005
Someone from Shanhai Sect is looking for you?
Lin Shuang shook her head. There were no disciples from the Shanhai Sect in her friend’s contact list. This wasn’t her visiting hour either.
“Senior sister, could it be that Xiao Qi, who is obsessed with swords to the point of madness, lost, and other disciples from Shanhai Sect have come seeking revenge?” Zhao Kranan became instantly worried.
Lin Shuang waved her hand. Perhaps the messenger at the mountain gate had misheard.
“Let’s wait until they arrive.”
“Mm, senior sister should make talismans first; they’re due tomorrow,” Zhao Kranan urged.
Lin Shuang nodded and quickly calmed herself to complete the talisman assignment from the instructor of the Transmission Hall—the twelve level-one voice talismans.
Level-one talismans were the most basic introductory talismans.
She had long since self-studied and mastered them thoroughly, making practice unnecessary.
However, if she didn’t do it, she would be punished by having to copy scriptures—twelve entire volumes.
Additionally, it could incur the instructor’s displeasure, leading to the possibility of her future assignments being scrutinized even more strictly.
This would waste even more time, which would be counterproductive.
And her junior sister refused to help her…
Thinking this, Lin Shuang narrowed her eyes and took out twelve blank yellow paper talismans.
[Today’s Pomodoro Task List:]
[5. Draw a level-three spirit gathering talisman.]
The spirit gathering talisman could accelerate the attraction of spiritual energy within a hundred-mile radius and was essential content for advancing to level-three talisman practitioners.
This was her true plan for today.
Thus, she could achieve two goals at once!
While drawing the voice talismans, she would complete today’s spirit gathering talisman!
Lin Shuang closed her eyes briefly, contemplating the brushstroke directions of the two talismans.
She turned on the music from the self-made earpiece, playing gentle instrumental background music to help her concentrate.
She picked up the large wolf-hair brush from the brush rack on the left and dipped it into the cinnabar ground by Xiao Ai.
The twelve blank yellow paper talismans were placed on the table.
Arranged in three rows of four, from right to left.
She held her breath and lifted the brush.
Thick ink touched the first yellow paper.
Three strokes, three cleanses—the head of the level-one voice talisman was instantly completed with the brush flowing effortlessly.
The ink even seeped into the table.
“Oh senior sister, you used too much ink,” Zhao Kranan, who had already completed three voice talismans at the adjacent desk, rubbed her temples in rest when she turned and saw Lin Shuang’s actions, unable to help exclaiming.
But she quickly covered her red lips.
Interrupting the spiritual focus while drawing talismans was strictly forbidden.
If the breath was broken mid-stroke, all previous efforts would be wasted.
Zhao Kranan dared not disturb Lin Shuang but after watching for a while, her gaze gradually turned regretful and sorrowful.
“Senior sister also chose the wrong brush; too much ink with a thick brush causes the cinnabar to bleed on the yellow paper, making the talisman lines blurry.”
“Oh, the talisman’s activation point is also misplaced.”
“This voice talisman will only have at most half its intended effect, sigh.”
Senior sister’s talisman class score would likely be rated as below average again tomorrow.
Just barely passing.
Zhao Kranan sighed and turned her gaze away, only to see that Lin Shuang’s expression was not one of frustration from ink bleeding on the yellow paper talismans but rather one of satisfaction and confidence.
As if she had drawn a top-grade talisman.
Zhao Kranan couldn’t help but admire her senior sister. Could this be the mental fortitude mentioned by her senior sister in “The Fastest Immortal Cultivation Discussion”?
“Senior sister.”
After Lin Shuang completed one stroke, Zhao Kranan gently placed the third completed voice talisman from her desk onto the table.
Her talisman assignment had been rated as top-grade by the instructor last time.
“Take a look at mine.”
But the talisman Zhao Kranan had just pushed forward was immediately pushed away by Lin Shuang using the back end of the wolf-hair brush.
“Go away, behave～”
“Don’t disturb senior sister from working.”
Zhao Kranan was taken aback, stepping back in confusion, instantly enveloped in a gloomy, heartbroken aura.
Although she didn’t have the Zhou Xuanwu senior brother who always ranked first, she was particularly confident in this voice talisman.
Zhao Kranan felt disheartened and retreated to her own desk, gloomily drawing small circles with her finger.
In the small wooden house, two beds were placed side by side, each against a wall by the windows—one to the south and one to the north.
The empty space in the middle of the aisle had two square wooden tables placed side by side.
Zhao Kranan stood with her back to Lin Shuang, facing away.
Behind her, on the table where the twelve yellow paper talismans were spread out, a red glow was emitted.
Lin Shuang’s brush strokes pierced through the paper, even embedding cinnabar into the table!
Underneath the twelve yellow paper talismans—
On the wooden table’s surface, the level-three spirit gathering talisman was completed!
“!?!?”
Xiao Qi from the Shanhai Sect, who had just found cabin number ninety-nine, peered inside through the carved plum side window of the wooden coffin.
He even forgot the pain from his recent beating, his eyes wide with shock.
[Senior brother, isn’t there a possibility that someone appears to be drawing a low-level talisman but is actually drawing a mid-level one?]
He held the voice transmitting stone, stunned.
He saw the woman in gray clothes, at the cultivation stage of Qi Condensation, with her sleeve falling slightly to reveal a bit of fair skin on her wrist.
With her delicate wrist lifting the ink-dipped wolf-hair brush, she smiled in satisfaction.
Two different grades and types of talisman lights flashed briefly under her brush!
Xiao Qi, watching from outside the window, was dumbfounded.
[Junior brother, what ridiculous things are you saying? Although you’re a sword cultivator, you’ve also studied the basics of talismans. Different talismans have completely different patterns and activation points. How can one complete two at the same time?]
But she can!
Xiao Qi immediately cut off communication with his senior brother.
He turned to look at the wooden cabin, preparing to push the door open, when he heard Lin Shuang’s calm and leisurely voice from inside.
“Mm, today’s talisman practice is completed.”
“Senior sister, sigh, your top-grade voice talisman is too sloppy. The instructor will be unhappy.”
Hearing this, Xiao Qi inhaled sharply.
The top-grade voice talisman was sloppy because it was just a side task. The real practice work was the level-three talisman whose ink had seeped into the table!
He was about to push the door open when a ripple spread across the wooden cabin, and words appeared on the outside.
[If you’re looking for Lin Shuang, please leave a message if it’s not urgent.]
[Today’s communication schedule for Lin Shuang is full. Matters regarding communication with Lin Shuang can be revisited after noon tomorrow.]
Xiao Qi: “!”
As a disciple from another sect, it wasn’t easy for him to come here.
Especially since their two sects often had conflicts over competing for spiritual springs.
Earlier, he had given fifty spirit stones to the gatekeeper disciple just to be allowed through.
But as he was about to knock on the door, a stern voice suddenly sounded behind him.
“Ah, a disciple from the Shanhai Sect?”
Xiao Qi turned to look and saw three sword-riding cultivators hovering about ten steps behind him in the air. They had their arms crossed and wore black clothes with a striking red sash across their chests—an unmistakable uniform of the patrolling guards from the Qingshui Sect.
“Daring! The competition for the spiritual spring has already ended! Without permission, how dare a disciple from the Shanhai Sect enter our Qingshui Sect without removing their sword!” The leader rebuked.
Xiao Qi furrowed his brow.
A sword was like a wife; he could never hand it over.
But the patrolling officer was at least at the Condensed Origin level, exuding pressure with every word.
He couldn’t defeat them.
Next time, he would come back with his senior brother’s sword as collateral.
“Junior sister Lin Shuang, today Xiao Qi from the Shanhai Sect has come to visit!”
Xiao Qi quickly shouted.
“I just wanted to say, if you ever need another session of that… fat-burning exercise, junior sister can always find me.”
The patrolling disciples were taken aback.
As Xiao Qi spoke while retreating, preparing to leave, the door to cabin number ninety-nine creaked open behind him.
“Oh? Are you the one from just now?”
A light and clear female voice came from behind the opened door.
“Are you willing to establish a long-term fat-burning exercise partner relationship with me?”
Lin Shuang, dressed in gray, stepped out of the cabin with her eyes sparkling.
She held a wolf-hair brush and a yellow paper talisman whose ink had not yet dried, stepping out of the wooden cabin.
A smile graced her face.
It wasn’t easy to find a fat-burning exercise partner.
In her previous life, a personal trainer started at three hundred yuan per hour.
And usually, she had too close a relationship with her roommate junior sister, feeling psychological pressure and unable to bring herself to do it.
But finding a fitness partner from the Shanhai Sect would eliminate such concerns!
This was voluntary on their part.
Opening the wooden cabin, Lin Shuang couldn’t help but look at Xiao Qi.
He had changed into a new robe of precious blue silk, his face dignified, yet carrying a sword wrapped in cloth, creating a strong sense of dissonance.
As she drew near him, she couldn’t help but recall the thrilling fat-burning boxing match during their fierce competition for the Spirit Spring.
A straight punch that hit his chest.
An uppercut that struck his jaw.
A downward punch aimed at his abdominal muscles.
More importantly, he now seemed to have a hint of Condensed Origin cultivation and was likely to soon break through to the beginner level of Condensed Origin.
This would allow him to barely reach the level that could make her sweat.
This ‘punching bag’ perfectly met her current needs.
Missing this opportunity, she wouldn’t know how many more years it might take to find another.
“Let’s add each other on friends,” Lin Shuang’s eyes sparkled as she handed over the communication stone.
Friend?
Xiao Qi gave a dignified smile, his mole on his nose seemed to shine. Carefully, he raised the sword wrapped in cloth, brushed off the dust from his silk robe, and took the communication stone, inputting his spiritual consciousness mark.
But just as he touched it, a sharp gust of wind slashed down from above.
“Disciple of the Shanhai Sect, remove your sword and leave immediately!” The leading patroller shouted angrily.
The gust of wind fiercely struck Xiao Qi, sending him flying backward more than ten steps.
Xiao Qi’s expression turned serious, and his right hand instantly drew the wrapped sword, throwing it into the air.
He quickly cleaned his feet, cast a dust-removing spell on his smooth silk robe and shoes, and then leaped onto his sword, soaring into the sky. “Junior sister Lin Shuang, I’ll take my leave first. I’ll come back in a few days with my senior brother’s sword! If you need anything, contact me through the communication stone.”
Lin Shuang blinked, caught the communication stone, and waved her hand toward the sky.
A cold snort immediately came from above.
Lin Shuang looked up and saw the leading patroller’s black martial attire in disarray. The third button on the left lapel was entangled with the second button on the right, while the first button was undone by the wind, revealing the uneven undergarment and half of his collarbone.
His black boots were mismatched—one made of cowhide and the other with a dark sole, differing by half an inch in height.
His entire appearance was disheveled, as if he were drunk.
But this man had a pair of narrow, peach-blossom eyes. The slightly reddened corners of his eyes curved upward with a flirtatious charm, while his jet-black pupils shone with clarity and vitality, brimming with youthful energy. Now, as he gazed down from above, his bewitching eyes held a trace of scrutiny as they fixed upon Lin Shuang.
“Outer sect disciples, listen up!”
His voice was crisp and carried a tone of admonition. Three silver-threaded water ripples were embroidered on the crossed buttons of his collar.
He was an inner sect disciple at the Condensed Origin Third Level.
“Focus on cultivation and avoid unnecessary socializing!”
Lin Shuang let out an “Ah,” nodded, and quickly turned back to her wooden cabin.
“Oh no, talking to irrelevant people wasted five seconds of rest time!”
“???”
The leading patroller with the peach-blossom eyes twitched his forehead, his chest heaving.
“Senior brother Meng, the outer sect isn’t even under our jurisdiction. Why bother interfering?” One of the patrolling disciples behind him questioned.
Senior brother Meng immediately turned around. “Return to the inner sect!”
But as he was leaving, his right hand swiftly flung out a wooden plaque, which landed in the nearby spiritual field near the wooden cabin.
What do you know?
Save one if you can.
Isn’t a disciple from another sect still a person? Would you just stand by and watch them suffer?
—Quickly leave Lin Shuang; if you don’t, you’ll fall behind. Staying with her will only weaken your path of cultivation!
—Left by a kind-hearted person.
The wooden plaque lay alone in the spiritual field.
Zhao Kranan, going out to buy dinner in the evening, accidentally stepped on it. She looked around in alarm but saw no one.
“The 309th wooden plaque… three years now.”
“Who exactly is this kind-hearted person? What did senior sister do to offend him?”
*
“Village chief, don’t worry. I will definitely work hard on my cultivation.”
Meng Zi, wearing black martial attire and carrying a broadsword as wide as his back, returned to the inner sect’s cave residence, stroking a small totem statue of a half-human, half-snake.
Thinking of the Lin Shuang he had seen just now, his temple throbbed.
She was in the Qingshui Sect, with a good cultivation environment and received three hundred spirit stones every month. Yet she wasted her talent, remaining at the third layer of Qi Condensation for years without any progress.
In the few patrols they had encountered, she was either listening to fairy tales, flipping through the “Golden Carp Sect Leader” comic book, or enjoying music from the Sound Cultivation sect.
Meng Zi closed his eyes.
Some are drowned in abundance while others are parched for lack.
With such a distracted mindset, she wasted the teachings of the Transmission Master and influenced those around her. Did she know how many children outside the sect longed to pursue the Dao but couldn’t even find a way to enter a sect for cultivation?
Meng Zi sighed and shook his head.
“Senior brother Meng, several disciples have responded to your task of purchasing level-three spirit gathering talismans.”
As Meng Zi was pondering in his inner sect bedroom, a voice like a spring sounded behind him, timid and shy.
He turned to look at his beautiful junior brother who lived with him, sympathy flashing in his eyes.
Putting away the wooden carving of the village chief, his gaze turned serious as he focused on this timid, short-statured white-robed junior brother, who was like a rabbit.
“Xiao Bai, you’ve already entered the inner sect and have been away from that Lin Shuang for many years. Now that no one forces you to live with Lin Shuang anymore, have you really thought it through and decided not to return to your female form?”
Upon hearing this, the white-robed junior brother’s face flushed slightly.
He lowered his head without saying a word.
Meng Zi sighed, “Alright. As you wish.”
Poor Xiao Bai, a little clam spirit with natural beauty, had suffered greatly after living with Lin Shuang in the outer sect cabin number ninety-nine for several months eight years ago.
To move out of the outer sect cabin number ninety-nine, he had even forced himself to mature early and change his gender, transforming from a woman into a man overnight.
From that day on, Xiao Bai’s junior brother’s hair turned white overnight. He broke through to the Condensed Origin level and entered the inner sect to live with him.
Such a price was all thanks to that woman Lin Shuang.
Nowadays, Xiao Bai junior brother could be considered free from suffering, but Zhao Kranan, a promising cultivator, was still stuck in the mud.
“Don’t worry. I saw Lin Shuang today. Even given ten years, she probably won’t enter the inner sect.”
Meng Zi stood up, patting Xiao Bai junior brother’s thin shoulder.
“With her low cultivation level, she might even be expelled from the outer sect.”
Xiao Bai looked up, his deer-like eyes flashing obvious confusion.
Disagreement and doubt were written all over his delicate, handsome face, which had already reached the fifth level of Ningyuan.
But he soon hesitated, finally turning it into a sigh, condensed into one sentence.
“Senior brother Meng… you’d better keep away from her.”
“Ah, today was just a chance encounter during patrol.”
Meng Zi opened the talisman transaction list and began to browse it carefully.
Xiao Bai immediately felt relieved.
His gaze pierced through the bedroom wall, looking toward the outer sect in the southeast direction, his expression complex.
It was better to stay away from her because—
“Her cultivation speed… is too fast, she’s simply… not human.”
Even faster than the demons born with inherited bloodlines!
Time management, efficiency guides… every day, she cultivated at dozens of times the speed, and then just lay there!
Thinking about it, Xiao Bai’s long, butterfly-like eyelashes trembled slightly.
“Hmm?” Meng Zi looked up. “What did you say?”
Xiao Bai gave a breathtakingly beautiful but somewhat reluctant smile.
When it came to her, the difference between heaven and earth was too great.
The more confident one was, the greater the heart demon.
It was better not to know anything.
It was enough that only he had been hurt.
Xiao Bai silently walked to his meditation cushion, sat cross-legged, and began to absorb the energy of heaven and earth. “Senior brother, don’t ask. You wouldn’t want to know. I’m going to cultivate.”
“Acting so mysterious.”
Meng Zi shook his head.
But since Xiao Bai junior brother had been living with him, he had been thoughtful, gentle, and kind-hearted. The pearls he cried from time to time had even been exchanged for spirit stones, repeatedly helping him through tough times.
He owed a lot to this kind-hearted Xiao Bai junior brother.
[Debt: 102 tears from Xiao Bai junior brother—approximately 1020 spirit stones.]
Meng Zi looked at the wooden plaque IOU carved into his tattered pouch of space and sighed.
He immediately switched the sect’s talisman exchange list he was browsing to sort from the lowest to the highest price.
[Level-three spirit gathering talisman (20% new), 700 spirit stones.]
[Level-three spirit gathering talisman (damaged, clearance price), 950 spirit stones.]
…
Mencius flipped through them, his heart aching with hesitation.
The cheaper ones were all severely damaged talismans, and it was unclear how long they would last.
But soon, his eyes lit up when he saw a seller with detailed descriptions and an unusually low price.
[Level-three spirit gathering talisman (special), 1200 spirit stones. Appearance is different; please don’t purchase if you mind.]
[Effect: Equivalent to 30% of the standard. If cultivation is continuous, it can sustain a mid-level Condensed Origin cultivator for ten days or a low-level Qi Condensation cultivator for three months. Once activated, the talisman is destroyed and cannot be restored.]
This one is great!
Although it mentioned “appearance is different,” it was a bit strange.
But the seller clearly stated how long it could be used, and the price was quite reasonable.
He immediately clicked on the talisman seller disciple on the sect’s trading platform.
[The Most Generous]: Brother, is it convenient to transact now?
[The Most Generous]: Do you mind a pri♂♀vate→tra♂♀nsaction?
Meng Zi carefully added spacing symbols around the forbidden words on the sect’s trading platform.
Any transaction on the sect’s trading platform would result in a 10% commission, shared equally by both parties.
Private transactions wouldn’t have this issue.
The seller quickly replied.
[The Girl Who Wants to Become the Fastest Immortal]: Time and place.
[The Most Generous]: Night, inner sect—south—dog hole—treasure, understand?
[The Girl Who Wants to Become the Fastest Immortal]: Okay.
Quick and easy.
No wonder she wanted to become the fastest immortal.
Meng Zi’s eyes showed appreciation.
*
On a dark and windy night, in cabin number ninety-nine.
Lin Shuang put down the disciple’s identification plate, walked to the square wooden table, and lowered her head to inspect the vermilion ink that had seeped into the wood grain.
Satisfied, she nodded and stored the square wooden table into her interspatial bag.
*
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