"Finally! Huuuufff—"
Muyu breathed a deep sigh of relief!
Ten talismans laid in front of him—
Seven were tattered remains, and three... gleamed with a bright white light, a mysterious aura surrounding them.
"Cleansing Talismans—30% success rate!!!"
At the same time, a screen was in front of him:
[Fu Clan Successor, Fu Muyu—
Cultivation: third stage of Qi Refining (perfected)
Talismans: Cleansing Talisman (13,31% Proficiency)]
"Talisman success rate really can’t be calculated the same as proficiency—13% proficiency and 30% success rate, but that’s also..." he shook his head. The proficiency he got... had slowed down!
Initially, failing to draw the talisman equaled 0,01% proficiency, and success was 0,1% proficiency. Now? The reward... had been lowered by 10x!
Failure—0,001% profiency.
Success—0,01% profiency.
"Because it only slowed down after reaching 10%, it seems as if I’ve barely improved after that point, but such a long time has passed, a whole year, and I’ve only reached 13% profiency—and yet I can still feel immense growth with each percentage. Is this the true meaning of profiency?
Reaching 10% equals entering a Dao. Starting from then, everything became harder, but what I gained wasn’t less than before. It feels like there’s a hidden truth beneath the reason why I can rush to 10% profiency so easily, but from now on, it’s no longer as easy to increase proficiency..."
Though he said this, he wasn’t saddened. He had tried it with other talismans, and saw that the proficiency increase in the first 10% was extremely easy. After that? The difficulty would spike to a level he couldn’t compete at all.
From then on, he realised that reaching 100% might not be as easy as he thought.
But this was understandable—after all, proficiency meant truly comprehending the talisman, not a matter of blindly grinding down the talismans.
Though that didn’t matter as much. When his eyes fell upon his talisman, his eyes gleamed with an excitement far exceeding the exhaustion hidden beneath.
Patterns rose in his eyes, and the talisman glowed with light that wasn’t perceivable to normal sight.
"Reaching 10% proficiency, I have entered the dao, and now when I look at the talisman, I can glimpse its power, see its faults and improve with every new attempt." as he said this, he gleamed closely at the talisman and inspected its four corners.
From outside to inside, he inspected the talisman and saw several faults. Sometimes the brush stroke was too thick, sometimes the spiritual power was too uneven, sometimes he even saw that the paper had minor bumps.
What he saw wasn’t an answer sheet to improve the talisman he drew, he only saw countless faults. And yet under these faults, the talisman had somehow still been completed!
"I understand now. This sight is precisely the sight that the talisman proficiency aims to achieve. Even if I perfected it, the success rate wouldn’t increase dramatically. because at its core, even drawing a talisman perfectly would only make me a painter, and not a talisman master. Success rate increases with proficiency because my comprehension improves.
But these mistakes and faults I see are a different kind of matter—they’re Quality.
In the cultivation world, the standard ranking of the quality of items is Common, Good, Fine, Excellent, Perfect and Masterpiece. In the context of talismans, each quality grade enhances the power of the talisman by 10%, and 30% or higher raises the quality to a level comparable to an item a minor stage higher.
This means an excellent mid-grade first-stage talisman has the power of a common high-grade first-stage talisman, while an excellent high-grade first-stage talisman is comparable to a common top-grade first-stage item.
The records also say that when you achieve the rank of Masterpiece, you’ll become a top-grade talisman master regardless of what level of talisman you achieved this with, because Masterpiece talismans have left the common ranking of the world.
A Masterpiece low-grade first-stage talisman has the quality to absorb spiritual power and cross ranks, allowing it to carry the power of a top-grade talisman, possessing the power of a fine top-grade first-stage talisman.
With this sight, improving quality is definitely possible!"
Muyu said excitedly, this realisation had led him to not speed up his speed of talisman drawing, but instead focus on increasing the quality. Because of this, even after crossing 10%, it still took him an hour to draw a talisman.
But now, he could gradually feel that he was getting closer and closer to increase the quality of his talisman.
He had heard once that good, fine and excellent talismans all had faults in different stages, and that true talisman masters could increase their quality with various methods. For example, a talisman master who made his own paper could always have superior paper, and his successful talismans would always be of good quality. Another one made paper and ink himself, his talismans would be of good quality. One more even minored in refining and learned how to make talisman brushes, increasing the lower limit of his talismans once more.
Different methods that all increase the quality of talismans, and he believed his own method would also increase it.
"I don’t know how much this perception will help me—after all, the faults I see are partly my mistake, partly because of the material, and most of the mistakes are eluded from me. Raising my proficiency should improve my perception and allow me to see more mistakes, but even then, I’ll likely only be able to improve in the aspect of my own faults.
Technically, learning the methods of paper, ink and brush are indeed good ways to increase quality, but the effort and time put into them will drain me..."
When he thought of this, he realised that it would be great if he could use the planting method to improve his talisman’s power.
At the same time, he also realised that he had neglected his planting studies for quite some time now...
"With the talisman, tedious work will be rewarded, but I can’t neglect other methods. I’ve chosen Planting to become part of my dual mastery of two arts, this means I need to learn planting proper. I can’t neglect planting. Reversing the process, I shouldn’t just try to improve talisman making with planting, but also improve planting with talismans.
In this regard... inscriptions."
He stood up. His talismans session had been completed, and his increase in proficiency would no longer rise drastically through seclusion. He would need many hours, but as said, neglect would be bad.
This time, he would first find a way to support planting through talismans, then support talismans with planting, and hopefully lower the time it takes to draw a talisman, so as to open up time for him to take care of plants.
He smiled. There was pressure, but this was good pressure. It was spurning him on, allowing him to set priorities and aim for higher heights.