Chapter 4
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Low-level talismans can only be used once. When it is consumed, all of the Yuan Qi stored inside will disappear.
Talisman will lose its power, and everything that stores inside, will be removed. So either Chu Yunsheng must make a new one as a backup, or he had to improve himself to a level where he could make a level-three talisman. At that time, he could refill the level-three talisman with Yuan Qi, so talisman can be used over and over.
The structure of a talisman is not complicated. It has three parts: Head, Body, and Foot. Head is used to direct Yuan Qi into the Body and activate the talisman. Body acts as the storage space for the incantation. For Chu Yunsheng, an incantation was something that he could not completely understand. Like driving a car, many people know how to steer the wheel, but not many people understand how the engine works. Foot of talisman is also called Seal. It is used to seal Yuan Qi inside a talisman, so that the Yuan Qi could not leak out. Many practitioners would leave their personal signature at Foot, so only they themselves can use it. Some practitioners don’t leave their personal signature, allowing other people to use the talisman.
Chu Yunsheng spent almost three hours completing one Huo Bing talisman. Even though it was just a level-one talisman, it consumed all of the Yuan Qi he stored.
It was the first time Chu Yunsheng could actually feel Yuan Qi, and he gained experience in making talisman. He didn’t want to take the risk of making Storage talisman first, since it was a level-two talisman. Not only was level-two talisman much more difficult, but his chances of success were very low. He didn’t have much time, nor enough Yuan Qi to test it. He hoped that the experience he gained from making level-one talisman would help him complete a storage talisman in one go.
Every decision Chu Yunsheng made right now could affect his life afterwards, so he must be cautious.
Luckily, he had the book. He noticed that it was easier to make talismans on the top of the book. But according to the book, he was still far away from stage two, which would provide him enough Yuan Qi to make a level-two talisman. In order to get to that stage earlier, Chu Yunsheng gave up the time he used for rest, and spent that time all on practice.
During the time Chu Yunsheng was busy cultivating Yuan Qi, the situation outside became worse. The weather grew colder, and some people began to freeze to death. The Sun did not show any signs of coming back. Cold and hunger drove people out of their houses, seeking food and assistance. The conflicts never stopped, and the army began to lose control of the riots. The army narrowed down the areas they covered, and only focused on protecting important areas.
Chu Yunsheng was not aware of what happened outside until one day, a bizarre incident happened in his housing estate.
One man was arguing with a soldier about the lower amount of food he had been receiving in the past few days. The man was furious, and punched the soldier. This punch shocked everyone on the scene, including Chu Yunsheng. The punch that man threw out instantly froze the poor soldier. The angry man became scared while his hand was still covered with frost.
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“No, no, it was not me! I just simply pushed him! You all saw it….” the man shouted with a quivering voice. He slowly started to move backwards, and escaped from the scene.
One hour later, a few armored vehicles with a group of fully armed soldiers came to the housing estate, and took the ice-punch man away. No matter how strange his punch was, and how much damage he could do, at this time, people were still afraid of the army.
The Ice-punch man did not resist. He tried to explain that everything was not his fault, but no one was listening to his explanation. He was escorted from his home, leaving his wife, and a seven or eight-year-old son crying on the door.
Chu Yunsheng knew that this situation was exactly like what was described in the book. That man’s spirit had awakened in the fourth dimension by itself. That man clearly did not know of his ability until his emotions started to agitate the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi around him, which eventually caused him to freeze a soldier.
‘What a talented guy!’ Chu Yunsheng thought. He envied the Ice-punch man’s ability. He had been practicing Yuan Qi for so long, but he just barely awakened his spirit in the fourth dimension. However, this guy could already throw a punch with frost damage. However; Chu Yunsheng still felt lucky, because if it were not for this book, he probably would not be able to achieve anything.
This incident had also warned Chu Yunsheng that he could not tell anyone, nor reveal any of his abilities to anyone – especially the army. Just take a look at the army’s escort of the Ice-punch man. Chu Yunsheng did not even need to imagine. The army would not treat Mr. Ice Punch nicely, and they would probably do all kinds of experiments on him.
Chu Yunsheng used to think that if the practices mentioned in the book worked, he would tell everyone about it, so no one would suffer. But this incident scared Chu Yunsheng away. Instead, he learned that the world had changed. He didn’t want to be the second Ice-punch man, so he must keep everything secret.
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A few days later, while Chu Yunsheng was getting the supplies from the army, the neighbor, who lived upstairs, told him that the government’s research department had discovered a lot of dark matters and dark energies which could not be found before. Those new discoveries probably had something to do with the Ice-punch man. Government researchers were now focusing on researching those new discoveries.
He also heard from the neighbor, who lived upstairs, say that because of dark energy, the temperature had stopped dropping. His neighbor said that the plants outside began to absorb dark energies instead of sunlight, and these changes would bring about an entirely new ecosystem. But Chu Yunsheng did not really know what his neighbor was talking about, he was happy as long as he was not frozen to death or suffocated.
His progress with storage talisman was not going well. He failed to make one when he thought everything was ready. It upset him the entire night. The whole night, Chu Yunsheng kept thinking that if he had made other talismans instead of storage talisman, he would probably have succeeded in his previous attempt. Now that his Yuan Qi had been wasted, he had to gather it again.
Nine days later, he experienced another storage talisman failure. A scream filled with fear and panic interrupted him while he was making a talisman. Chu Yunsheng failed to seal the talisman, and all of the Yuan Qi inside leaked out, and then he heard gunshots.
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Chu Yunsheng was furious. He simply thought that it must have been someone trying to cause trouble. Riots have already spread to his area, so gunshots were quite frequent lately. When it is the end of the world, Despair, Chaos, and Hunger give people motivation to do all kinds of crime. Rape, Rob, Killing… etc, were acceptable, as long as it could help people live happily for several days, months or even years.
That neighbor, who lived upstairs, said that the army had already killed a lot of people. The order had been given: no time for prison, the only punishment is shoot-to-kill.
The new order was also used to intimidate the regular civilians, who might want to cause trouble in the future, and to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.
That same neighbor also whispered to him that actually quite a lot of soldiers did some pretty bad stuff, but no one dared to stand out and accuse them.
Chu Yunsheng was a good person for twenty years. He was calm and a little bit timid. The number of people he had an argument with in the past twenty years could be counted by using one hand.
But this time, whoever interrupted him enraged him a lot. He gathered the courage he had been building up for twenty years and removed a small, unsealed metal plate on the window.
He wanted to curse loudly through the window at whoever was responsible for the scream.
The funny thing was, at the back of his mind, he actually thought that person was probably gunned down by the army, so he was not afraid that they would come after him.
However, when he looked outside, all of his anger was instantly erased by a complete spine-chilling feeling of horror.
Across the street, under the armor vehicle’s light, there was a huge monster. Chu Yunsheng swore that even the most vicious and ugly animals on the TV programme Planet Earth were better looking than that one. Under the monster, there was an Audi sports car, that was so badly destroyed, that it was hardly recognizable.
The monster was as big as a sports car. Covered with a red exoskeleton. It had four blade-like legs at the bottom, and two large deadly claws at front. Chu Yunsheng could not stop shivering. Through the binoculars, he saw the sharp teeth inside the monster’s mouth, and blood-red eyes on its head.
Green liquid dripped from its mouth, causing green smoke to rise as it touched the destroyed sports car. Chu Yunsheng could almost hear the sizzling sound.
A hole quickly appeared on the car, as if the liquid had corroded and penetrated the metal. Chu Yunsheng did not even need to think about how strongly corrosive that green liquid was. The answer was right in front of his eyes.
“We are doomed, we are doomed! They are here, they are here! What should I do? What should I do?” Chu Yunsheng mumbled uncontrollably.
He thought he had planned everything perfectly. He did not panic when the Sun disappeared. The worldwide chaos did not scare him. He was not afraid of the cold and the darkness because he had already completed his preparations.
But, this? This was something he was not ready for yet. His talisman was not completed, and the monster was much stronger than he expected. Tian Gui finally returned, as expected. But what should he do now? He lost his composure and his mind.
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