[Fu Clan Successor, Fu Muyu—
Cultivation: third stage of Qi Refining (perfected)
Talismans: Cleansing Talisman (20,33% Proficiency)]
"I’ve passed twenty percent, but there was no change. I wonder when the next change will be... or whether there will be one in the first place..."
Sitting in his room, Muyu contemplated the changes in talismans.
Above and around him, several talismans were hanging around. His room looked like an old photography room, with countless paintings hanging on threads for closer observation.
These were his best pieces—and yet none had surpassed the common stage of quality.
"Why is it still at common?" he asked himself confused. Did he really have to learn another art? But that made no sense.
A year’s effort had been put in, he gained another 7%, mostly from his successful attempts since his success rate had surpassed 30%. But, even so, he still felt lacking.
"I remember reading in the clan that the criterion for becoming a member at the Talisman Creation Guild is to be able to at least draw a talisman of ’Good’ quality. After all, success rate can be increased with a lot of effort and by wasting many resources, but only sincere pursuit of the dao will allow you to comprehend the meaning of talismans and improve the quality of talismans.
All this while I was sincere, so what’s the issue?" he sighed deeply and stood up.
Walking out of his room, a breeze of fresh air hit his face, and he calmed down his rapid emotions.
Down the path to the road, he once again saw many plants. Previously, just looking at them at random, one could see various flaws: uneven branches, bad circiulation of water, strong and weak plants, and so on. Generally, it gave one the feeling of wilderness.
But now, when he looked at the garden, something had changed.
Everything was even. Everything was better. Everything was... perfect.
So why did he feel it wasn’t right?
As he was looking at the plants, his mother had arrived behind him. She looked at the garden with a weird expression, now understanding what her grandfather had told her about. Her son... had taken a shortcut, skipping many training sessions needed to become a planting master, but it seems this shortcut also has this danger. She opened her mouth and hesitated whether to say something, only to stop herself. This... her son should figure it out himself.
Though as she looked at him, she noticed something else.
"You... have you broke through?" she asked in surprise.
"Hmm? Oh, mom, when did you arrive?" Muyu turned around, and when he did, he grinned with a proud smile.
At this moment, spiritual power gathered all around—
The power entered his body rapidly, as if it was a monsoon had formed in his dantian!
At this moment, the spiritual power even faintly formed a projection to the outside: a giant Qi Bowl was absorbing the spiritual power rapidly, faintly even forming a world inside!
"Yu’er...?" Huiyue asked in shock, not understanding. Was her son breaking through on the spot? But why?
"Mom, I understand now. Actually, it’s really easy. These things, these plants, I’ve made them so artificial, I actually missed the mark mentioned by grandfather. I took the word ’perfect’ too seriously, as if the plant actually had to be changed to be perfected. But in fact, the key is to reduce weaknesses and not to even out strengths.
Some branches will inevitably be stronger, and some will be weaker. As long as the weaker branch isn’t weaker because it’s in deficit but because it’s not as important to the plant, then that’s not something I should concern myself with.
I accidentally forgot that the plant knows best what to do. Instead of being a doctor who heals their patients illnesses, I was a teacher trying to force the plant to do as I wish!
Hehe, after understanding this, my Qi Bowl formed naturally....
Actually it’s really easy. The world will inevitably have some strong and weak points, and so does the Qi Bowl. I thought all this time the Qi Bowl had to be perfect, influenced by my planting style. But when my planting style changed, I instantly understood something...
That’s why you came here today, right?" Muyu grinned deeply.
He did it!
That’s right—he did it just on the spot. How? The process was easy. Extremely easy.
The past year he was trying his best to improve the structure of branches, perfecting it slowly, and even when he saw that the branch he worked with was weaker than other branches, instead of understanding it, he simply thought that this was the limit of the plant, so he pushed all branches to be on the same level.
What resulted was easy to see: the plant didn’t have enough nutrition. Another mistake happened here. He thought by supplying more, he would gain more. He supplied the plant with more nutrition, but now he finally saw something he couldn’t push further.
Those branches that had been naturally strong were performing slightly better, while those branches that hadn’t been strong didn’t improve much. The issue? Actually, some branches have important tasks like gathering sunlight, while others merely store additional nutrition for the plant to absorb back whenever it needed it.
It can’t be said to be a fully wrong path, just that it’s extremely inefficient and rather useless, basically growing a normal mid-stage plant with resources a rare mid-stage plant would use.
Now he had just drawn his talismans and realised something important: perfecting talismans was also wrong. He wanted to improve quality all along by perfecting it, but that was the issue. Even though he had learned that unevenness wasn’t entirely bad, he still hadn’t accepted it at heart.
But now looking at the plants and realising it in his heart, planting and talisman had reflected upon each other, and the bottleneck that had stopped him broke—
He was at the fourth stage of Qi Refining now!
"Yu’er, did you... did you really realise it so quick?" Huiyue asked with surrpise.
Two years!
It’s been just a bit over two years since her son had started drawing talismans and raising plants!
In just two years he improved so drastically that the two creation arts could reflect back to his cultivation?!