One Star a Year

Is this spirit insect any good?

I wanted to cry. The real problem was that things were only going to get harder from here. If the 1st Star had taken a year, the 2nd might well take ten — for every wall you broke through, the next one stood that much thicker and more stubborn.

That damned Purple Heart Grass fruit. Over a year had gone by, and this guy was still spouting the same nonsense.

I brushed him off and scrolled on to the other replies, which turned out to be nothing but garbage.

I stripped off my clothes, returned to my true form as a flood dragon, and dove into the pond of my residence. The pitch-black water rinsed the sweat away and sent fresh vigor humming through me.

"Aigoo, whatever. At least I've gotten my foot in the door. If it really doesn't work out, I'll just learn something else."

It wasn't as if I had a lifespan to worry about. Call it a modest triumph that a year of training, with the occasional spirit fruit thrown in, had raised the minor realm of my Demon Art — and if stubbornly refusing to give up on my Purple Haze trust rating counted as a harvest, then a harvest it was!

Even the Dao Bone New Scripture said as much: I had climbed precisely to the 2nd Layer of the Demon Art.

"Hehehe! So it's only one minor realm — I still feel great!"

Maybe it was because the days were gone when my cultivation rose from nothing more than eating spirit fruits and sleeping. This was a result carved out purely by my own effort, and I felt genuinely proud of it. Swimming lazy circles in my chamber's pond, I found body and mood turning crisp and clear in no time. If I drifted off like this, I had a feeling I'd be dead to the world for a week. A heavy, honeyed drowsiness was rolling in.

Maybe it's about time I went back outside.

It had taken longer than I'd planned, but no real harm done — you could even call it time well spent. Floating in the pond, I gazed out at the training yard. One side of it was scorched black from my practice and shattered as though an explosion had torn through it.

At this level, I have to be pretty strong, right?

Honestly, with no one to measure myself against, I couldn't even tell whether I was strong. Either way, I'd built myself some means of protecting this body. Add the Concealment Art BlackWind had taught me on top, and getting by out there on dusk coins should be well within reach.

Just in case, a flight artifact would be nice... and learning one movement art, too. Concealment Art, and what else?

As for flight artifacts, with dusk coins on hand I could buy one outright, so there was no need to craft any — though I'd looked around, and the eastern wing had none to begin with. Movement arts I can train once I'm outside. I had one already picked out: a lightning-attribute movement art called Thunder Origin Giant Step. The name meant, roughly, a stride that bears the origin of thunder in grand measure — in plain terms, walking as vast and bold as a thunderbolt. The art had been conceived by likening a bolt falling from the heavens to a giant's footstep, and it was tuned for someone at the mid-stage of the Demon Art, which was exactly why I'd marked it as my pick. Next to Dharma-Body Dual Cultivation, its difficulty was laughably low. A little running around and it would be mine — nothing whatsoever to worry about there!

Movement art settled. So all that leaves is one thing...

Slosh.

I climbed out of the pond, shook off the water, flopped down in my chamber, and opened Yoseonbang.

As I waited, BlackWind's reply came slower than expected. For a fellow who was always parked in Yoseonbang like a sentry on watch, a late answer meant something out of the ordinary.

"Busy, I suppose."

When he still hadn't appeared after a long wait, waiting any longer seemed pointless. Demon immortals, as a breed, were notorious for dozing off for what felt like a single breath and resurfacing a month later — the forum was crawling with them. Geobuk-geobuk-hae was the worst offender.

Well, anyway.

"Hmm. BlackWind sounded so sure of himself that I got my hopes up... Will he show if I wait a month? Or should I ask someone else?"

Without dusk coins, I couldn't take delivery of any dharma scripture teaching a Demon Art — but if the seller wrote out its essentials for me, there was nothing I couldn't master. The trouble was, the fellow meant to write them out simply would not appear. Honestly.

Killing time on Yoseonbang, I ended up seeing something gruesome entirely by accident.

"Agh!"

It was the newest post at the very top of the board, so I'd seen it before Yoseonbang could even take it down.

The one consolation was that I hadn't been the only victim. Fairy(997.5), too, was apparently a demon immortal raised precious and sheltered, just like me.

"Ha... there goes my sleep. I was going to bed after my gallery crawl..."

Sleep now, and I'd surely dream of that picture.

"...Maybe I'll poke at something else."

BlackWind was a no-show anyway, and since I was wide awake, I got up, took a spirit fruit in hand, and drifted into the crafts chamber.

"Hmm. Dharma artifacts are still beyond me... Alchemy's just meh. Formations look like a headache... That leaves talismans, I suppose."

Talisman crafting — the craft of making talismans. A talisman was by nature held in reserve as a trump card, and so carried power beyond its user's own level. Of course, the maker's skill mattered too. But talisman work was delicate, a craft that demanded reading the heavenly secrets of each passing day, making it every bit as exacting as alchemy or artifact-forging. One stroke, one sheet — a talisman had to be drawn in a single unbroken sweep, which was precisely why a try or two got you nowhere. Such was talisman crafting. Even so, it was favored, for talismans had their merits.

"Convenience."

The value ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for effort was lousy, but in battle they offered a remarkably flexible sort of convenience. And the deeper you dug, the more uses emerged: barriers, traps, assassination, formations, and on and on. What a talisman could do was all but limitless. Of course, learning it was no easy feat...

"Materials aside, wasn't the saying that drawing ten to get one good one meant you'd done well?"

Yellow spirit paper for the base. Demon blood, a spirit brush, and ink besides — quite the array of materials. Not that I had any reason to worry about them.

"I can use my own blood, for one thing."

Human cultivators were fond of demon beast blood for their talismans. But I happened to be a demon beast myself — using my own blood meant cutting material costs!

Besides, most of what I needed was right here anyway.

"Let's start simple, with a Grade 1 Breath-Veiling Talisman and a Concealment Talisman."

The Breath-Veiling Talisman masked one's aura; the Concealment Talisman masked one's form. The most basic of talismans. On the desk sat a small wine bowl of crimson spirit dew and a talisman brush of beast hair. Quietly steadying my breath, I spread out a single sheet of white spirit paper. What I needed to draw up was not a human's spirit power, but the demonic power rooted deep in my bones — and from the depths of my dantian, a cold, viscous demonic qi came coiling up like a snake.

First to be drawn: the Breath-Veiling Talisman. I stopped breathing for an instant and raced across the white spirit paper in one unbroken stroke.

Crackle!

The moment the demonic qi entered the brush, the paper wailed as if screaming. When I skipped a middle link of the spirit pattern, my uncontrolled lightning qi and demonic power burst up and burned one corner of the talisman pitch-black.

"No, why this! Did I put in too much force?"

It demanded more finesse than I'd expected. But it wasn't beyond me. Perhaps because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dharma-Body Dual Cultivation had tempered mind and body both, nothing here gave me real trouble — I was simply short on practice.

"One more."

This time, slow but never sluggish, I fed strength into my grip. Carrying the flow of demonic qi naturally, I finished with a decisive dot. The moment it was complete, the coarse energy streaming over the talisman settled into stillness.

"Whew — did a peak-grade talisman just drop!?"

Nothing of the sort. It was a Grade 1, Low-Grade Breath-Veiling Talisman, and nothing more.

"You can't fill up on the first spoonful. This is Gyo Ran, tempered by Dharma-Body Dual Cultivation. See it through to the end, and I'm the winner."

With no time even to catch my breath, I pulled over a second sheet of white spirit paper. Through round after round of failure and success, I drew out Breath-Veiling Talismans.

"Oh! At this level...!"

A look at its condition: a Grade 1, Mid-Grade Breath-Veiling Talisman. Perhaps because it was only Grade 1, the more I drew, the more familiar the work became, and know-how piled up. A few more rounds, and I could likely manage a High-Grade talisman. Whether because the work was easier than expected or because I had a knack for it, I couldn't say — but it was fun.

"Shall I try the Concealment Talisman right away?"

In my head, the talisman's orbit etched itself vividly, like a single painting.

Ssszzt—!

The instant the talisman's surface scorched and tried to leap up, I pressed its center lightly with my palm — tap — and sealed its momentum. Without wiping the bead of sweat clinging to my forehead, I — Gyo Ran — looked down at the two finished talismans.

"A High-Grade Concealment Talisman, just like that?"

Me? Maybe I'm more talented than I thought?

I hadn't learned any secret method, but thanks to an instinctive intuition that saw straight through a talisman's flow, the finished orbit held not a single wasted line. I studied the Breath-Veiling and Concealment Talismans quietly, and soon something occurred to me.

But hold on. What happens if I draw on the back of it too?

No way that would work — but I tried it anyway. Naturally, the talisman failed to withstand the demonic power and burned to ash. As expected, it was exactly as expected.

Maybe white spirit paper or yellow spirit paper that could endure demonic power would do the trick?

I turned it over in my head for a moment, but as it was a pointless exercise, I let it go. Truthfully, a talisman's ceiling wasn't all that high, and the returns didn't justify the investment. Handy for low-grade cultivators — but ask whether the same held for high-grade ones, and heads would start to tilt. Such was talisman crafting.

Learning just enough to broaden my repertoire should be plenty.

I wrapped up my talisman practice and moved on to the demon insect chamber, my next point of interest. The crafts chamber kept demon insect eggs of several kinds, sorted by species, along with a fair number of demon arts for taming them — and for a few of those eggs, I had already spilled my blood and held the ownership rite. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I picked up a book lying nearby: the Compendium of a Hundred Insects. An insect ranking that recorded the standings of a hundred spirit insects.

There was quite the variety of demon insects, but the one that caught my eye was the Talisman Winged Insect. Plenty of other spirit insects stood out too, yet not every insect in the Compendium was kept in this eastern wing. Presumably, anything with too strong a will of its own, or too difficult to control, had no place here. And so, among the spirit insects ranked within the top ten, only the Talisman Winged Insect's eggs were to be found in this place.

Talisman Winged Insects eat talismans. And depending on the effect of the talisman they are fed, the insect's own power changes as well...

Feed it a Concealment Talisman, and once the design was drawn across their wings, its effect was said to amplify even further.

"...Huh. Not bad?"

A spirit insect ranked ninth even within the Compendium. Raised properly to full growth, nothing seemed a better fit for me.