Li Qingxian picked up the Yellow Talisman Paper. Forming a Pointing Sword with his right index and middle fingers, he infused it with Magical Power and swept it lightly across the sheet. Like a paper cutter, the gesture sliced the paper into strips two fingers wide and three inches long.
Li Qingxian took a deep breath, recited the Paper Purification Curse, and swept his right hand over the Talisman Paper from top to bottom.
RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE...
All twelve sheets of Talisman Paper shot up, separated, and swayed back and forth like little people before leaping into the air to stack themselves neatly together again.
Yu Ping watched, completely captivated.
Li Qingxian picked up the new Wolf-Hair Brush, his brow furrowing slightly.
"Get a bowl of water," Li Qingxian said.
Yu Ping eagerly fetched a bowl of water. Li Qingxian recited the Purifying Pen Curse, grasped the brush, dipped it into the water, swished it left and right three times, and then abruptly lifted it out.
Not a single drop of water clung to the brush.
The once-clear water in the bowl had turned as black as ink.
Yu Ping’s eyes went wide.
Li Qingxian held the brush and thought of his own chicken-scratch handwriting. Shaking his head, he infused Magical Power into the brush and recited the incantation for the Pen Manipulation Skill.
"Brush of Scholar, Ink of Graduate, Paper of Advanced Scholar, Stone of Hanlin. Let the Talisman be the world, the ink be clouds and rain. The Scholar’s hand paints all of life. Haste!"
Li Qingxian formed a Pointing Sword, pointed it at the brush, and silently recited the Spirit Awakening Curse in his mind.
The brush shot upright, leaped into the magical ink, and drank its fill.
A magical breeze swept through, and the twelve sheets of Talisman Paper arranged themselves in a neat row on the tabletop.
The brush hovered in the air, its strokes as fluid as a dragon in flight.
As the brush tip touched down, flamboyant red runes danced across the paper.
In the span of a few breaths, a Spirit Awakening Talisman was complete. The brush immediately re-inked itself and began on the second.
After finishing all twelve talismans, the brush made one final dip into the magical ink before leaping out.
The brush was pristine, without a single speck of ink on its white bristles.
Li Qingxian carefully inspected the twelve talismans, a smile gracing his lips.
These were twelve of the simplest Spirit Awakening Talismans, used to activate Life Materials and cast a Fate Skill.
After folding the talismans, Li Qingxian turned to the cyan cloth. Forming a blade with his fingers and channeling his Magical Power, he cut it into strips of appropriate length.
Just then, Han Anbo walked in.
Yu Ping shot forward, clamping one hand over Han Anbo’s mouth while pointing to his own tightly sealed lips with the other.
Li Qingxian turned to Han Anbo. "It’s okay to talk now. Did you get them?"
Han Anbo nodded and smiled. "Mission accomplished!"
He then took out four cloth pouches of different colors, handed them over, and explained the contents of each.
Li Qingxian opened the pouches to inspect their contents, placing them on the table. He set aside the pouch with earth from a white horse’s hoof and another with ants. He then touched the lock of hair and the clump of mud from a shoe’s sole, using his Magical Power to sense their auras. The Fate Grids matched their respective owners.
"Good," Li Qingxian said with approval.
"Can I talk now?" Yu Ping asked, looking ready to burst.
"Yes," Li Qingxian said, sitting down to one side to recover his Magical Power.
Yu Ping excitedly grabbed Han Anbo’s shoulders. "You’ll never guess what I just saw! It wasn’t one of those cheap Jianghu tricks, no flash of Thunder Fire or parlor magic—it was a real Fate Skill! It was incredible! Li Qingxian just lifted a hand, and the brush started writing and drawing talismans all on its own! The calligraphy was a hundred times better than his own writing..."
Han Anbo shook his head. "If you’d been born a few years earlier, back in the Tiankang Year, you might have seen such things if you were lucky. But after the Qii Country fell into chaos, Fate Masters went into hiding. They’ve become a rare sight."
Yu Ping didn’t care about any of that; he was still buzzing with excitement.
Li Qingxian returned to the table and spread out a cyan cloth. He rolled Madam Wei’s strands of hair into a ball at one end and kneaded the soil from Tao Zhi’s shoe into a clump at the other.
Then, he took the earth from the white horse’s hoof, infused it with Magical Power, and sprinkled it in a line between the hair and the soil.
The grains of earth landed with perfect precision, forming a line that connected the hair to the soil.
Li Qingxian picked up the dead ants and scattered them casually. Each one landed precisely on the line of earth, forming two neat rows.
Holding a Spirit Awakening Talisman between his fingers, Li Qingxian began to softly chant the incantation for the Life Acceleration Skill.
"Life and death, long and short, are all called Fate. Waxing and waning, high and low, are all called Fortune. Myriad Fates are born of the Dao; a thousand Fortunes begin with man. The Dao begets, and man transforms..."
After reciting the first half of the Life Acceleration Skill, Li Qingxian flicked his wrist. The Spirit Awakening Talisman combusted, its ashes fluttering down onto the cyan cloth.
The cyan cloth began to glow. All the dead ants suddenly lurched to their feet, each picking up a grain of the horse-hoof earth with its mandibles. One row began to march toward the hair, the other toward the clump of soil.
Upon reaching its destination, each ant would drop its grain of earth, turn back, pick up a grain from the other side, and carry it across.
The cycle repeated.
Before long, both Madam Wei’s hair and the soil from Tao Zhi’s shoe began to glow faintly.
Li Qingxian resumed his chant, reciting the second half of the Life Acceleration Skill.
As the spell was completed, the cyan cloth rolled up on its own, forming a tight, thin cylinder.
The cloth cylinder twitched faintly, the movement of the ants carrying earth still visible within.
The cylinder rolled across the table, stopping on top of the remaining stack of talismans.
WHOOSH! The talismans papers shot up like little people, pouncing on the cloth cylinder and wrapping it tightly.
In the end, it became a cylinder, wrapped completely and securely in the Yellow Talisman Paper.
As Yu Ping stared in shock, Li Qingxian picked up the small Cyan Snake, which was bound with a piece of straw rope.
"It’s alive?"
"Mmmph!" Yu Ping squeezed his lips shut and managed a muffled affirmation.
Li Qingxian thought for a moment. "Leaving a way out for others isn’t a cardinal rule, but many Fate Masters abide by it," he said. "Fine. I won’t use a live snake for this Life Acceleration."
As he spoke, Li Qingxian flicked his right hand. A surge of Magical Power shot forth, and the snake’s head fell upon the table.
The cut was perfectly clean, not a single drop of blood was spilled.
Both the head and body convulsed wildly for a moment before going limp and still.
Li Qingxian untied the straw rope, placed the snake’s body beside the talisman-wrapped cylinder, and laid them out straight, side by side.
"Life and death, long and short, are all called Fate. Waxing and waning, high and low, are all called Fortune..."
Li Qingxian finished reciting the Life Acceleration Skill once more, then aimed his Pointing Sword at the talisman-wrapped cylinder.
The end of the cylinder containing the clump of soil suddenly reared up, like the head of a live snake.
Yu Ping took half a step back, his eyes glued to the object.
"Go!"
At Li Qingxian’s command, the talisman-wrapped cylinder acted like a living snake, burrowing into the Cyan Snake’s neck wound. It slid entirely inside, stretching the snake’s body taut. Beneath its cyan skin, corrupted blood began to flow.
The Cyan Snake seemed to come alive as its tail bent around and inserted itself into the wound at its neck.
Before their eyes, the wound on the snake’s neck healed, fusing tightly with its tail. Flesh and blood churned and knitted together.
Head and tail joined, forming a circle.
The surface of the snake’s skin rippled like a wave, as if giant ants were marching in an endless circle within its belly.
The white horse leads the way; the snake and ants hasten their doom.
A chill ran down Yu Ping’s spine, but his face was flushed with excitement.
"It is done," Li Qingxian announced.
Yu Ping said in amazement, "You can’t even tell its head from its tail anymore. It looks like it was born this way."
Li Qingxian turned to Han Anbo. "Brother Han, how do my Fate Skills compare to the other Fate Masters you’ve seen?"
Han Anbo considered this for a moment. "I’ve seen the Life Acceleration Skill performed many times. It temporarily amplifies a person’s Fate Grid—making good luck better and bad luck worse. Your technique is a cut below the disciples from the Major Sects, but you far surpass any Independent Cultivator. The entire casting was as smooth as flowing water; you don’t seem like a novice at all. Such refinement would normally require a Magic Cultivator of at least the Middle-Third Grade."
"You’re very knowledgeable, Brother Han," Li Qingxian said.
"It seems the saying is true: ’every talent has its purpose.’ You may be hopeless in other areas of cultivation, but your gift for being a Destiny Cultivator is astounding," Han Anbo sighed.
Yu Ping stared at the Cyan Snake, its body endlessly squirming in a loop. "How do we use this thing?"
"I’ll have to trouble you with this, Brother Han," said Li Qingxian. "Just find a place within a hundred-zhang radius of Wei Yong’s home and bury it. An abandoned building or a place no one frequents would be best."