Ten Thousand Years in Seclusion

Qi Tian smiled ruefully.

But after cultivating the Essence-Returning True Origin Scripture, he had far better control over his spiritual energy than he had back then.

He took a deep breath, picked up the brush, and dipped it into the ink.

Spiritual energy flowed steadily through the brush as he laid down the first stroke. There was none of the wild, uncontrolled fluctuation he had struggled with in the past.

Second stroke. Third.

The talisman pattern slowly took shape.

Qi Tian was taking it far too seriously, his movements stiff and deliberate, but Guo Qing still nodded in approval.

Only the final stroke remained.

A smile flickered across Qi Tian’s face.

The instant the brush touched the paper—

Bzzzt!

The entire sheet of talisman paper flashed.

"Brother Qi, you’re amazing! You got it right on the first try!"

Qian Duobao stared at him in open admiration.

Guo Qing picked up the talisman paper and turned it over in his hand, carefully studying the flow of the talisman pattern.

"The pattern is flawless, and the spiritual energy is perfectly balanced. But you infused far too much spiritual energy. How did the paper not burn?"

"Come on. Let’s see how well it works."

Guo Qing held the talisman paper between his fingers.

"Purify!"

The instant the word left his mouth—

Bzzzt!

The Dust-Cleansing Talisman suddenly erupted in a blinding flash of white light.

Nothing like the gentle pulling force it was supposed to produce.

Instead, a violent stripping force burst outward.

Dust and ink stains were ripped from the desk in an instant.

Then the varnish on the wooden surface began peeling away in strips, as though an invisible blade were scraping it clean.

Lime and old paint came raining down from the walls, exposing the blue-gray bricks beneath.

Everyone froze.

The debris didn’t fall to the floor. It was swept into the air, caught by the same force and dragged toward the center from every direction.

Dust, flakes of plaster, old paint, wood shavings, scraps of paper—

Everything clinging to the room was torn free and swept into the air, churning and twisting together as it gradually compacted into a single mass.

The sight was enough to make anyone uneasy.

Then came a soft—

Pop.

The swirling mass of grime and debris compressed into a gray-black sphere about the size of a fist.

It hovered above the desk, slowly rotating in silence.

Above it, Qi Tian’s Dust-Cleansing Talisman remained suspended in midair.

White light blazed from the paper, growing brighter and brighter, as though an enormous amount of spiritual energy were building inside it.

Guo Qing’s expression changed.

"Move!"

He shouted and immediately backed away.

Several figures barely made it to the doorway.

The spiritual light within the talisman had already reached its limit.

BOOM!!!

A torrent of violent spiritual energy tore through the entire Talisman Chamber.

The desks were thrown into the air. Talisman paper filled the room, while brushes and ink flew in every direction.

The walls shook violently, and one of the window frames cracked with a sharp snap.

A moment later, the dust began to settle.

Everyone stood there, still shaken, looking at one another.

They had all instinctively shielded themselves with spiritual energy when the explosion went off. No one was hurt, and no one had even been knocked into a sorry state.

The Talisman Chamber, however, was another story.

The rows of ebony worktables had been overturned and cracked, with broken pieces of wood scattered across the floor. The shelves along the walls leaned at crooked angles, their talisman brushes, paper, and books strewn everywhere.

Tiles from half the roof had been shaken loose, sending dust and debris raining down.

Guo Qing stood amid the wreckage, his face covered in soot.

He stared at the ruined chamber in silence.

Dust-Cleansing...

A Dust-Cleansing Talisman...

Who knew a Dust-Cleansing Talisman could do this?

Qi Tian stood where he was, staring at the wreckage around him. Then he looked at Guo Qing’s face, which still wore the expression of someone who had just seen a ghost.

This was bad.

After a long moment, he cleared his throat and spoke awkwardly.

"Um... senior brother Guo, do you think there might’ve been something wrong with the talisman paper? Or maybe the spiritual ink?"

Guo Qing: "..."

He slowly rolled his eyes.

Talisman paper? Spiritual ink?

How did this kid even come up with that?

Dozens of disciples had been drawing Dust-Cleansing Talismans here for decades without a single problem. Yet somehow, when it came to Qi Tian, it was suddenly the paper’s fault. Or the ink’s fault.

Guo Qing opened his mouth, a breath of frustration caught in his chest, and was just about to answer when—

Crash!

The door to the Talisman Chamber, already left hanging precariously from the blast, was shoved open from outside.

A figure strode in.

"What happened here?!"

It was Elder Li.

He stopped dead as he took in the scene before him.

Overturned and cracked worktables. Broken pieces of wood scattered across the floor. Shelves leaning at crooked angles. Walls stripped down to the blue-gray bricks beneath. Half the roof shedding dust and debris with every passing second...

Elder Li’s face darkened by the second.

Then he barked,

"Guo Qing! What in the world happened here?!"

Guo Qing jumped and hurriedly bowed, his face twisting into a grimace.

"R-Reporting to you, Master..."

He swallowed hard.

"It... it was the Dust-Cleansing Talisman. It exploded."

"What?"

Elder Li froze.

For a moment, he wondered if he had heard wrong.

"You said... what talisman?"

"The... Dust-Cleansing Talisman."

Guo Qing’s voice grew quieter with every word.

"The Dust-Cleansing Talisman?!"

Elder Li’s voice shot up. His eyes widened.

He was at a loss for words.

A Dust-Cleansing Talisman had caused this much destruction?

That was practically the power of a first-tier Explosive Talisman. Who would believe it if they heard the story?

His gaze swept across the ruined chamber before he asked in a low voice,

"Who drew it?"

Guo Qing lowered his voice.

"Qi Tian."

Elder Li’s gaze snapped toward Qi Tian.

The corner of his face twitched involuntarily.

He was beginning to suspect something was seriously wrong with the Formation Hall.

First there was Zhuang Lili, blowing up formation plates on a daily basis.

And now they had another one—someone who could turn a Dust-Cleansing Talisman into an Explosive Talisman.

Elder Li forced his expression flat.

"As for the damage to the Talisman Chamber..."

He casually pointed around the room.

"Twelve worktables. Eight talisman racks..."

He stopped.

"Forget it. Those are minor losses. Not worth mentioning."

His finger swept across the room again.

"The real problem is those thousands of sheets of talisman paper, and several jars of spiritual ink. All of them are ruined."

Qi Tian’s heart skipped a beat.

He cautiously asked,

"Elder Li... you’re not going to make me pay for this, are you?"

Elder Li’s eyes widened.

"If you don’t pay for it, who do you expect to?"

Qi Tian fell silent.

"Then... how much?"

"Five hundred low-grade spirit stones."

Qi Tian’s eye twitched.

Well, look at that.

The old man opened with five hundred, just like that. He sounded exactly like Qi Tian himself when he had squeezed compensation out of the Yue Lai Inn’s owner.

Qi Tian immediately put on an expression of deep anguish and distress.

"Elder, that’s far too much... I just joined the sect. I barely have a spirit stone to my name. I really can’t afford that."

Elder Li pondered for a moment.

"Fine. I’ll cover some of it myself. You pay three hundred."

Qi Tian gritted his teeth.

"One hundred! I really can’t give you more!"

"You—!"

Elder Li’s voice rose sharply.

"You think this is a market stall? You can haggle over the price?!"

He glared at Qi Tian.

"Two hundred and fifty! That’s the number. No more bargaining!"

He paused, then added irritably,

"And let me make one thing clear: I am not negotiating a business deal with you!"

Qi Tian silently calculated.

He only had a little over a hundred spirit stones on him. There was no way he could come up with two hundred and fifty.

He could only put on another bitter expression.

"I really don’t have that much."

Elder Li’s expression eased slightly.

"Contribution points will do. Two hundred and fifty points."

He looked at Qi Tian.

"You have three months to pay it back."

Qi Tian stood there in silence.

Then he cursed inwardly.

Damn it.

He had only been in the sect for two days, and somehow he was already two hundred and fifty contribution points in debt.

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