Chương 116: Chapter 115: Preparation

About two weeks later Yang was sitting on the meditation platform reading through new talisman inscriptions he had copied from the library in preparation for the competition. As he was going through the inscription he let his mind drift over the past days. His acceptance to the talisman division of the competition had arrived ten days ago, along with the official schedule. Since then almost all of his time had been spent in the cave practicing talismans.

He had barely left except for meals, his morning plant watering, and one visit to the library to copy more inscriptions. He had thought carefully about his situation in those first few days. He was a mere second stage Qi Condensation cultivator entering a competition meant for Foundation Establishment cultivators. While to say it was the difference of a single realm was easy but in reality the gap between cultivators of major realm was enormous.

A fireball talisman made by Yang and a fireball talisman made by a Foundation Establishment cultivator were not equal. The same inscription at a higher cultivation level produced a stronger result. Every event where raw power determined the outcome was an event he lost before it started. So he needed talismans where qi stores mattered less than intelligence, precision, and unconventional thinking. To Yang's believe utility and support talismans were the most equalising category in this situation.

A perfectly made Silencing Talisman from a second stage Qi Condensation cultivator silenced just as completely as one made by a Foundation Establishment cultivator with the only difference being their range and duration. And the same was true for many support inscriptions. Function was function. Either the seal held or it did not. This had pushed him deeper into the support talisman territory Senior Brother Song Yi had taught, and had also led him to a broader realisation.

After reviewing the list of past competition events Senior Sister Wei Wei had assembled for him, he had concluded that neither his offensive nor his defensive talismans were going to win anything on brute force. His offensive talismans were not strong enough to bring down a defense built for Foundation Establishment cultivators and neither were his defensive talismans were not strong enough to absorb a Foundation Establishment level attack without shattering quickly.

Attempting either event with a pure power approach was not viable. What he had instead of power was precision and the ability to think through problems. The only path forward was to understand what he was defending against or attacking well enough to find the specific weakness, the correct counter, the approach that required less power.

To do that he needed to widen his talisman knowledge as much as possible and trust that the Cardwright World's seventeen years of obsessive inscription work had given him something to work with even at his cultivation level. He had also been experimenting. That unfortunately had been going less smoothly. Both talisman inscription and card inscription used runic language, as he had learned it was called.

Runic languages, he had since discovered, were almost as numerous as spoken languages, with the key difference being that they were entirely written and never oral. The two disciplines he knew used different runic languages entirely. Combining them directly had been unsuccessful every time he tried. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. The inscriptions repelled each other the way oil repels water.

But working with the underlying principles rather than the actual scripts had produced something. He could not merge the languages, but he could take the logical architecture of card inscription, the way complex cards layered multiple functions in closed loops, and apply that thinking to talisman design within the talisman's own language. This had led him to a number of new inscription ideas that were not drawn from any existing talisman manual. Some of them had worked. Most of them had not.

The ones that had not worked had produced results ranging from talismans that simply failed, to one incident that had sent a small but very real fire across his desk and onto his hand before he had managed to smother it. He had run to the outer sect hall, which was embarrassing, and Senior Sister Wei Wei had produced a jar of healing ointment that resolved third degree burns in minutes, all the while scolding him for his carelessness.

He had immediately bought a full jar for his own shelf not willing to endure another lecture from Senior Sister Wei Wei. Elder Fu Ming had mentioned the dangers of talisman experimentation in his very first class. Yang had listened to this at the time as a theoretical warning. He understood it as a practical one now. When cards failed, the inscription simply disappeared.

When talismans failed, the qi that had been fed into the inscription had to go somewhere, and somewhere was frequently the nearest available surface, which had a high probability of being the person who had just made the talisman. He had started activating protective talismans on himself before each experimental attempt, which added time and reduced his own stock but had so far kept his hands attached to his body. He was glad Senior Brother Lin Yi had talked sense into him about the Maze.

Preparing for these events was already producing burns and near misses. He did not want to consider what adding more events would have done to him. It was also making him think more carefully about himself and his overconfidence. He was well aware it was a bad habit of his. The Azure Sword Sect trial had been the first serious reminder. He thought of that trial with more fondness now than he had at the time. Although it led to separation from Li San but it had brought him to White Cloud sect.

This competition was shaping up to be another version of the same lesson. Preparation was forcing him to see exactly where his knowledge ended. The Skill Judging preparation had been going better.

He had been working through the hundred or so talisman inscriptions in the participant manual, the sect's talisman peak deliberately including many newly designed inscriptions to reduce the advantage of disciples who had already mastered standard ones, giving everyone an equal chance of demonstrating their skills of inscription rather than their memorisation and experience of known insciptions. Yang had managed to produce a working version of almost half of them so far.

Perfecting them on the other hand was a separate challenge, one, he would address once he could make all of them reliably. The event gave five minutes per talisman with five sheets of talisman paper, five attempts, each failed attempt reducing the points available. He needed to be able to produce a working result on the first or second attempt before he could start thinking about achieving the quality that would score well. For the time being his cultivation had fallen off somewhat in the past two weeks.

He was still practicing morning and evening before sleep but the hours between had been consumed almost entirely by talisman work. The competition was close. After it was over he would return to a better routine but for now he wanted to put forward his best effort in this competition. Yang was well aware that this was his chance to catch the eye of the inner sect elders.

While he is only an outer sect disciple for now but his interactions with his Seniors has taught him enough to know that having an elder as a mentor or better yet a master to guide him would help him immensely in his cultivation journey. He could use all the help he could get specially with his chosen main technique. But today was different, today he was not spending the day away in his cave. It had been over a month since Senior Brother Lin Yi's first visit. Today was the first day of events.

The schedule had been structured so that the crafting competitions came first, attracting a more specialised audience, and the dueling events came last as a finale to end the whole competition at a high note and draw the largest crowds. Yang's talisman events were not for some weeks yet, but Senior Brother Lin Yi had sent him a note a week ago about bringing him to watch the alchemy portion.

He was reading through a particularly interesting inscription for a pressure redistribution talisman when he felt the presence at the cave formation's edge. He set the book aside and went outside. Senior Brother Lin Yi was standing on his flying sword at the formation's boundary, looking rested and in good spirits.

"Junior Brother," he said with a smile.

"Excited for the alchemy competition?"