666: Chapter 666, Page 8!

In total, these three items cost Qin Yan 2,000 taixuan points!

Even Qin Yan couldn't help but feel a bit of a sting in his wallet.

The taixuan points he had accumulated were significantly depleted in an instant!

Originally, he had saved up over three thousand taixuan points through the Inner Court assessment, beast tide missions, and Alchemy.

With this, two thousand were spent.

Leaving him with a pitiful one thousand-plus points.

"Once any resource reaches the Grandmaster level, it becomes something entirely different."

Qin Yan sighed.

Grade five and six resources, though expensive, were still within an acceptable range.

But grade seven resources were not only more expensive but also rarer.

Many things couldn't be bought even if you had the money.

One needed channels, connections, and the proper qualifications.

The Holy Land's taixuan points exchange System was considered relatively fair.

As long as you had taixuan points, you could exchange them.

But the price was indeed not cheap.

Immediately, Qin Yan's gaze sank into his body, looking toward the Blood Demon Nest.

Xiao Hei was currently floating in mid-air, surrounded by Devilish Qi like a layer of black gauze enveloping its body.

Its branches swayed gently, sometimes extending and sometimes contracting, like human fingers dancing nimbly.

The tip of every branch shimmered with a faint, eerie light.

In front of Xiao Hei, a pitch-black Spirit Brush was slowly moving through the Void Realm.

That Spirit Brush was exactly what Qin Yan had spent one thousand five hundred taixuan points to exchange for Xiao Hei.

At this moment, the Spirit Brush was held up by a mass of invisible Darkness Power, suspended in mid-air.

On the Spirit Brush, dense Darkness Power flowed at the tip; every stroke and every curve left deep marks on the talisman paper.

These marks were black patterns that Qin Yan could not understand.

Some patterns were bold and unrestrained, like the marks of a knife or axe; some were delicate and graceful, like tangled strands of hair; some were winding and twisting, like a snake slithering or a rat scurrying.

They intertwined, layer upon layer, dense and packed, like an abstract painting.

Between the patterns, light faintly flowed.

That was the Darkness Power spreading, penetrating, and soaking into the talisman paper, achieving Fusion with the talisman paper's own Spiritual Qi to form a mysterious resonance.

Qin Yan watched quietly from the side, not speaking to disturb it.

This talisman crafting was just like his Alchemy; it could not be disturbed.

During the refining process, Mental Energy is highly concentrated, and the mind is fully focused; any external interference could lead to total failure.

So, Qin Yan just stood there quietly, watching in silence.

However, even without Qin Yan's interference, Xiao Hei didn't seem to be doing very well.

The speed at which the Spirit Brush drew became slower and slower.

At first, the Spirit Brush moved across the talisman paper with fluid grace, every stroke crisp and clean, without any hesitation.

But as time passed, the speed of the Spirit Brush gradually decreased, requiring great effort for every inch it moved.

Xiao Hei's branches no longer swayed easily as before, becoming stiff and sluggish instead.

Suddenly—

The Spirit Brush jerked to a halt, stopping in the center of the talisman paper.

At the tip, a mass of Darkness Power suddenly condensed, gathering denser and brighter, emitting a blinding light.

In the next instant, that Darkness Power was released without warning!

"Bang—!!!"

With a muffled sound, the Darkness Power exploded on the surface of the talisman paper.

Black light splashed in all directions, tearing the talisman paper into shreds.

The refining failed.

Xiao Hei looked at the falling fragments of talisman paper, its branches drooping dejectedly and swaying from side to side as if it were sighing.

Not everyone was like Qin Yan, with a hundred percent success rate in refining.

Qin Yan was at the sixth grade in Alchemy and had refined countless batches of Medicinal Pills without ever failing.

But Xiao Hei was different.

Its talisman crafting knowledge all came from the Legacy memories deep within its mind.

Those memories told it how to do it, how to do it correctly, and how to succeed—but there was a vast chasm between "knowing" and "doing."

Xiao Hei had never actually performed the operation before.

It had never held a brush personally, never seen or felt what talisman paper was like, and never truly channeled the power of heaven and earth to draw a spirit Talisman.

This was its first time.

The first time, failure was inevitable.

Qin Yan reached out and gently stroked Xiao Hei's branches.

"You've already done very well."

Qin Yan spoke words of comfort, his voice calm and sincere.

"Refining Talismans is inherently difficult, and you've never practiced it before, so failure is normal."

No one is born knowing how to perform Alchemy, and no one is born knowing how to refine Talismans.

All skills are honed through repeated failures.

Of course, he was an exception.

Hearing this, Xiao Hei's branches lifted slightly, sending a wave of gratitude to Qin Yan.

It knew Qin Yan was comforting it and knew that what he said made sense.

After a short rest, Xiao Hei shook its branches and pulled itself together again.

It took out a second sheet of talisman paper and spread it out in front of itself.

The Spirit Brush was once again lifted by the Darkness Power, its tip dipped in ink, hovering above the talisman paper.

Taking a deep breath—then, the brush descended!

This time, Xiao Hei's brushwork was even more fluid than before.

Perhaps it was because of the experience from the first failure, perhaps because its mindset had relaxed, or perhaps simply because practice makes perfect.

The Spirit Brush was no longer stiff in its grasp but became nimble and free, every stroke crisp and clean.

However—

Half an hour later, the talisman paper suddenly burst into flames.

Dark black flames flared up from the edges of the talisman paper, quickly spreading toward the center.

Wherever the flames passed, the talisman paper turned to ash, and the black patterns twisted, deformed, and disappeared in the fire.

Xiao Hei had failed again.

After the flames were extinguished, the talisman paper had been burned clean, leaving only a few wisps of blue smoke drifting in the air.

Xiao Hei looked at the blue smoke, then at the Spirit Brush in front of it, and remained silent for a moment.

Then, it took out a third sheet of talisman paper once more.

Fail, rest, draw again.

The fourth sheet, failure.

The fifth, failure. The sixth, failure.

The seventh, failure...

Xiao Hei kept repeating these steps, untiringly.

When its branches were tired, it would stop to rest for a while; when its Mental Energy was over-exhausted, it would close its eyes to rest its spirit for a moment.

When it felt irritable, it would shake its branches to soothe itself.

Then, it would continue.

Once and again, over and over.

Qin Yan watched from the side without making a sound.

He saw a shadow of his former self in Xiao Hei.

That refusal to admit defeat, that resilience that grew stronger with every setback, that persistence that wouldn't give up until the very end.

It wasn't until Xiao Hei's eighth attempt that things finally took a turn.

This time, the eighth sheet of talisman paper.

Xiao Hei's Spirit Brush moved across the talisman paper, the speed neither fast nor slow, the pressure neither light nor heavy.

One pitch-black pattern after another was born under the brush tip, winding and twisting, crisscrossing.

The patterns became more numerous and dense.

They began from the edges of the talisman paper and converged toward the center.

First the main framework, then the details, and then the embellishments.

Every pattern was just right, neither too many nor too few, neither biased nor skewed.

(Taking a day off, two chapters today~)