Chapter 21: The Difficulty of Fu Seal Technique

  Liuyunfang is located in the western part of the city.

  This is a continuous cluster of buildings, simple and natural, elegant and dignified. Even some wooden houses are carved with vivid flower patterns, which, if placed in the secular world, would probably only be enjoyed by emperors!

  This is the Flowing Clouds Mansion's rental place. Wang Chen had previously inquired about the rent prices of Flowing Clouds Mansion from the young girl, a single house costs between 300 to 1,000 low-grade spirit stones per month! Looking at the number of houses, if they were all fully occupied by cultivators, the monthly income from just this one item would be several tens of thousands of spirit stones!

  Of course, the expensive house has a more surprising workmanship, and the decoration is more luxurious. The protective array method is also quite remarkable, and even an elementary spirit gathering array is set up!

  He lightly walked into the house, and a young man quickly came forward to greet him. "Immortal Master, are you here to rent the cave? This way, please!"

  The young man's expression was extremely respectful, even a bit flattering, which made Wang Chen slightly stunned. However, he sensed that there was no magical power on the young man's body, and thus understood the situation!

  Even descendants of masters have a high probability of having no spiritual roots, and those in the immortal families can only reluctantly take on roles such as small servants in the mortal world!

  The young man led Wang Chen through a room and came before an old man. The old man sat in a chair, very kind! Wang Chen felt the deep power of the law on the old man's body, and with a flicker of his eyes, he opened his mouth and said: "Fellow Taoist has courtesy!"

  The old man stood up and returned the courtesy, asking directly: "Fellow Taoist, are you here to rent a cave?"

  Wang Chen nodded, the old man didn't waste any words and handed over a jade slip. Wang Chen also didn't hesitate, took the jade slip and placed it on his forehead to read directly!

  "East starts at No. 1, North starts at No. 12, monthly rent is 100 spirit stones, equipped with primary illusion array, primary defense array, primary soul gathering array..."

  "East starts from No. 2, North starts from No. 18, monthly rent is eighty spiritual stones..."

  One by one, the information flashed by, and these unrented houses made Wang Chen's head ache for a moment. However, after a while, Wang Chen looked back and searched for the cheapest ones!

  A cup of tea's work, Wang Chen put down the jade tablet, opened his eyes, and handed it over, "East starting from 98th, North starting from 1st".

  The old man was slightly surprised by the words, "Fellow Taoist, prepare to reserve for several months, three spiritual stones per month!"

  "One month," Wang Chen replied immediately and took out three spirit stones to hand over. The old man put away the spirit stones, recorded for a moment, and then handed over a jade token!

  "This is the control symbol of the house array method. Fellow Taoist, raise the jade symbol and you can pass through. Remember to return the jade symbol after use!"

  Wang Chen thanked him and turned around to leave!

  Half an hour later, Wang Chen finally felt the house he rented before. There was a faint light shield surrounding the cyan wooden house in front of him. Wang Chen raised his jade symbol, and the light shield produced a passage.

  He put away the jade pendant, and Wang Chen entered the house. The chair didn't have any dust on it. The house was divided into two rooms, extremely simple. One room had a pair of tables and chairs and a bed, while the other room only had a tatami mat.

  However, Wang Chen was not dissatisfied at all. After all, Wang Chen was not greedy for enjoyment and even had a tendency to be an ascetic, and although the interior decoration of the house was slightly inferior, the two simple arrays outside were very effective. Warning array, hallucination array! Although they were only primary-level arrays, compared to the rent of three spirit stones per month, it was also quite suitable!

  Warning array, when someone breaks in from the outside, Wang Chen can receive a warning. The illusion array produces a layer of fog, which can isolate sound and avoid external disturbances, allowing for peaceful cultivation. These two arrays were chosen by Wang Chen after careful consideration.

  After tidying up the room and taking out the items from the storage bag, he began to meditate and practice his internal energy. After finishing his meditation, Wang Chen couldn't help but feel that the spiritual energy here was indeed not comparable to anywhere else in the world. He had absorbed two-tenths more spiritual energy than usual during the same amount of time spent meditating. Afterwards, Wang Chen lay down and took a nice long nap!

  The next day, Wang Chen felt refreshed all over his body. He stretched and continued to meditate. Although the increase in magical power from meditation was extremely small, any cultivator who wanted to make further progress would not neglect their daily meditation!

  An hour later, Wang Chen stopped his cultivation and began to think about the direction of his future practice.

  If he continues to meditate at his current speed, Wang Chen will be able to break through to the third layer of Qi training in two years. If there is no bottleneck, the time spent on each additional layer of cultivation will be longer.

  Four years to practice the fourth layer of Qi, five years to practice the fifth layer... Continuing like this, it would take about 40 years to break through to the ninth layer of Qi. This is still not counting the time spent on bottlenecks. If we include that, it's estimated that it would take around a hundred years, by which time one would have already missed the optimal age for building foundations.

  Wanting to build a foundation and then go further, the foundation is generally not higher than forty years old. If it's later, it's almost impossible to form a golden elixir, and you can only stay in the foundation-building period for a lifetime. In fact, eight or nine out of ten cultivators don't even have the opportunity to build a foundation, and they spend their whole lives dying in the Qi-refining period.

  To quickly improve his cultivation, he could only buy elixirs, which required a large amount of spirit stones. To earn spirit stones, he had to learn a cultivation technique. Alchemy, artifact refinement, and array techniques were out of the question due to their high cost, and Wang Chen didn't have the conditions to learn them anyway. The only thing that was feasible for him to learn at this stage was talisman crafting.

  This was also Wang Chen's previous plan. The symbol pen, symbol paper and cinnabar obtained from the female cultivator were all Wang Chen's hopes.

  He took out a palm-sized talisman and placed it on the table, then opened the ceramic jar and dipped his brush into the cinnabar, making sure it was fully saturated before he began to focus his mind.

  After a moment, Wang Chen let out a breath, and the runes that had been thought of thousands of times in his heart were drawn out under the brush. The faint red runes appeared on the talisman paper as the brush moved, and the spiritual energy from the dantian also flowed out, slowly sealing the surrounding spiritual energy onto the talisman paper along with the drawn runes.

  The pen moves like a dragon and snake, flowing freely with abandon.

  "It will be successful, definitely!"

  Wang Chen felt an inexplicable feeling in his heart! It was as if he wasn't controlling the brush, but the brush was moving on its own to where the strokes should be! Finally, with the last stroke of the talisman completed, a burst of spiritual energy suddenly erupted from Wang Chen's body and was absorbed by the talisman on the paper, which quickly stabilized. A pale red fireball talisman had been successfully created!

  Whoa! Wang Chen let out a sigh of relief, and his heart couldn't help but feel a wave of joy! Every great endeavor begins with difficulty, but after the first success, Wang Chen gained confidence, and then began to create a grand plan!

  But ideals are plump and reality is bony!

  The second talisman failed, turning to ashes. The third, the fourth... Wang Chen seemed to see a ghost, trying again and again, failing again and again. Finally, when Wang Chen's spiritual energy was completely depleted, a dozen talismans had been consumed.

  If all the talismans on Wang Chen's body were successful, he could have drawn eight or nine of them. However, the failed talismans consumed less spiritual power, and as a result, twelve sheets of talisman paper were wasted by Wang Chen in just two hours!

  Let's calculate the cost. A dozen talismans for Qi training, one low-grade spirit stone per piece, and a Qi training second-layer talisman can sell for two spirit stones. That means Wang Chen just made a profit with his talisman!

  Even so, Wang Chen still felt the difficulty of the seal.

  Twelve talismans, except for the first one which coincidentally hit the mark, all the others failed. That is to say, a success rate of just one in ten would be enough to earn a low-grade spirit stone.

  Considering the coincidence of the first time, Wang Chen's actual success rate was less than one percent. It wasn't until then that Wang Chen understood that the difficulty of cultivating immortality mentioned in the rumors wasn't exaggerated at all. The average cultivator's talisman crafting level was probably around one successful paper out of a dozen! That is to say, the success rate was around 10%!

  A success rate of about 10% can guarantee a stable profit for scattered repairs, although it is very weak!

  However, most masters still do not choose to make talismans because the success rate is too difficult to improve. Unless they have made tens of millions of times or have a natural talent for making talismans, it's hard to break even!

  After the failure, Wang Chen did not get discouraged! Instead, he calmed down and thought about the reasons for his failure. Among the twelve failures, a few were due to uneven strokes, unstable spiritual power causing the seal to fail. The rest were all due to incorrect spiritual power output, either too fast or too slow, requiring the output of spiritual power to match the speed of the brushstrokes. However, even if the speed of the brushstrokes remained unchanged, the amount of spiritual power required for each small symbol was also different!

  Have to say that Wang Chen is a genius in terms of insight! This guess was quite correct, but even if he knew, Wang Chen couldn't do anything about it.

  There are only three ways to solve this: one is to wait until the cultivation is high enough, the divine consciousness is strong, and the control of the law is relatively superior to the low-level talismans. However, this cultivation must be at least at the foundation-building stage, and the foundation-building cultivators have strong strength and various methods to earn more spirit stones.

  Second, it is the method of cultivating Fuwen masters in the Xianmen school! Practice makes perfect! After continuously supplying talismans for several years, there will generally be a success rate of 30% to 40%! This is the reason why the Xianmen school can distribute talismans on a large scale!

  The third is the unpredictable qualifications. The physique of cultivators varies greatly, and their innate talents are even more diverse. Some people have a premonition for danger, while others have a strong sense of perception for alchemy, making them easily become masters of alchemy. And some people have a special feeling for talismans, their innate talent is to create talismans, with an unusually high success rate!

  Wang Chen is exceptionally intelligent, but none of the above three can be satisfied. There's no way around it, only step-by-step practice will do!

  One talisman paper, two talisman papers.... When Wang Chen's magic was consumed again, Wang Chen still didn't succeed with one!

  "No, the law output is too fast..."

  "No good, my magical power output has slowed down again..."

  "It's still wrong! The front and rear wheel output is not coordinated!"