Splitting the Heave

Shang Xia managed to maintain the special state he was in for close to 15 days.

In the days that passed, Shang Xia used 6 pieces of rank four talisman papers to successfully craft 3 rank four talismans.

He managed to achieve a 50 percent success rate, but it was different from the time he did the same in the Shang Clan.

Back in the Shang Clan, Shang Xia managed to achieve such a high success rate because he obtained the high-grade Purple Bamboo Brush. Back then, he crafted two pieces of Golden Sun Inferno Talismans and one Spiritual Protection Substitution Talisman.

Those were talismans he had crafted before.

Now, with the exception of the Spiritual Protection Substitution Talisman, Shang Xia managed to craft one Space Shattering Golden Blade Talisman and another Snow Spike Ice Radiance Talisman. 

What he did was much more difficult!

Finally, when the miraculous feeling disappeared, Shang Xia felt a wave of lethargy wash over him. He needed some time to restore himself to his peak state and he quickly lit up a stick of Idleness Incense.

According to the Talisman Hall, it was a new rank three incense they managed to create. It was useful for restoring and rejuvenating one’s divine perception. The effects might not be as pronounced for someone like Shang Xia who had an exceptional amount of divine perception, but it was useful nonetheless. It allowed him to quickly enter his slumber.

At that moment, all Shang Xia wanted to do was to take a good rest.

Just like that, Shang Xia slept for 2 straight days and nights. By the time he woke, he felt completely refreshed. The divine perception he exhausted while crafting talismans was close to fully recovered.

Shang Xia wouldn’t start crafting talismans immediately. He would only resume after returning to his peak state.

Stopping the restrictions that filled his secret chamber, Shang Xia once again emerged to enjoy the view of the Tongyou Mysterious World.

He circulated his Four Seasons Samsara Art as he walked out and continued his recovery process.

When he had finally completed one cycle of his inner qi circulation, Shang Xia discovered that the time he required was greatly reduced.

One had to know that crafting talismans was the only thing that could come between Shang Xia and his cultivation. He thought that his continuous attempt to craft talismans would affect his cultivation a little, but he didn’t think that he would actually improve slightly!

That caused Shang Xia to think a little deeper into the matter. Could crafting talismans actually cause his cultivation to improve?

Back when he was only a rank three Talisman Master, Shang Xia’s divine sense was extremely strong and he was able to craft rank three talismans without rest for several days. Of course, there was a limit to how much he could do. He required close to 4 days to complete one talisman.

After entering the Martial Extermination Realm, the difficulty of crafting talismans went up and he would require 7 days to craft a single talisman. Thanks to his superior cultivation method, he could reduce his inner qi consumption and complete one talisman in 6 short days. 

Now that he entered the Tongyou Mysterious World, the rich heaven and earth qi allowed him to recover even faster. 

With the multitude of factors added together, Shang Xia could maintain his terrifying pace of crafting one rank four talisman every five days!

That was the absolute peak state he could be in and unless he was able to maintain a 100 percent success rate, he would never be able to keep himself in that perfect state forever. 

That was why Shang Xia would use 6 pieces of rank four talisman paper in 15 days in the first place while failing several times.

After a long 5 day break, Shang Xia finally resumed on the 21st day after he crafted his first Space Shattering Golden Blade Talisman.

Luckily, the break he took wasn’t completely void of good news. The Talisman Hall sent over another batch of liquid rank three ink and even though they weren’t as useful as the hardened batch he used previously, they were still rank three ink nonetheless. Ink that had been left in the liquid form couldn’t be kept as long, but Shang Xia wasn’t exactly in a position to choose the form of ink they gave him currently.

Choosing a new type of talisman called the Mist Concealment Dissipation Talisman, Shang Xia decided to start on it. It was just a fancy concealment talisman used by Martial Extermination Realm experts at the end of the day but was still considered pretty useful. It had the ability to hide one’s divine perception, and Shang Xia wondered if he would be able to detect when someone used the talisman in his detection range. After all, his divine perception used to be stronger than others.

By the time he started the crafting process again, Shang Xia had already forgotten the miraculous state he had been in previously. Luckily, the experience and lessons he had when he succeeded before stayed with him. His abilities to craft talismans continued to improve.

That might be the case, but Shang Xia failed not too long after he started crafting the Mist Concealment Dissipation Talisman. He had been working on it for half a day before he failed. It was true that the longer one worked on the talisman before failing, the greater their loss, but it was a step in the direction of success.

Being able to reach that point alone was evidence that Shang Xia’s ability to craft rank four talismans was already improving.

Unfortunately, his improvement didn’t translate directly into success as he failed twice more when crafting the Mist Concealment Dissipation Talisman. 

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Feeling slightly dispirited by the failure, Shang Xia decided to take a 3 day break.

When he finally restarted the crafting process, Shang Xia didn’t make the same mistake. With 3.5 days of progress, he completed the Mist Concealment Dissipation Talisman.

The institution had a total of 8 rank four talisman inheritances. Shang Xia completed 4 of them so far and managed to use 10 pieces of rank four talisman papers. A total of 33 days had passed since he started crafting rank four talismans, and he felt that it was good progress.

Taking 2 days off to rest, Shang Xia continued to develop his martial arts. During that time, he also received good news from the institution. The Talisman Hall managed to work together to complete a small bottle of rank three Abyssal Ink.

The quality might not be the very best, but Shang Xia felt that it wasn’t time to complain about anything. 

Ever since he started crafting talismans, the Talisman Hall had been pushed to their limits to craft rank three talisman ink. Shang Xia didn’t dare to waste any time as he started to craft the rank four Abyssal Void Shattering Talisman. 

This time, his luck wasn’t too bad. He wasted 2 pieces of rank four talisman paper before succeeding on his third attempt. This time, the talisman papers he used weren’t rank four Abyssal Talisman Paper and even though he succeeded, Shang Xia felt that the success rate was slightly affected.

It was a shame he couldn’t do much about it.

…

The sixth talisman was somewhat of a special case compared to the previous ones. It was called the Thousand Mechanism Extermination Guidance Talisman and it wasn’t exactly powerful.

Instead, it was used to extract extermination qi from chaotic heaven and earth qi so that cultivators could refine them easily.

After extracting the chaotic extermination qi from wherever it was, it would still need to undergo several layers of refinement and purification. As such, the Thousand Mechanism Extermination Guidance Talisman wasn’t really useful for Martial Extermination Realm experts.

Shang Xia was taken aback by the utility of the Thousand Mechanism Extermination Guidance Talisman, but he wasn’t exactly too surprised that the institution actually had a talisman like that.

He thought back to the windy tunnel back in the battlefield between the two worlds where he obtained the Spirit of Wind previously and realized that using the talisman there would bring about impressive results as all the extermination qi in the air were wind attributed anyway.

It seemed as though he was even luckier when crafting the Thousand Mechanism Extermination Guidance Talisman. He succeeded on his second attempt. 

Even though he successfully crafted it, he had no idea how effective it would be when extracting extermination qi. He didn’t know how long the effects of the talisman would last either. 

Without a reason or a need to test out the talisman, Shang Xia could only leave it to anyone else who wished to play with the Thousand Mechanism Extermination Guidance Talisman.

With 6 of the 8 rank four talismans recorded in the institution, Shang Xia was only left with the Needle Extermination Light Talisman and the Divine Restraint Talisman.

He left the two of them to the end as he felt that those 2 talismans would be the most difficult to craft. 

The Needle Extermination Light Talisman possessed the properties of extreme poison and a sky full of light needles would appear after the talisman was used. It could shatter a cultivator’s extermination origin defense and it would definitely catch one’s opponent by surprise.

Moreover, one would need to use their extermination qi to maintain the effect of the talisman. After piercing into their target, the poison needles wouldn’t disappear. Instead, the poison would fuse into the target’s blood and affect the heart. During the entire process, the user has to maintain those poison needles no matter what. Otherwise, a backlash might occur and cause the user to lose control over their inner qi and experience cultivation deviation.

Crafting the talisman itself wasn’t free from harm either. If they failed, one would have to ensure that the poison light needles that appeared wouldn’t harm themselves!

During the crafting process, Shang Xia became exceptionally serious. He could usually complete a rank four talisman in a little under 4 days, but he used 6 long days in order to craft the Needle Extermination Light Talisman. 

Because he failed 3 times before successfully crafting a Needle Extermination Light Talisman, he used close to 20 days before he was done.

The Needle Extermination Light Talisman was the talisman that wasted the most rank four talisman papers so far and Shang Xia decided to take a long 5 day break after he was done. Ensuring he was in his optimal state, he finally decided to craft the Divine Restraint Talisman. 

The moment he started, he realized that the Divine Restraint Talisman was definitely the most difficult rank four talisman he ever attempted to craft.