"… now, how about if I try to do it like this," I murmured as I tried to draw a flame talisman once more, only to fail once again.
Naturally, I was drawing it on the ground. I didn't want to waste my limited amount of paper. The bundle I had only had twenty papers, which were precious enough. I wanted to use them to draw Flame Talismans once I came up with a way to draw Flame Talismans.
It wasn't the most efficient way to spend my time, but everyone was too tense to casually interact with others, let alone pity them. Considering I didn't have any easy target for my freeloading, testing the limits of my talisman drawing skill seemed like a good idea.
Particularly since, having some offensive talismans was a good way to deal with the danger. They were threatening enough to deescalate the situation if I came across another itinerant cultivator, and I could use the higher quality ones to bluff my way into convincing people that I was from a rich family.
"How about if I draw them like this?" I muttered as I tried once again, and realized it might have worked. "Now, to the real practice."
I pulled my talisman drawing set, and two spirit stones to fuel my attempt. Roughly a strand of Qi was required to draw a simple flame talisman, and unlike the System drawing plans, I didn't have many variations I could use to create.
If someone else had seen me wasting spirit stones drawing talismans, particularly so close to misty mountains, they would have gone crazy. The profitable method was to find a relatively rich environment and use the Qi in the air to draw it.
For an ordinary talisman master, it would have been a total waste. After all, an ordinary talisman went only for a spirit stone. By spending two spirit stones, it would cause a huge loss, and that was without the risk of failure, paper and ink cost … and most importantly, the subdued Qi a cultivator had to expand.
None applied to me. After ten minutes of highly focused drawing, I had my first flame talisman in hand. Unfortunately, it was merely Profound Middle Quality due to a combination of lacking a drawing plan, low-quality paper, and poor environment.
"My poorest work," I said with a chuckle, wondering what someone else would have said about my definition of failure. Cheating or not, being an expert was certainly fun.
Of course, since it was limited by the amount of Qi it could hold, it was barely as strong as a hit from an ordinary First Realm cultivator. Still, I rapidly drew three more.
Four full-powered hits were intimidating enough, particularly since their quality meant that they would hit harder and faster than their low-quality variants. It could easily deal with an unprepared enemy.
I could draw more, but I didn't want to waste my already limited storage of spirit stones. I had enough to visit the misty mountains. As for using Qi strands in my Inventory, I was even more reluctant. They were even harder to replenish.
My plan wasn't to actually enter the mountains, but I needed to get a glimpse from a distance to get a sense of what was going on. I needed to have a better idea about the situation in the mountains. Ideally, I also wanted to find a pocket of Qi which I could use to create a flame talisman.
Also, I wanted to put my newly acquired spirit plant tending knowledge to use.
Ironically, it didn't come with the knowledge of spirit plants and how to use them, but a veterinarian didn't need to know how to distinguish a zebra from a donkey to be able to mend a broken bone or heal a cut. Of course, said veterinarian could end up in a kick in the head in the process, if he didn't know about the unique habits of a zebra, and couldn't easily treat a snake based on the same knowledge, so there were some limitations.
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Once again, there were limits to my unique style of learning.
I had made sure to get a distance away from the cultivation market before I approached the mountains, not wanting to be seen, and even pulled another set of clothes from my inventory. Then, I moved forward, doing my best to avoid notice even with the disguise.
While I was reasonably confident to defend myself against an ordinary cultivator willing to waste their time on the outskirts of the misty mountains, the crazy swordsman I had stumbled across showed me that the cultivation world could hold some nasty surprises.
Nasty ones, as the Onit family learned.
Luckily, one thing that I had seen around the market, was that unlike martial artists, cultivators were reluctant to spend their Qi, which meant I had the mobility advantage, particularly with my unique movement martial art. I continued to run, until I stepped into the misty mountains.
The first thing I noticed. The mist was not natural. The moment I stepped, I felt a sense of suffocation and disquiet. It was already effective on my Qi, but it was even worse when it came to essence. The moment I stepped into the mist, my essence lost most of its effectiveness.
It was different than the Cursed Qi at the Spring Palace. There, I could feel the Qi infecting my essence. Here, it was more of an effect, like the chill from an ice sculpture.
Whatever that was going on in the misty mountains, it was something extraordinary. All the more reason not to enter the limits. I stayed at the edge, making very limited incursions for the next few days. Despite my hopes, I failed to find any spirit plants, not even a dried one. Clearly, I wasn't the first cultivator to have the genius idea of staying at the safe spots.
Still, not all was bad. On the second day, I had been hit by a Qi wind. It didn't last long, barely ten minutes, but I was able to use the meditation technique to capture enough Qi for six more talismans, three Profound Middle-Grade flame talismans, and three Profound Peak protection talismans.
Having the system drawing charts helped to create something spectacular despite the poor paper quality. Those, I planned to keep for my own use for emergencies, as their high quality contrasted with the poor paper too much.
However, I didn't waste my time. Since the mist suppressed people's senses somewhat, it allowed me to get close enough to occasional cultivator groups and eavesdrop on their discussions. They were careful, but that didn't prevent them from discussing the results of their trip with their friends, in the form of some action report to see what could be done better the next time.
It gave me a better idea about what could be found in the outer layers. A flower called endless blossom was the most common plant, but apparently, it was also cheap. A few other different plants like dark thistle and blood flower were common and valuable, but they were also poisonous, making their harvest more of a challenge.
Different types of ores and minerals were also abundant, but identifying them required some knowledge, which I lacked completely.
Naturally, the most profitable, yet riskiest activity, was to rob people. A lot of discussions went into how to achieve that, and avoid the same, but ultimately, it wasn't that common. At least, I didn't see anyone trying something during my observation.
Whether they did so deeper into the misty mountains where they would be harder to discover, or whether they stopped temporarily after the swordsman had destroyed a whole family in revenge and scared people was not a mystery I was desperate to solve.
After listening to the people for two more days, I managed to get the directions for a nice valley near the edge of the mist, some dark thistle from a couple cultivators discussing how to find a trustworthy expert to harvest them.
Too bad when they return, they would find it empty. I followed their tracks and soon found the valley. It was a nice concealed spot with several spirit plants. Likely because the valley was deep enough to capture the Qi winds for some time, which nourished the plants.
"Let's take you," I said as I moved to the first dark thistle, carefully uprooting it, using meditation art to feed the Qi it generated back to it. While every poisonous plant had its own unique method to uproot — which I lacked — with my skill, a general method was still safe.
Keeping the Qi of the plant calm kept its defense mechanisms from triggering.
Ten minutes was enough for me to uproot eight dark thistles and four endless blossoms that were protected by them easily, which was different than what others did. Most just pulled and destroyed the plant before cutting the most valuable parts.
I had a different plan in mind.
I left the misty mountains, and made sure to take a long path back while carefully carrying twelve small uprooted plants. However, once I returned to the concealed valley, I turned to my temporary camp, I had settled the plants again into a cave that received little sunlight.
It reduced the effectiveness of the plants, but the fact that I could block the Qi flow outside by putting two protection talismans at the entrance was more important.
Just like that, I had a nice small garden that constantly radiated Qi. Not much, but enough to draw a few talismans easily without throwing myself into danger.