Chapter 44 – The Art of Quiet Dedication

Lynn Naya had already sensed Zhou Feibai looking at her. Her Qi Condensation fifth-layer cultivation was only lacking in martial skills and combat experience. Besides that, she had all the other functions she needed. Zhou Feibai’s gaze wasn’t exactly subtle, so it was hard for her not to notice. But she didn’t plan on having any contact with him again.

She couldn’t say she hated Zhou Feibai. She just felt that he didn’t meet her standards for friendship.

With her Everlasting Life trait, a genius or a beggar were the same in her eyes. They would all grow old and turn into yellow dust. The only difference was their character.

Someone with a powerful background like Yun Xian would take out money for her first meal. An ordinary person like the recently departed Auntie Feng, because she felt she had received kindness from the talisman masters, was willing to use her new rice—something she herself didn’t usually get to eat—to thank them.

What she truly cared about was the precious character of these people. If a person only knew greed, desire, and slaughter, what was the difference between them and the mindless beasts outside?

Lynn Naya returned to her seat. The new talisman master next to her had already drawn a Light Body Talisman in front of everyone, causing a round of cheers.

The cheers weren’t for how well the talisman was drawn, but because they were so happy that another person had come to help them with their heavy workload. “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, Talisman Master Qing. You just need to make twenty Light Body Talismans a day. Since you’re new, you can do a little less. Start with ten today and twenty tomorrow.”

Twenty Light Body Talismans?

That’s just a wave of the brush.

Qing Xiaozhou nodded in agreement and found a table to sit down at.

With the addition of a new person, the talisman room quickly entered a new round of frantic work.

Qing Xiaozhou found this experience to be very new. In all her time on Talisman Peak, she had never been urged to draw low-level talismans like this, nor had she ever felt that a single talisman was a human life.

Her spiritual brush flew. One stroke was one completed talisman. After making more than twenty in one go and finishing her task early, Qing Xiaozhou noticed that Zhou Feibai, who had been following her, had left at some point, and she hadn’t even noticed.

Hm, I haven’t been this focused in a long time.

She looked at the Light Body Talismans she had just drawn. Even though she hadn’t drawn them in years, they were still as well-made as ever.

With her daily quota met, Qing Xiaozhou was in no hurry. She began to release her spiritual sense to secretly observe every person in the talisman room.

No wonder they said each person only needed to draw twenty talismans a day. After observing for a while, she realized that most of them couldn’t even draw that many in an entire day.

Drawing talismans was very draining on the mind. Most of these people had low cultivation and weak souls. Some of them didn’t even breathe correctly. After drawing one talisman, they had to rest for a while before they could continue to the next.

Mortal cultivators were just starting their cultivation, and most of them were learning on their own. The fact that they could even do this much was already impressive.

Perhaps because of the contrast, Qing Xiaozhou quickly discovered that there were two—no, three—talented people in the talisman room.

The first one seemed to be the president of their Talisman Academy. It was expected that a president would have some skill.

The second was a girl in her late teens. She observed that the girl’s success rate was quite high, but she had a strange habit. Every time she finished drawing a talisman, she would mumble, “One spirit stone earned,” or “Another spirit stone successfully earned,” looking like a total money-grubber.

As for the last one, she didn’t notice her at first. It was only after she had observed everyone else that she finally noticed her presence.

Qing Xiaozhou was a little confused at first but quickly understood why.

It was simple. The young woman was just too quiet. Every one of her movements was calm and composed, as if she was in a void and was the only person there.

Qing Xiaozhou rarely saw such a serene person anymore. In the past, there were many. The Martial Uncles and Martial Aunts in the Dao Palace all cultivated the Dao and their hearts, believing that ‘all people are the Dao, and the Dao is simple, true, pure, and quiet.’

But now, there were none. Ever since the Dao Palace was almost destroyed, the disciples, from top to bottom, had become more anxious. Everyone was pursuing higher cultivation, and everyone wanted to look out for themselves.

The woman in front of her made her feel like she had stumbled upon a precious gem. If they were spiritual cultivators, she would really want to take the three of them as her disciples.

For a moment, Qing Xiaozhou’s mind wandered.

Lynn Naya had no idea what Qing Xiaozhou was thinking. Even if she knew, she probably wouldn’t care too much because her main priority was to win in the future.

She knew that without the support of cultivation, the talisman masters in the Talisman Academy would be lucky to break through to become second-grade talisman masters. But even a large empire had to be built slowly, one generation after another. There would always be people who would stand out and raise the ceiling for talisman masters.

Even though there was an extra talisman master in the Talisman Academy, the frantic work continued day and night. It was only when Auntie Feng came to deliver food that everyone could finally rest.

Since the Talisman Academy didn’t have any extra space, Auntie Feng would cook the food at her house and then bring it over. Because she was a one-woman show, Lynn Naya had Scarface Qing find two reliable people to help her.

Auntie Feng’s cooking was very good. After Scarface Qing ate it once, he started eating all three meals at the Talisman Academy.

Since some people knew what was going on outside, everyone would sometimes ask Scarface Qing and Auntie Fengabout the outside world. For example, if their talismans were useful, how many people were dying now, and if the evil cultivators had been driven away.

“The evil cultivators aren’t going to leave so easily, but not many mortal cultivators are dying now.” Because his wife and friends were cultivators, Scarface Qing paid more attention to these things.

After hearing what Scarface Qing said, Lynn Naya roughly understood what was happening.

Over the past year, the Dao Palace had been training its own disciples to the point of exhaustion. But they had been relatively lenient with the mortal cultivators. Besides forcing them to go outside for missions, they hadn’t arranged any dangerous ones for them.

Even the evil cultivators that the mortal cultivators encountered were low-level ones that the outer sect disciples had deliberately let in. On top of that, the mortal cultivators were always with Dao Palace disciples who had higher cultivation than them. If they ever ran into an evil cultivator, the Dao Palace disciples would go first, and they would assist from the side.

With this strategy, without considering the casualties of the Dao Palace disciples, the mortal cultivators’ casualties were not very high. The hardworking ones with talismans could run away even if they couldn’t win.

After some time, the facts told the mortal cultivators that going outside wasn’t as scary as they had imagined. On top of that, some mortal cultivators had gained a lot after killing evil cultivators and had spirit stones to buy beast cores to break through to the second layer of Qi Condensation. The mortal cultivators who had been timid at first began to get restless.

No one wanted to be an inferior person. Their desire for strength and the fantasy of getting rich overnight made many mortal cultivators who had not taken on a mission or had already finished their mission start to venture out into the wilderness on their own.

The atmosphere in the mortal district was no longer as depressing as it was when they first discovered the evil cultivators. People who had successfully killed an evil cultivator would come back from time to time to celebrate. The sounds of celebration gradually drove away the gloom. At the same time, the demand for talismans also grew.

“That’s good.” Lynn Naya said after listening to Scarface Qing. She was truly happy.

The fact that the Dao Palace could control things with such detail showed that the entire situation outside was under the Dao Palace’s control.

Whether it was sending the Dao Palace disciples to clear out the evil cultivators or using various methods to ‘encourage’ the mortal cultivators to become stronger, this was all happening without a real threat to the survival of the human race.

As long as the foundation wasn’t harmed, there was nothing wrong with letting the human race generally become stronger.

Another half a month passed. With Qing Xiaozhou’s help and the addition of three more talisman masters, the first batch of twenty thousand Light Body Talismans that were urgently needed was finally completed.

Although there would be a continued need for talismans, the initial pressure had passed. They wouldn’t have to work day and night like this anymore.

“That damn thing, I’m finally done drawing!” a talisman master said, throwing his brush away after finishing the last Light Body Talisman, looking as if he had just escaped a deadly situation.

“Yeah, we’re finally done,” even someone as strong as Qing Xiaozhou felt like she was going to throw up. She was exhausted from drawing the same talisman over and over again.

“Let’s go, let’s go. Don’t stay in this awful place anymore. I heard Auntie Feng prepared a fish head feast for us today to celebrate. Let’s go eat the fish head feast now.”

At the mention of food, everyone’s mouths immediately began to water.

Auntie Feng’s house was right next to the Talisman Academy. It was just a left turn after they left the building.

Because there were so many people, the Feng family’s house couldn’t fit them all, and they didn’t have a yard. So, Auntie Feng and her neighbors set up five or six tables on the street in front of her house and told Lynn Naya and the others to sit. She would bring the fish out when it was ready.

“Alright, you go be busy. We’ll just sit.” Qiao Guanyuan said, nodding slightly to Auntie Feng. A moment later, he stopped talking.

Lynn Naya, who was sitting next to him, looked at him and saw that he had fallen asleep with his eyes closed.

She looked at the others. Some were leaning back, some were lying on the table, all of them drowsy. One of them was still holding a bamboo cup and drinking water, but he was already snoring loudly.

Lynn Naya smiled at the sight. She figured the fish would be ready soon, so she might as well close her eyes for a bit. She could open them when the fish was ready and wake everyone up.

Yep, I’ll just close my eyes and rest for a bit…

On the street in front of the Feng family’s house, the twenty-odd people sleeping in strange positions quickly attracted the attention of passersby.

At first, some people pointed and laughed at them. But when they found out that these were the talisman masters who had been working day and night for almost a month and were finally getting some sleep, they couldn’t help but lighten their footsteps as they walked past.

A troublemaker wanted to go and wake them up, but he was pulled back halfway by someone. When he turned around, he was met with a group of big men cracking their knuckles and rubbing their hands together.

Most of the time, everyone had their own scale in their hearts. No matter how much people talked outside, they knew the difference between good and bad.

The fragrant smell of cooking fish from the Feng family’s house soon spread everywhere. Old Man Qu, who had come to deliver beast hides, immediately had his clansmen bring all the wine they had made last year after he heard that the talisman masters were going to eat fish at the Feng family’s house.

“A full stomach makes for a good sleep.” he said. He heard from Scarface Qing that it was Talisman Master Lynn who told him to give the tanning of the hides to ordinary people.

Talisman Master Lynn said there were not many people, but there were almost two hundred disciples who had not entered the academy. Forget two hundred hides. They could handle five hundred or a thousand. To put it bluntly, Talisman Master Lynn wanted them, ordinary people, to also have a chance to eat.

For a person with such a heart, a toast with wine was necessary.