Chapter 28: Usage of the crystal
The pure white bristles of the Holy Dragon Bone Brush lands right in the middle of that scarlet liquid substance created from the devil ant's crystal and a drop of spring water. As soon as both items make contact, a silver light emits from the brush, and Huo Zaiyuan can feel a trickle of spiritual energy flowing from it.
His heart jumps a little, but calmly retrieves the peach wood tile and begins drawing a new rune.
The reason for choosing this particular runic incantation is because it has an aggressive feeling to it. The Eight Point Magic Spell, according to Huo Tianji's notes, is a mixture of several offensive spells. With the user as the epicentre, it is capable of banishing any demonic objects within a radius of two meters. It is extremely useful and easy to utilise.
Like flowing water and drifting clouds, the brush glides smoothly over the tile, inking out the runes perfectly. Every stroke is crisp and pronounced, as though calligraphing a couplet fit for the ancient times. However, anyone who practises Taoist arts would be able to feel the formidable power imbued within the runic spell on the talisman.
With one final stroke, the tile lights up briefly in a golden glow, and the runes sink into the wood as if it was originally carved onto the surface. Judging by the amount of spiritual energy circulating within the talisman, compared to carving runes, this brush improves the effectiveness of his talisman several times over.
Typically amongst Taoists, their talisman is written on strips of yellow paper, drawn using rooster blood as ink. On the other hand, the Huo family ancestor's method passed down through generations is very different. As Huo Zaiyuan has only ever used peach wood as the paper, carving knife as the brush and ink, he has no idea how it varies from using yellow paper and blood. Neither does he care, as long as he is able to save lives and preserve his own, then he is content.
Inspecting the talisman in his hand carefully, Huo Zaiyuan shifts his gaze towards the scarlet liquid, both eyebrows wrinkling slightly.
The cause of this talisman exuding so much power is not due to his own spiritual energy increasing again. Rather, it is because of the Holy Dragon Bone Brush, the spring water and the devil ant's crystal all mixing together into produce one substance.
The fact that those terrifying blood-thirsty devil ants' crystals enable him to produce more powerful talisman is something he never imagined would happen.
Reading over all of Huo Tianji's notes once more, he realises all the different spells are sorted clearly according to their power levels. It is stated that the ancestor classified each spell after drawing them onto a tile, then determining the amount of spiritual energy within the talisman in order to rank them accurately.
In the case of carving talisman, if one makes a mistake three times or more during the entire process, then that particular wood would be rendered useless. One with three mistakes would be of the lowest quality and power, classified as the least powerful talisman. One with two mistakes or one mistake would be in the mid-level range, and a perfect one would be the highest quality. Of course, it is considerably difficult to create a flawless talisman. Even if one uses the brush to draw runes on in one go, there will be chances minuscule mistakes will still be made. Hence, talismans of the highest quality are precious items, and is capable of immense damage depending on the user's moral standing.
So far, Huo Zaiyuan's knowledge of Taoist spells only consists of a few simple ones, but if he makes a common Evil Warding talisman of the highest quality by flawlessly drawing the runes, who knows how intrepid his actions will be.
Either way, the talisman in his hand evidently belongs in the high-level category. If he wishes to create more like this, then he will need to continue fighting zombies and collect more devil ant crystal nuclei.
Just as well the apocalypse is fast approaching. During that time, there will be nothing outside but a whole lot of zombies and magic devil ants. There wouldn't be any difficulties gathering the materials necessary to craft more of this scarlet liquid. Nonetheless, the world has not ended yet, but there are several undead already roaming the surface. Still, he has no idea where to start looking for these scarce few, so he decides not to purposely go out in search of crystals right now.
Eyes roving around but unseeing, Huo Zaiyuan ponders if directly using the water from the Holy Spring will do.
At long last, he manages to successfully create a mid-level talisman, proving that his idea had merit.
Although this talisman doesn't contain as much spiritual energy as the high-level one, no matter how you look at it, it is a whole lot better compared to what he can produce by carving. Thus, in the final month before the apocalypse, Huo Zaiyuan remains cooped up in the space, continuously creating talisman after talisman. Whenever he feels exhausted, he will simply cross his legs and meditate, cultivating at the same time.