Dao of the World Walker (Xianxia) Book 2

The day had arrived, though not the day Yang was most focused on.

Senior Brother Lin Yi was coming tomorrow. Today was Senior Brother Song Yi’s second class.

Yang had spent most of his time learning the inscriptions of every talisman Senior Brother Song Yi had listed in the first class, working through them from the library and practicing each one. He had managed to produce one of each but could not honestly call most of them good quality. He had not had enough time to practice them to his usual standard yet. What the effort had given him, though, was a clear picture of how each one worked and what questions he needed to ask to improve them.

His Warming and Cooling Talismans were the exception. Those were perfect. Making two talismans that were structurally similar yet worked in opposite directions had given him a perspective on talisman construction he had not had before. He kept thinking about it.

He made his way to the classroom and settled at a table, working on talisman inscriptions while he waited for the class to begin.

Senior Brother Song Yi entered with his usual ease and looked around at the assembled disciples.

”Good morning, Junior Brothers and Sisters. I hope you all managed to complete the task I gave you. I will be looking at your Warming and Cooling Talismans and answering questions before we move on to the next inscription today. If you have questions you do not get to in class, stay behind and I will answer them then. Now take out your Warming and Cooling Talismans.”

He moved between the tables, examining what each disciple had produced.

”Good work.”

”Needs more practice.”

He reached Yang’s table and Yang passed over both talismans. Senior Brother Song Yi looked at them briefly.

”Good work.”

He moved on.

When he had been through every table he returned to the front and faced the class.

”I am pleased with your overall progress. Most of you produced a working talisman, and for a first attempt that is the right goal. Now you need to understand them more deeply. Before we move on, does anyone have questions about these two?”

A hand went up.

”Yes?”

”Senior Brother, you said my talisman needed more practice but did not tell me where I was going wrong.”

”This is not a beginner class,” Senior Brother Song Yi said easily. ”I will not direct you to every error. If you practice enough you will find them yourself. But I will answer if you ask the right question.”

The disciple was quiet for a moment. Then: ”Senior Brother, my Warming Talismans keeps fluctuating instead of maintaining steady heat. The output goes up and down even when I am not changing my qi input. Why is this happening?”

”The inscription itself. Look at the third section, the part that controls how the talisman reads the surrounding temperature and adjusts to it. If your strokes there are uneven, even slightly, the talisman reads the environment inconsistently. The problem is not your qi input fluctuating. The talisman is simply bad at measuring. Fix those strokes and the fluctuation will resolve itself.”

More hands went up. The disciples understood they needed to ask specific questions.

”Senior Brother, my Cooling Talisman works but it depletes much faster than it should. I checked the inscription and cannot find the error.”

”You are not looking in the right place. Depletion rate is almost never about the main inscription. It is about the dispersal pathway at the end. The Cooling Talisman draws heat in and has to send it somewhere. If that exit pathway is too narrow, or the strokes closing it are not clean, the talisman struggles to move the heat out. It keeps working but it cannot do so efficiently. Check the final three strokes of the dispersal pathway. I will guarantee at least one of them is inconsistent.”

”Senior Brother, when I compare my Warming and Cooling Talismans side by side I can see they share almost the same base inscription. But they produce opposite effects. How does an almost same inscription produce such opposite results?”

Senior Brother Song Yi’s expression shifted slightly, like he had just been asked exactly the question he wanted asked.

”That is precisely why I taught these two together. The base structure is the same because the underlying function is the same. Both talismans are moving heat. The Warming Talisman draws it in and concentrates it. The Cooling Talisman draws it in and disperses it. Same action, different destination.” He wrote both inscriptions on the board and highlighted a section of each. ”These strokes in the Warming Talisman tell the qi to compress inward. These strokes in the Cooling Talisman tell it to expand outward. Everything else is identical. The difference between warming and cooling is only the direction you send the heat once you have it.”

”Senior Brother, my Warming Talisman works well at lower temperatures but becomes unstable when the surrounding environment is already warm. It starts producing too much heat and I cannot control it.”

”The talisman has stopped reading the environment and is simply running.” He highlighted another section of the board inscription. ”In a cold environment the regulation loop keeps pace because there is not much heat entering. In a warm environment, heat is entering faster than the inscription can manage and the talisman stops adjusting. It just pushes out what comes in. You need to strengthen the regulation inscription strokes relative to the intake strokes. Not weaken intake but rather strengthen the regulation. The talisman should always be reading the environment first and acting second.”

Yang wrote that down. He had been thinking about the regulation question differently and this framing was rather interesting.

Senior Brother Song Yi looked around the room. ”Any further questions on the Warming and Cooling Talismans?”

No one spoke.

”Good. The Silencing Talisman.”

He raised a hand and the inscription on the board changed.

”As I mentioned in our first class, the Silencing Talisman seals sound either from the user outward or within a defined area. The user can prevent their voice from escaping within a range of a few feet to a few meters, or deploy it as an area talisman to prevent all sound within the boundary from reaching those outside it. There is also a variant affixed directly to an opponent. Slap it on a person and they cannot make a sound for as long as the talisman holds. They can always tear it off themselves, which is why it pairs well with the Immobility Talisman.”

He walked them through the inscription methodically. He used the inscription on the board to show what happened at each section when the strokes were wrong: too thin here and the sealing field develops gaps, too thick there and the talisman draws more qi than necessary and depletes faster, a curve at this point that closes too sharply and the sound boundary becomes unstable under pressure.

Yang already knew how to make this talisman. He had made dozens of them and sold a portion to the outer sect hall before setting them aside as too low in points per piece. Sitting through this lecture he found himself looking at the inscription with different eyes. The strokes he had been making correctly were correct for reasons he had not fully understood, and the occasional inconsistencies in his earlier attempts now had specific names and causes he could attach to them.

Senior Brother Song Yi was doing something Yang had not encountered much in talisman instruction: he was teaching the inscription as a system of interacting parts rather than a sequence of steps to memorise. Each section did something, and understanding what it did explained why the strokes for that section were shaped the way they were.

When the class ended and most disciples filed out, Yang stayed. A few others had stayed as well, gathering near the front with questions. Yang waited until the last of them had finished and the room had emptied before approaching.

”Senior Brother. I am Chen Yang.”

Senior Brother Song Yi looked at him. ”Chen Yang. What is your question?”

Yang set his talisman bundle on the table, the perfected ones and the ones still in progress. ”I may be receiving an opportunity to take part in the inner sect talisman competition. I studied all the talisman inscriptions you listed in the first class and practiced them. I have yet to perfect most of them, but working through them gave me questions about each one. If you are willing, I would like to ask them.”

Senior Brother Song Yi picked up the bundle and went through it. He raised an eyebrow at one point, went back to the beginning of the stack and looked through it again more slowly.

”Junior Brother,” he said, setting the bundle down, ”you are clearly skilled and the only thing I can see holding you back is knowledge. If I had seen these talismans without context I would have thought them made by a more experienced practitioner. You are young, you cannot have been practicing for very long, and your inscription quality and qi distribution are at a level that is not typical for someone at your stage.” He looked at Yang. ”I would be happy to answer any questions you have.”

Yang began asking them.

What had started as a list of specific technical questions became a proper discussion. Senior Brother Song Yi’s manner in the classroom had been pleasant and measured. In this smaller exchange, with someone asking questions that apparently interested him, he became even more animated and engaging. Yang found himself thinking faster than usual, each answer opening two more questions, the gaps in his understanding of talisman theory becoming visible and then being filled one by one.

He had not expected to enjoy this as much as he did.

The day had arrived.

Senior Brother Lin Yi’s arrival day.

The time between Senior Brother Song Yi’s class and now had passed in a blur of talisman practice and cultivation, broken only by his morning plant watering routine and a meal once a day. He had been tempted more than once to use the spirit stones to accelerate his cultivation but had held back each time. He wanted to ask someone with proper knowledge before wasting them.

He was on the meditation platform now, working through his fourth cycle of the Heavenly Diversion, the headache building in a way that told him he had perhaps one more good cycle left in the session, when he felt something at the edge of his cave formation.

A presence. Someone announcing themselves at the edge of the cave formation.

Yang got off the platform and walked to the cave entrance.

As he stepped outside and saw what was waiting at the formation’s edge, his first thought was clear and immediate.

He was glad he had gotten the tea set.

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