First like this, then like this, and then... like this...
Chen Yu put down the talisman brush and picked up the god-awful scrawl of a Talisman from the desk, its cinnabar ink still wet.
Great. Another failed Talisman.
"Just as I thought, drawing Talismans isn't that easy."
He crumpled the failed Talisman—worth ten Shattered Spirits in materials—into a ball and tossed it to the floor. It rolled a few times before coming to rest in a corner with its predecessors.
The failures on the floor alone were worth five or six Spirit Stones, all of it now just waste.
No wonder so few Cultivators practiced Talisman Drawing, even though it was considered the easiest of the four immortal arts to begin.
If he kept failing, how long would this take?
'Whatever. I'm rich, anyway.'
Chen Yu held his breath and focused his mind. He drew out a sheet of yellow talisman paper, secured it under a paperweight, ground the cinnabar Spiritual Ink, dipped his brush, and began to draw.
After several more consecutive failures, just as his stack of yellow talisman paper was about to run out, the Talisman under his brush suddenly flared with a Spiritual Light. The Spiritual Ink markings completely merged with the paper, and just like that, a Rock Talisman was complete.
[Talisman Drawing Skill Level 1]
"Huh, I didn't think I'd have a talent for this."
Chen Yu picked up the Rock Talisman, examining it over and over, extremely satisfied.
Although the quality of the finished Talisman was rather average, it was undoubtedly an excellent start.
Chen Yu flipped through the Talisman Book.
The Talisman Book didn't contain many Talisman Maps—only two: the Rock and the Stone Stack. One could be used to defend against swords, clubs, and Daoist Skills, while the other, to put it simply, was for throwing rocks. Unpretentious and straightforward.
The Talisman Drawing Skill was only related to the art of drawing itself; creating different Talismans required practicing their specific Talisman Maps. He currently only knew how to draw the Rock Talisman. As for the Stone Stack Talisman, he would need more practice to master it.
Now that he had learned the Talisman Drawing Skill, Chen Yu eagerly immersed his consciousness back into the Swamp Forest.
In the central copse of trees, the Slime, which had been standing motionless for a long time, blinked its eyes. Its body sprang back, regaining its three-dimensional shape.
He moved past the little ones frolicking around him and came to an open area.
Two Poisonous Sting Bees, gripping a wide leaf, flew down from a tree and landed smoothly in front of Chen Yu.
He had previously considered what he could use to substitute the necessary materials for talisman drawing in Zeyarira.
A talisman brush?
A Poisonous Sting Bee's Poisonous Sting could barely work as a substitute, but the resulting Talismans would be ugly, and the failure rate would be even higher.
Talisman paper?
Theoretically, leaves weren't out of the question, but he would have to process them with Spiritual Power first for them to even stand in for talisman paper.
As for Talisman Ink... he really couldn't think of anything here that could replace it.
Talisman Ink wasn't something you could just whip up with any old ink; it had to be ground from heavenly treasures and earthly materials.
Were there any heavenly treasures and earthly materials in Zeyarira?
He didn't know.
In any case, he'd never seen any.
The Spiritual Qi was so thin here that even cultivation was difficult, let alone the ground sprouting Spirit Medicine.
If he had hands, Chen Yu really wanted to pat his own troubled, gelatinous head.
As expected, drawing Talismans in Zeyarira wasn't as simple as he'd thought. He couldn't even gather the materials.
Since drawing Talismans was out, he could only set the idea aside for now.
Chen Yu bounced and turned, his round eyes gazing into the depths of the swamp.
He had basically ravaged all the monsters here, but most of the creatures with Magic Organs had their talents specced into poison resistance.
He had eaten his fill on the Shunfeng Forest Path, forcefully raising his poison resistance to nearly Level 3.
If he wanted to hunt monsters with different talents, he would probably have to venture deeper into the swamp, challenging the frightening and terrifying presences that lurked in the Darkness.
The depths of the swamp were a domain no one had ever set foot in. He didn't know what was inside; he could only take it one step at a time.
'But then again, powerful also means chewy.'
'There should be a lot of delicious monsters in there...'
Chen Yu assembled a legion of thirty Poisonous Sting Bees, intending to explore the swamp's depths before nightfall.
Just then, however, a Poisonous Sting Bee flew back from outside the territory. It landed on the ground, respectfully lowered its head, and pressed its limbs against his Gel.
"...Forest path... human... death..."
"A human?"
"Have humans forced their way into the swamp?"
A human showing up in the swamp was a big deal.
Huh?
'Wait... it couldn't be that human who survived the tribal conflict, could it?'
'What's he doing here?'
Chen Yu decided to follow the Poisonous Sting Bee to see what was going on.
...
The swamp's forest path.
Yano Belmont practically threw his body through the hanging vines, barely steadying his teetering frame by digging his fingers into an oak tree.
The Petrification Disease was acting up again!
A bone-chilling cold had already seeped into his marrow. It felt like countless tiny, ice-cold stone needles drilling through his veins, relentlessly chiseling away at his flesh and blood.
Every breath pulled at a sharp pain deep in his chest. The right side of his body was completely numb, leaving only a bone-deep coldness and a sense of deathly stiffness.
"Damn it! Goddamn it all to hell!"
Yano squeezed the hoarse curse from between his gritted teeth. The object of his curse was both the Petrification Curse flowing in his veins and, even more so, the Gray Scale Lizardmen who had forced him into this desperate situation.
Those Gray Scale Lizardmen had found him.
And he had become the prey.
The instinct for survival overrode the sluggishness brought on by the Petrification Disease. He had turned and fled, heedless of the path.
Like a cornered rabbit, he had plunged headfirst into the depths of this even more dark and dangerous primeval forest.
Thorns tore at his clothes and skin, and the mud tried time and again to swallow him whole.
Just as he was on the verge of collapse, ready to give up the fight, he stumbled into a peculiar forest path.
This path was unusually "clean."
There were no venomous insects lurking, no beastly eyes spying from the shadows. Even the layer of rotting leaves underfoot seemed much thinner.
Some kind of invisible, taboo power kept the forest's dangerous inhabitants away from this place.
This strange path had become the only lifeline in his desperate flight—at least, it had saved his life for the moment, preventing him from immediately becoming food for a Swamp Demon or the Lizardmen.
However, this temporary respite was ultimately no match for the curse raging within him.
"URGH—!"
A wave of unprecedented pain surged through him!
Yano could no longer hold himself up. His knees buckled, and he fell heavily onto the cold, damp, mossy ground.
He hunched over, curled up like a cooked shrimp, his ragged breaths turning into pained whimpers.
Darkness began to close in from all sides. Agony tore at his nerves, and despair devoured his will.
As his consciousness was about to shatter, he saw a glimmer of warm light in the haze of darkness.
It was the orange glow of a warm fireplace.
It danced and illuminated a dining table covered with a clean linen cloth, the air filled with the aroma of roasting bread and stewed meat.
He felt as if he had returned to that warm home.
Lola's golden hair was tied back, revealing the gentle curve of her profile as she carefully cut a piece of tenderly stewed meat and fed it to their little daughter in her high chair.
His son, meanwhile, excitedly brandished a wooden sword, reenacting the Knight stories his father told. He ran around the table, bumping into a chair and earning a fond, chiding laugh from Lola.
Back then, he would be sitting in the head seat, dressed in simple but neat house clothes, holding a cup of warm mead. As he watched the scene before him, his weary heart would be filled with a profound warmth called "home."
Lola would occasionally glance up at him, her blue eyes brimming with dependence and love...
How... how long ago was that? That warmth, that peace, that feeling of being needed...
"Lola... the children..."
He murmured unconsciously, his cold body seeming to feel a flicker of illusory warmth.
But the warmth vanished in an instant, as if snatched away by a giant, invisible hand! The cold reality and bone-piercing agony dragged him back to the hellish swamp.
The fireplace's glow was extinguished, the aroma of food replaced by the stench of rotting leaves, and his wife's laughter and children's chatter supplanted by a dead silence.
He felt as if he had been utterly abandoned by that warm illusion, left to fall alone into a bottomless, dark abyss.
In the final moment before he was completely consumed by darkness,
Through his blurry vision, the thick, impenetrable fog on the path ahead seemed to squirm.
A shadow silently coalesced and grew taller, its silhouette appearing exceptionally sinister in the distorted fog and mottled light.
It looked... like a twisted humanoid figure, yet it was distinctly not human.
Its surface seemed to constantly writhe and flow, as if covered in a layer of bottomless, dark mud, or like countless tiny maggots swarming frantically.
A few sharp protrusions were faintly visible, like a demon's horns or claws, appearing and disappearing in the fog.
But most terrifying of all were two points of eerie green, utterly cold light at its "head," like the eyes of a predator peering out from the abyss, locked dead on him!
It's a Demon!
Yano's remaining sanity was instantly consumed by fear.
No! He couldn't die! Lola was still waiting for him! The children were still waiting for him!
He had promised to bring money home!
Even if it meant selling his soul to a Demon... even if it meant falling into the deepest hell... as long as... as long as he could see them one more time!
Like a final, fleeting resurgence of life, his will to survive erupted with one last burst of strength.
He exhausted all his strength to reach out toward the terrifying figure in the fog, his hand touching that pitch-black mud as he rasped out a broken plea:
"Save... save me... Whatever... you are... a Demon... is fine... My soul... take my soul! Just save me!"
The eerie green points of light flickered slightly, as if appraising the desperate, half-petrified offering before them.
The viscous, dark silhouette silently "flowed" one step forward.