

At the very top, through a few ancient characters, Li Shen roughly knew what kind of talisman was in this ancient talismanic inheritance fragment.

"Essentials of Concealing Breath Talisman".

Li Shen gently picked up the thin, paper-like tattered page. As soon as his spiritual energy entered it, the entire page suddenly emitted a deep blue light.

In an instant, Li Shen's mind was flooded with knowledge, including how to draw the Concealing Breath Talisman, how to use it, what its effects were, and a few last words from the owner of this tattered page.

This man came from a sect that specialized in talismans, but because he only possessed a pseudo-spiritual root, he could only do odd jobs within the sect, tasks unrelated to drawing talismans. One day, he used the spirit stones he had saved up for a long time to bribe the disciple guarding the library and sneaked in to peek. He was discovered by another disciple not long after, and in his hasty escape, he only managed to tear out this one page. Later, he was wanted by the sect and had no choice but to hide deep in the mountains.

"The so-called spiritual root limitation is utter nonsense! Even as a ghost, I'll laugh at those Divine Talisman Sect disciples who can't even draw a concealment talisman!"

Li Shen unconsciously uttered his last words, sitting in the chair as his thoughts churned.