A Legend of a Heavenly Cultivator

6 The Nine Remaining Days

Ru Hua entered the room with a face that could not hide its worry. The servant girl furrowed her brow, her lips slightly pressed together before she finally opened her voice.

"Young Master, I just heard news from several people in the corridor. Young Master Chu Han has submitted a proposal to the Council of Elders that he wishes to compete for the position of Young Master of the Chu Family in the clan competition ten days from now. And the Council of Elders has already approved it."

Chu Jianqiu did not immediately say anything.

But inside his heart, he sneered quietly.

'So the Great Elder's bloodline finally could not hold back from making a move.'

He had already expected this would happen. The elders in the Council of Elders were not people whose words could be taken at face value. They were pragmatic to the marrow of their bones, and all this time some of them had supported him only because he was still considered the legitimate heir. But if the news about his destroyed dantian continued to circulate and was proven true in their eyes, that loyalty would evaporate like dew under the scorching sun.

'They will not easily believe it without seeing it for themselves. But the competition ten days from now will answer all their questions in the most naked way.'

Ten days. Not much.

If he lost to Chu Han, the Chu family would have no place left for him. And if it came to that point, even if the Great Elder decided to eliminate him permanently, as long as it was not done too openly in front of the public, most of those old elders would pretend not to see.

Chu Han was not an opponent who could be underestimated. He was far different from Chu Bolin yesterday, or from other young generation members he had faced before. As the direct grandson of the Great Elder, Chu Han was already at the ninth level of Body Refinement, the peak of what a cultivator could achieve at that stage. Before Liu Tianyao's betrayal ruined everything, Chu Han was the only one among the Chu family's young generation whose strength was still below Chu Jianqiu.

Now? With his cultivation condition still in the process of recovery, Chu Jianqiu knew honestly that he could not yet match Chu Han if the fight took place today.

He patted Ru Hua's head gently, and smiled calmly.

"Do not worry. Young master has a plan. You go out first, young master needs to cultivate."

Ru Hua nodded obediently, giving one last worried glance before closing the door behind her.

The room fell silent again.

Chu Jianqiu sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes, and began to think with a clear head.

To increase strength in a short time, there were essentially only two paths. First, master a martial technique that was higher and stronger than what was already mastered now. Second, push the cultivation level up with the help of pills.

As for martial techniques, the Chu Family techniques he had mastered were not much different from what Chu Han had learned. That meant the advantage from that side would not be significant.

The more promising one was actually the second choice. Pills. But quality pills were not cheap, and at the moment the condition of his pockets was very far from sufficient.

'Wait. I have not truly explored the inside of that Supreme Tower of Chaos.'

That thought appeared suddenly and immediately drew his attention. All this time he had only used the tower to train and recover himself, but he had never truly gone deeper inside to examine what was within it.

Chu Jianqiu directed his consciousness inward, entering the ocean of his mind.

And there, as usual, the tower stood.

But this time he saw it in a different way.

The tower's structure was enormous, ancient, and full of an authority difficult to explain with words. But there was something that caught his attention the moment he looked more carefully. The walls of the tower were covered in cracks. Not one or two small cracks, but many, crisscrossing one another like spider webs, making the entire building resemble an old temple nearly collapsed after being left for centuries without maintenance.

'Strange. From the outside it looks magnificent, but it turns out its condition is like this.'

He approached the door at the foot of the tower, pushed it slowly, and entered.

The sight inside made his steps halt for a moment.

Light flowed everywhere, spinning and dancing in the air forming intricate patterns. Not ordinary light. These were runes, symbols of power carved in the form of living light, floating in every corner of the room with a beauty that felt almost touching something very fundamental in this world. On the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, everything was filled with arrangements of talismans interconnected in very complex patterns.

The moment his eyes touched all of that, knowledge flowed into his mind like water seeping through dry soil. An inheritance about the Various Paths of Talismans and Rune Arrays.

And that understanding immediately explained why all of this was so important.

In the Tianwu Continent, the art of composing talismans was not merely one skill among many other skills. This was the foundation of nearly all aspects of the cultivation world. A weaponsmith could not forge an ancestral weapon without reinforcement runes. An alchemist could not purify pills without the proper fire talisman. A sect could not build defenses without protective arrays installed in every corner of their territory. Even trivial things like lighting a fire in the open field, filtering water in a place with no source, or performing long distance fast travel, all of them depended on talismans.

Talisman arrays were the language the universe used to run itself.

Chu Jianqiu began to examine the runes floating before him one by one.

Fire Talisman. Water Talisman. Wind Talisman. Swift Travel Talisman. Illusion Array. Labyrinth Array. Great Fire Array.

His eyes continued to move. And then stopped.

The Danfu Array.

The Pill Purification Talisman.

His heart beat slightly harder than usual.

His understanding of this array flowed in quickly. The concept was simple but its implications were enormous. This array did not only assist the pill making process as ordinary talismans did in the hands of alchemists. This array could purify pills independently. Throw the right medicinal ingredients into it, arrange the array according to the formula, and the purification process would run on its own.

'If news of this spread... all alchemists in this world could lose their jobs.'

He almost smiled at that thought.

But this was not the time to joke with himself. This was the solution to his biggest problem at the moment. By mastering the Danfu Array, he could make his own pills. And with enough pills, the problem of his stalled cultivation could be overcome far faster than the ordinary way.

Chu Han, Liu Tianyao, Ouyang Yuan, even the Great Elder himself, all of it would become matters that could be resolved one by one if his foundation was strong enough.

He began studying the Danfu Array with his full attention.

One full day passed inside that tower.

When Chu Jianqiu finally withdrew his consciousness back to the real world, an extraordinary mental fatigue struck him all at once. His eyes were heavy. His head felt like it had just been used to memorize the entire contents of a great library in one sitting. But behind the exhaustion there was real satisfaction.

The array for purifying Body Strengthening Pills was already mastered by him. Not yet perfect, there were still many aspects of the Danfu Array as a whole that he had not touched. But for this one type of pill, he could already run the process.

'Nine days left.'

There was no time to rest too long.

The next problem immediately appeared in his mind. The recipe for Body Strengthening Pills was in the Chu Family Pill Pavilion, accessible. But the medicinal ingredients? Those materials could not be obtained just like that. They had to be bought at the Alchemist Guild in Tianshui City. And to buy them, money was needed.

Money that at this moment he did not have.

He sat for a moment, thinking of a way out.

Then an idea emerged.

Talismans.

Not that complex Danfu Array. But simpler talismans, ones that could be drawn on special paper sheets and sold to anyone who needed them. Talismans of that kind always had a market. Strength Enhancement Talismans, simple protection talismans, light talismans, all of them had buyers.

He went back into the tower, found the simplest and most practical runes to learn, and spent a much shorter time mastering them compared to the Danfu Array yesterday.

The next problem was materials. To draw talismans required special ink and talisman paper, both not cheap. Chu Jianqiu finally made a somewhat bitter but necessary decision. Six Body Strengthening Pills he had just taken from the family Pill Pavilion he sold, and he used the proceeds entirely to buy talisman supplies.

He returned to his room, prepared the table, and began to draw.

The first few sheets failed. His hands were not yet accustomed to the pressure required, and the flow of qi through the brush had to be maintained at a very precise level for the talisman to activate correctly.

But the third sheet succeeded.

On that talisman paper, the runes he had drawn glowed for a moment with golden light before dimming into a mark that looked ordinary yet held power within it. A Strength Enhancement Talisman, capable of doubling the physical strength of its user for a short period of time.

Chu Jianqiu placed the talisman on the table, looking at it for a moment.

'The first step.'

Nine days still remained. Medicinal ingredients had to be bought. Pills had to be made. And his cultivation had to rise far enough to face Chu Han before the entire family.

Heavy work for nine days.

But not impossible work.