Chapter 130: A Huge Mistake

"Jiang Tu?!" Jiang Yu, halfway up the mountain, saw lightning and thunder again on the summit, fearing the little companion flying there would be injured.

Just as she called Ao Ze, about to fly to the summit, the master's voice rang, "It's fine, you go down!"

"Jiang Yu, I want chicken soup; brew a pot of fresh broth and roll some noodles while I wait," Jiang Tu's voice echoed down from the summit.

Strangely, as the two voices faded one after another, the thunder and lightning vanished, and the bright moonlight grew even brighter than before.

Jiang Yu led Ao Ze away, glancing back every three steps; she asked, "Master, do you put cilantro in the soup and noodles?"

"Add it," Sui Lv Zhenjun replied with a single word, brushing his left hand in mid‑air, pushing away the divine sense Ao Ze had reached.

He waited until the two reached mid‑mountain before meeting Jiang Tu's eyes: "Have you heard any reason back in your hometown?"

No wonder they say old people become spirits; the renowned Yuanhou Grand Cultivators are all several‑hundred‑year‑old elder spirits.

When he first saw Jiang Tu reveal his true form, he guessed it wasn't a Tianyuan dragon race, but he wasn't sure whether it originated from Dongzhou or another celestial realm.

"No, but I heard in Dongzhou that they haven't had anyone achieve Hua Shen for a long time, though they are just beginning to show such signs."

There, and in Tianyuan, I didn't sense the qi of heaven and earth thinning; it must be something from long ago that appeared at a spatial node on the unfavorable Tianyuan Continent.

It happened to block the normal flow of heavenly and earthly vital energy.

And even today, that thing is invading the Dongzhou Continent. Jiang Tu tilted his head, his analysis unusually orderly.

Sui Lv Zhenjun couldn't help but nod, "In nearly a thousand years of observation, we've often thought the same."

But without Hua Shen cultivators, we can't enter a spatial node to investigate. Nascent Soul cultivation is high, yet it can't withstand the prolonged storm of leaping across spatial nodes.

Helplessly, the Tianyuan Continent can only frequently dispatch Nascent Soul cultivators to other celestial realms to attempt Hua Shen.

Unfortunately, those who succeed in Hua Shen are few, and only a portion of the seniors who reach Hua Shen are willing to return to Tianyuan Continent; they spend years abroad investigating the cause.

Whenever they wish to further refine their cultivation, they must go to other celestial realms to train.

And as everyone knows, cultivators—especially high‑level ones—spend a few hundred years in a single retreat.

When they emerge and return to Tianyuan, those juniors who still have support fare better, but some seniors' families or relatives have long ceased to exist.

Cultivators also have familial bonds; however, once their attachments are nowhere to be found, only a handful can selflessly continue seeking why Tianyuan cannot achieve Hua Shen.

And when these few exhaust their lifespans, the sects and families of Tianyuan Continent finally realize their Hua Shen cultivators have run out; no junior has succeeded in Hua Shen.

Although the Grand Void Sect is not a top‑tier sect, it can stand in the southwest cultivation world with just three Nascent Soul cultivators, thanks to the blessing of a Hua Shen elder who has been involved in investigations for millennia.

"Have you ever considered that the Great Luo Cave Heaven might be affecting the Hua Shen progress?" Jiang Tu, perhaps drunk, let his mind drift far away.

He only knew that as soon as he finished the sentence, Sui Lv Zhenjun sprang up, "You, what do you know?"

"I know nothing, but I know that at the start you cared more about Jiang Yu's face than about master‑disciple sentiment.

Moreover, the Grand Void Sect's imposed limits on practicing the Thunder-Fire Technique are essentially wasting the disciples' time.

Repeatedly tempering spiritual energy aids disciples in forming a core, but refusing to take them as direct transmission for this method is a huge mistake.

Missing the chance in youth to nurture master‑disciple bonds and take core‑forming cultivators as apprentices leaves little affection left to discuss.

Under such circumstances, you cannot force her to trust you completely." Jiang Tu waved away the smell of alcohol, then ran toward Zifeng, intending to return to Jiang Yu for chicken.

Sui Lv Zhenjun did not pursue him, but hovered in mid‑air, lost in thought.

On Zifeng here, Jiang Yu, who had just slaughtered a chicken, heard his recount of the conversation with the master and said nothing more.

She simply simmered the chicken, then stood quietly by the river, gazing at the moon.

Watching the fire, Ao Ze occasionally glanced at her and at Jiang Tu, who was crunching on spirit fruits, and whispered, "Won't you go and advise her?"

Jiang Tu, puzzled, asked, "Advise what?"

"… " Ao Ze scratched his head. "What to advise? Jiang Yu has been motionless for almost half an hour; the chicken is about to finish simmering—what about the noodles?"

"She certainly isn't thinking about being scolded by her master," Jiang Tu said, confident in Jiang Yu.

In fact, Jiang Yu truly wasn't pondering master‑disciple matters; she believed in going with the flow—stay if fate allows, disperse if not.

She originally intended to catch two small fish to fry, but a foot accidentally shattered the moon's reflection on the water; silver moonlight poured into her sea of consciousness, causing the Mixed Primordial Talisman to flutter page after page.

Moreover, after flipping through, she reversed the pages to reread, and each symbol on the pages, under moonlight, resembled dancing musical notes, glittering.

Jiang Yu paid particular attention to the pages of the Thunder Talisman and the Seal Talisman; one relates to her own technique, the other can, at a critical moment, seal someone of higher cultivation.

She can't yet ascend a level to defeat enemies, but mastering this talisman to seal the back‑and‑forth leaping Xuantang Xingjun should be no problem, right?

As the moonlight faded, Jiang Yu hurriedly gathered her spirit, committing only the initial strokes of the pulsing Thunder Talisman to memory, while her hand began drawing in the air.

Thus, her brain directed her right hand, drawing faster and more accurately, and her hand involuntarily channeled spiritual energy.

Lines of light, faint and elusive, were pulled beneath her fingers into mysterious sigils.

After an unknown amount of time, when she completed a Thunder Talisman, a "boom" rang as fish were explosively flung from the water in succession.

"Wow, Jiang Yu, what divine skill did you just practice?" Jiang Tu swooped to the riverbank, raised his hand—no, his claw—and scooped up a dozen fish, pulling them into the air.

Its deep‑blue, blackish water spirit surged, and the fish lined up, flying toward Ao Ze.

Jiang Yu, startled awake, hesitantly examined her right hand, thinking, "Just now I drew a Thunder Talisman in the void, and it exploded out a dozen fish?"

Didn't they say talismans in the cultivation world can only be drawn on paper, leather, wood, or similar spiritual materials?

She racked her brain, then projected her divine sense into the sea of consciousness; the mischievous talisman book, now yawning, closed its pages, becoming a regular book absent from her mind.

Jiang Tu interrupted her rambling, pulling her back to reality: "Jiang Yu, hurry and make fish soup."

"You and Ao Ze tidy up, I'll be right there." Jiang Yu, not wanting to waste the fresh inspiration, leapt out of the river onto the shore, quickly drying her hands, feet, and clothes.

She then slapped her storage bag, scattering tables, chairs, brushes, and ink, looked up to see the shy moon hidden behind clouds, and simply fetched a few Moonlight Stones and a lantern, placing them at the four corners of the table.

She laid out prepared talisman paper, dabbed a flowing vermilion ink with a talisman brush, and began drawing the sigils.

From afar, Sui Lv Zhenjun watched, seeing Jiang Yu's brushwork blossom like a flower.