Li Nanzhu found a flat bluestone at the edge of the forbidden area and carefully spread out her talisman paper.
Since the spiritual energy here was so dense, she couldn't let this opportunity go to waste. Heaven only knew if she would be able to enter again before breaking through to Foundation Establishment; her entry this time was likely only because Feng Yi was asleep and hadn't bothered with her.
She had to seize this chance and strive to draw a tier 2 talisman directly.
Taking a deep breath, Li Nanzhu summoned the Wanxiang Brush. Perhaps because the surrounding spiritual energy was too rich, the Wanxiang Brush emitted a faint halo, appearing even more crystal-clear than before.
Li Nanzhu worked hard to suppress the restless spiritual power within her body. She hadn't expected that simply summoning the Wanxiang Brush would cause her spiritual energy to lose control slightly. This would likely be her only chance to draw a tier 2 talisman.
"Second Senior Brother, I'm starting," she reminded him.
Zhu Yinxi nodded slightly, his jade flute resting across his knees. However, in a place neither of them noticed deep within the forbidden area, dark shadows occasionally flickered past, gone in an instant, as if everything were merely an illusion.
Li Nanzhu slowly recalled the patterns of the tier 2 cleansing heart talisman in her mind. When she drew tier 1 talismans before, she had already used the Eight Principles of Yong to deconstruct most of the tier 2 talisman. At this moment, there was no hesitation as she raised her brush to draw; instead, bolstered by the dense spiritual energy around her, her brushwork was as smooth as flowing water.
Watching Li Nanzhu draw the talisman from the side, Zhu Yinxi was momentarily dazed. For some reason, every time his junior sister made a stroke, a faint Dao rhyme seemed to emanate from it. But the Dao rhyme came and went so quickly that it always felt like his imagination.
Even without that Dao rhyme, the process of drawing the talisman was pleasing enough to the eye.
Zhu Yinxi had seen other talisman cultivators draw before. They usually required immense effort, with every stroke made with the utmost caution. It was his first time seeing such a free-spirited, almost casual method of drawing like his junior sister’s.
Meanwhile, Li Nanzhu was completely immersed in the world of talisman drawing. Because she didn't dare release her own spiritual power, everything had to be drawn from the spiritual energy of the forbidden area itself, which was also a massive test for her mental power.
The only thing she could do now was connect her mental power and the external spiritual energy to the Wanxiang Brush as the complex patterns gradually formed on the talisman paper.
Suddenly, she felt a wave of inexplicable coldness.
But she didn't have time to investigate the source of this chill. The cleansing heart talisman had reached its most critical strokes. If she gave up now, all her efforts would be in vain, and her mental power would not allow her to try again in a short time.
"Focus," Zhu Yinxi's fingers lightly brushed over the body of his flute. "I'm here."
Hearing this, Li Nanzhu no longer paid attention to anything else, focusing all her concentration on the talisman. In this moment, she chose to believe in Zhu Yinxi—to believe that he would protect her.
On the other side, Zhu Yinxi gazed at the looming dark shadows in the distance and raised his jade flute, playing a single, long note. The clear, melodious flute sound echoed through the forbidden area, and the dark shadows immediately scattered like a startled school of fish.
As the flute music faded, Li Nanzhu finally finished her stroke.
The patterns on the talisman emitted a faint glow before settling completely onto the paper.
"It’s a success."
Li Nanzhu wiped the sweat from her forehead. It seemed her intuition was correct; she already had the ability to draw tier 2 talismans, hindered only by her low cultivation level.
After carefully putting away the cleansing heart talisman, Li Nanzhu looked up and saw that Zhu Yinxi’s expression was slightly solemn.
She also remembered the sudden chill while drawing the talisman. Frowning, she looked into the distance.
Among the shadows of the trees far away, a blurry dark shadow seemed to be quietly "watching" them. It appeared to have no physical form, yet it gave her a strong, uncomfortable feeling of being peered at.
Further into the depths of the forbidden area, the fog had grown thicker at some unknown point.
Though the dark shadow no longer approached them, they gathered in the distance, though it was unclear what exactly they were wary of.
Li Nanzhu and Zhu Yinxi shared a look, though Zhu Yinxi didn't seem surprised. He simply gestured to her.
"Let's call it a day."
Zhu Yinxi stood up, twirling the jade flute in his hand. "This is your first time here, and you aren't in the best state right now. Let's leave first."
Li Nanzhu nodded. As she left, she couldn't help but look back once more—the dark shadow still stood there, its blurry outline flickering in the fog as if seeing them off.
"What on earth... was that?"
After walking out of the forbidden area's range, Li Nanzhu finally asked the question on her mind.
Zhu Yinxi paused and looked back into the depths of the forbidden area. "Who knows? Perhaps a residual obsession, or a manifestation of spiritual energy..." He paused again. "Master never explains these things to us. The only certainty is that those things can't directly harm us, and the fog seems to be a kind of seal for them."
Li Nanzhu was thoughtful; this forbidden area was much more mysterious than she had imagined.
She had noticed as soon as she entered the area: logically, such dense spiritual energy should have allowed some spirit plants to grow. But from her observations, all the surrounding vegetation was ordinary, lacking even a hint of spirituality. This in itself was abnormal.
"Do the other senior brothers and sisters know about this?"
"They do. It's mainly because those things are always watching, intentionally or not, which makes them very uncomfortable. Plus, we usually act alone, so except for me, no one usually comes here. This is also my first time coming here with a fellow disciple."
Li Nanzhu understood. Even if those things wouldn't harm them, they were impossible to guard against. One couldn't fully enter a state of cultivation even with the spiritual energy there if they were being watched. It was better to cultivate elsewhere, especially since the energy in this place wasn't that easy to absorb anyway.
"Tomorrow..."
Zhu Yinxi suddenly spoke, appearing unsure how to continue. Though his tone was flat, a flash of anticipation flickered in his eyes.
Li Nanzhu looked at the successful tier 2 talisman in her hand, the corners of her mouth curving upward slightly.
"I want to come back to the forbidden area tomorrow. Is that okay, Second Senior Brother?"
"Alright."
As they left side by side, neither of them noticed that in the deepest part of the forbidden area, the surface of the spiritual lake rippled unnaturally, and a muffled "glug" sound echoed from the depths.
Feng Yi woke with a start on the bed at Sovereign Peak, his face changing instantly as he calculated with his fingertips.
With a flash, Feng Yi appeared directly in the center of the forbidden area. The pressure from the so-called spiritual energy seemed nonexistent to him.
The black shadows vanished without a trace the moment Feng Yi appeared.
Feng Yi had no intention of entangling with the shadows. He simply formed a few more hand seals, and the surrounding fog grew even denser. Correspondingly, Feng Yi's face turned pale.
He didn't care about his own state and slowly walked into the spiritual lake. In an instant, the lake water dropped at a rate visible to the naked eye until two-thirds of it were gone. Only then did Feng Yi's complexion gradually improve.
As a result, the spiritual energy in the air also thinned out.
Feng Yi was already accustomed to all of this. He casually took out several crystal-clear spirit stones from his storage space and tossed them into the lake.
The moment the spirit stones hit the water, they emitted a circle of faint light before sinking to the bottom.
Before long, the calm surface of the lake began to ripple slightly, and the water level rose slowly at a visible speed until it recovered to half of its original level.
Seeing the lake water recover on its own, Feng Yi didn't stay any longer. He turned and left.
His figure soon disappeared at the entrance of the forbidden area, leaving only silence behind.
A breeze blew past, causing the lake surface to shimmer as if everything that had just happened had never occurred.
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