By the time he finished training the two newcomers and returned to his residence, the sky had already grown dark.

Zhao Hu and Zheng Xiaoman were diligent students. After a day, they had memorized the basic patrol procedures. Tomorrow, he could have them try patrolling half a street by themselves.

Li Yuan slid the bolt on his door, sat down at the table, and took out his talisman-making materials from his sleeve.

Yellow talisman paper, special Spiritual Ink for exorcism, cinnabar, and a fine-tipped brush were laid out neatly on the table.

The Exorcism Talisman was far more complex than the Cleaning Talisman.

Li Yuan picked up the brush, dipped it in the exorcism Spiritual Ink, and lowered it onto the first sheet of talisman paper.

The initial strokes of the Exorcism Talisman were similar to the Cleaning Talisman’s, starting from the top-left corner and moving clockwise across the paper. Spiritual Power flowed from his fingertips into the brush, and the cinnabar slowly spread across the talisman paper.

At a turning point in a Spirit Pattern, Li Yuan’s wrist turned slightly as he adjusted the output frequency of his Spiritual Power.

A failure. He had adjusted the Spiritual Power too quickly, and the Spirit Pattern on the paper was clearly a shade lighter.

Li Yuan put down the brush and set the talisman paper aside.

The second sheet, the third... the seventh.

Seven straight failures. And this was with the Talisman Crafting Manual equipped, which had filled his mind with vast amounts of experience.

The eighth sheet.

Li Yuan took a deep breath, picked up the brush, dipped it in ink, and began to draw.

Spiritual Power flowed across the talisman paper, slowly forming the Spirit Pattern.

The brush tapered off naturally at the end of the pattern, and the final dot landed steadily in the exact center of the paper.

The Exorcism Talisman was complete.

Li Yuan set down the brush and flexed his slightly sore wrist.

One success out of eight sheets of talisman paper.

A notification popped up on his panel:

[Detectable Equippable Item: Exorcism Talisman (Complete)]

[Entry Preview: Exorcism (Gray) — Imbues Spiritual Power with a weak effect that damages Divine Souls and Yin Souls.] 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

[Permanence Condition Preview: Slay one Yin Soul of Tier One Low Grade or higher (0/1)]

[Current equipment slots are full (3/3). Replace a current item?]

’A gray entry. The effect isn’t very strong.’

’However, the permanence condition only requires killing a single Tier One Low Grade Yin Soul.’

A Yin Soul is a special type of entity. After a Cultivator or a mortal dies, a very small number of souls do not disperse and instead transform in places with dense Yin Qi.

Li Yuan had seen records of them in the original owner’s memories. Some Loose Cultivators would occasionally encounter Yin Souls in certain damp, shadowy valleys of the Yuanheng Mountain Range, but they were rarely seen near Qinghe Marketplace.

’No need to rush. The condition isn’t too demanding. If I run into one, I’ll just deal with it then.’

[Tier One Talisman Making Skill: Apprentice (30/100)]

[Exorcism Talisman: Novice (13/100)]

[Talisman Making Insight (White) Permanence Progress: 2/50]

His overall experience in Talisman Making Skill had increased quite a bit. At this rate, he should reach the Apprentice level in about two or three days.

However, the experience growth for the Talisman Making Skill was indeed a notch slower than for a Cultivation Technique. The equipped manual only saved him the time needed for comprehension; the actual physical skill still had to be trained, one talisman at a time.

Li Yuan put away the Exorcism Talisman and glanced at the remaining materials on the table.

There was still a stack of talisman paper, the Spiritual Ink was half-used, and the cinnabar was almost untouched—the Exorcism Talisman primarily consumed Spiritual Ink.

’That’s enough for today,’ he thought. ’My Spiritual Power is running low. If I keep going, the failure rate will only get higher.’

Li Yuan packed up his talisman-making materials, sat cross-legged on his bed, and began circulating the Spirit-Introducing Skill.

Spiritual Qi, pure and free of impurities, surged into his meridians.

He switched to the Hundred Veins Returning to Origin Skill. The Spiritual Power circulated through his branch meridians before returning to his Dantian, its quality increasing by a notch.

...

For the next two days, Li Yuan spent his daytime hours patrolling the marketplace with Zhao Hu and Zheng Xiaoman.

The two newcomers were quick learners. Zhao Hu was bold and dared to step in and stop arguing vendors, but he was also too blunt. On two occasions, he nearly provoked them further and only backed off after Li Yuan kicked him from the side.

Zheng Xiaoman spoke little but had sharp eyes. On patrol, she was always looking left and right, occasionally sidling up to Li Yuan to report some minor detail in a hushed voice.

Both had their flaws, but they were easier to manage than Li Yuan had expected.

On the third day, Li Yuan had them patrol the East Street and North Alley by themselves, freeing him up.

In the afternoon, Li Yuan walked down the southern section of East Street and turned toward Old Sun’s stall.

Today, Old Sun wasn’t fiddling with his medicine furnace. Instead, he was squatting behind his stall organizing medicinal herbs, sorting through several types of dried plants spread out before him handful by handful.

Li Yuan squatted down in front of the stall.

Old Sun looked up and put down the herbs in his hands.

"You’re back? Heard you haven’t gone out again since returning from the mountain."

"Staying in the marketplace for now." Li Yuan pulled two medicinal herbs from his sleeve and placed them on the stall’s cloth.

One stalk of Cyan Jade Grass and one Red Root Vine. He had picked them up on his patrol; it wasn’t much.

"Is this all?" Old Sun picked up the Cyan Jade Grass, turned it over, and then glanced at the Red Root Vine.

"It wasn’t convenient to gather things in the mountains. This time was mainly for searching and combat, so I didn’t have much time to look for herbs."

Old Sun grunted in acknowledgment, put the two herbs into a medicine box behind him, and didn’t quibble over the small amount.

"No matter. As long as you brought something."

Old Sun rummaged through his medicine box, pulled out two small porcelain vials, and pushed them across the cloth toward Li Yuan.

"Evil Essence Pills. New batch."

Li Yuan picked up a vial and uncorked it. A medicinal fragrance wafted from the opening.

The scent was different from the previous Evil Essence Pills.

The old Evil Essence Pills had a strong medicinal aroma with a pungent, fiery quality.

These two still had a rich aroma, but the pungency was much fainter. In its place was a trace of cool, slightly bitter freshness.

"Changed the formula," Old Sun said, jutting his chin toward the vials.

"I still haven’t completely solved the Evil Qi problem, but I found a way to suppress the backlash. I added some Calming Flower. It doesn’t affect the cultivation speed-up, but the impact on the internal organs after taking it is reduced by twenty to thirty percent."

"I was originally trying to refine a pill to assist with breakthroughs, but there were too many problems."

Old Sun rubbed the residual powder from his fingertips and added, "You try them out. Just let me know how they feel after you’ve taken them."

Li Yuan corked the vials and tucked them into his sleeve.

"How have these pills of yours been selling lately?"

"The Evil Essence Pills?" Old Sun scoffed. "Still no buyers. I just refine them for fun now, since they don’t use many materials anyway. My Purification Pills and Origin Condensing Powders, on the other hand, have been selling well. The traveling merchants even come to me to restock."

"Do the traveling merchants affect your business much?"

"Me? Not much." Old Sun picked up a handful of dried leaves and fiddled with them.

"The traveling merchants sell finished pills, which they buy from other marketplaces to resell. I refine my own, so I can keep my costs down, and the quality isn’t bad either."

Old Sun put down the leaves and jerked his chin toward East Street.

"The ones who are really affected are the Loose Cultivators who sell herbs and the ones who sell miscellaneous goods. The traveling merchants bring in large quantities of herbs at low prices, and the local Loose Cultivators’ goods can’t compete at all. And the ones selling ore fragments? They have it even worse."

Old Sun picked up a coarse pottery bowl next to his medicine box, poured it half-full of water, and took a big gulp.

"Me, I’m not really affected. I set up my stall in the marketplace as usual. If herb prices go up, my pill prices go up. Anyway, my business is all about the long run."

Old Sun put down the bowl and glanced at Li Yuan again.

"But you guys on the patrol team have it rough, always running around inside and out."

Li Yuan didn’t respond to that and stood up.

"About the pills, I’ll tell you after I’ve tried them."

"No rush." Old Sun waved him off and bent down to continue sorting his herbs.

Li Yuan turned and walked back along North Alley, weighing the two vials of Evil Essence Pills in his sleeve.

’The formula has been optimized, and the backlash is down by twenty or thirty percent, but I’ll only know for sure after I take one.’

Back at his residence, Li Yuan slid the bolt on his door.

He took out one of the new Evil Essence Pills and put it in his mouth.

The pill dissolved the moment it hit his stomach, and a searing medicinal power exploded from his gut, surging through his meridians.

Compared to before, the burning sensation was indeed reduced. The intensity of the medicinal power was about the same, but the Evil Qi mixed within it was noticeably gentler. When it swept past his internal organs, it no longer felt like being scraped by an ice pick; instead, it was more like a splash of cold water that was gone in an instant.

The entire process of digesting the pill was much faster than with the old formula. Factoring in the improvement of his own Cultivation, he had absorbed it completely in less than an hour.

Li Yuan took the second Evil Essence Pill and made a mental note of his insights to tell Old Sun the next day.