"Junior Brother Xu, did you clearly see my movements?" Yang Bailao asked, turning his gaze toward Xu Changshou.

"I saw them clearly!" Xu Changshou nodded.

Yang Bailao drew another sheet of Yellow Hemp Paper and continued his work. "Junior Brother Xu, this next one is called a Windwalk Talisman. When affixed to the body, it allows a cultivator to travel a thousand li in a single day."

A Windwalk Talisman...

Xu Changshou furrowed his brow slightly. There was a Windwalk Talisman recorded within his Bloodline Jade Talisman, but that version boasted a speed of three thousand li a day. Why was there such a massive discrepancy between two talismans bearing the exact same name?

Are my spirit talismans fundamentally different from the ones crafted on Green Ink Peak?

"Junior Brother Xu, you must practice this one diligently. In the future, eighty percent of your assigned duties will consist of producing these Windwalk Talismans," Yang Bailao warned him.

Xu Changshou was puzzled. "Senior Brother Yang, how do you know that will be my specific task?"

"Before you arrived, out of the dozen or so Miscellaneous Disciples on Green Ink Peak, I was the only one possessing a wind attribute in my spirit root," Yang Bailao explained. "Across the entire Green Immortal Sect, Windwalk Talismans have always been in dangerously short supply. Therefore, Uncle Li Daotu will almost certainly make you responsible for them."

"I understand. Thank you for the guidance, Senior Brother Yang. Oh, that reminds me!" Xu Changshou smoothly shifted the conversation. "Senior Brother, what is the compensation like for us Miscellaneous Disciples here?"

Yang Bailao paused, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "There is a stipend, yes. But it is pitifully meager."

"How much, exactly?"

"It scales with one's ability. The higher your cultivation, the more talismans you can draw, and naturally, the greater your reward. If your output is low, your pay reflects that. Take me, for example. My quota is ten talismans a day. Excluding our rest days on the first and fifteenth of the month, I must hand over roughly two hundred and eighty talismans. For that, I receive two Spirit Stones a month."

"Two Spirit Stones? That's quite a lot!"

Xu Changshou's eyes lit up. When he had first entered the Sect, he had been granted a single Spirit Stone as a welfare allowance. He had stretched that single stone over several years, and he even had two Qi Gathering Pills left over.

If he could earn a steady income of two Spirit Stones every month, his Cultivation speed would skyrocket.

Yang Bailao's bitter smile deepened into a grimace. "Junior Brother Xu, oh, Junior Brother Xu. You only see the surface of the pond, not the mud beneath. We Miscellaneous Disciples have been suffering in this purgatory for a very long time."

"Do you know the price of drawing ten talismans? It requires me to completely drain my Spiritual Qi-twice a day. The Sect may pay me two Spirit Stones, but two-thirds of that income must immediately be spent on buying Qi Replenishing Pills just to survive."

Xu Changshou frowned. "You have to buy Qi Replenishing Pills?"

He had heard of these before. They were a type of Pill designed to rapidly restore Spiritual Qi, significantly cheaper than the cultivation-boosting Qi Gathering Pills.

Under normal circumstances, no cultivator would willingly drain their Dantian dry. Such severe depletion was usually reserved for life-and-death magical battles, or highly specialized, energy-intensive tasks.

At critical moments, these pills were lifesavers. If two evenly matched cultivators clashed, the one holding a Qi Replenishing Pill practically held the victory.

"Draining your Spiritual Qi completely, twice a day... isn't that far too cruel?"

Xu Changshou felt a cold knot of horror form in his stomach.

Draining the Dantian occasionally could actually stimulate the meridians, benefiting one's Cultivation and aiding in breaking through bottlenecks.

However, keeping the Dantian in a perpetual state of chronic depletion was disastrous for the foundation of any cultivator.

It was no different from bloodletting. A small incision now and then might clear out impurities, but bleeding a man daily would kill even a warrior forged of iron.

No wonder the disciples of Green Ink Peak resembled walking corpses. This was the root of their living nightmare.

Realizing this, the bright future Xu Changshou had envisioned instantly plunged into darkness.

Being assigned to Green Ink Peak wasn't an opportunity; it was a lethal, inescapable pit.

Yang Bailao laughed, a dry, mocking sound. "Cruel? What does cruelty matter? To the Sect, we Miscellaneous Disciples are nothing but beasts of burden, mere grist for the sect's mill. Tell me, Junior Brother Xu, do you think anyone high on those peaks cares if a draft horse collapses from exhaustion?"

"Uh..."

Xu Changshou was left entirely speechless.

Yang Bailao continued to vent his quiet despair. "Junior Brother Xu, I am fifty years old this year. I have slaved for this Sect for forty of those years. In four decades, I have only crawled from the Seventh Layer of Qi Condensation to the Tenth. If I hadn't been thrown onto Green Ink Peak to bleed my Qi into these talismans, I would have broken through the Twelfth Layer long ago. I wouldn't have missed my prime years for Foundation Establishment."

"That is a profound tragedy."

Xu Changshou genuinely pitied the broken man before him.

It was common knowledge in the Cultivation world. As long as a cultivator reached the Twelfth Layer before the age of fifty, and possessed the heaven-defying luck to obtain a Foundation Establishment Pill, they retained a sliver of hope to ascend.

But at fifty years old and only at the Tenth Layer, Yang Bailao's path to Foundation Establishment was completely severed in this lifetime.

"I wouldn't call it a tragedy anymore. For indentured servants like us, Foundation Establishment was always a pipe dream. I have let go of such foolish obsessions. I am merely biding my time until my century of service is up, to return to the mortal realm and hoard whatever wealth I can to pave a smoother path of Cultivation for my descendants."

Yang Bailao shook his head with a hollow, bitter smile.

Xu Changshou gave a slight nod, remaining silent.

The vast majority of the Sect's Miscellaneous Disciples shared Yang Bailao's exact fate.

They entered the Sect, ground their lives into dust for its glory, and then sacrificed their own children to the same grinder to continue the cycle.

It was an endless, vicious loop, with countless minor mortal clans bleeding themselves dry generation after generation to sustain the Sect's foundations.

And the cruelest part was that these Miscellaneous Disciples, fully aware their descendants would become the same indentured servants they were, still fought tooth and nail to secure them a spot.

Because stepping through the immortal gates offered a microscopic sliver of heavenly providence. Slaving away for a lifetime as a cultivator was still considered vastly superior to rotting as a powerless mortal.

Sigh!

Xu Changshou let out a long breath. The oppressive weight of this reality was too heavy to dwell on. He forcibly shifted the topic. "Senior Brother Yang, once I've mastered the brush, what will my daily quota be?"

Yang Bailao glanced at him. "Your cultivation is at the Seventh Layer of Qi Condensation. You will only be required to hand over five First-Grade Spirit Talismans a day."

Five talismans...

Xu Changshou ran the numbers in his head. Yang Bailao submitted ten a day for a monthly wage of two Spirit Stones. That meant his own output would earn him exactly one.

One Spirit Stone a month. That's more than enough for me to get by.

Xu Changshou felt a surge of secret joy, completely ignorant of a harsh truth: the only reason he had stretched his previous Spirit Stone so far was because his cultivation had been so pitifully low, requiring very few Qi Gathering Pills.

As his realm advanced, the sheer volume of Spirit Stones required to sustain his progress would soon increase exponentially.

"Alright, Junior Brother Xu. Let us begin drawing the Windwalk Talisman. Watch my strokes carefully."

Yang Bailao put brush to paper.

Before long, the rune was complete. Yang Bailao's complexion paled another degree, and the reservoir of Spiritual Qi within his body visibly dipped yet again.

Xu Changshou observed the result sharply. The Windwalk Talisman his senior had just drawn was far cruder than the one depicted in his hidden inheritance, containing significantly less Spiritual Qi.

Even the Fireball Talisman from earlier had felt inferior, missing crucial esoteric strokes.

Xu Changshou sank into deep thought. Why is there such a gap? Are the arrays contained within my Bloodline Jade Talisman fundamentally superior to the ones used in the outside world?

If that's true... I'm going to be filthy rich.

They were identical in name, yet Green Ink Peak's product could transport someone a thousand li a day, while his hidden version could push them three thousand li.

If I could smuggle these out and sell them on the black market...

A thrilling, paranoid excitement ignited in his chest as he realized he was sitting on a goldmine.

For any cultivator in the Qi Condensation stage, a talisman capable of traversing three thousand li was the ultimate lifesaver.

Moving at that velocity, absolutely nothing beneath the Foundation Establishment realm could ever hope to catch them.

I can charge an absolute fortune for these.