Free Web NovelChapter 60: Chapter 59: Fireball Talisman
Over two days, Li Yuan read through Fang He’s booklet several times, memorizing everything inside.
The process wasn’t complex; the key points for each step were clearly written in the booklet. Fang He had even added his own scrawled notes beside several of the steps.
Early on the morning of his day off, Li Yuan went to find Fang He.
Fang He’s place was slightly larger than Li Yuan’s. A simple wooden rack stood in a corner of the courtyard, with several hides drying on it. They gave off a pungent, alkaline smell.
"Here?" Fang He emerged from his house carrying a wooden basin. A grayish-brown beast hide was soaking inside, shriveled up in a murky solution.
"I started soaking this the day before yesterday. It’s the hide of an Iron-horned Antelope cub. It’s far from Tier One Low Grade, so it’s perfect for practice."
"If it were Tier One Low Grade, you could use it to make Tier One Low Grade Talismans. Using it for practice would be a huge waste."
Li Yuan counted out twenty Spirit Stones from his robe and placed them on the table.
Fang He glanced at them and casually swept them into a pouch without any pretense.
"Watch me do it once first."
Fang He lifted the beast hide from the solution, spread it on the wooden rack, and began to scrape the remaining fat and sinew from its surface with a dull knife.
"This step is called ’fleshing.’ The blade has to be flat and the force even. Don’t dig in. You have to scrape all the fat off."
Fang He spoke as he scraped. His hand movements looked casual, but the blade stayed flat against the hide, its angle perfectly steady.
After about the time it takes an incense stick to burn, the surface grease was mostly gone, revealing a grayish-white fibrous layer.
Fang He flipped it over and pressed the hide with his fingers to check its thickness.
"Next is pressing."
He laid the hide on a flat stone slab, picked up a smoothly polished wooden roller from the side, and began to press down on it repeatedly.
"The pressure can’t be too great, or the fibers will break, and the resulting talisman paper will tear the moment you write on it. It can’t be too light either, or you won’t flatten it properly. The texture will be uneven, and Spiritual Power will get stuck."
Fang He rolled it a few times, then stopped and had Li Yuan feel the surface.
It felt coarse, much rougher than the finished talisman paper sold in the market. The texture of the fibers was clearly visible.
Then Fang He lifted the pressed hide from the stone slab, pinched the edge between his thumb and forefinger, and gauged the thickness.
"See? It’s still too thick after pressing. If you use it to draw a talisman, the Spiritual Power won’t be able to flow through."
He rummaged through a pile of tools and pulled out a thin-bladed knife. The blade was extremely narrow, and its edge was polished to a shine.
"This step is called ’splitting.’"
Fang He laid the hide flat on the stone slab again, pressed down on it with his left palm, and held the thin-bladed knife in his right hand. He started cutting into the middle of the hide from the side, pushing forward slowly.
The blade slipped between the layers of the hide, as if filleting a fish, and split the entire hide in two along the cross-section of its fibers.
"Demon Beast hides are much thicker than those of ordinary livestock. A Tier One Low Grade Iron-horned Antelope hide can be split into at least three or four layers. It depends on technique. My technique isn’t great, so I’ll just show you how to split it into two for now."
"The inner layer is usually softer and better for delicate Talismans. The outer layer is rougher, suitable for Talismans that require a rapid flow of Spiritual Power."
"But no matter how soft it is, it’s still a bit less refined than plant-based talisman paper."
Fang He sliced about a palm’s width, then stopped to let Li Yuan see the cross-section.
Fang He continued pushing the knife forward, splitting the entire hide into an upper and lower layer.
"One hide becomes two, or even three or four sheets of paper. That’s what makes this skill truly cost-effective."
"My splitting technique is just terrible, so I can’t get my costs down."
After splitting it, Fang He rolled it again for a while until the hide was roughly uniform in thickness. Only then did he lift it from the stone slab.
"Finally, cutting."
Using a leather-cutting knife, he cut the hide along the grain of the fibers into dozens of similarly sized squares, trimming the edges neatly.
"Cut with the grain, not against it. Paper cut against the grain tends to curl at the edges."
Fang He stacked the cut pieces of beast-hide paper and handed two to Li Yuan.
"Feel the surface. The smooth side is the front. You draw the talisman on this side."
Li Yuan took them. As he ran his fingertip over the surface, he found one side was slightly smoother while the other had a distinct, coarse texture.
"That’s about it. Some things are hard to explain in a booklet, but you’ve seen me do it once, so you should be able to figure it out."
"But what are you learning this skill for?" Fang He asked casually, leaning against the wooden rack. "Are you learning talisman making?"
"Mmm."
Fang He wasn’t surprised and gave a slight nod.
"Then it’ll be useful. Beast-hide paper is cheap right now, so using it for practice is much more cost-effective than buying finished paper."
Fang He thought for a moment, then added, "If you manage to make finished Talismans, I can help you find buyers. What kind of Talismans can you make?"
Li Yuan thought for a moment and named the three types of Talismans he knew how to make.
After listening, Fang He nodded. "I can find a channel to help you sell the Cleaning Talismans and Warning Talismans. It’ll save you the time of setting up a stall yourself, and the price will be fair, but you’ll need a large quantity."
"Not many people want Exorcism Talismans, generally."
"Take the remaining hides back with you to practice. There’s some of the solution I used today left over, take that too. The recipe for the soaking solution is in the booklet. The ingredients aren’t expensive, so you can mix it yourself."
Li Yuan packed up the beast hides, solution, and tools and returned to his residence.
He closed the door and laid everything out.
There was still a large, unprocessed piece of hide that Fang He had given him. Li Yuan followed the steps Fang He had demonstrated and started on his own, beginning with soaking the hide.
The fleshing step took the longest.
When pushing the blade against the hide, the slightest deviation in force would either leave a greasy patch unscraped or cut too deep and damage the fibrous layer. Li Yuan had to adjust the angle several times before he found a relatively stable feel for it, but he still couldn’t match Fang He’s smooth, continuous motions.
Pressing was also difficult. As the wooden roller moved across the hide, it was hard to apply perfectly even pressure on both sides. After pressing, there was a noticeable difference in thickness—it was thin in the middle and thick on the sides.
Splitting went better. Li Yuan didn’t try to make multiple layers; he just split it in half like Fang He, which was much simpler.
Li Yuan didn’t rush. He pressed it twice more, adjusting the direction of the force each time, and finally managed to produce a passably uniform surface.
Cutting turned out to be the easiest part. By cutting along the grain, the hide split naturally. The resulting edges weren’t as neat as Fang He’s, but it didn’t affect their usability.
His first self-made sheet of beast-hide talisman paper lay on the table.
[Talisman Making Skill - Beast-Hide Paper Production - Uninitiated (0/100)]
It was grayish-white and coarse, easily distinguishable from market-bought paper at a glance. But when he flicked it with his finger, the toughness was acceptable, and there were no cracks.
Li Yuan dipped his brush in cinnabar ink and drew a Cleaning Talisman on the beast-hide paper.
The moment the brush touched the paper, he felt the difference.
The resistance of the beast hide against the brush tip was much greater than with ordinary paper. As the Spiritual Power flowed along the brushstrokes, it would shift slightly every time it crossed a coarse patch of fibers, forcing him to divert his focus to make corrections.
After finishing the Cleaning Talisman, Li Yuan looked at the lines on its surface, his brow furrowed slightly.
The lines were crooked, and the positions of several nodes deviated noticeably from the standard rune.
However, unlike with plant-based paper—which would be completely useless with such deviations—the beast-hide paper was sturdier and could be barely activated.
When he injected Spiritual Power, the paper’s surface flashed briefly before going dim. It had succeeded, barely, but its effect would likely be greatly diminished.
Li Yuan put away his talisman-making tools and stacked the few finished sheets of beast-hide paper to the side.
At noon, Li Yuan went to Old Sun’s stall.
Old Sun was brewing medicine. A small clay stove was set up in front of the stall with an earthenware pot on top, BUBBLING away and steaming. The air was thick with the bitter scent of herbs.
"Old Sun, is that Talisman Master you mentioned still around?"
"He should be here tonight." Old Sun looked up at Li Yuan, then stirred the concoction in the pot with a bamboo skewer. "Come back here after dinner. I’ll take you to him."
"Alright."
After nightfall, Li Yuan arrived at Old Sun’s stall on time.
Old Sun had already packed up his stall and was waiting by the roadside, his hands clasped behind his back.
The two of them wound through a few alleys and stopped in front of a remote cottage in the southeastern corner of the market district.
The door was ajar, and a dim, yellow light spilled out from within.
Old Sun knocked on the doorframe.
"Master Lu, I’ve brought someone."
A reply came from inside, and the door opened.
The man who opened the door was in his early thirties. He was not tall and had a sallow complexion. His fingers were long and slender, their tips stained a faint red from years of handling cinnabar.
He had the aura of a Mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator.
"Come in and talk."
The room was small. A large table took up most of the space, covered with talisman-making tools and materials. In a corner were several bundles of uncut talisman paper.
"This is Li Yuan, the vice-captain of the patrol team." Old Sun made a simple introduction, then looked at Li Yuan. "This is Talisman Master Lu. He’s from the Loose Cultivator market district, and his talisman making skills are excellent."
Talisman Master Lu nodded, sat down behind the table, and skipped the pleasantries.
"Are you here to buy or to trade?"
"I’d like to trade the method for making beast-hide talisman paper for the creation methods of a few Tier One Low Grade Talismans."
Li Yuan got straight to the point.
Talisman Master Lu sized up Li Yuan, then pulled a thin-covered booklet and a bamboo scroll from a wooden box under the table, keeping them under his hand.
"The drawing method for the Fireball Talisman, plus this Tier One Fire Element Magic, the *Fire Arrow Skill*. The Fire Arrow Skill is a tier less powerful than the Fireball Technique, but it excels in speed and consumes less power. Neither of these is particularly rare, but they’re more than enough for a beginner."
"Trading for two of my Tier One Low Grade Talisman methods is out of the question, but you’d be at a loss with just one. So I’ve added the Fire Arrow Skill, but you’ll have to add some Spirit Stones."
Li Yuan looked at the booklet and the bamboo scroll, thought for a moment, and said.
"I have a supply line. A Talisman Master who stayed here for a few years used it to get a stable supply of cheap raw materials for talisman making."
"You just arrived, so you probably don’t have a supply line yet. How about I trade this supply line plus the beast-hide paper method for your Fireball Talisman drawing method and the Fire Arrow Skill?"
Talisman Master Lu pondered for a moment. He tapped the table twice with his fingers, then glanced at Old Sun.
"Deal."
He pushed the booklet and the bamboo scroll over.
Li Yuan took the items and wrote down the information about the materials supplier left by Old Zhang on a slip of paper. He handed it over along with the booklet Fang He had given him.
"There are some things in this booklet that aren’t explained clearly. If you have time, I can give you a practical demonstration, though my own skills are still rough."
"No need. I’ve made plenty of talisman paper before. Beast-hide paper should be similar. As long as I know the principles, the practical application won’t be a problem."
Returning to his residence, Li Yuan closed the door and opened the thin booklet that recorded the drawing method for the Fireball Talisman. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Compared to the Cleaning Talisman, the Spiritual Power pathways for the Fireball Talisman were several times more complex. Not only were there numerous nodes, but several key turning points also required an instantaneous convergence and burst of Spiritual Power, demanding extremely high levels of brush control and precise manipulation of Spiritual Power.
It was difficult enough to draw on ordinary plant-based paper; on the coarse surface of beast-hide paper, the difficulty would be doubled.
After memorizing the contents of the booklet, Li Yuan unrolled the bamboo scroll for the Fire Arrow Skill. freeweɓnovel.cøm
The Spell for the Fire Arrow Skill was much more concise than the Fireball Technique. The path for Spiritual Power was shorter, and the method of condensation was more direct—instead of forming a ball, it compressed Fire Spiritual Power into a long, thin arrow, excelling in speed.
He read it through once from beginning to end, closed the bamboo scroll, placed it by his pillow, and began to cultivate.
’The Magic and the talisman making aren’t urgent. I’ll deal with them tomorrow.’
