With the Eight Immortals' magical treasures in hand, even a mortal like myself! Ha!

On the other side, Gu Qing and Han Xiangzi arrived at the back hall of the Eight Immortals Pavilion and saw Tieguai Li meditating and cultivating in the side room of the back hall.

Seeing this, Gu Qing did not disturb the other party's cultivation, but instead quietly asked Xin Ruyin to bring some animal hides.

To draw mid-grade talismans, you mostly need to use animal hides. For example, using the hide of a fire-attribute monster to draw a fire wall talisman will greatly increase the success rate.

However, the cost of the talisman paper will also increase accordingly. In addition, the probability of failure will make the cost of one talisman reach ten or twenty spirit stones. Even if it is successfully drawn by a novice, the power of the talisman drawn by the novice may not be as good as that of the beginner talisman.

This is also why the cultivators outside are so resistant to Gu Qing drawing talismans.

Is the fireball spell cast by a Core Formation cultivator the same as that cast by a Foundation Establishment cultivator?

Of course they're different. The fireball spell cast during the Core Formation stage is completely different from the one cast during the Foundation Establishment stage, so the power of the talismans drawn from it is also significantly different.

Although Gu Qing knew the outcome, he still picked up his brush and began to draw talismans. With his powerful divine sense, he wrote without the slightest hesitation, his strokes were very smooth, and there was no hindrance in the infusion of spiritual power.

As if Gu Qing was born with the ability to draw this talisman, he completed the drawing in one go without any pause, and a fireball talisman was finished.

That's right, he only drew a basic talisman and did not draw an intermediate talisman.

Gu Qing was getting a feel for it – drawing talismans is all about feeling.

Having successfully drawn two basic talismans, Gu Qing then began drawing his first intermediate talisman. He felt a slight hesitation as soon as he put pen to paper, but this was normal, as it was his first time drawing a fire wall talisman and some unfamiliarity was inevitable.

As time went on, Gu Qing's writing speed increased, so much so that his spiritual power couldn't keep up. The talisman burned up and eventually turned into a piece of waste paper.

"Hmm! It seems that intermediate-level talismans aren't as simple as I thought." Gu Qing muttered to himself, then picked up his brush again and started drawing. This time, he was a third slower than before, and his spiritual energy kept up, but his brushstrokes were a bit clumsy, causing the strokes to become crooked. This triggered an expansion of spiritual energy, and the entire talisman burned up completely, resulting in another failure.

Gu Qing did not give up and continued drawing one by one. Finally, on the sixth drawing, she successfully completed one.

A 61% success rate is not bad. Gu Qing couldn't help but ask Xin Ruyin, "What are the prices of these animal hide talismans?"

"I heard Master needed talismans, and the Six-Linked Palace gave us a discount—only two low-grade spirit stones per talisman," Xin Ruyin said casually, sitting in the distance fiddling with an array plate. Compared to talismans, she preferred arrays, perhaps because she came from the Yuanwu Kingdom.

The cost price is twelve low-grade spirit stones, and judging by the time, half a day has already passed. Adding the time cost, this talisman should sell for at least thirty spirit stones each.

"You said this talisman sells for thirty spirit stones, would anyone want it?" Gu Qing asked somewhat uncertainly—he had never sold any of the talismans he drew himself.

Xin Ruyin covered her mouth and chuckled, then stood up, took the talisman, and examined it. Finally, she commented, "Although it doesn't have the same spiritual charm as the one Master drew, it's still enough to sell for thirty spirit stones to some Qi Refining cultivators. If the price is any higher, I'm afraid no one will want it."

Selling it to a Qi Refining cultivator for thirty spirit stones isn't unacceptable.

Thinking of this, Gu Qing continued to draw. Time flew by, and half a month passed. Gu Qing did nothing but draw talismans every day—as for restoring his magic power, his Ironwood clone helped him.

That day, Gu Qing was drawing talismans as usual, but Wang Yuan came looking for her after she had only successfully drawn one.

Seeing that Gu Qing still had the leisure to draw talismans for sale, Wang Yuan couldn't help but step forward and grab him, nagging anxiously, "Fellow Daoist, why are you still drawing talismans to sell here? Aren't you preparing for the competition in three days?"

"The competition is in three days?" Gu Qing didn't expect that more than half a month would have passed in the blink of an eye. It really proved the saying "time flies when you are cultivating".

Seeing that Gu Qing looked completely unprepared, Wang Yuan became even more anxious: "I heard that several late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators have their eyes on you this time, so you'd better be careful."

Gu Qing was puzzled after hearing this: "Is this challenge going on indefinitely as long as someone takes the stage? What if someone teams up with several fellow cultivators to focus on attacking a single mountain peak? Who could withstand that?"

Wang Yuan pulled Gu Qing aside and whispered, "Some people actually do this. But don't worry, to be fair, as long as you defeat five people, you'll successfully defend your title."

"Five sessions? That's not too many." Gu Qing pondered to himself, then walked to the table and put away all the talismans he had drawn over the past two weeks.

In the past two weeks, Gu Qing has successfully drawn more than 30 talismans, about two a day. This is not as good as Tieguai Li, who can easily draw three or four talismans in a morning and does so with ease.

The thirty-odd talismans Gu Qing drew were all mid-to-low-grade talismans, and together they were worth over a thousand spirit stones. Only then did he truly understand how hard it was to earn spirit stones—he could only earn twenty mid-grade spirit stones after working himself to the bone for a month, and that didn't even include the cost of failure.

At Gu Qing's rate of earning twenty mid-grade spirit stones a month, that's two hundred and forty a year, two thousand four hundred in ten years, and twenty thousand four thousand in a hundred years.

It would take a hundred years to earn enough spirit stones for Tieguai Li and Han Xiangzi to advance to the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm.

Sure enough, the higher one's cultivation level, the faster one can earn spirit stones.

However, earning 240 mid-grade spirit stones a year is already quite astonishing—after all, a top-grade magic weapon only costs 20 mid-grade spirit stones.

No matter how you calculate it, Gu Qing felt that drawing talismans was very profitable.

But now is clearly not the time to earn spirit stones by using talismans.

Perfect timing! We'll use these drawn talismans to prepare for the competition in a few days.

Seeing Gu Qing's confidence, Wang Yuan couldn't help but recall the scene when he instantly killed three evil cultivators. So he reminded him, "Fellow Daoist, this is just a friendly spar. Don't use any talismans that are too powerful."

Gu Qing gave Wang Yuan a strange look—he was just nervous for himself, but now he was worried about those opponents he had never met.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. If I can win using a top-tier magical artifact, I absolutely won't use any talismanic treasures." Gu Qing finally agreed. After all, the ancient treasures he possessed were all for killing, and there was no such thing as "holding back."

Seeing that Gu Qing seemed to be prepared, Wang Yuan didn't disturb him any longer and turned to leave. In a few days, someone might challenge them, and he needed to prepare properly as well.

A few days later, the once-in-a-decade summit officially began.

Following the instructions, Gu Qing headed to the competition venue—the top of a mountain.

On one of the peaks of Qingyun Mountain, there were thirty-six arenas, each guarded by a cultivator. Only four arenas remained empty. Presumably, these were the four locations on the mountain peaks that Tieguai Li and the deputy island master had requested, and these arenas had been deliberately left empty.