With the new requirements, the available cultivation manuals were reduced by a lot. He thought about it again and decided to remove transcendent and perfect, only looking for profound.
The lower ranks were too low-level and wouldn't have a strong effect, building a rather weak foundation, while the higher ones were too expensive for this try.
If this clone was a child of heaven, with roots better than his, he might be willing. But as of now, it was rather useless.
You could only read and take the books of the library by using "Inheritance Points", an internal currency of the City's inheritance system. You could earn them by submitting knowledge to the library, converting them to points to be used.
His own cultivation art was a benefit of his contract to become a talisman master for the city. Although he didn't need to take missions any longer, if he sold his talisman, except for private transactions, everything else had to be sold inside the immortal city.
In addition to the cultivation art, there was also a basic talisman inheritance of all ranks, which he had already taken.
This was a basic contract, but it offered generous benefits, basically binding him to the city.
When he saw this, he guessed he was on the internal path track or at least cultivated to become a permanent resident of the city.
Currently, he had nine hundred inheritance points. For every inspiration recorded, he got 200 points, and for the talisman inspiration he gained in the qi refining realm, he got 500 points.
Profound arts costed him 100 points in the first stage, 500 in the second, and 2500 in the third.
He didn't want to look at the cost of transcendent arts – he already knew that the price he paid was extremely low, basically just a small symbolic cost.
Scrolling through the arts, he finally found three fitting manuals:
Tempered Wood Art, through experiencing the harm of fire and wind, the wood was tempered and became extremely resilient, carrying an inexhaustible vitality. An art with the focus on a long health bar, not particularly strong, but a good choice to stay alive.
Nourishing Wood Art, another vitality based art, but this one enhanced recovery and fast growth. The fire is not fire but a sun bosting cultivation, and the wind is vitalising spring wind, spreading a natural aura.
Natural Flame Art, a mild flame art that uses the power of wind and wood to boost fire. If it was just wood it would be long lasting fire, just wind would make it raging fire. But the combination of wood and wind balanced each other, with two natural resources, the flame became natural, suitable for fire alchemy and other arts that burned herbs.
Fu Xian looked at it and was a bit disappointed. Other arts weren't suitable, only these three, and neither helped him. He had a strong wood and water art, so he didn't need neither vitality nor recovery.
The flame art was all that was left, but it was a pity. Maybe others thought it was good, but standing on a high point, Fu Xian knew the deeper details of alchemy.
Fire alchemy was popular among lower sects and families, but the higher sects all prioritised water alchemy. Not to mention that alchemy started through water alchemy, making it the most ideal path, just like fire smithing, earth formations, wind weaving and wood talisman.
He himself followed the orthodox path of wood talisman: the talisman is created from wood materials and becomes a natural element after completition, representing natural forces. These talisman were the best when used to cast spells. Other talisman arts were less renown because they didn't have as much applicability as wood talisman.
Fire alchemy produced pills, but they had various issues: pill poison, slow refining, easy developed resistance. Compared to this, water alchemy was a bit slower to produce, but it had no pill poison, was refined (consumed) rather fast and there was basically no resistance, except if you were too low a talent that you had to consume thousands of elixirs to advance.
"Alas, it's fine. This flame is natural and mild, worst case, I'll just use it to heat my tea or something."
He pressed on it and then took out his badge, putting it in a socket on the side. With a low hum sound, he completed the transaction.
A few moments later, a jade slip fell down from the sky, slow and steady, until it was in front of him.
He had signed the contract automatically when he pressed "buy" and put the identity badge into the socket. It was a typical contract of not passing it on. For arts of this level, he could buy qualifications to spread the art, but generally, everyone in the immortal city could at least purchase their own art, so finding a buyer would be difficult, not to mention that it was a waste of inheritance points.
Fu Xian accepted the jade and left the library. Although he wanted to browse more, now wasn't the time.
He walked the path back, a bit fast but still measured.
Once back in the courtyard, he sat in the pavilion as he pressed the jade slip on his forehead.
This time there was no need to take a break… this art was only of profound grade, and only of the first stage.
After a moment, he opened the talisman in his mind. Instantly, the screen appeared in front of him.
He saw that Yiyuan was cultivating diligently in a small room.
Looking through the memories, something he could do at all times, he understood that this was the room he was assigned. As for the results of the family's root testing… there was no one else of his calibre, he was the only talented.
The family wasn't large enough to produce many talents every ten years.
Fu Xian thought about it and soon, he was able to push the knowledge of the art into the talisman. His own knowledge didn't disappear, and there was no punishment.
Essentially, he was just talking to himself in the mirror…
10% of his origin was taken. But now, he wasn't as sad about it, nor did he feel surprised. Based on his calculations in the day, he actually realised that he would regenerate 1% in just about a months time, 30 days.
Considering everything, this was rather low, so he was willing to expend his origin just like that.
As he did so, he saw a small light appear on his talisman, the same light appeared between Yiyuan's brows.
A moment later, it disappeared.
The young boy on the other hand seemed to react strongly.
Somehow, the refined-quality cultivation art he practiced before changed a bit.
Fu Xian, who was looking at it, was shocked.
What he saw wasn't the cultivation art changing out of nowhere – the boy suddenly gained spiritual inspiration!
"What the hell!!!" he exclaimed, nearly jumping from his stool.
Just then, the talisman explained the situation to him, which finally made him calm down.
This wasn't a spiritual inspiration per se, as an inspiration was a permanent thing. No, it was like a short inspiration, like a degraded version of Enlightenment.
The boy was basically experiencing the feeling of suddenly getting an idea and changing things, but the origin of the idea nor the knowledge needed to even gain an inspiration came purely from Fu Xian.
As he thought about it, the talisman also told him: this knowledge transfer only costed 10% because it was of the qi refining level. It would cost 100% for the foundation building level, 1.000% for the origin light level, and the list went on.
Fortunately, the talisman was able to save as much origin as he had, so technically, he could only needed to save for 100 months...
Right now, he had no extra origin available to test the functions further, so he could only accept the situation as is and contemplate the advantage of this ability.