Chapter 6: Artifact Manipulation Skill, Burning Wind Skill

With a shift of his thoughts, the Golden Character before his eyes faded away. Li Yinsheng looked at Mu Xiaoyu.

She was sitting on the ground, holding the pale yellow talismanic charm that represented one hundred talismanic coins in both hands, giggling foolishly.

"HEHE... HEHEHE..."

This small talismanic charm was already a mountain of delicacies in her eyes. She had begun to imagine what snacks she could buy at the market in the Baoguang Temple—candied hawthorn sticks, liaohua crisps, jade crumb cakes, sweet dew biscuits, crispy qiongye leaves, candied crabapples, perilla drinks, and Deer Cakes...

"Junior Sister." Li Yinsheng's voice brought Mu Xiaoyu back to reality.

"Senior Brother!" Holding the talismanic coins, Mu Xiaoyu looked at Li Yinsheng with a well-behaved expression.

"Do you want some more talismanic coins?" Li Yinsheng asked.

Mu Xiaoyu hesitated for a moment before nodding vigorously. Who wouldn't want to buy more food?

"Then do you want to make a bet with me?" Li Yinsheng said leisurely. "It is currently 1:00 PM, and it is five hours away from the Li Zhi Hour. We will bet on whether you can continuously cultivate without resting before Midnight. If you lose, you have to return those one hundred talismanic coins to me.

"If you win, I'll give you more talismanic coins. However, you must promise me that apart from buying snacks, you won't spend them recklessly. You must ask me before using them."

Mu Xiaoyu's eyes widened, completely ignoring the additional conditions of the bet. She yelled in horror, "I'll die, won't I? I'll definitely die of exhaustion like this! Senior Brother, are you trying to give me talismanic coins or joss paper for the dead?"

"You won't," Li Yinsheng shook his head. "The First Layer of the Qingxuan Scripture is entirely for consolidating the foundation. It only cultivates Primordial Energy and not Magical Power, so you can't be considered a true Cultivator right now; you're still a mortal.

"Since you are a mortal, as long as you have the Nourishing Essence Pill, you can make up for the deficit. Even if you cultivate for six or seven hours a day, you will be fine. When you cultivate to the second layer and have a higher foundation, you actually won't have this convenience."

"But it will still be tiring!" cried Mu Xiaoyu, who had eaten several Nourishing Essence Pills and practiced for several hours yesterday.

"But it won't tire you to death," Li Yinsheng said.

"I won't do it! I already have one hundred talismanic coins, and that's enough to buy a lot of delicious food! I won't bet! Absolutely not!" Mu Xiaoyu shook her head repeatedly.

"Are you sure you won't reconsider? If you win, I'll give you a lot of talismanic coins," Li Yinsheng tempted her patiently.

"What's the point even if you give me more, Senior Brother? I definitely won't be able to last for five hours, and by then I won't even have the one hundred talismanic coins," Mu Xiaoyu said firmly. "No matter how many talismanic coins you offer, I still won't bet!"

"You wouldn't bet even for ten thousand talismanic coins?" Li Yinsheng asked.

"I won't..." Mu Xiaoyu's voice got stuck in her throat. "T-T-T... Ten thousand coins!!!"

She lacked a proper concept of talismanic coins; from a Cultivator's perspective, she didn't understand the true significance of ten thousand talismanic coins. But from her own point of view, she felt as if a towering mountain made of countless snacks and delicacies had risen from the ground before her eyes. Its circumference couldn't be measured in miles, and its height couldn't be fathomed.

Oh, how dizzyingly high it was!

How long would it take to eat all of that?!

"I'll take the bet!" Mu Xiaoyu jumped up from the ground and showed the pale yellow talismanic charm worth one hundred talismanic coins. "Senior Brother, this is my stake!"

"You're agreeing just like that? Won't you think it over carefully?" Li Yinsheng kindly reminded her.

Mu Xiaoyu's eyes were as resolute as someone facing death unflinchingly.

Li Yinsheng smiled faintly and lightly patted the Qiankun Bag at his waist. Dozens of talismanic charms of various colors and sizes flew out, floating in front of him. "This is my stake. These add up to exactly ten thousand talismanic coins."

Mu Xiaoyu put away her own talismanic coins, looked at the dozens of floating talismanic charms in front of Li Yinsheng, and gulped. She resolutely walked toward the clearing where she had just been practicing, leaving behind a simple yet incomparably determined sentence—

"Senior Brother, start the timer."

The moon hung high in the center of the sky, its clear light illuminating everything.

Mu Xiaoyu lay on the ground. Sweat had not only soaked through her hair and her Daoist Robe, but had even spread from her body to drench the surrounding ground. She stared blankly at the moon, her eyelids unblinking.

If it weren't for her flat chest still heaving violently, she would look less like she was exhausted and more like a corpse dying with lingering grievances.

"Congratulations, Junior Sister. You actually managed to persist for five hours. Let's go, I'll take you back to rest." Li Yinsheng nodded in satisfaction. Forming a Technique with one hand, he cast the Artifact Manipulation Skill, and a formless, gentle force lifted Mu Xiaoyu up.

A clear, roughly human-shaped sweat stain was left on the ground.

"Snacks... snacks..." Mu Xiaoyu's unfocused eyes instantly cleared up a bit. "No, wait... it's talismanic coins... Senior Brother... talismanic coins..."

"Don't worry, I won't go back on my word," Li Yinsheng said. "You don't have a Qiankun Bag yet, so I'll put the talismanic coins in your room."

Logically speaking, disciples who had just begun their Cultivation would receive a Qiankun Bag issued by the Daoist Temple. Although the space inside was generally only about the size of an ordinary sack, it was basically enough. However, there was currently only one Qiankun Bag in the entire Xuanzhen Temple, and it hung at Li Yinsheng's waist. He had even bought it himself after earning money, so naturally, there were no spares to give to Mu Xiaoyu.

While carrying Mu Xiaoyu toward her bedroom with the Artifact Manipulation Skill, Li Yinsheng silently made a mental note. When he went to the Baoguang Temple to purchase supplies in a few days, he had to remember to buy a Qiankun Bag for Mu Xiaoyu.

Arriving in front of the bedroom, Li Yinsheng pushed the door open and used the Artifact Manipulation Skill to place Mu Xiaoyu on the rattan lounge chair inside the room.

"Senior Brother..." Lying on the chair, Mu Xiaoyu felt that every part of her body was aching, numb, swollen, painful, and heavy. She didn't want to move at all. "Put me on the bed. I want to sleep... sleep..."

"You're soaked through right now; how can you go to bed? You've only practiced for two days, and you already think you're immune to all illnesses and colds?" Li Yinsheng shook his head. "Lie down for a while to let your sweat dry, then you can sleep on the bed."

With that said, Li Yinsheng looked toward the Iron Wood bathtub in the corner of the room. He formed a Technique with one hand; it was still the Artifact Manipulation Skill.

There happened to be a water well in the courtyard just outside the bedroom. A SPLASHing sound of flowing water echoed from the well, and a foot-thick column of water rose from it. In the air, it looked like a transparent Python, meandering through the doorway and submerging into the bathtub.

Before claiming those thirty years of Cultivation, he absolutely could not have achieved this level when casting the Artifact Manipulation Skill.

"Wow..." Upon seeing this scene, the already feeble Mu Xiaoyu widened her eyes slightly, her tone managing to muster a bit of energy. "Senior Brother, is this the Magic of an Immortal?"

"This is Magic," Li Yinsheng said. "As for Immortals, I've only ever heard of them."

"Can you teach me Magic too, Senior Brother?" Mu Xiaoyu asked.

"You can only learn Magic once you've cultivated the Qingxuan Scripture to the second layer," Li Yinsheng shut her down with a single sentence.

"Oh..."

As they spoke, the bathtub was already seventy or eighty percent full.

Li Yinsheng withdrew the Artifact Manipulation Skill. His hands rapidly formed more than a dozen Seal Techniques, and a spark of fire flew beneath the bathtub. The flame burned slowly without any charcoal, heating the water in the tub.

When the Xuanzhen Temple was at its peak, it had also been wealthy and imposing; even the bathtubs were made of Iron Wood, which was impervious to ordinary flames. But ever since they fell on hard times, almost all the property in the temple had been sold off.

"Although you're exhausted right now, given the profundity of the Qingxuan Scripture, you won't be tired when you wake up tomorrow morning." Li Yinsheng used the Artifact Manipulation Skill to move Mu Xiaoyu onto her bed and covered her with a blanket. "I've started heating the water for you now. When you get up in the morning, you can bathe and change clothes."

"The water will be cold by tomorrow morning..." Mu Xiaoyu nestled in the blanket, her eyelids trembling continuously. The moment she lay on the bed, her exhaustion and soreness instantly transformed into drowsiness.

"I'm slowly heating the water with the Burning Wind Skill," Li Yinsheng said. "Although this skill utilizes a mortal flame, it uses wind as kindling. It can burn without wood and won't extinguish for several hours, so the water temperature should be just right tomorrow morning.

"However, if you sleep in, then it's hard to say.

"But it's impossible for you to sleep in anyway. I will naturally come and wake you up for Cultivation in the morning," he chuckled.

"AHHHH—" Mu Xiaoyu let out a feeble wail and covered her head with the blanket.

The corners of Li Yinsheng's mouth curled up. He looked down at the steadily burning flame beneath the bathtub.

He frequently started fires to boil medicine for his Martial Uncle, so he knew very well that before his Cultivation had improved, it would have been absolutely impossible for him to let a flame burn out of thin air for most of the night like this, even if it was just a mortal flame.