High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 116: Chapter 40 Seal Spirit with a Stroke_1

Even though symbol drawing is a fundamental skill for most wizards, very few excel in it. In the world of wizards, masters who are skillful in talisman making have always been very scarce.

Therefore, the impressive performance of Zheng Qing in talisman class quickly spread throughout the school.

Capable of proficiently drawing all the basic symbols, rumor has it that he is a ’Kunlun descendant’. Every student was full of curiosity.

Normally, due to politeness, they all suppressed this curiosity.

But on this day, Zheng Qing successfully aroused everyone’s curiosity.

The desk in front of the bar, with fully equipped writing instruments; the ritual of burning incense and praying; this setup clearly indicates that Zheng Qing was about to demonstrate his ability as a ’Kunlun descendant’.

The onlookers were rubbing their hands with excitement, even more nervous than Zheng Qing at the desk.

Everyone held their breath, staring intensely at the rabbit hair brush in Zheng Qing’s hand.

Even the bar owner, the grey-robed wandering wizard, had his attention on Zheng Qing.

The colorful lights and music in the bar had silenced at the boss’s command.

Candles floating in the air formed a ring above the hall, converging above Zheng Qing’s head. The original pale blue flames have turned white, burning fiercely, casting a bright, shadowless world on the floor.

Because all the lights were focused on Zheng Qing, the area behind the bar seemed a bit dim. Only a row of faint green lights could be seen. Those were the glowing wings and tentacles of the elves. They quietly sat above the wine cabinet, their mouths closed, not uttering a sound.

With his eyes closed, Zheng Qing felt the oppressive silence, breathing gently, his shoulders slowly rising and falling with each breath. But his forearm, like cast iron, did not move an inch.

The white light above his head fell on him.

It fell on his shoulders, his elbows.

It fell on his wrists.

It fell on the ink-saturated brush tip.

Ink spread along the cracks to form beads at the tip of the brush.

Zheng Qing remained still.

The beads of ink grew larger until the force of gravity finally broke the hold of the rabbit hair, freely falling onto the yellow paper.

”Ah!” A few short shrieks from girls echoed through the crowd.

Zheng Qing’s eyes remained closed, but the brush in his hand seemed to be pulled by the cinnabar ink, following it onto the paper.

The droplet of free ink landed on the yellow paper, threatening to tear right through it.

The brush followed, the tip accurately hitting the ink right before it landed on the paper.

One pause, one lift of the brush.

One adjustment, one smear.

The tip of the brush danced, mutually attracting the free ink droplet, played out like a wild horse running rampant across the yellow paper.

Admiration could be heard throughout the crowd.

A few students in the front row even unconsciously mimicked his writing movements.

Every stroke painted perfection, every breath formed art.

Within moments, a complex gorgeous talisman was presented before the crowd.

With the brushwork finished, Zheng Qing placed the rabbit hair brush back onto the turtle back inkstone, letting it soak up the ink in the inkstone again.

Then he lifted his left hand, put the tip of his thumb in his mouth, bit down hard and pulled, then pressed his bloody finger at the intersection of the completed talisman.

The onlookers fell silent.

No one expected Zheng Qing to use such a radical spirit-binding method.

For wizards, symbolcrafting is often referred to as ’Two Challenges and One Catastrophe.’

The first challenge is drawing the runes. Without the guidance of a master teacher and a solid foundation, it is very easy to make mistakes in the process of drawing. Perhaps a deviation of four to five degrees in the upward or downward stroke can cause the talisman to express effects completely different from the original one.

The second challenge is the infusion. Gathering momentum before the stroke, invoking the spirit during the stroke, and restoring energy after the stroke, different legacy schools have varying methods of infusion, but all methods stress the importance of unity between body and mind, and coordination of breath. Many wizards easily fail in their spirit infusion because their breathing is disordered, or their mind is unsettled when they are drawing characters.

After overcoming the two challenges, the talisman is already 99.9% complete.

However, the last ten miles of a hundred-mile journey are the most difficult.

The last 0.1% has left many wizards with mud on their faces.

This is the final catastrophe of symbolcrafting: Spirit Sealing.

Spirit Sealing, as the name literally suggests, seals the spiritual machine of the talisman, and that’s exactly how it works in practice too.

After the completion of each talisman, its spiritual machine gradually dissipates with the passage of time. If not sealed, the spiritual machine infused into the talisman paper may vanish in the blink of an eye.

In their long practice, wizards have explored various methods of spirit sealing.

The most common one is the ’Spirit Sealing Symbol.’

The Spirit Sealing Symbol is an additional cipher added to the finished talisman. This cipher acts like a shackle that can lock the spiritual machine on the talisman paper. Different schools employ differing methods of writing ciphers, resulting in vastly different outcomes. Some ciphers can lock the spiritual machine for decades, while others are broken just a few hours later by the force of the spiritual machine.

The drawbacks of this method are not limited to that. The writing of each cipher is extraordinarily complex. At times, it might only take a minute to draw a complete talisman, but writing the cipher of the talisman takes a half-hour! Drawing complex ciphers on the limited space of a talisman foot is a substantial test for wizards. One misstep could result in complete failure.

Another less common method of spirit sealing is the ’Sealing Stamp.’

The Sealing Stamp is a magic artifact specifically designed to lock the spiritual machine. After completing the talisman drawing, a wizard simply needs to hold this sealing stamp, apply cinnabar ink, and stamp it on the talisman paper. Despite its high success rate, this method is rarely used due to the expensive and scarce nature of the artifact. Only master talisman writers have the capital to use such a seal.

Apart from the two widely circulated spirit sealing methods, there is one more crude, efficient, and very effective way of spirit sealing in the wizard world, but very few people use it - the Blood Seal.

As the name implies, the Blood Seal seals the spirit with blood.

After crafting the talisman, the wizard only needs to smear a few drops of his own warm blood on the talisman foot and draw a few checkmarks to finish the spirit sealing.

This spirit sealing method is straightforward, efficient, and highly effective.

The majority of talismans sealed with blood can remain effective for over a year!

However, every coin has two sides.

On the one hand, this sealing method is somewhat barbaric, and in the increasingly civilized modern wizard world, it seems somewhat out of place. On the other hand, this method tends to reveal the secrets of the wizard crafting the talisman.

The ”Wizard World Encyclopedia” has hundreds of examples of wizards accidentally dropping a few drops of fresh blood, which are then obtained by their opponents to cast curses, resulting in tragic endings.

Even now, unless a talisman is urgently needed for personal use, hardly any wizard would use this painful and highly risky method of spirit sealing.

In the Wandering Bar, the spectators watched in silent awe as Zheng Qing bit his finger and sealed the spirit with his blood.

No one expected him to use such an intense method.

Some spectators, hoping to get a glimpse of ’Kunlun’s Cipher,’ couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Yet, on the faces of many students, expressions of admiration emerged.

Not everyone has the courage to bite their own fingers.

And not every wizard has the audacity to shed their own blood outside the laboratory.

Zheng Qing seemed unaware of the silent atmosphere around him.

With his eyes still closed, he was contemplating the momentum of the next talisman.

The completed Clear Heart Symbol was delicately touched by his finger and gently passed to Xiao Xiao not far away.

Xiao Xiao took the talisman paper, timed it well, and released it to the sleeping Li Meng.