Chương 142: Chapter 141: Skill Judgement Part 2

Song Yi was the teacher for the utility talisman class. He is an inner sect disciple and not an Elder. He was introduced in chapter 104....... Explosive Talisman. Another offensive one. Yang picked up the brush and began inscribing on a fresh talisman sheet. Unlike the Wind Blade Talisman, qi input was critical here.

In explosive talisman the qi stored in the inscription at the moment of activation was set into violent self-collision within the inscription's sealed boundary, building toward detonation through accumulated impact rather than through fire or any inherently destructive qi. Whoever had chosen the talismans for this event clearly knew what they were doing. Both talismans so far had been heavily reliant on precision of inscription and balanced qi distribution rather than raw qi input.

The Explosive Talisman was also one of the more dangerous inscriptions to make. Anything less than a perfect inscription risked severe injury to the crafter. The inscription consisted of a circle formed by six curved strokes arching inward toward a common center, surrounded by a containment ring of thirteen evenly spaced outward strokes. Every curved stroke had to be identical to the others, carrying the same amount of qi. The same applied to the thirteen outward strokes.

If even one deviated slightly, the talisman would fail, and failing an Explosive Talisman was not the same as failing a Wind Blade Talisman. Yang went slow and steady, focusing entirely on the task in front of him. He barely registered the chimes indicating the passage of time. He was deep in concentration when the sound hit him, an explosion from somewhere behind him, followed immediately by a scream, and then a few more explosions in quick succession, and more screaming from the audience section.

He felt movement around him. People rising, moving. He kept his eyes on the talisman. Other people's mistakes were not his concern right now. He kept his strokes even, his qi balanced, and his attention fixed on the inscription. Someone else's mistake was not going to destroy his own attempt. When the final stroke settled and the faint glow moved across the inscription lines, he exhaled slowly. He had not realised how long he had been holding his breath.

He placed the completed talisman in the envelope along with the remaining four sheets and set it aside. Then he leaned back and looked around. A dozen or so seats that had been filled were now empty. Around the same number of participants were still at their desks, each with a bandage on one hand or both, working on their talismans. As he was taking stock, another explosion came from the right side of the hall, followed by two more in rapid succession.

A group of senior disciples moved quickly through the rows, removing those who were unconscious or severely injured. The lightly injured were given medicine and bandages where they sat and left to continue. There was clearly a containment formation active in the hall. One of the larger blasts should have taken out the disciples on either side of the crafter, but the force had been absorbed into a visible bubble around the station before it could spread.

In the audience, he could make out Senior Brother Jiang Zhen Hao watching with a wide smile, clearly delighted by the fireworks. The others looked considerably less entertained. The last chime rang. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Envelopes flew to the elder. Yang reflected that he had cut it close on that one, but looking at the newly empty seats around him, he thought the time had been well spent. A failed attempt cost some points.

But a failure serious enough to send a person to the recovery area cost considerably more. Judging by the number of participants who had not managed to finish their talismans, it was clear that many of them had reached the same conclusion. They waited a bit longer as those still able and willing to participate were brought back after being healed. There were still a few empty seats remaining but a lot less than there were before. The elder sent out the name of the third talisman.

Yang flipped the paper as the chime rang. Binding Talisman. He let out a quiet breath of relief. A difficult inscription, but not one prone to injuring the crafter as a result of small mistakes. The Binding Talisman produced invisible compressed qi ropes that wrapped around a target's limbs and torso, restricting movement for as long as the talisman's qi held. The inscription was built around a central knot pattern surrounded by directional strokes that determined how the ropes would extend and coil.

The knot was the critical element. A clumsy knot produced loose binding that any cultivator with a moment's focus could break through, whereas a perfect knot inscription produced binding that could hold against stronger resistance. Yang worked through the knot pattern carefully, heard the first chime while still in the middle of it, and completed the directional strokes just past the third chime. Done in a little over three minutes. He added the talisman and remaining sheets to the envelope and sat back.

The participants around him were having an easier time with this one. The hall was noticeably calmer than it had been for the previous talisman. The sixth chime rang, the envelopes flew to the elder, and the name of the fourth talisman arrived. Concealment Talisman. A considerably more complex version than the simple aura concealment talisman Senior Brother Song Yi had mentioned in his talisman class. This one rendered the wearer invisible to anyone at the crafter's cultivation realm and below.

The inscription radiated outward from a deliberately empty center. A talisman made by Yang at second-stage Qi Condensation would barely be worth the paper it was inscribed on, but from a higher-realm crafter, it would be extraordinarily useful. Yang could think of a thousand uses for it. He completed it and moved on. Then came the Beast Control Talisman. Then the Water Breathing Talisman.

Then the Sound Message Talisman, similar in concept to the paper crane messages he had received from Senior Brother Lin Yi but more demanding to produce, because this one sent audio rather than written words. Sound seals, they were also called. Making one for personal use was straightforward enough as the talisman crafter embeds the message at the time of creation.

But making an empty sound seal someone else could later use required twice the effort, because the inscription had to be designed to be able to take the message after the talisman completion. This one took Yang longer than the Explosive Talisman had. He barely got it into the envelope before the final chime rang. The eighth talisman was the Spirit Lock Talisman. It temporarily sealed a cultivator's qi circulation, preventing them from drawing on their spiritual energy.

The inscription followed the actual path qi took through the meridians before reaching the dantian, closed-loop patterns blocking each section in sequence. Yang found this one very fascinating. It also raised a question he filed away for later: whether the talisman would affect him once he had fully mastered the Heavenly Diversion, given that his cultivation did not travel the conventional meridian path. He completed it cleanly and moved on. The Deflection Talisman came next.

His favourite of the defensive inscriptions. He had made more of these than anything else, and it showed. He was done well before the fourth chime rang. The final talisman was the Qi Absorbing Barrier. A more advanced form of the qi barrier, designed to absorb incoming qi and convert it back into the talisman's own usable energy, allowing the barrier to partially sustain itself against ongoing attack.

It would only hold as long as the incoming force did not overwhelm its absorption capacity, but against the right attack type, it was considerably more durable than a standard barrier. It was also twice as difficult to inscribe as the Explosive Talisman, and considerably less forgiving of pace. Yang had to push his pace while keeping the quality steady. He finished and stuffed it into the envelope with his remaining sheets just as the envelope took off from the desk. He slumped back in his seat.

The table in front of him was free of any talisman sheets. Just the brushes and the cinnabar ink pot remained. Around him, the faces of other participants ranged from relaxed to devastated. Yang took a few slow breaths. He was bone tired. Just under an hour of competition, and he felt as though he had exerted himself for a full day. The middle and late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators around him had likely found it significantly easier. The talismans had been chosen to test at their realm.

For Yang, pushing his qi into inscriptions designed for a realm above his own had been a substantial effort that had likely taken more from him than it had from them. But he had done it. He had learned and crafted talismans that tested disciples a full major realm above him, and he had kept up. Maybe not in the volume of qi he had put into them. But definitely in the skills. He wanted to put his head down on the desk, but he resisted, though he did let his eyes glaze over as he tried to let his mind rest.

He did not know how long he sat like that before the hosting elder stepped forward again, and the room's attention shifted. Yang straightened.

"Congratulations to all participants who took part in today's event." The elder looked out across the hall.

"Now it is time to share the results of your hard work." He paused.

"In third place, we have..."