Stop grinding, I'm really just a free spirit.

Chapter 8 Invoking the God, [Stomach Star Lord of the Heavenly Granary]!

The three-day period, the second day.

At noon, after fasting and bathing are completed.

Chen Bai, dressed in a black Taoist robe, sat cross-legged in front of the table with a solemn expression, silently reciting the Heart-Cleansing Mantra and forming hand seals.

"The time has come; command the offerings to invite the gods."

He took out three sticks of sandalwood incense, lit them, and placed them in the incense burner in front of the altar.

This incense was made from the leftover scraps from yesterday, mixed with a few spiritual ingredients, giving it a clear, ethereal, and far-reaching fragrance. As a "divine incense," it is exceptionally effective for inviting deities.

A stream of fragrance rose like pillars, soaring straight into the sky.

Before long, the smoke formed a misty sea of ​​clouds on the roof.

Seeing this, Chen Bai placed the pheasant tail feather on the altar, then made a hand seal with his left hand, held a brush in his right hand, circled the incense burner three times, and chanted: "The essence of paper and jade, the divine brush emanates its spirit, born before heaven and earth, I now write in seal script, to manifest its response and spirit."

At the same time, a glimmer of light seemed to emerge from between his brows, connecting with the golden jade altar on the table, on which were engraved various talismans.

"Buzz..."

The pheasant tail feather on the altar rose up without wind, hovering in mid-air, gradually emitting some kind of invisible and mysterious fluctuation.

This is an attempt to communicate with the Stomach Constellation, one of the Twenty-Eight Mansions of the celestial sphere, through sacrificial offerings.

Seeing that the altar had shown an initial response, Chen Bai felt relieved, knowing that the innate spiritual light between his eyebrows was the key to communicating with the power of heaven and earth.

The saying goes, "A single spark of inspiration is a talisman."

Without it, even if the ritual is performed perfectly, there will be no effect whatsoever.

After taking this step, he immediately turned to face west, stomped his foot heavily on the ground, and then walked back and forth with strange steps, sometimes to the left, sometimes backward...

Upon closer inspection, connecting the points where Chen Bai landed reveals that it is clearly the constellation and form of the [Wei Tu Zhi], one of the seven constellations of the Western White Tiger.

This is the method of "stepping the Big Dipper" used to invite the gods. It has been passed down for a long time and is said to have been created by an ancient "Emperor" whose name is now unknown.

"The White Emperor of the West, with his pure gold, bestows upon my divine whiteness, transforming it into golden strife... We respectfully invite [the Celestial Granary Star Lord of the Stomach Constellation]!"

As Chen Bai performed the ritual of sculpting the heavens and earth, he chanted the name of the gods.

Through the connection of the light from the brow, from the highest heavens, the direction corresponding to the [Stomach Constellation]—

【Stomach-shaped Pheasant】.

In the darkness, an extremely faint spiritual response descended.

As soon as Lingying landed, the atmosphere changed abruptly. The faint chirping of insects that had been heard just moments before suddenly fell silent... At the same time, the misty sea of ​​clouds on the rooftop, as if sensing Lingying's presence, naturally conjured up a phantom of smoke.

The phantom stood tall and majestic, with a sharp beak, a tall crown, and long tail feathers. It was clearly the innate divine form of the [Stomach Star Lord]!

The spirit of the [Stomach Star Lord] slowly descended and then settled in the altar. Through the talismans on the altar, it established a brief but mysterious connection with the spiritual light in Chen Bai's brow.

With this connection, Chen Bai felt his eyes were opened when he looked around at the things around him.

As far as the eye could see, wisps of spiritual energy filled the air, which could be roughly divided into five colors: black, red, blue, yellow, and white.

In one corner of the room, a dazzling light shone, impossible to ignore, as if a small cluster of colorful fireworks had gathered there—that was where Chen Bai stored his spiritual materials.

It should be noted that after seeing one's true nature and grasping the innate spiritual light, one needs to further [guide the Qi into the body] to mix one's own essence and external spiritual energy.

Then, one circulates the energy throughout the body, refining it with both gentle and powerful techniques to achieve a wisp of "embryonic breath." This is the cultivation process for becoming an immortal of embryonic breath.

Upon reaching this stage, the primordial spiritual light that has been captured has taken another step forward, transforming into the "spiritual consciousness" of the embryonic breathing immortals.

With the blessing of the [Stomach Pheasant] spiritual response, Chen Bai was able to witness firsthand the mysterious methods by which embryonic breathing cultivators use their "spiritual sense" to introspect themselves and explore the outside world.

"Do the five colors correspond to the five elements?"

"Perhaps this is why most cultivation methods are divided into categories based on elemental attributes." Chen Bai's eyes lit up.

Then, channel your spiritual light, manipulate the authority bestowed by the spirit, and try to mobilize spiritual energy.

However, in the void, among the five distinct colors and different attributes of spiritual energy, only the pure white [Metal] spiritual energy was quite active, while the rest were sluggish and did not react much.

"It seems that there are also restrictions on the zodiac sign for this spiritual response. The Western White Tiger constellation where the [Stomach Earth Pheasant] is located belongs to the [Metal Element]. Therefore, I can only mobilize a small amount of spiritual energy belonging to the [Metal Element]." Chen Bai pondered, gently rubbing his temples.

In just a short while, the altar already showed signs of age and decay. This was clearly due to the fact that mortal objects could not withstand the status of the [Stomach Pheasant] for long. Even with only a wisp of spiritual response, this golden altar would probably turn to ashes in less than one use.

Without further delay, Chen Bai quickly picked up the brush, concentrated his mind, and focused his spiritual energy on the brush.

"Rusting..."

After spreading a rough sheet of yellow talisman paper on the table, he picked up his brush and dipped it in spiritual ink.

"Let's start by practicing with some low-ranking miscellaneous talismans: Cleansing Clothes Talisman, Dust-Sweeping Talisman, Breeze Talisman, Stove Fire Talisman..."

Chen Bai's gaze paused slightly as several methods of drawing miscellaneous symbols appeared in his mind. He randomly selected one, silently studied it for a moment, and only after he had thoroughly memorized its structure and strokes did he finally put pen to paper.

The pen tip licked the yellow talisman, making a soft rustling sound, leaving clear and smooth vermilion ink marks;

The head, the core, the tail of the talisman... are all made in one stroke.

Only at the talisman's aperture could he pause for a moment, carefully channeling his spiritual energy to leave an ingenious structure at the most crucial point of this whisk talisman.

next moment.

A faint white light shone through the talisman.

The whisk talisman is complete!

Chen Bai breathed a sigh of relief, shook the miscellaneous talisman, and placed it aside.

It seems that the art of talisman making is not as difficult as he had imagined. With the help of the old Taoist's experience in drawing talismans, he can now say that he can draw with divine skill!

However, he did not become complacent because of the success of the first talisman. Instead, he roused himself and quickly began drawing the next one.

The second one, the Gentle Breeze Talisman, was successful again!

The third one, the stove fire talisman. Failed.

The fourth one, the Cleansing Clothes Talisman, was a success!

The fifth one, success.

The sixth one.

The seventh one.

......

Time flies like water, and the sun sets in the west in the blink of an eye.

With the old Taoist's years of experience, Chen Bai's afternoon's work was astonishing; he had already used up more than half of the yellow talisman paper. He paused, looking at the thick mountain of talismans on the table, and rubbed his sore wrists.

Chen Bai calculated his afternoon's earnings, then sorted and put away the stack of spirit talismans:

"If all twenty-two unranked miscellaneous talismans can be sold, the income should be more than twenty talisman coins."

Unfortunately, even if he didn't rest for a single day, he could only produce a maximum of eighty miscellaneous talismans in two days, which would only amount to eight spirit shells in total.

If you include the cost of the materials he purchased earlier, his total wealth is still far from five spirit stones.

"These low-level miscellaneous runes are so easy to obtain, why not..."

Chen Bai's eyes lit up slightly, as if he saw a shortcut appear before him.

"The spiritual response at this altar will at most last until midnight today; there probably won't be much time left."

He sighed inwardly, shook his head, and dismissed the immature thought in his mind. For now, he could only focus on the [Qi Gathering Talisman] he had kept hidden away.

The difficulty of obtaining a rank-based talisman is vastly different from that of an unranked "all-purpose talisman".

Moreover, according to the old Taoist's talismanic tradition, even he was only 20% confident in drawing this [Qi Gathering Talisman]. The few times he succeeded were just lucky coincidences.

At the moment, there's hardly any experience to speak of.

This means that Chen Bai needs to rely on himself to complete this highly difficult talisman.

Fortunately, the intense talisman drawing session that afternoon, coupled with the old Taoist's rich experience, had ingrained some basic talisman drawing techniques into his very bones, giving him a very solid foundation.

Although the [Qi Gathering Talisman] is an entry-level spirit talisman, it still shares some similarities with some of the lower-level talismanic drawings.

Chen Bai closed his eyes for a short rest, pondering the brushstrokes of the Qi-gathering talisman in his mind over and over again, but he couldn't bring himself to write it.

The bright moon cast its silvery light through the window, and the constellation "Wei" hanging in the west seemed even brighter.

After an incense stick has burned.

Chen Bai opened his eyes, let out a long breath, and finally made a move.

Holding the talisman brush, the tip moved nimbly and smoothly within the small space. With the help of the innate spiritual light between his brows, his thinking became much clearer at this moment, and countless inspirations burst forth in his mind, colliding and sparking wonderful ideas.

One stroke, and the character's head is placed!

The talisman's core and tail were connected together, and before his eyes, they decomposed into a very complex three-dimensional structure.

With his extremely solid foundation, he wrote with unwavering stability, handling the weight and thickness of his strokes flawlessly, and successfully completed the task without any major mishaps.

Finally, we arrived at the most crucial point of the talisman.

This is the key to the entire talisman, much like setting up the eye of a formation; its difficulty is no less than drawing on a grain of rice.

Chen Bai was focused, his brushstrokes sometimes light and delicate, sometimes bold and unrestrained. Just when he was about to succeed, at a turning point...

"This seems to require [concentrating the mind and spirit, silently preserving the spirit and form]?"

No! Could it be [a mysterious, unseen force, operating alone]...?

A moment's hesitation led to an error.

With a "hum," the talisman flashed briefly before losing its luster and turning into a piece of waste paper.

Failed!

Chen Bai remained calm, simply setting it aside and trying again with a different yellow talisman.

"Buzz!"

"Buzz!"

......

He failed seven or eight times in a row, trying out all sorts of ideas.

Seeing only a small stack of yellow talisman paper left on the table, Chen Bai was not anxious. Instead, he put down his talisman brush and began to analyze the reasons for his previous failures.

As the saying goes, "a fall into a pit, a gain in your wit," after summarizing and absorbing the lessons learned, he finally had a general idea of ​​how to draw this talisman.

Chen Bai's face lit up with joy, and he clapped his hands and laughed: "So that's how it is!"

A spark of inspiration is a talisman.

Compared to miscellaneous talismans, which can be completed in multiple strokes, entry-level talismans cannot be made that way. They require a spark of innate spiritual light to comprehend the divine intent of the talisman and then complete it in a single stroke!

After breaking through this bottleneck, he felt enlightened. No wonder he had failed to succeed despite repeated attempts to follow the old Taoist's teachings.

"To value the spirit over the form—that is the essence!"

Chen Bai's eyes flickered slightly, and having made up his mind, he picked up the talisman brush again with a light touch.

A moment later, a faint white light emerged from the talisman, its ink still wet and its spirit fully revealed.

The Qi-gathering talisman is complete!

......

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