Tales of Demons and Gods : The Legend of Xiao Ning'Er

Although possessing only a fraction of the explosive might released by scrolls, the talismans that she had invented were far more versatile and practical for use in regular battle scenarios, easier to reproduce in volume, and required far less soul force by the inscriptionist to create. On the downside, the intricacy and precision required in the base shapes, paired with the high complexity of inscriptions used, meant that not many others would be able to craft them successfully.

Although tonight she would use paper, when her cultivation base grew stronger, she would have the capability to inscribe into more solid blocks of wood, which would enable the talismans to be able to be used repeatedly before they broke apart. Paper talismans were like scrolls and could only be used once before disintegrating.

She thought carefully about the exploration to the Ancient Orchid City Ruins that Ziyun and her would be going on in a couple of days, and decided on six different types of talismans to be created which would aid them in any situations they might encounter. It was better to be safe than sorry.

Once again, she took out the thin brush she had used the night before and the vials of beast blood of the two different attributes. Fortunately, the process of creating talismans was far less strenuous than Cloaks of Misdirection. She blocked out the world around her, focusing with needle-like intensity as she continuously channeled her soul force into the beast blood during the inscription process. Every time she completed the final stroke of a talisman, there was an abrupt burst of red light which would shine from it before slowly dimming down and returning to normal.

After a few hours, she had six types of talismans laid out in front of her in piles of 10 pieces for each type. She looked down at them the same way an artist would appreciate a well-crafted piece of work, carefully pondering about their ability to aid Ziyun and herself.

There were two talismans focused on evasion and both were based on wind-attribute inscriptions. She had named the first the Flight Talisman, which was a bit misleading because at silver rank, the user couldn't actually fly. However, the wind power activated would cause the user to be around 80% lighter in body weight for 30 seconds, meaning they could run many times faster without any resistance on the ground, and even run over water, if a person were fast and agile enough.

The next two talismans were intended to boost defensive capability and used lightning-attribute inscriptions. The first was called the Repel Talisman and would charge a piece of armour with a powerful electrical repulsive force for a short amount time, causing any metallic weapon which struck it to be forcefully repelled once.

The second one played on the laws of light to momentarily create an illusion clone after a blinding flash of light, which the enemy would find hard to tell apart from the user's real body until they tried to strike it. This would cause it to dissipate whilst giving an electric shock to the striking enemy. The downside was that this illusion would only last for 10 seconds before disintegrating quickly. It was aptly named the Clone Talisman.

The final two types of talismans were naturally focused on raising offensive battle power, where one used wind-attribute inscriptions and the other utilised lightning-attribute inscriptions. The first would momentary infuse a weapon with such force that if the user threw it, the weapon would fly as far and fast as an arrow shot from a longbow at full power, even if it were a heavy sword or axe. This one was called the Launch Talisman.

The last one she had created was named the Stun Talisman, where the user could hide it in the palm of their hand, and activate it while touching any part of the enemy's body or even weapon. This would send a powerful surge of electricity through them, shocking them into incapacity. However, its effectiveness would depend on the cultivation of the enemy as the stronger they were, the less the effect would be.

Pleased and more confident with the extra trump cards she possessed, she went to sleep with a content smile on her face. At only 1-star bronze rank, she had tools that would enable her to be able to take on silver ranked experts if they were caught by surprise!

.....

The next morning, in a luxurious office situated in the Alchemy Association of Glory City, a beautiful woman sat at her table going through letters that their mailbox had received. Her name was Yang Xin and although she was only 25 years old, she had achieved considerable success at a young age. She was already a gold-ranked demon spiritist and had a formidable business mind, which had resulted in her being appointed as the youngest ever Director of the Alchemy Association.

As she was sifting through the stack of letters, one of them suddenly caught her eye, mysteriously titled 'Regarding Purple Haze Grass's Application on Alchemy'. Intrigued, she opened it and started reading through while muttering some of the sections out loud, "When refining the Soul Assembling Pill and Spiritual Enhancing Pill, by adding a little Purple Haze Grass in, it can increase the effect of the pill by 30%. By combining Purple Haze Grass and five other herbs and taking a herbal bath with them, one could nourish the soul force."

More than sixty uses of Purple Haze Grass were listed. Within that list, almost half of them were extremely valuable. If this were true, the price of the previously useless herb would skyrocket immeasurably!

Yang Xin was filled with scepticism as she realised that someone was trying to use her as a tool to raise the prices of this herb. However, she couldn't help but be curious as to whether there was a chance...just a small chance that it could be true. As an alchemist organisation, they needed to grab any opportunity to obtain more recipes because so many of them were lost in the Age of Darkness. She decided to arrange for the association to start testing its uses.

In Xiao Ning'Er's previous life, this document on the uses of Purple Haze Grass was written by Nie Li, and he had used the same tactic in sending it to the Alchemist Association. She had gotten a hold of it when a few years later, the Alchemist Association had published the paper as part of their promotion and recruitment drive to find more talented alchemists for their thriving organisation. She had held great sentiment towards it because it was one of her very first meaningful interactions with Nie Li, and so had read through it carefully. This was why she could remember it so well now.

In the days to come, there would be an incredible uproar in the alchemist circles and even noble families as they frenziedly looked for this previously inconspicuous herb, only to find that someone had already bought it all up earlier! On top of its incredible implications for alchemy, it also had seemingly miraculous effects on nourishing the skin, which drove the ladies in the nobility crazy to hunt it down.

Xiao Ning'Er progressively released it into the market through indirect channels, utilising the network that Ziyun had access to in the City Lord's Mansion, and in the early days, the price spiked to a few hundred demon spirit coins for one pound of Purple Haze Grass! This would settle all their cultivation resource needs for a decent amount of time as she used the money to purchase the current pills available in the Alchemy Association. Although the pills were of poor quality, they would be more than sufficient until the group reached silver rank.

She also generously gave each of the group a large amount of the herb so that they could prepare the herbal bath each night to nourish their soul force. Everywhere that Xiao Ning'Er and Ziyun went, heads would turn in envy and admiration, as their skin progressively became even more smooth and delicate as a result of their daily herbal baths.

They spent the next few days in this way, rotating the process of martial comprehension with cultivation practice, and then soaking in a herbal bath each night. Their cultivation levels soared rapidly with Du Ze breaking through far into 1-star bronze rank, Ziyun reaching 2-star bronze rank and Xiao Ning'Er incredibly reaching 3-star bronze rank at blinding speed.

The others were all approaching the bottleneck to breakthrough and reach bronze rank, which amazed them because they had only been using their new cultivation techniques for about a week! How fortunate that they weren't stuck in Shen Xiu's class, listening to her prejudiced teaching and rotting away in unproductivity. This was how cultivation should feel!

A surprising thing that happened when they trained in the City Lord's Mansion was that the soldiers and experts began to take notice of this unusually diligent group of 13-year-old children training and cultivating with admirable discipline and passion. During their breaks, some of them even took the initiative to come over to guide them on their martial arts, pointing out their flaws, and even imparting some of the Snow Wind Family's martial arts to them.

As Xiao Ning'Er couldn't effectively split her attention to guide so many others at one time, the group's growth in martial comprehension was greatly accelerated by the kind consideration of these experts. She was immensely grateful and would remember their faces if there were any chance to return the favour once she grew stronger.

She did not realise that in another room adjacent to the training hall, the mysterious grey robed elder, Ye Shuo had been watching them. He had asked these experts to go out of their way to help them. If not, why would they lower themselves to train these weak first-year students? Of course, once they started getting involved, they were astonished at what the children were capable of. Some of them were already stronger than the regular soldiers and guards found in the building, and their martial comprehension was undoubtedly higher than the average soldier!

At first, when Ye Shuo's perception had observed their cultivation practice, he had been speechless for a long while. The aura given off as they cultivated was unlike anything he had ever seen in Glory City, and the progress they made confirmed his conclusion that they were using incredibly high-tier techniques. Where had this group come from all of a sudden? How did they obtain such valuable techniques?

Somehow, his gut feeling told him that it was linked to Xiao Ning'Er but he did not have enough information yet and so he continued to observe patiently. From their personalities and characters, he could tell that they were genuinely good people, so he did not fear that they were planted here by the Dark Guild. He looked forward to seeing their growth for Glory City. It was part of his profession after all to be able to read people accurately.