Uncle Nine: You were supposed to drive corpses, so you summoned the Monkey King!

The morning mist had not yet dissipated outside the Lijia Town Inn.

Uncle Nine straddled the old-fashioned bicycle, supporting himself on one foot.

Qiu Sheng rode on another bicycle, while Wen Cai, carrying a bundle, squeezed onto the back seat, causing the tires to flatten.

"Lin Chen".

Uncle Nine gripped the handlebars and turned his head to look at Lin Chen standing on the steps.

"No matter how strong your physical body is, it's still an unorthodox path. You're likely to suffer in secret when you encounter a knowledgeable evil cultivator. Don't be stingy with the purple bamboo pen and cinnabar I gave you. Practice your talisman skills more. If you have any questions, feel free to write a letter or have a paper crane send a message to the mortuary to ask me."

Lin Chen cupped his hands and performed a Maoshan salute.

"Don't worry, Uncle-Master, I've got it."

Master Simu stood to the side, carrying the fifty-pound bronze sword on his back.

"Alright, Lin Fengjiao, I will naturally teach my disciples. You should take these two troublemakers back now, or the business in Renjia Town will be snatched away by other Taoists."

Uncle Nine snorted, ignoring Si Mu, and pushed off with his foot. The old-fashioned scooter creaked and swayed as it walked away along the bluestone path.

Master Four Eyes weighed the heavy sword on his back, then turned to Lin Chen and said, "Let's go back to the temple. We've been away for several days. Who knows what Jiale has done to the house?"

The two followed the path west of the town into the mountains.

As the sun rose higher, the mountain path became difficult to traverse.

Master Simu walked quite fast at first, but slowed down after an hour.

The 50-pound sword was pressing on his back, and he had also suffered some injuries from fighting Nintendo last night, so he was exhausted.

Lin Chen led the way.

(Please remember the website 20 ...

He incorporated the key points of the Maoshan Seven Star Steps into his daily walking, using his toes to touch the ground for leverage. After breaking through to the mid-stage of the Taoist path, his physique and strength both surpassed the twenty major thresholds, making this mountain path feel no different from flat ground.

Passing by a grove of dead old pine trees, Lin Chen stopped, picked up a rusty, broken machete from the roadside, and began chopping at the thick, withered tree trunks.

Click.

The dead tree broke.

Lin Chen swiftly chopped the withered tree lying across the road into pieces of roughly the same length.

"What are you doing, kid?" Master Four Eyes asked, leaning against a tree and panting. "Trying to do manual labor while on the go?"

Lin Chen kicked the chopped firewood to the side of the road: "Master, I'm practicing my power generation. I haven't mastered the penetrating force technique of the Hercules General yet, so I'm using these dead wood to practice."

Master Four Eyes found a rock and sat down: "You freak, where did you get so much energy after just fighting zombies? Take a break, my legs are a little sore."

Lin Chen cleaved his way along the mountain path.

The broken wood-chopping knife was swung rapidly to catch up on the daily wood-chopping progress in the system. The wood-chopping tasks had been intermittent over the past few days, and today was the perfect opportunity to make up for it.

As the sun set, the two of them finally crossed two mountain peaks.

A half-collapsed mountain god temple appeared ahead.

Master Four Eyes pointed to the dilapidated temple and walked over: "I'll make do here for the night."

The temple was full of dust and cobwebs.

Lin Chen used telekinesis to sweep away the dust on the ground with a broom and start a fire.

Master Four Eyes untied the heavy bronze sword from his back and placed it on the ground. He took off his cloth shoes, emptied the sand from inside, and leaned against the wall to rest with his eyes closed.

Lin Chen took out two cold steamed buns from his pocket, skewered them with a twig, and put them on the fire to roast. While the buns were roasting, he walked to the other side of the fire and cleared out a flat stone slab.

He took out the purple bamboo brush given to him by his Ninth Uncle from his bag and pulled out a porcelain bottle containing top-grade cinnabar.

Lin Chen uncorked the bottle and poured out some dark red cinnabar powder into the broken bowl. He then picked up the water gourd from his waist and poured in some rootless water.

Stir slowly with a twig until the cinnabar turns into a thick, dark red pigment.

He spread out a sheet of yellow paper.

The Shangqing Great Cave True Scripture circulated within his body, and the magical power, as thick as a thumb, flowed along his meridians to his right hand.

Lin Chen grasped the purple bamboo brush, its tip dipped in cinnabar, and held it above the yellow paper.

Previously, when using ordinary brushes and inferior cinnabar, there was a feeling of resistance when infusing magic power.

Now that I've switched to this purple bamboo brush, the magic power seeps into the brush tip through the purple bristles without any obstruction.

Lin Chen pressed down with his wrist, and the pen tip landed on the yellow paper.

He drew a talisman of blazing fire.

In the Savage Gully, he forcibly drew a talisman with his own body to detonate the chemicals inside Nintendo's body—that was an emergency. Now, he needs to draw this talisman using proper talisman paper.

Lin Chen's magical power seeped into the texture of the yellow paper along with the cinnabar.

He could sense how much magic power was needed for each stroke; the spiritual power of a mid-stage Taoist priest allowed him to control magic power much more precisely.

The final stroke completes the task.

A red light flashed across the yellow paper, and a wave of heat emanated from the talisman.

The master-level Fiery Talisman is complete.

"Such a strong temper."

Master Four Eyes opened his eyes at some point and stared at the talisman in Lin Chen's hand.

"That old rascal Lin Fengjiao, I was envious of this purple bamboo brush when our senior brother passed it on back then, and he just gave it to you."

Lin Chen carefully put away the Fiery Talisman, then spread out a sheet of yellow paper: "My master is just worried that I might get hurt if I encounter evil cultivators. Master, would you like a couple of these too?"

"No need." Master Four Eyes turned over. "I use a sword, talismans are secondary. You should draw a few more talismans to keep on hand, the world is getting more and more chaotic."

Lin Chen stopped talking and lowered his head to draw talismans.

The success rate of using a purple bamboo brush with top-quality cinnabar is very high.

An hour passed, and Lin Chen had drawn ten Fiery Talismans, twenty high-level Corpse-Suppressing Talismans, and five Mind-Cleansing Talismans.

The magical power within his body was nearly half depleted, but it was rapidly recovering as the Shangqing Great Cave True Scripture was circulated.

Late at night.

Master Simu leaned against the wall and snored.

Lin Chen sat cross-legged beside the fire, circulating his internal energy.

At midnight, a system notification sounded in my mind.

[Ding! It's midnight. Begin settling today's cultivation daily tasks.]

[Completed a 50-mile trek through the mountains, Constitution +1.]

[Chop 100 pieces of firewood along the way, Strength +1.]

[Used top-grade magical artifacts to draw 35 high-level talismans, Spirit +1]

[The Fiery Talisman has been upgraded to (Mastery).]

A warm current spread through his body, and Lin Chen opened his eyes, feeling the changes within him.

The next morning.

The two ate a simple meal of dry rations and continued on their way.

Without the zombies slowing them down, they were much faster, and as evening approached, the outline of Qingshan Town came into view.

If you walk less than five miles up the mountain after passing through the town, you will reach the Taoist temple.

Lin Chen walked ahead to clear the way, and stopped halfway up the mountain to sniff.

The wind carried the smell of blood.

Master Four Eyes sensed something was wrong and gripped the hilt of the heavy sword behind his back.

The two quickened their pace as they passed through the bamboo forest.

The temple gates were wide open, and the courtyard was a mess.

The drying rack for herbs had fallen to the ground, and several live chickens lay dead in the corner, their necks uninjured and their bodies shriveled.

"Jiale!" Master Simu rushed into the courtyard.

The lobby door was half broken.

Master Ikkyu sat cross-legged on the threshold, holding a string of broken Buddhist prayer beads in his hand, and a bloody gash on his bald head.

Jiale lay on the bamboo chair next to him, his face pale, his right arm wrapped in thick gauze. Jingjing was changing his dressing with red eyes.

Upon hearing footsteps, Master Ikkyu opened his eyes.

"Four Eyes, you're finally back."

Master Four Eyes strode over and looked at Jiale's arm: "Who did this? Old monk, you were here watching, how could Jiale get such a serious injury?"

Lin Chen walked to the bamboo chair and reached out to lift the gauze off Jia Le's arm.

The wound was black and surrounded by a ring of white hair, indicating a severe case of corpse poison, not something left by an ordinary walking corpse.

Lin Chen turned to look at Master Ikkyu.

"Master, the yin energy on this wound is strange; it's not a local zombie."

Master Yixiu stood up, supporting himself on his knees: "They came in the middle of the night yesterday. It was a bronze-armored corpse dressed in the robes of a previous dynasty, accompanied by a heretical cultivator. If I hadn't used my Vajra Pestle to block them, Jiale's arm would have been ruined."

Lin Chen pondered in his mind: former dynasty eunuchs, bronze-armored corpses, and evil cultivators.

This plot seems familiar.