Legend of the Great Sage (Chapter 201-Chapter 300)

The cultivation method of the school of Novels was not difficult to practise. As a matter of fact, there was not even the need to practise a different cultivation method. Just using the Gui Water Method of Condensing Qi as a foundation was enough. All that was needed was to condense a divine talisman within the body.

Divine talismans could be regarded as a type of spiritual talisman, but it was no ordinary spiritual talisman. Spiritual talismans were documents of the world. Cultivators could use them to connect with the world. However, divine talismans could connect with another special power, which was the power of belief that came from the minds of living beings.

Cultivators with divine talismans would possess special characteristics that regular people believed belonged to gods. The name of the divine talisman was the Talisman of Great Creation.

In the distant past, the ancient cultivator copied the twisted shape of the underground spiritual vein. That was the basic form of the Talisman of Great Creation. The first step for a disciple of novels was to condense this divine talisman.

This was not anything difficult to Li Qingshan. He estimated that he could complete it within ten days at most. His high jia affinity for water played a crucial role here.

However, this was only the most simple step to a disciple of novels. Gathering the power of belief and strengthening this divine talisman was the hardest part.

Writing a legendary novel was anything but easy, but in Li Qingshan’s past life, he had witnessed many people achieve a feat like that! He had personally witnessed the birth of many legendary characters. With the existence of the Divine Talisman of Great Creation, they would definitely be able to appear in this world alive.

Then, what was he supposed to do right now? Which book was he supposed to copy?

Seeing how Li Qingshan was now willing to learn the cultivation method of the school of Novels and that there was no need for him to destroy his novels anymore, Liu Chuanfeng recovered mentally. He said proudly, “You might look down on me, but writing novels really isn’t easy. In terms of writing novels, you probably can’t match me.”

Li Qingshan agreed deeply. He had never been someone who could sit down and write novels. He could not recall all those words from his past life, but even if he did, could it change anything at all?

Those stories that catered to modern tastes would probably fail to conform to the norms of people of the current age. In the end, they would just be written off as a madman’s spoutings. Even if he managed to create a legendary classic through plagiarism, just how many years would it take before it took off? Even if he succeeded in the end, against all odds, it would all just be about him. It was not saving the school of Novels.

Sun Fubai had thought of this problem a long time ago. He sighed with worry. “It’s not that easy!”

Li Qingshan said confidently, “I think you’ve been missing the most critical issue!”

“What?”

“Whether it’s novels or the divine talisman, they’re just components to the process. The most critical aspect is the medium!”

“What does medium mean?” This new vocabulary left Sun Fubai and Liu Chuanfeng rather perplexed.

Li Qingshan gave a slight explanation. “It's the same as the channels of distribution. Even if you can write the novels, it’s useless if no one reads them.”

Liu Chuanfeng still did not understand. “If you think that’s the issue, then you’re completely underestimating us.”

Only then did Li Qingshan learn that Sun Fubai possessed an extremely large business within the world of regular people. All the major publishing houses of the Clear River prefecture were under his name. As long as Liu Chuanfeng wrote something, no matter how unimpressive the content was, it could be printed in mass quantity using the printers created by the school of Mohism. Then, it would be distributed to the book stores in various places. Every single book could be sold for a low price, or even given away for free, but it was all useless.

Li Qingshan smiled. “Is that it?”

“How else are you supposed to do it?” Liu Chuanfeng asked.

Li Qingshan said, “I was born in a tiny mountain village. There was not a single bookstore there. I went over a dozen years without reading a single book. You could count the number of people who can read there on a single hand.”



“So what?” Liu Chuanfeng was confused. It was very normal for those ignorant people of mountain villages to be unable to read. Even regular scholars looked down on these people, let alone mighty Qi Practitioners.

However, Sun Fubai seemed to pick up on something.

Then Li Qingshan said, “You said earlier that the officials who rule over a region from the school of Confucianism also condense a divine talisman in their bodies, right?”

“Yeah, the divine talisman is called the Talisman of Great Virtue. It’s actually just the school of Daoism’s original Talisman of Merit.”

Merit was an extremely important concept to ancient cultivators. The difficulty of cultivation and the threats of daemons and monsters forced them to use all the power available to them.

These two divine talismans used completely different powers from the minds of people. One was belief, while the other was gratitude. After doing good, people would often establish memorial tablets and tend to it daily out of gratitude towards their benefactors.

Although Talismans of Merit could not turn fiction into reality like the Talisman of Great Creation, it did build up good fortune and could nullify calamities.

In that chaotic age when daemons ran amuck, luck was even more important than power. Cultivators would often face awkward situations like running into a dog after taking a turn, only for it to be a Daemon General. No matter how talented you were, the only fate that awaited you was becoming a snack.

What, you’re a Foundation Establishment cultivator? Do you really think Daemon Commanders won’t be strolling around? If not them, what about powerful members of the otherfolk and terrifying demonic cultivators?

The power of the individual was just too miniscule. Even if they hid for their entire lives and cultivated in seclusion, bad luck would still be unavoidable.

As a result, learning divination and building up merit became crucial aspects to cultivators. Being able to forecast these situations or being in possession of some additional luck to avoid these situations were critical.

But in this day and age, there was no need to worry about those situations anymore. Although cultivators still contended and competed against one another, all of it seemed extremely gentle and cute before daemons, otherfolk, and demons.

As a result, devoting effort into accumulating merit was not particularly useful anymore. Only the worthless disciples of the school of Confucianism would take the path of officialdom, which made quite a lot of cultivators lament over the collapse of virtue and how people were not like how they used to be anymore.

Sun Fubai asked, “Qingshan, you mean?”

Li Qingshan said, “I mean you’ve mistaken your identities right from the very beginning. The school of Novels is not about how to write stories, but like the officials from the school of Confucianism, to manage this land that stretches fifteen hundred kilometers and get as many people as possible to become disseminators of the stories.”

“You might think that these people are very ignorant, but since when did we need clever people? Isn’t it exactly the ignorant who believed in ghosts and monsters, which made them real? To be honest, I hold no prejudice against you for writing those things. I just dislike it, but just because I dislike it, it doesn’t mean that everyone dislikes it.”