Talisman Paper Inheritance

Zhou Ping channeled his Spirit Qi into the jade token, causing it to gleam with a faint white light. This subtle glow would allow the Immortals' Directorate, thousands of li away, to sense the activation.

He then began to scan the exchange list within the token, hoping to find suitable techniques and inheritances for his clan.

However, after reading through it several times from top to bottom, his heart grew increasingly cold. Highly sought-after cultivation arts like alchemy, artifact crafting, talisman making, and formations were exorbitantly expensive. Even a fragmented first-tier inheritance cost several hundred Spirit Stones, to say nothing of the terrifying prices required for complete ones.

The astronomical cost forced Zhou Ping to shrink back. He could only settle for the next best thing and continuously lower his expectations.

Meanwhile, hundreds of li away in Zhaoping Commandery City, Zhang Ting and Li Qing arrived looking thoroughly disheveled and travel-worn.

They had gone to Fuyang County to collect tributes, but on their return journey, they were ambushed by three Qi Condensation Demonic Cultivators. One of them practiced the blood path and possessed terrifying offensive capabilities.

Had they not carried a powerful Dharma Treasure granted by the Immortals' Directorate, which allowed them to forcefully slay two of the fiends, they might have truly met their end in an insignificant ditch. It was only upon stepping into Zhaoping Commandery City that Zhang Ting finally felt secure, letting out a long breath of turbid air.

"Master Zhang, how about we go grab a bite together?" Li Qing asked, his tone relaxed.

Zhang Ting waved his hand. "No, this old Daoist must first return to the Directorate to report."

Li Qing did not press further. After saying their goodbyes, he headed toward a restaurant. Zhang Ting watched Li Qing's retreating figure, a hint of envy rising in his eyes. How wonderful would it be if his own clan could produce another Qi Condensation cultivator?

Years ago, he had only broken through to Qi Condensation because of the grace of the Immortals' Directorate. The price for that aid was serving them for eighty years!

Although the Immortals' Directorate did not restrict his personal freedom, traveling across the region to collect tributes from various immortal clans involved countless tedious chores. This left him with no time to sit in meditation and oversee his own home. As a result, even though the Zhang clan was considered an immortal clan, they were little different from ordinary wealthy mortal families.

Because there was no Qi Condensation cultivator holding the fort at home, Zhang Ting dared not ask the imperial court for a protective formation on credit, fearing it would bring disaster upon his clan.

Without a clan-protecting formation to gather the surrounding Spiritual Qi, they could not plant spiritual rice, nor could they develop any foundation related to cultivation.

Although the Zhang clan had been established over thirty years earlier than the Zhou clan, they still primarily relied on trading mundane goods and remained constrained by the mortal realm. How could he not feel a sense of sorrow?

Even now, the younger generation of the Zhang clan had only produced two Qi Initiation cultivators, both of whom possessed abysmal aptitude and had no hope of reaching Qi Condensation. Zhang Ting no longer expected his descendants to achieve greatness; as long as they could guard their ancestral home, it would suffice.

But Li Qing was different. He hailed from the Li clan, a prominent cultivation clan in Zhaoping Commandery.

The Li clan sought a firm foothold in the imperial court, so they had placed Li Qing as a pawn within the Immortals' Directorate. Aside from Li Qing, the Li clan boasted several other Qi Condensation cultivators, dozens of Qi Initiation disciples, and over ten thousand clan members. Their strength was formidable enough to deter any covetous schemes from petty villains.

Li Qing might appear to be his deputy, but with the Li clan backing him, Zhang Ting had to treat him with utmost politeness.

Zhang Ting let out a long sigh and walked toward the Immortals' Directorate branch. However, just as he handed over the collected tributes, he received another order.

"The Baixi Zhou clan... why are they so early this year?" Zhang Ting muttered to himself.

He naturally remembered the Zhou clan. In fact, he and Zhou Ping were in-laws.

Of course, the Zhang clan had marriage ties with many immortal clans. Given his own clan's weakness, he naturally found ways to befriend various cultivation forces. If disaster struck in the future, these connections might save his family's lives.

But it was only the ninth month. By all logic, it should be another two months before the Zhou clan's tribute was due. Had something happened?

Zhang Ting did not overthink it. He sought out Li Qing, and the two steered a cloud boat toward Qingshui County.

After several days of careful deliberation, Zhou Ping finally selected a hundred arts inheritance: the crafting of talisman paper.

Although making talisman paper was technically a sub-branch of talisman creation, it could be entirely separated into an independent craft. In a true talisman inheritance, the most precious aspect was the method of drawing the runes, not the grueling labor of manufacturing the paper itself.

Learning how to draw talismans meant raking in gold and earning wealth while sitting comfortably. Manufacturing talisman paper, however, was entirely different-it required toiling endlessly day and night only to earn a meager sum of blood-and-sweat money.

Zhou Ping had practical reasons for choosing this path.

The raw materials for making talisman paper were spiritual rice stalks and ordinary vegetation containing faint traces of Spiritual Qi. The Zhou clan possessed an abundance of these. Although the plants on the mountain were currently stuck between mortal and spiritual grades, they could still serve as raw materials; it simply meant the final quality would be slightly lower.

Even the stalks left over from harvesting spiritual rice in previous years had been stored in a dry warehouse by Zhou Ping. They were spiritual items, after all, and he figured they might prove useful one day.

The reason he had never attempted papermaking before was due to one massive difference between it and mortal papermaking: the Spirit-Fixing Secret Art. Only by using this special technique to lock in and preserve the internal Spiritual Qi could the final product be considered qualified talisman paper.

If they used mortal papermaking methods, the result would be nothing more than ordinary paper.

Even so, the vast majority of the manufacturing process could be handled by mortals. If the Spirit-Fixing Secret Art did not strictly require a cultivator to activate it, this craft would have long been stripped of its status among the cultivation arts and reduced to a purely mortal industry.

Yet, even for such a crude and low-tier craft, the Directorate demanded a full forty merits, causing Zhou Ping to gasp at the price.

However, he also knew this was the most suitable choice for their current circumstances.

He had also taken a liking to two techniques: the Wind Evasion Art and the Wind Astral Art. Since his clan cultivated Mountain Clear Qi, driving wind-element techniques would naturally grant them a third more power.

With one offensive technique and one life-saving method, their clan's cultivators would have some means of self-preservation when traveling abroad.

However, these two techniques together cost twenty-one merits. Added to the talisman paper inheritance, the total reached sixty-one merits.

He couldn't help but feel anxious and immediately ordered his sons to exchange more mortal goods for gold.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye. A cloud boat, one zhang in length, descended over Baixi Mountain, causing the great formation's barrier to surface and ripple with a slight tremor.

The cloud boat was easily spotted by the mortals of Zhou Family Town, striking fear and trepidation into their hearts while further deepening their reverence for the Zhou clan.

"Fellow Daoist Zhang, Fellow Daoist Li. It has been a long time."

Zhou Ping opened the barrier and stepped forward to greet the two men, with Zhou Xuanya following closely behind.

As for the Gold Vine Pond at the mountain's peak, Zhou Ping had long since mobilized the formation's power to conceal it. The two young children, Zhou Chengyuan and Zhou Qianling, were also hidden deep within the inner courtyards. Since they had not yet begun cultivating, as long as these two guests did not lay eyes on them, they would notice nothing.

When Zhang Ting stepped off the boat, he looked at the flowers and trees planted across the four peaks. Some of them had already begun transforming into Spirit Grass. He immediately sighed with emotion, "Fellow Daoist Zhou, you have managed your dao ashram truly well."

His eyes were filled with deep envy. How wonderful it would be if his own clan's estate looked like this.

Li Qing showed little reaction; after all, this was nothing compared to the prosperity of his Li clan. Being naturally reserved, he displayed no hint of disdain either, simply trailing behind Zhang Ting like a silent, burly guard.

"You flatter me, you flatter me. I merely planted them at random; it is nothing worth mentioning,"

Zhou Ping waved his hand, though a brilliant smile blossomed on his face.

Zhang Ting also noticed Zhou Xuanya standing behind Zhou Ping. The young man stood tall and straight, radiating a sharp, heroic aura like a unsheathed sword.

This made him even more envious of Zhou Ping's incredible luck. Out of his three children, two were already cultivators.

However, upon realizing that not a single one of the Zhou clan's dozen or so third-generation children possessed any cultivation aptitude, his state of mind balanced out considerably.

"Fellow Daoist, you are so much earlier this year. Has something happened?" Zhang Ting asked. Since they were in-laws with no conflicting interests, he naturally did not wish to see misfortune befall them.

Zhou Ping smiled somewhat awkwardly. "Haha, well, we planted many fruit trees on the mountain. I was afraid that if we waited two months, the fruits would rot on the branches. So, I figured I'd hand over our tribute early and use them to offset a portion of it."

Zhang Ting understood perfectly. It was common for immortal clans to use spiritual fruits as collateral; the Pingyun Huang Clan, for instance, always used pine nuts to offset their tribute.

The world was vast and full of oddities. He had even seen utterly repulsive collateral before.

There was a Gu-cultivating clan to the north whose unique rearing methods had a ten percent chance of mutating ordinary bugs into Gu insects. A bizarre genius from that clan had cultivated several maggot Gu and actually used them to pay their tribute, which nearly disgusted him to death.

Soon after, Zhou Ping led the two men into the warehouse.

Zhou Ping smiled apologetically. "I must trouble you, Fellow Daoist, to calculate the value of all the goods here. I'd like to convert the excess into merits, as I plan to exchange for a few techniques."

Zhang Ting felt a pang of melancholy. It had only been a few years since the Zhou clan established itself, yet they already had spare funds to exchange for techniques, while his own family was still struggling in the mortal mire.

Nevertheless, he reined in his emotions and asked, "May I ask which techniques Fellow Daoist wishes to obtain?"

He asked this because he wanted to offer a favor.

After all, aside from spiritual rice, which had a strictly fixed conversion rate, the value of the other collateral items fell within a flexible range. If the techniques Zhou Ping wanted were expensive, he could appraise the miscellaneous goods at a higher value.

This was a common way to utilize the Directorate's flexible boundaries to build personal connections.

Zhou Ping paused, catching Zhang Ting's drift, and slowly replied, "I want to exchange for the Wind Evasion Art, the Wind Astral Art, and the hundred arts inheritance for talisman paper."

Zhang Ting fell silent. Those three items combined cost exactly sixty-one merits. This was going to be difficult.

Turning to Li Qing, he said, "Go weigh the spiritual rice. I will appraise the price of these miscellaneous goods."

Li Qing remained silent and walked toward the small mountain of spiritual rice. Though taciturn, he was no fool; he knew exactly what Zhang Ting was planning. Since he wasn't a strict imperial official anyway, there was no need to offend anyone. Turning a blind eye was the sensible course.

Astonishingly, he pulled out a funnel, squatted down, and began weighing the grain at an incredibly leisurely pace. The other three shared a tacit understanding.

Zhang Ting stepped up to the pile of miscellaneous items. There were Spirit Grasses, spiritual fruits, and materials harvested from the Demon Beasts the Zhou clan had slain over the past three years. Looking at the severed remains of those creatures, he couldn't help but feel a surge of admiration.

Over the past three years, several immortal clans had fallen into ruin and been entirely wiped out because Demon Beasts ran rampant within their territories, leading to the unexpected deaths of their Qi Condensation cultivators.

This Zhou clan was actually quite capable to have slain so many beasts.

He carefully picked up a sharp fang, inspecting it with a critical eye. "This tusk is sharp as a blade and even contains corpse poison, but in the end, it belongs to an unranked Demon Beast. Combined with this claw, I'll count it as half a Spirit Stone."

Off to the side, joy surfaced on Zhou Ping's face. Normally, it took four or five such beast parts combined to be worth a single Spirit Stone. Zhang Ting had bumped up the appraisal by more than ten percent!

"And this piece of Yin cloth... it seems to have been corroded by a ghost. Although it's four chi long, it hasn't been steeped in Yin energy for long enough. It's worth one Spirit Stone at most."

"This bone isn't great either. Not worth much. I'll bundle it with this pile for half a piece."

"This stalk of Blood Essence Ganoderma is quite nice. Combined with these spiritual fruits, I'll count it as one Spirit Stone for you."

Zhang Ting continued his evaluation, ensuring the value of each item was appraised slightly higher than its true worth, yet still strictly within acceptable boundaries.

Even so, all the miscellaneous goods combined only amounted to thirteen Spirit Stones. In the end, the Mountain Clear Qi that Zhou Ping brought out accounted for the bulk of the value. He produced a full twelve bottles, equivalent to twelve Spirit Stones.

This was something Zhou Ping had rigorously saved from his daily cultivation. Since he cultivated Mountain Clear Qi, he consumed a massive amount of it.

But the hills surrounding the Zhou clan were limited. Even if all their cultivators practiced the Qi-Gathering Method, they could only collect twenty wisps of Mountain Clear Qi each year. To obtain more, they would have to risk venturing deep into Darong Mountain.

Naturally, all this Mountain Clear Qi was supplied for Zhou Ping's cultivation. But every time Zhou Ping cultivated, he would manually draw in and gather the ambient Qi himself. Even though the efficiency was low, it allowed him to save a portion of the refined bottles. That was how he had accumulated these twelve bottles.

Watching his father bring out the Mountain Clear Qi, Zhou Xuanya stared blankly. His eyes instantly reddened, and a wave of bitter sorrow washed over his heart.

On the other side, Li Qing finished weighing the spiritual rice.

"Fellow Daoist Zhou, it comes out to exactly five thousand, two hundred and three jin. I have set aside the extra three jin over there. Subtracting the required three thousand, nine hundred jin, that leaves fourteen merits."

Zhou Ping nodded. He knew exactly how much spiritual rice they had harvested.

Zhang Ting hesitated before speaking. "That brings the total to thirty-nine merits. We are still quite short. Does Fellow Daoist have any other items to offer as collateral?"

Zhou Ping immediately asked, "May I ask if gold can be used as collateral?"

Zhang Ting and Li Qing exchanged a glance. Although there was an unspoken rule that only spiritual items could be offered as tribute, there was genuinely no explicit law forbidding gold. Especially since the Zhou clan had already fulfilled their spiritual rice quota and merely wanted to exchange the surplus for merits, it was hard to refuse outright.

Watching the shift in their expressions, Zhou Ping began to calculate inwardly. Should he just settle for exchanging the two techniques today?

Zhang Ting pondered for a moment, then gritted his teeth. "Fellow Daoist, I will help you process this exchange just this once."

As a veteran of the Immortals' Directorate, he might not have grand achievements, but he had put in years of hard labor. At worst, he would endure a harsh reprimand from his superiors.

He wanted to place a bet on the Zhou clan. While he couldn't predict their ultimate future, he could see that their cultivators were not cold-blooded, heartless people.

Enduring a scolding to secure a faint sliver of hope for his own clan's future... he didn't know if it was truly worth it, but he chose to do it.

Hearing this, Zhou Ping solemnly bowed deeply to Zhang Ting. "The Zhou clan will never forget Fellow Daoist's immense kindness."

If they couldn't make the exchange today, they would have to wait another three years until the next tribute collection.

Now that the surrounding Demon Beasts had been almost entirely purged, the only way to scrape together over twenty merits would be to mortgage an entire year's worth of Mountain Clear Qi.

But how could he ever feel at ease letting his son carry such vast wealth on a perilous journey to the commandery city? If wind of it leaked, it would likely invite a fatal disaster.

Under these circumstances, waiting three years to exchange was the safest route.

For Zhang Ting to take such a risk now-how could he not be moved?

Zhang Ting said nothing, merely giving a slight nod in response.

Zhou Minghu then carried over a large chest containing three hundred and thirty-two taels of gold. The extra few dozen taels were only scraped together after Zhou Changhe racked his brains, pulling resources from every corner and nearly bankrupting the Li Clan Merchant Company in the process.

Zhang Ting spoke calmly. "Fellow Daoist, I can only exchange this at a rate of fifteen to one. Do you agree?"

Although this practice wasn't explicitly forbidden on paper, it was highly discouraged in reality.

If everyone could freely exchange gold for merits and Spirit Stones, the immortal clans would ruthlessly bleed the mortals dry of their wealth. For the imperial court, this was a massive taboo.

By processing this exchange now, he had to set a harsh conversion rate to justify it in his reports.

"Many thanks, Fellow Daoist," Zhou Ping bowed slightly.

Zhang Ting said no more. He swept all the gold into his Storage Bag, logging it as the remaining twenty-two points of merit.

Just before leaving, Zhang Ting spoke with strict solemnity. "Fellow Daoist, remember well. The only things you handed over to me today were spiritual items."

If news of this leaked, the fallout would be immense. Even if the penalty were minimized, the Zhou clan would at least have to pay double as compensation.

Zhou Ping bowed deeply. "This Zhou naturally understands. Our lips are strictly sealed."

Zhang Ting then retrieved three scrolls from his Storage Bag and handed them to Zhou Ping. These scrolls all bore restrictive seals laid down by experts from the Immortals' Directorate. Only by sensing the correct change in the jade token could the seals be unlocked.

He turned to glance at Li Qing. Today's matter was a piece of leverage he was intentionally handing to the man. Since the Li clan wanted to dip their fingers into the local branch of the Directorate, it would inevitably stir up undercurrents. By offering up this leverage now, Zhang Ting was clearly declaring his desire to stay out of their political games.

Down below, Zhou Ping watched the cloud boat slowly disappear into the sky, a chaotic mix of emotions swirling in his heart.

The warehouse that had just been brimming was now entirely empty. All the accumulated savings from three years of grueling hardship had vanished in a single morning, exchanged for nothing more than the thin scrolls in his hands.

The imperial court's ability to harvest the wealth of immortal clans was truly as easy as flipping a hand!

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