One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

The morning sunlight slanted through the courtyard wall and shone on the towering tree with its lush branches and leaves.

Jiang Shou stood under the tree, looking up, his gaze sweeping back and forth across the thick branches.

"This old locust tree must be at least two or three hundred years old, right?" Jiang Shou muttered to himself, stroking his chin. "I'll cut off a branch to make a small house; it'll be using what's available. The patriarch is magnanimous; he shouldn't blame me for damaging the temple's greenery, right?"

Just in case, Jiang Shou, feeling quite guilty, clasped his hands together and bowed towards the air: "Grandmaster, please don't be offended. This disciple is only doing good deeds and accumulating merit by taking in wandering souls; it's absolutely not because I'm itching to cause trouble. When I have more money in a while, I'll buy you two top-quality money trees to place in the main hall..."

After finishing his self-hypnosis, Jiang Shouxin turned around and went to the woodshed in the backyard with a clear conscience.

After rummaging through a pile of dusty farm tools, I found a rusty wood-chopping knife, a woodworking handsaw, and an old toolbox full of carving knives, hammers, and nails.

Back in front of the old locust tree, Jiang Shou gestured.

At the edge of the tree canopy, about three stories above the ground, there was a thick branch, about the thickness of an adult's thigh, growing somewhat off-center from the main trunk. It was the perfect size to make a miniature log cabin.

Jiang Shou put down his toolbox and took a deep breath.

With a slight sinking of his mind, a stream of true energy instantly split off from his dantian and poured into his legs along the meridians.

He bent his knees slightly and then suddenly exerted force with his feet.

With a muffled "bang," the bluestone pavement seemed to tremble. A single, precise "uprooting" effortlessly propelled it up the nearly ten-meter-tall tree trunk!

He nimbly flipped in mid-air and landed lightly beside the thick branch.

"With that jumping ability, it's a waste that he's not going to compete in the Paralympics and win a gold medal in the high jump." Jiang Shou thought to himself, while deftly picking up a woodworking saw.

With the support of his true energy, his arm strength was astonishing. With a few teeth-grinding sawing sounds, the thick old locust tree branch was cleanly and neatly cut off.

Jiang Shou, carrying the log in one hand, leaped down from the tree and landed steadily.

As a former food deliveryman and now a half-baked Taoist priest, Jiang Shou certainly had no formal training in carpentry. But he had his own unique learning methods.

I moved a small stool, sat on the steps of the corridor, propped my phone up on the stone pier next to me, and opened a video on a short video platform titled "Tutorial on Mortise and Tenon Joints in Ancient Building Carpentry".

While watching the slow-motion demonstration by the master craftsman online, Jiang Shou picked up a carving knife and a handsaw and began to replicate the process.

If it were the old him, let alone building a fine wooden house, he would have cut his hand even while whittling a stick.

But now, the situation is completely different.

Under the constant refinement of true essence, Jiang Shou's muscle control and hand-eye coordination have reached a terrifying microscopic level.

The ordinary woodworking knife in his hand was more precise than a surgeon's scalpel.

"Swish, swish, swish..."

Wood chips fly everywhere. Peeling, cutting, sanding, carving.

Jiang Shou's hands were as steady as Mount Tai, and every movement was fluid and effortless, without the slightest hesitation or unnecessary pause. He could perfectly replicate the intricate mortise and tenon structures taught in the video on the locust wood after watching it only once.

Less than two hours.

A miniature locust wood cabin, no more than 30 centimeters in length and width, was born in Jiang Shou's hands.

The design of this little house is rather peculiar. Instead of a normal house having a main entrance, it has a square, perfectly smooth blank wooden board reserved where the entrance would be.

That's a place specifically for attaching [Soul-Supporting Talismans].

On both sides of the wooden house, Jiang Shou meticulously carved several exquisite small windows with openwork patterns, which were specially reserved for Shen Xu in her spirit form to enter and exit.

Jiang Shou even used the leftover scraps to patiently carve out a beautifully crafted canopy bed the size of a matchbox, as well as a mini square table and two small chairs inside the cabin.

Although the stitching marks look a bit rough due to the rudimentary tools, the overall outline is already quite presentable.

"Done."

Jiang Shou blew away the sawdust from the wooden house and clapped his hands in satisfaction.

He set the wooden house aside, turned and went into the side room, where he neatly spread out a sheet of fine yellow paper on the mahogany desk.

Grind the ink and dip it in cinnabar.

Jiang Shou no longer needs to practice drawing drafts on cheap yellow paper before drawing talismans.

With his current control and extreme concentration, whether or not he can draw the talisman is no longer a matter of technique, but simply a test of his ability to mobilize and stably output true energy.

Jiang Shou picked up the purple-haired mixed-hair brush and closed his eyes.

Sink your Qi to your Dantian.

With his mind, he guided the true energy in his dantian, like a warm thread, steadily flowing down his arm and into the tip of his brush.

"Whoosh!!"

As the pen fell, Jiang Shou opened his eyes, his gaze sharp and intense.

Without the slightest pause, his wrist moved swiftly and smoothly across the yellow paper, completing the task in one go.

After half an hour.

With a sudden upward flick of Jiang Shou's wrist, he completed the final, subtle stroke of the [Soul-Transferring Talisman], perfectly sealing the last wisp of true essence within it.

"Buzz~~"

A clear, blue light instantly flowed across the intricate vermilion lines on the entire sheet of yellow paper. The light rippled like water before quickly receding and disappearing into the texture of the paper.

Complete! Without the slightest hesitation, the entire talisman exuded an ancient and tranquil aura.

"Perfect."

Jiang Shou let out a long breath and wiped the fine sweat from his forehead.

He held the newly carved miniature wooden house in one hand and the freshly made Soul-Supporting Talisman in the other, and walked to the door of the innermost room in the backyard.

"Knock knock".

Jiang Shou knocked twice on the door and then pushed it open and entered.

"Shen Xu, come out and see your new home."

Jiang Shou walked to the bedside and placed the exquisite locust wood cottage steadily on the bedside table.

"Brother Daoist priest?"

A faint, eerie breeze wafted from under the bed. Then, Shen Xu's semi-transparent figure, dressed in a white dress, emerged from under the bed like a wisp of smoke and hovered in mid-air.

Curious, she floated to the bedside table, her big eyes taking in the newly built "villa" with a puzzled look.

"Wow, what an exquisite little house..."

As Shen Xu sighed, she couldn't help but reach out to touch the exquisitely carved window frame.

However, she was now in spirit form. Her translucent fingers passed directly through the solid wood wall of the cabin without any obstruction and emerged from the other side.

Shen Xu even mischievously stretched her entire upper body through the wooden house, moving back and forth inside.

She looked up at Jiang Shou with some confusion: "Brother Daoist, is this little house for me? But... although it's very beautiful, how can anyone live in it? No, I'm a ghost, how can a ghost live in it? I don't even have a physical body, this wooden house can't keep me out at all, and I can't even lie down in that little bed..."

In Shen Xu's view, this was just like the paper villas burned for the dead in the mortal world. They looked nice, but she was a ghost who could move freely among real objects. To her, this small wooden house in a physical sense was no different from air, let alone shield her from the yang energy during the day.

Jiang Shou put his hands behind his back, raised his chin slightly, and struck a pose of a profound and unfathomable hermit.

"Don't rush," Jiang Shou said calmly. "This is just a wooden frame; there's still one last step to complete."

After saying that, Jiang Shou took out the Soul Transfer Talisman containing true essence from his wide sleeve.

He held the talisman and precisely aimed it at the flat, blank space reserved on the front of the cabin.

"Smack."

Jiang Shou pasted the talisman on, pressing his thumb firmly in the center of the talisman to ensure it adhered tightly to the locust wood.

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Shou's expression turned solemn.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and following the incantation recorded in the ancient book, he instantly mobilized the true energy within his body, and suddenly activated the array eye of the talisman through his fingertips!

"Using locust wood as the base, it gathers yin energy and soothes the soul..."

Jiang Shou's tongue crackled like thunder, and he let out a low shout:

"The place where the soul rests, by imperial decree!"

"Buzz~~!!!"

The moment the words fell, the yellow paper cinnabar talisman pasted on the front of the wooden house suddenly burst out with a dazzling blue light!

The bluish light illuminated the entire dimly lit room.

Immediately afterward, under Shen Xu's incredulous gaze, the locust wood hut, which originally bore various carving marks and splicing gaps, began to undergo a visible transformation after being bathed in the blue light!

The rough splinters and nicks quickly smoothed and blended in the light. The originally ordinary wood, as if it had undergone hundreds of years of sedimentation, instantly became ancient and warm, exuding a deep, jade-like dark luster.

Even the miniature furniture in the cabin—the matchbox-sized canopy bed, the miniature carved tables and chairs—which were originally just rigid blocks of wood, now exuded an extremely realistic texture, lifelike, as if they were really a set of old furniture that had been used for a hundred years!

"call……"

The blue light faded away.

A pure yet cool blue mist began to slowly drift out from the windows of the small wooden house, like blue ribbons, swirling around the rustic miniature wooden house.