The Missing Piece

This time, Li Nanzhu did not rush to try again. Instead, she slowly controlled her mental power, allowing it to cover the Wanxiang Brush.

The Wanxiang Brush, now covered in mental power, did not change much. It was just like it had been during the past half month, only looking a bit more translucent.

Taking a deep breath, Li Nanzhu injected spiritual energy once more. However, she had only just drawn a single point before it quickly dissipated again.

"Still not right... where exactly is the problem?"

Li Nanzhu did not feel that her idea was impossible to achieve. On the contrary, every time she experimented, she felt a faint sensation that she was actually touching the edge of success. This meant her method was feasible; she just didn't know where the error lay.

Her intuition told her that as long as she found the missing piece, she would succeed.

She just couldn't figure out what that missing piece was.

Turning around to brew another pot of spirit-tempering tea, she found that her cup was empty. Fortunately, she possessed a water spiritual root and could directly manifest water from it.

Wait, manifesting water?

Li Nanzhu suddenly froze.

Of course! Why hadn't she thought of it?

When drawing a talisman, talisman ink is required. The reason it can take effect on talisman paper is that it has a "medium."

When she attempted to draw directly in the air, she lacked that "medium," so it could not exert its effect.

While her idea of writing in thin air without a physical medium was correct in theory, she essentially wanted to use it as a means of attack—a different form of drawing talismans.

The problem could only lie in the attributes of the ink itself.

Even when using the blood of demonic beasts or spirit beasts to draw talismans, the blood itself contained the original spiritual energy attributes of the creature.

Furthermore, talisman ink was made from various materials, inevitably containing a mix of different spiritual energy attributes.

Every time she tried, she had thought that the purer the spiritual energy, the better. Thus, she had always used direct spiritual energy—energy that contained almost no attributes—for her experiments.

It was very likely that because of this, she had been unable to succeed for so long.

Having figured this out, Li Nanzhu immediately called upon water-attribute spiritual energy and injected it into the Wanxiang Brush.

To her surprise, after injecting the water-attribute energy, the entire Wanxiang Brush actually emitted a faint blue glow. She could even vaguely see the patterns on the brush seemingly transforming into round, rolling water droplets.

This miraculous sight reminded Li Nanzhu that the Wanxiang Brush was, in fact, a spirit tool. It seemed she was only now beginning to truly unlock its functions. If she had used it this way earlier, she might have avoided many detours.

However, she did not dwell on her regrets. She controlled her mental power once more, merging it with her spiritual energy.

As she expected, this time there was no resistance at all as she wrote the character for "Yong" in mid-air.

But that was the extent of it.

Although she could feel the spiritual energy radiating from it, the character lacked any power. It couldn't trigger any anomalies or phenomena.

Still, being able to reach this stage was a massive leap forward.

At the very least, she could now draw it. The next step was to research how to make it functional.

There was definitely still something missing.

But Li Nanzhu couldn't think of a method at the moment, so she decided to go out for a walk.

After not leaving her room for half a month, Li Nanzhu felt she might have gone a bit stir-crazy. However, as soon as she stepped out of her courtyard, Duan Xianxing's smiling face appeared before her.

"Little Junior Sister, have you missed me after not seeing me for half a month? I ran straight here to find you as soon as I finished my seclusion!"

He was still the same Seventh Senior Brother with that husky-like personality.

However, Li Nanzhu was currently in an excellent mood. She smiled and expressed her missed feelings to Duan Xianxing before they began wandering around together.

"Little Junior Sister, you definitely don't know how much progress I've made. Speaking of which, I even admire myself! I can now control the direction of my sword qi mid-flight! It only took me half a month! As expected, I, Duan Xianxing, must be the chosen one of this cultivation world!"

Whether he was the chosen one or not was unclear, but he was definitely a thoroughbred cannon fodder.

Li Nanzhu answered silently in her heart.

"Out of seclusion so soon? It seems you've had a breakthrough?"

Mu Wenyan's voice came from the side. Only then did the two realize they had unknowingly walked to Mu Wenyan's courtyard.

The two simply entered his courtyard and sat down for a casual chat.

"First Senior Brother, why are there so many ledgers here?"

Duan Xianxing immediately noticed the open books on the table, which were densely packed with numbers.

"Mhm, these are the income and expenditure ledgers for Qingyun City. I haven't had time to look at this month's yet."

"Wait? Qingyun City? Ledgers?!" Duan Xianxing rushed over, grabbed a book, and flipped through it.

"Otherwise, why did you think Master was so wealthy?"

Both Li Nanzhu and Duan Xianxing were stunned. So Qingyun City actually belonged to Feng Yi?

"No, if I had known Master was this rich, I wouldn't have lived so stingily! Why didn't I know?"

Mu Wenyan closed the ledger in his hand and looked at Duan Xianxing with a half-smile.

"Qingyun City has always been an affiliated city of our Five Elements Dao Sect. Its income and taxes have always been handed over to Master. Most of it remains in the City Lord's Mansion, and the rest is left to Master to handle as he pleases. However, it wouldn't matter even if all the money was taken, as most of the guards in a normal city are sect disciples. The same goes for other cities near sects. Otherwise, why would a sect be responsible for their safety?"

Li Nanzhu couldn't help but laugh as she looked at Duan Xianxing, who looked as if his world had collapsed.

"I look around with my sword, only to find I'm the only poor one!" Duan Xianxing felt quite hopeless.

"If you weren't such an easy mark, you wouldn't be this poor."

Li Nanzhu nodded in agreement. After all, she had personally witnessed how Duan Xianxing was scammed and yet remained gleeful about it.

"I just heard you mention that you've had some new insights?"

Mu Wenyan changed the subject first.

"Yes!" Duan Xianxing got excited again as soon as he heard this.

"First Senior Brother, do you want to spar with me this time? I feel like I can definitely defeat you now! But you can't use your Nascent Soul cultivation!"

And so, the three of them returned to the martial arts arena. This time, Li Nanzhu could clearly see the attacks of the two. Duan Xianxing seemed to follow a path of brute force, while Mu Wenyan was more inclined towards softness concealing strength—though that 'softness' was only relative to the 'strength.'

After all, Duan Xianxing was the one being beaten in the 'softness' department as well.

Fortunately, Mu Wenyan was very gentle this time and didn't beat his face into a pig's head again.

"There is progress, but for a Natural Sword Physique, this level of progress is still too slow."

Only then did Li Nanzhu remember that her seventh senior brother possessed a Natural Sword Physique. Therefore, he had a natural advantage in both sword practice and comprehension.

"First Senior Brother, even with a Natural Sword Physique, I can't learn everything at once. My progress is already very significant."

Duan Xianxing spread his hands; he had truly worked very hard.

"Seventh Senior Brother, when you were in seclusion, what did you do to comprehend these things?"

Duan Xianxing rubbed his head and thought deeply for a while before giving an answer.

"At that time, the only thing in my mind was those sword moves. I just really, really wanted to control that sword qi. If I couldn't control it, I would just try harder?"

It wasn't that Duan Xianxing didn't want to explain in detail, but rather that comprehension in this area wasn't that difficult for him. He only had to work toward a single direction and practice repeatedly. It was more like a mysterious, intangible feeling, so he could only give this kind of answer.

However, he didn't expect Li Nanzhu to suddenly bolt upright and leave a single sentence.

"First Senior Brother, Seventh Senior Brother, I'm going back into seclusion! I think I know what I need to do!"

Then she vanished instantly.

She knew what she was missing now!