The next morning, he was feeling refreshed and ready to go. His body was aching, a giant scab had formed on his chest. He decided to leave it and not drink his two remaining healing potions. It could be good practice for his Blue Tiger Mantra.

He started going through his arsenal of skills. He was somewhat closer to creating his art. He was much more proficient in finding the thread connecting two separate arts and combining them. His Enhanced Understanding was no joke.

However, he was stuck with his art. He was expecting the beast art to help him but it was more concerned with the transfusion of emotions, and its method of accomplishing that was through formations. He needed something that dealt with the soul more directly.

The answer’s got to be out there somewhere. He decided to go out for a walk to clear his head and think.

Almost everyone he passed by, recognized him. There had been almost every single disciple present at his duel with Treasure. He didn’t pay much attention to it.

His thoughts wandered back to the fight and how close it’d been. That’s when his thoughts turned back to the flame dagger and how it wouldn’t stop burning.

He went back down to the stalls and bought two more. He restocked on his removable ink and rushed back to his abode. He was quite excited to open up his notebook and copy it over but there was a problem.

He’d used up all of the space. It wasn’t an infinite source. I need to get rid of something. He flipped around through the pages and decided on the wind blade art. It was that or the beast taming art but he decided to leave it, in case he stumbled on something.

He copied over the talisman in his notebook. It didn’t have an effect which was quite odd. Is it broken? It was possible but he could recall everything else with perfect clarity. Can’t be.

He started walking around the abode, pacing around. It was clean except for a bit of dust but it was heaven compared to his previous apartment.

His intuition told him that it should work, he was just overlooking something basic. That’s it. Basic was the keyword. Copying over the talisman was similar to copying over a maths textbook in french. If his theory was correct, he needed some sample size of building blocks to understand something.

The leopard nuzzled his hand and climbed over into his lap. It was a little larger now and its scales were growing out. It felt very satisfying to pet it. It’s scales had a little violet tinge, he was sure the spirit stones were helping.

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He knew where to go for the talisman’s. There would be more than enough manuals for talisman basics but the problem was he didn’t have any more money.

He grabbed the little leopard and tucked it under his arm. “Let’s go get some stones.”

He decided to go to the notice board and accept a quest. He decided on the one for hunting the screaming monkeys. They were around the area he’d been ambushed. It seemed like they were becoming a nuisance for the sect as well.

The more cores he brought back the better off he would be. The exchange would be dependent on the size and quality of the core’s themself.

He ripped off the sheet and was on his way. A few people asked him if they could come as companions but he refused. He wanted to see how well he would fare against multiple enemies on his own. On top of that, he was not going to use his illusions. He was too dependent on it.

He found two right away. They were out of the forest. They were quite injured before he got to them. Somebody else must’ve been hunting them as well. He was assuming these two ran away.

He placed the leopard down and looked at it. It just stretched out in the sunlight and yawned. “What are you, a lazy cat?”

He could see the despair in their eyes when they spotted him. They started running off into the forest again but he shot out a chain. It clasped onto both of their legs making them fall onto the ground. That got the leopard’s attention but it stuck behind him. “Coward.”

He decided to use his staff as a spear and blasted it into the left one’s back. It impaled him with quite some force. He was re-evaluating the Blue Tiger Mantra. Healing and body cultivation combined in one art. Most body art’s tried to combine the two but there were caveats and disadvantages in most cases.

The second one managed to wrangle himself out of the chain but Musnuf just generated another one. He caught up to them. He retrieved his staff, first and foremost. Then he shoved it into the base of their skulls, right above the spine. They stopped moving like a light switch had been turned off. The leopard pawed at them trying to ascertain if they were dangerous anymore or not.

Ghost chains blasted out of the ground and bound him. “That was our kill!” He turned his head to find a pair of familiar faces. Dragon and Flower. An awkward atmosphere hung in the air. Things had more than soured between them, he hadn’t forgotten the fact that Tiger had sabotaged his cube illusion during the duel.

“Let go.” The chains dissipated but the sisters didn’t budge. He pretended like he hadn’t noticed and got down to carve out their cores.

“We injured them first and now you’re just coming in for the cores!” Tiger’s nostrils flared and she launched a diatribe.

Musnuf would’ve let it go if it was anyone else but he was feeling more than petty at the moment. “Tiger, do you really want to fight me?” He prodded the construct of the leopard’s emotions and it turned to the two sister’s with a growl.

If things came to a head, at least, he knew he had a tiny puppy sized advantage.