The Science of Cultivation [Xianxia]

Chapter 93: Brushweaving Trial

Li Lang shook his head as he walked toward the calligraphy scroll on the wall. Imitating Sima Xue, he reached out with his hand first.

He watched as his limb passed through it. There was no feeling as if it was just an illusion. Unlike Sima Xue, he didn’t instantly jump through. He retrieved his hand and examined it first before touching the wall around the scroll.

He then took a peek at the area behind the scroll and found nothing but the wall. Brushing his hand over it, he found it to be a solid obstacle. His hand could touch the edge of the scroll fine, but once he touched a little closer toward the center of it, it directly passed through.

Seeing this curious sight, Li Lang decided to consult with the only person around. He pressed his hat against himself as he felt up the scroll.

“Ruby, do you know what this is before me? As in, can you take it into your artifact space?”

“Master, the Qi in this is so powerful it would take years for even an attempt. I’d advise against it unless you want to stand here for who knows how long. As for what it is, it should be a high-level artifact, but it’s strange. It doesn’t have an artifact spirit residing in it.”

“...I see.”

Seeing there was nothing more he could do, Li Lang bravely walked straight into the scroll. He quickly found the scene before him changed once more. He was now in the middle of a lake, on a colossal lily pad.

However, there was a proper desk before him. The same kind his mentor, Yi Lin, had in his own office, meant for Brushweaving. There were even brushes, talisman paper, and ink supplies on it. There was nothing else around, so Li Lang started testing his footing. He was worried about the stability of the lily pad below him.

It was only when he found it as stable as solid ground that he placed down the pill-furnace from his back.

When he looked up, he found some lights appearing from thin air. The lights carefully formed words for Li Lang to read.

“Create any kind of talisman within an hour. Fail and you lose five trial points.”

Seeing the time limit, Li Lang immediately got to work. He took out his own Moon Brush and inkstones and neatly laid them down. He then inspected them for any issues before he got started on inscribing.

As the trial provided the supplies, Li Lang didn’t hesitate to make use of them. He examined a piece of talisman paper and began infusing his Qi into the ink stick.

He didn’t need to refer to any texts as he went straight into creating a basic light talisman. He had been practicing with it, so he easily had it memorized.

As Li Lang focused on his Brushweaver techniques, the entire area around him was eerily silent. The only sound that could be heard was the soft flow of water.

It didn’t matter to Li Lang, as the only thing on his mind was controlling his Qi. He had to ensure the proper amount of Qi was used, and it differed depending on which part he was at. This was in conjunction with employing the Brushweaver Qi art as well.

Li Lang commanded his Qi to move around in patterns around his hand. Sometimes it flowed into his Moon Brush and back. Other times, he had to focus on changing his neutral Qi into the light element.

It was from this process that Li Lang learned how hard elemental Qi was to master. It made him understand why people usually only practiced combat arts in the elements they had a natural affinity with.

It only took Li Lang fifteen minutes to finish his first talisman.

When he was done, he took a step back as the surrounding air rushed at the nascent talisman. As soon as it stopped, the talisman floated up into the air by itself. In an instant, it vanished.

Without a moment of delay, light materialized once more and formed into words.

“First round passed. The challenger is rewarded with ten trial points. The next round is starting shortly.”

After a few minutes, the light swiftly reorganized itself into new words.

“Create any kind of talisman that makes use of two runes within an hour. Fail and you lose five trial points.”

Li Lang knew it was coming, but he still took a moment to breathe in and condition himself. Talismans with two runes were what he had been working on with Yi Lin throughout the past half a year. It was exponentially harder than a single rune as the combination of different runes produced drastically different effects.

One had to learn how to address the complications that arise when trying to combine runes of different properties.

Li Lang didn’t have to think and selected to draw a warding talisman. As one of the first talismans he had ever used, he chose to learn it first. It wasn’t only because of sentimental reasons, but its usefulness as well.

While he couldn’t produce one powerful enough to emit the aura of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, his lower-tier talismans were still useful in conserving energy by deterring low-level Qi beasts. After all, even if the beasts were weak, no one liked having to constantly fight them off.

The warding talisman made use of a Qi storing rune and one to emit the aura. Due to its opposing functions, Yi Lin had advised against it for Li Lang’s first two rune talisman. Nevertheless, Li Lang insisted.

If someone was at the lake with Li Lang, they could easily see that the young man was having a much harder time compared to before. He had sweat building up on his brows, and his brushstrokes seemed even slower than before.

It took him a total of forty-five minutes before he was finished with the second talisman.

The same scene of the talisman floating up into the air before disappearing repeated itself, and another message appeared from thin air.

“Second round passed. The challenger is awarded twenty trial points. The next round is starting shortly.”

Li Lang knew he was near the end of his current capabilities, but the trial didn’t give him a choice to quit. He heard it would keep going until he failed, and then it would give him his real reward. Once that happened, he could still retry it later, but the reward of trial points would only apply to the first clears.

The lights soon firmed into his new task again.

“Create any kind of talisman that makes use of two overlapping runes within an hour. Fail and you lose five trial points.”

Li Lang let out a sigh of relief that it didn’t ask him to inscribe a talisman with three runes. Still, his task wasn’t easy. The previous talisman he drew had two runes that were clearly separated from each other, despite being on the same piece of paper. The next type of talismans required the runes to overlap, which required a fine technique.

It was this type of talisman that Yi Lin had warned him about. It could easily activate prematurely or explode if he made even a single mistake.

So far, Li Lang had only practiced it inside the safety of Ruby’s artifact space.

Is this place…is it similar to an artifact space or not? Hmm, I haven’t heard about any fatal incidents for the crafts trials, so I should be fine.

Li Lang cautiously began working on his third talisman.

During the entire time, he wore a frown on his face.

As he had suspected, he wasn’t ready to inscribe overlapping runes yet, and his attempt at a concealing talisman spectacularly went up in smokes.

Almost immediately, the entire world around him started spinning. Within a few moments, Li Lang found himself inside a tiny room. It had wooden flooring and walls with nothing inside.

As soon as Li Lang regained his bearing, words appeared before him.

“Third round failed. Deducting five points. Issuing reward. Cultivation manual for one day.”

The words were quickly replaced with a giant ball of light. When it dimmed, it revealed a small book floating in the air.

Li Lang quickly grabbed it and began reading over it.

From his research, he knew it was a cultivation manual for a Brushweaving technique. He also knew he only had one day to go over all the content before the texts disappeared.

That was why he didn’t even bother to leave the tiny room and began reading.

“Ruby, can you take this book into your space?” Li Lang muttered as he continued reading.

“No master. The text you’re holding is not a physical item. It is made up of intricately woven Qi that is too strong for me to interfere with. Sorry, master.”

“Hm… no problem.”

Li Lang had expected as much. That was why he started going in and out of the artifact space. He would memorize small excerpts from the text and enter them into his computer in his lab. Li Lang didn’t have a photographic memory, nor was he a record-breaking genius. He relied on hard work, and that was exactly what he did.

After making over a hundred trips in and out of the artifact space, he finally compiled all the texts.

Whoever created this place may have intended for the challengers to learn as much as they could during the day they were given, but I have no intention of playing along.

After several hours of hard work, Li Lang finally plopped himself down within the artifact space to really read over his gains instead of just copying over words. He took a moment to muse on the title, Qi Injection Art.

Let’s see how this differs from the technique Yi Lin taught me.