Chapter 32 Drawing Talismans
"Hey! Found it. Why was it hidden here?" Prince Wang drunkenly took a wooden box and opened it. Inside was a pair of gold bracelets inlaid with red agate, shining brightly.
In fact, the box she packed from Master Hu's house was filled with silver, silver bills and precious jewelry. She didn't lack these things now, but after all, it was a gift from Young Master Wang, so Ruan Xing smiled and thanked him.
Prince Wang forced Ruan Xing to wear the two bracelets, and then said with some pride: "It looks good, I think it suits you. Oh, and there's a surprise."
He quickly pulled open the wooden board underneath the box, revealing a row of small gold ingots.
Ruan Xing was surprised for a moment and slightly widened his eyes. There were twenty gold ingots weighing one or two taels in a row. Together with the heavy gold bracelet on his wrist, this gift was very expensive. A rough estimate showed that it cost more than four hundred taels of silver.
She searched Tiger Lord's house and found only over 2,000 taels of silver in total. Lady Wang was still the head of Master Wang's family, but she gave him 400 taels at once. He was really generous.
Ruan Xing looked a little complicated and said, "I'm sorry to have cost you money."
"Why are you being so polite to me, sister Ruan? But to be honest, my mother knows me too well. She immediately guessed that someone gave me advice. Although I would rather die than admit it, this gold was given to me by my mother to express my gratitude. Sister, please don't be angry."
"It's okay." Ruan Xing accepted the gift and said calmly, "I didn't intend to keep it a secret for long. There is one more thing I want to ask you. You saw you talking and laughing with Tiger Master that day, and you seemed quite close to him. Now that Tiger Master's entire family has died, will you feel sorry for him?"
Young Master Wang drank a few more cups, and was already lying on the table, with his arms barely supporting his head. He sneered and said, "The Red Head Gang has only been established for a few years? How familiar can I be with them? It's just a face-saving favor. You are still young and don't understand these things in the gang. Now the gang leader is strict and doesn't allow infighting. Otherwise, those managers would have fought with each other every few days because of various frictions..."
As he spoke, Master Wang's voice became lower and lower, his head lowered, and he fell asleep at the table in a completely ungraceful manner.
That's true. Ruan Xing forgot that the Red Head Gang was only established six years ago. After more than a year of massive expansion, it became the leading gang in Jiangning City five years ago. Five years ago, Young Master Wang was twelve years old and already a teenager.
"He is drunk and it is late at night. I will get a room upstairs for him to rest." Young Master Liu stood up. He also drank a lot of wine, but not as much as Young Master Wang. At this moment, he still stood up straight with clear eyes and a calm voice.
"What about you, Sister Ruan? Should I let you stay here for the time being or send you home?" He asked Ruan Xing with his eyes.
"Don't worry about me, do whatever you want. Just let Hu San take me back later." Ruan Xing packed up the wooden box of gift from Master Wang and prepared to go downstairs.
Master Liu didn't say much. He and the servants helped Master Wang up and went upstairs to the room.
"Miss, shall we go back now?"
Ruan Xing did not answer, but asked: "Hu San, how is your internal energy training going?"
"I've just gotten started and can barely use my internal energy." Hu San said. He raised his palm and used his internal energy. A layer of faint white light appeared on his skin, very faint, appearing and disappearing from time to time.
"I'll give you two days. You can use up the remaining medicine all at once, and reach the minor success of internal strength as soon as possible. Also, buy two pieces of yellow paper, three pieces of deerskin, a brush, and two kilograms of animal blood tomorrow. It must be wild animal blood. Domestic chicken, duck, cow, and sheep blood will not work. I'll buy them and leave them at your house. I'll come to find you tomorrow." Ruan Xing got in the car, "Let's go, take me back."
He wants Hu San to concentrate on cultivation, but also wants him to work. He is really a black-hearted capitalist.
There is no way. She has too few people she can use. At present, the only one who can listen to her orders unconditionally and attentively is Hu San. It would be great if she could have a puppet as obedient as the pure white boy.
If too much medicine is used at one time, the excessive strength of the medicine will damage the meridians and affect the foundation, but Hu San answered yes without hesitation.
With the talismans of [Break] and [Speed], and her own acquired martial arts realm, Ruan Xing is confident that she can fight against the pure white boy. But after all, the opponent can be invisible, the enemy is in the dark while she is in the light, so she also needs a talisman of [Defense] and a bait who can help her trap the opponent.
It can only be Hu San.
Although he has no spiritual power, the basic talismans can barely be activated using true Qi. She has to let Hu San reach a small level of internal strength before she can use the talismans for him.
As for the damaged meridians, I can only wait for a chance to compensate him in the future.
The next morning, Ruan Xing first looked at the updated simulator and his own panel.
Name: Nguyen Hsing
Age: six years old
Skills: Gambling basics, spells basics, dance basics, weaving basics
Skill: Blood Refining Technique
Realm: Acquired
Points: 167923
There is no change in the function, except that the points required for simulation has increased to 100 points per time. Ten cents are required to recharge one point, and 100 points is equivalent to one tael of silver.
Fortunately, after she met Tiger Master, she decided to raid his house, otherwise she would not be able to afford to maintain this simulator.
When she arrived at Hu San's house, Hu San had already bought the things and placed them in the room. His efficiency was still as high as before. Ruan Xing nodded with satisfaction.
"The deerskin is the grocery store's stock, and the blood is from a wild boar that was killed this morning," Hu San explained.
The room was filled with the smell of wild boar blood. Ruan Xing pinched her nose and said, "Very good, you did a good job. Go practice and don't worry about me."
"Yes."
Ruan Xing was the only one left in the room. She poured a small bowl of pig's blood on the table, spread out yellow paper, picked up a brush, and began to simulate.
She doesn't know how to draw the [Yu] talisman yet, so she has to use a simulator to increase her proficiency in the spell.
[Simulating]
When you were six years old, you used yellow paper and wild boar blood to practice talismans. The next day, you heard bad news. A deputy officer of the Patrol Security Bureau died suddenly in the street while patrolling. You wanted to find Master Liu to ask about the situation, but found that he was nowhere to be found. Then you asked Master Wang for help. The two of you searched everywhere, but there was no news.
Three days later, you were learning gambling skills with Master Shi in Qi Ye's hall when a strange man broke in with a dozen people but no one stopped them. They captured you and sent you to Qi Ye's study. You didn't see Qi Ye but saw the old man in the cave and the pure white boy. You felt danger and suddenly fought back. You killed the big men who captured you when they were not prepared and prepared to escape, but the pure white boy suddenly appeared behind you and penetrated your body with white true energy. You died.
[End of simulation]
Please select the reward for this simulation:
1. Memories from when I was six years old.
2. A random item that was on my body when I was six years old.
3. A random skill mastered at the age of six.
4. The realm of cultivation reached at the age of six. Ruan Xing was stunned for a long time after seeing the result before choosing option one.
Originally, she planned to use the simulator to practice talismans in Jiangning City for seven or eight years. Why did this old man suddenly come to the city?
Ruan Xing pondered. Was it the old man who killed the deputy inspector in the simulation? Was Master Liu also captured by the old man? Was it Master Liu who betrayed her when they finally came to capture her?
No wonder she felt something was amiss when she heard Young Master Liu talk about it yesterday. How could the gang leader agree to such disadvantageous conditions so easily? It turned out that he had a plan here.
Apart from maintaining the operation of the Red Head Gang, the rest of the gang's income is probably used as research funding for the old man. The request put forward by the deputy officer of the Patrol Security Bureau is simply asking for trouble. No wonder he suddenly ran out of the cave.
But... there were only three days left, and she hadn't practiced the [御] character yet.
Alas, if only that clerk wasn’t so greedy. He could just ask for some silver, instead of touching other people’s property.
Things have come to this point, and no amount of regret will help. Ruan Xing can only think of another way.
She must first learn the [Yu] character spell.
[Simulating]
When you were six years old, you and Hu San escaped from the city with the remaining silver and settled down in a village in Huaining City under an assumed name. You practiced talismans diligently every day.
Three months later, you drew the [御] character spell, but the success rate still needs to be improved. However, you gradually felt that you were running out of energy and felt drowsy every day.
At the age of seven, you spent most of your time sleeping and had only a few hours a day to practice spells.
When you were eight years old, you were practicing spells and suddenly felt powerless. You couldn’t hold the pen, your vision went dark, and you lost consciousness. You died.
[End of simulation]
Please select the reward for this simulation:
1. Memories from when I was eight years old.
2. A random item that was on me when I was eight years old.
3. A random skill acquired at age eight.
4. The realm of cultivation reached at the age of eight.
Ruan Xing chose option three with a gloomy face.
【Congratulations on getting the spell experience of being eight years old. 】
This old man seemed to be sick. He wouldn't let her go even after she ran away. She knew how she would die this time. It was a curse in the Ghost Records of the Netherworld, using her birth date and the blood of her closest relatives as the guide. The effect varied from person to person. The stronger the caster of the curse was than the one who was cursed, the more effective it would be.
If the strength is similar, the effect will be slow. If the person who is cursed is much stronger than the one who cast the curse, the person who is cursed may only feel a mosquito bite, while the one who cast the curse will be dying from the backlash.
From this, it seems that she lasted three years before dying. The old man probably had the strength of a great master of internal energy. From the corrosive liquid we could tell before that the old man had never practiced external energy techniques. He should have spent all his time on refining puppets and making medicine.
The old man himself has great internal strength, so it is impossible for anyone in the Red Head Gang who is suppressed by him to reach the level of Hua Jin. At most, they can have perfect external strength and a small level of internal strength.
Unexpectedly, Ruan Xing's strength had surpassed the entire Red Head Gang without him realizing it.
If the pure white boy hadn't been too ghostly, she would have dominated Jiangning City long ago.
Her talismans on the panel are still at the entry-level stage. Probably only after she has learned all the ordinary-level talismans can she reach the basic stage. Unfortunately, the difficulty of the [Protect] talisman is much higher than that of [Break] and [Disease]. Her current success rate is only 20%.
Anyway, there are still more than 100,000 points, enough for more than a thousand times, so let's continue the simulation.
Ruan Xing simulated this route dozens of times before raising the success rate of [Defense] to 90%. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief and feel a little more confident in killing the two old men.
Little did she know that her talisman skills had already gone in another direction. Many monks who were proficient in talismans had a success rate of no more than 50% when drawing low-grade talismans. For beginners in talisman drawing, it was considered talented if they could draw seven or eight talismans successfully out of a hundred. It was also common to only produce one talisman out of a hundred pieces of yellow paper. It was just that she had never seen a serious monk yet, so she did not know this common sense.
Ruan Xing dipped the pen in his hand into the blood ink in the bowl, spread out the yellow paper, and drew the character "破" in one go.
Good, the first one was successful, a good sign.
I had usually only practiced in simulators, but this was the first time I drew a talisman in reality.
She worked hard and drew talismans on the remaining two pieces of yellow paper. Only a dozen of the two hundred sheets of yellow paper were wasted. In the end, there were 183 talismans, 135 of which were [Break] and 48 were [Disease].
The fear comes from insufficient firepower. She can't be like the old man, firing one at a time.
The next step was the deerskin. Ruan Xing rested for a quarter of an hour to recover his energy before concentrating on carving talisman patterns on the deerskin.
[Break] and [Sickness] only need to be made into talisman paper and activated with true Qi when used. [Control] is different. It needs to be painted on protective gear and even includes some aspects of refining. When refining robes in the future, [Control] also needs to be engraved on them. This is the most basic refining technique.
Unfortunately, Ruan Xing didn't have any spiritual materials in his hands, so he could only use wild animal fur instead.
Ruan Xing used wild boar blood to draw the complex and mysterious patterns, stroke by stroke. The bright colors became dull patterns after drying, and appeared on the deerskin in a seemingly irregular shape.
The last stroke was completed, and the whole deerskin still looked inconspicuous, but Ruan Xing knew that if he wore this deerskin, it would not only be invulnerable to swords and guns, but it could also resist ordinary internal energy. Even the [Break] character could be blocked once to save the owner's life.
Although the talisman is an ordinary item, it is still a product of the world of immortal cultivation. No matter how powerful the true qi is, it is just a mortal's skill.
There is a world of difference between immortals and mortals, but only one word difference.
It just doesn't fit well... Ruan Xing sighed. She wanted it too hastily. She should have made the deerskin into leather armor before drawing the talisman. However, custom-making leather armor now would be time-consuming and would attract attention. She didn't have much time, so she would just make do with it for now.
Moreover, what is very strange is that there is no such standard thing as military leather armor in this world. People here have never even heard of military service. In the entire Jiangning City with a population of tens of thousands, there is only an armed force of three to five hundred people from the Patrol Security Bureau.
Perhaps we can also count the thousands of ordinary gang members of the Red Head Gang whose skills vary widely?
If it was because of the physical training method, then even if the external strength was perfect, it would not be possible to face the sharp weapons of swords and guns head-on! Unless the internal strength was perfect and there was true qi to protect the body, it would be possible.
Why are there no military officers and soldiers? Why are there no military standard weapons and armor? Why are there no laws and regulations regarding horses and oxen?
What Ruan Xing found most difficult to understand was why the literacy rate among civilians was nearly 70%. Not to mention Ruan's father, who was a scholar aiming to pass the imperial examination, even Hu San had studied for a few years when he was a child. In feudal dynasties, weren't there people who were afraid that it would be difficult to manage if they enlightened the people?
Ruan Xing didn't know any of these, and could only wait until he had a chance to explore them in the future.
Thanks for the reward that feels like being shot~
(End of this chapter)
