The Great Talisman Market Crash

This was how one cultivated in the Qi Refinement Stage.

At the heart of the practice stood the first star—the Central Palace. Surrounding it, the Eight Directions had to be filled, one star apiece. The precise bearings and placements, however, shifted depending on the method one trained and the constitution one possessed.

The detailed training sequence of the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method that Nain had learned was thoroughly unfamiliar.

"The Central Palace is a cultivator's absolute center. And so the qi one seats there differs completely, according to the path that cultivator walks…"

To put it precisely: in the Severing Longevity Stage, Nain's spiritual power had been ordinary Talisman-Path spiritual power—an energy with a talismanic nature, uniquely suited to drawing talismans and belonging solely to the Great Dao of Talismans.

But after she took up the new method, its nature changed.

What had once been a dull gray Talisman-Path spiritual power was now steeped in the harmonious qi of the Five Elements. Calling it Five-Element Talisman-Path spiritual power was only right. In short, her current state was that of a half-finished hybrid.

Nain quietly recited the method's teachings as they rose unbidden in her mind. Each time she sat in lotus posture and drew a breath, her chest rose and fell. She could feel spiritual qi coursing through her body.

"My spiritual qi carries the nature of pure black cultivation—and among those, it's Gui Water, the yin water of the Ten Heavenly Stems."

Split the five elements into yin and yang, and you arrive at the Heavenly Stems. Yang elements radiate outward; yin elements gather inward. That a talisman—whose essence was delicacy—should possess the spiritual power of Gui Water was only natural.

With Gui Water seated at the center, filling the remaining eight seats with the Heavenly Stems was the Qi Refinement cultivation of the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method.

Nain sat atop a Spirit Gathering Formation powered by the lowest-grade spirit stones. A sudden rush of excitement flushed her cheeks; she cupped them in both hands. Barely an hour had passed since she had set her grand goal and begun training in earnest.

Qi Refinement cultivation is already up 0.7%, and method proficiency jumped by twelve!

From her lower dantian she felt a Spiritual Star radiating an even denser weight of power. Basking in the pleasant warmth, she absently stroked her stomach and kept running the numbers.

One full cycle of the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method took ten minutes: absorbing spiritual qi, refining it through the heart, then condensing the refined spiritual power back into the lower dantian to strengthen the Spiritual Star—over and over. By that measure, proficiency should have risen by six. It hadn't.

"This Method Path thing… isn't it completely broken?"

Nain muttered, giddy. Even now, while she sat doing nothing at all, the Method Path was automatically training the technique. And she herself could train it right alongside it.

"Ah—it went up again."

Amazingly, even while she sat there spacing out, proficiency and cultivation kept climbing. Whether she thought of nothing, ate a meal, or slept, the Method Path never stopped its automatic training.

"Hm."

Nain made up her mind. What she had half-jokingly considered—moving her bed into the training chamber—she would now carry out in earnest. Superhuman physical ability made hoisting a bed effortless.

And so a bed took its place at the very center of Nain's training chamber.

While Nain rolled about on her bed, luxuriating in the bliss of automatic cultivation, the world outside seethed with chaos. The feverish excitement over the recent breakthrough still had not cooled. If anything, it burned hotter than ever.

"That last one—who the hell was that mystery bastard? What method is he training? Which sect? Hell, even which backwater district he's from—is there not a single person who knows? I've got mountains of pills I could slip him right this second…!"

"Even the great sects and megacorps have their eyes bloodshot and still can't pin down a single location? Hmm… What? Causal deduction doesn't work either? Damn it, I already staked my neck to the higher-ups swearing I'd find him!"

"Whoa… I just want to hug him once. What kind of face does a man like that make in bed?"

Every kind of interest the world could muster converged on a single point.

Everyone hunted for the one who had summoned the black lightning tribulation. No one found a trace. It was as if the person had simply evaporated from the face of the earth.

The government stayed silent. Ordinarily they would have trumpeted the birth of a new hero far and wide. Yet a day passed, then a week, and still not a whisper of news emerged.

At that, the Golden Elixir Sects and megacorporations that had been thrashing about so wildly quietly lowered their heads and held their breath. The government was the hand of Heaven. If Heaven itself chose silence, there had to be a reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worthy of it.

In the end, only the ignorant—those who didn't even grasp why the silence existed—kept kicking up a ruckus as they scoured the world for the mysterious youth.

Nain rolled this way and that atop the bed she had set dead center in her training chamber. Before she knew it, a full week had slipped by. Powu fluttered its edges and displayed her status.

Wonder never stopped arriving. That a leadership-grade, Law-grade method like the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method had already reached six stars…

"If I'd trained the ordinary way, I wouldn't even have cleared one star yet."

The proficiency system itself was broken. It was a power that let one simply leap over the entire process of crushing effort, bitter training, and the true enlightenment needed for insight. And did that leave some flaw in Nain? Not in the slightest.

It wasn't that she skipped enlightenment. The instant proficiency filled, every scrap of effort and every act she ought to have performed for the sake of realization—the distilled fruit of vast stretches of time—compressed into a single moment and drove itself into her mind.

She carried within her the memories of endless toil and tempering, all of it.

"Mmm…"

She had collapsed the status window to keep it short. Staring between her account balance and Powu, Nain fretted.

"Five Spirit Roots proficiency is almost maxed, and I'm about to hit Qi Refinement 2-Star."

At present, her worries numbered four.

The growth of her Five Spirit Roots. The breakthrough into Qi Refinement 2-Star. Exploring Geumhae Changcheon. And securing credits, which had nearly run dry.

First: if her Five Spirit Roots matured into Four Spirit Roots, her cultivation speed would leap roughly threefold by raw calculation alone—and factoring in her capital and Powu's power, it could climb even faster. The gulf between Five Spirit Roots and Four was that vast.

Next came the Qi Refinement 2-Star breakthrough. Nain shook her head firmly.

"This one absolutely has to wait until after the Four Spirit Roots breakthrough."

There was no room for compromise. Not only would her capacity for absorbing spiritual power increase—the quality and purity themselves would rise.

"Geumhae Changcheon… what even is this?"

She had stared at it until her eyes burned, flicked Powu a few times, pressed the pitch-black characters, licked them, rubbed them—nothing changed. Geumhae Changcheon. Rendered into plain language, it meant a golden sea and an azure river.

Nain had no idea why it sat in the constitution slot. It didn't seem to belong under talent or method either. Its very existence was a question mark. Still, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was a constitution, so its function would reveal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠itself someday. For now, she moved on.

Which left credits… Nain let out a long, heavy sigh.

"How does a price crash this hard even happen?"

Talisman prices across the board had cratered. The Might Talisman in particular had been gutted—low-grade down to a third of its former price, mid-grade smashed to a sixth.

"Ugh…"

Nain sighed again as she watched the Talisman Gallery thrash itself into a frenzy. Talisman prices had been sliding for some time, and with the new year they had recorded a catastrophic crash. Every Rank-1 talisman craftsman had completely lost their minds.

"Ah."

Nain pressed a hand to her forehead and bowed her head in pure desolation. The future of talismans looked truly bleak.

Flutter…

Beside her, Powu drooped as well, coiling its scroll body into a tight, dejected roll.