1478 Improving Talisman Skills
It was safe to say that Alchemist Ruoxian was pleased with the materials that Lin Mu was providing.
“So how long will it take you to make the Tri-essence pills?” Lin Mu questioned.
“It’ll take me two to three weeks. I’ll contact you when I’m done.” Alchemist Ruoxian answered.
“That’s good then.” Lin Mu said before bidding his farewell. “I’ll look forward to it then.”
“I’ll also have some more information about the Desolate Blood Battlefield ready by the time you come.” Alchemist Ruoxian added.
“That’ll be handy yes.” Lin Mu nodded his head before walking out.
He was happy with the deal and also with the alchemist himself.
‘Not only did I got to meet him, I also managed to obtain an opportunity.’ Lin Mu thought to himself.
He was now looking forward to the Tri-essence pills and wondered just how much they would boost his body cultivation.
“And I’ll still have more materials left over.” Lin Mu had only given a few Ten apertures Blood Vein flowers to Alchemist Ruoxian, along with a quarter of the Pure Wood Essence he had gotten from the Wood Spirit Tulip.
He still had over thirty of the flowers left, and if need be he could use them again in the future.
Done with this, Lin Mu didn’t go back to the courtyard right away. Instead he took a stroll around the city with little shrubby as the master and beast enjoyed some of the delicacies. With the size of the city, there were plenty of things to see after all.
Little Shrubby even managed to attract some attention from a few female cultivators who couldn’t help but want to pet him.
Some even wished for Lin Mu to sell him to them, but they were far too intimidated by the aura that Lin Mu now exuded.
Becoming an Immortal body cultivator meant that his vitality would reach a new level and normal cultivators would feel the pressure too. Even if it wasn’t exerted intentionally, there was still enough of it to stun the others.
After spending the rest of the day in Middle Fort city, Lin Mu and Little Shrubby returned to the courtyard.
“The Saintess is still not back?” Lin Mu looked around unable to sense her there. ‘Guess she has her own things to do too…’ he didn’t mind it much though and returned to his room.
Little Shrubby on the other hand went back to his practice and was increasing his proficiency with his flames. Lin Mu was happy that Little Shrubby was actively trying to better himself and not just relying on the bloodline.
‘I should improve my other skills too.’ Lin Mu thought to himself.
He put down the twin snakes on their pillow and lied down on the bed. Closing his eyes, Lin Mu drifted off to sleep and entered the Sleepscape.
In the Sleepscape, he stopped in front of the Immortal Apple tree, finding there to be a flower bud on it.
“Oh? It’s starting to bear flowers already?” Lin Mu walked close to take a look.
The bud was small and tightly closed. It was clear that it would still take some time for it to turn into an apple.
Nodding at the growth, Lin Mu turned back and checked the other plants as well.
The Wood Spirit Tulip seemed to have grown as well and now its Cultivation base was equivalent to the Dao Treading realm.
“That was a bit fast…” Lin Mu knew that his cultivation base affected the Sleepscape, but he didn’t know how much it affected the plants within it.
Next he checked the Purple Sickle amaranth finding it to be equivalent to the Nascent soul realm. It was lagging behind the Wood Spirit Tulip and was not able to keep up like before.
“Hmm… has it reached a bottleneck or something?” Lin Mu wondered.
The plants didn’t exactly have the same cultivation system as humans after all. Lin Mu didn’t know what stages they had, but he could tell from the intensity of their Qi fluctuations, just what level they were equivalent to.
Lin Mu wondered if he could help the Purple Sickle Amaranth somehow, but decided against it.
‘It’s best if I let it grow on its own. Who knows if it’ll develop something new too, like the Wood Spirit Tulip.’ Lin Mu let nature take its course.
Instead, he sat down and took out a few sheets of talisman paper.
“Let’s see how many Diamond Mountain Talismans I can make in the coming two weeks…” Lin Mu took a deep breath and started to draw on the talisman paper.
He had already manged to make Minor Diamond Mountain Talisman several times before and had even managed to make a few Lesser Diamond Mountain Talismans. Now he wished to increase that number and improve his proficiency.
He started with the Minor Diamond Mountain Talisman again and made around three hundred of them before stopping. His success rate was now about 50% with the Minor Diamond Mountain Talisman.
It was a big improvement from his original 10% success rate.
~huu~
“A 50% success rate is the normal level for most formation masters with this… I should be able to increase a bit more.” Lin Mu assessed.
He took a short rest and meditated before making more of the Minor Diamond Mountain Talismans. After he made three hundred more, he realized that he was only failing 4 times out of every ten attempts.
‘Not enough… I can do better.’ Lin Mu continued to make more, while his finger left trails of light in the air.
Guided by his immortal sense, Lin Mu’s finger acted like a brush while using his Qi as the ink. The more he drew, the smoother his runes got and the better they functioned. The chances of failure decreased as his mistakes started to disappear.
Two days passed like this before Lin Mu improved once more.
“An average of seven out of ten times… Nearly a seventy percent success rate.” Lin Mu rested his fingers and watched his handiwork.
There were now thousands of Minor Diamond Mountain Talismans stacked near him, with even more ruined ones.
The ruined ones either looked to be burned or were simply in tatters. And these were just the ones that had managed to survive, there were a lot more that had simply turned to dust after Lin Mu made a mistake.
Just this alone showed how much Lin Mu had worked.
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to improve the success rate more in a short time, I should try the lesser grade Diamond Mountain Talismans now.’ Lin Mu took a few hours of rest before picking up the talisman paper again.
~POOF~
His first attempt was a failure and the talisman paper simply blew apart after a few seconds, leaving a wry smile was left on Lin Mu’s face.
“I should slow down…” Lin Mu rethought his pace and picked up another Talisman paper.
~poof~
But a few minutes later, the paper exploded.
Shaking his head, Lin Mu tried again. This time he lasted for twice the amount of time, before experiencing failure.
~poof~
The sleeves of his robes were in tatters from the explosions and if it weren’t for the fact that Lin Mu was a body cultivator, he might have been injured too. This was one of the reasons why Diamond Mountain Talismans were high-priced despite having very low production costs.
Complexity was just one of the factors that made them expensive, as the damage caused from failure was also a big issue. There was no lack of formation masters that were injured from this.
It was even considered normal to get injured while making a few high ranked talismans. Some formation masters even factored in the cost of recovery if someone asked them to make custom talismans.
After all, not everyone could be a body cultivator.
In fact, the number of formation masters that were also body cultivators was quite less. Formation creation was more focused on the utilization of Qi after all, and most body cultivators didn’t focus much on it.
But Lin Mu had the advantage of being both, and thus he could simply ignore the damage he sustained from all this.
~poof~
~poof~
~poof~
After about twenty failures, Lin Mu finally managed to make a lesser grade Diamond Mountain Talisman!
“One in twenty one? Less than five percent success rate… It’s definitely quite hard than the minor version.” Lin Mu muttered to himself.
One might think that the 5% success rate was low, but it was still an improvement from Lin Mu’s earlier rate. The last time he had made a lesser grade Diamond Mountain Talisman, it had taken him nearly a hundred failures before he had success.
It was a success rate that might have only been 1% or even lower.
But now he had multiplied it!
‘Surely, improving the success rate of lower grade version also helps improve the success rate with the higher versions…’ Lin Mu noted.