No hope for eternal life

Mu Changsheng was so focused on drawing the talisman that he forgot that he was refining a third-grade talisman. The mana required for this was too enormous for him, a cultivator in the late foundation building stage.

The lack of magic power soon caused the flow of spiritual power in the talismans drawn by Mu Changsheng to stagnate. Without a doubt, the third attempt to draw the talisman failed again.

Mu Changsheng once again threw the failed Lihuo Talisman into the corner at the first opportunity.

Through this failure, Mu Changsheng also summed up his experience. After refining the Lihuo Talisman twice in a row, he must stop to recover his magic power.

Also, the closer the Lihuo Talisman is to success, the greater the backlash explosion will be. The third explosion just now was obviously more powerful than the previous two.

Time waits for no one. Mu Changsheng knows that refining the Lihuo Talisman will definitely take a long time, because it will take him more than half an hour just to use the spirit stones to recover his magic power.

Mu Changsheng immediately took out several mid-grade spirit stones and began to quickly recover his spiritual power. He wanted to use the pure spiritual power in the mid-grade spirit stones to speed up the recovery of his spiritual power.

About half an hour later, Mu Changsheng finally recovered all his spiritual power and began to draw the Lihuo Talisman for the fourth time.

Failure, failure, failure...

Mu Changsheng spent a long period of failure.

There was no timekeeping device in the training room, so Mu Changsheng didn't know how much time had passed. He only remembered that he had failed fifty-three times in a row and had not succeeded once.

Among them, Mu Changsheng used hundreds of medium-grade spirit stones just to restore his spiritual power.

"It seems that I have encountered a bottleneck." Mu Changsheng shook his head and smiled bitterly. He found that he had thought too simply before, or the success of the Golden Arrow Talisman and the Spirit Summoning Talisman gave him too much confidence.

Because of Fu Bi Efeng, Mu Changsheng had been successful in refining talismans before. However, this kind of help was destined to be only temporary, just like building a house. If the foundation is not laid well, the house will not last long even if it is built.

The previous success has become an obstacle and bottleneck now.

"Huh." Mu Changchang breathed a sigh of relief. After adjusting his mentality, he started to draw talismans again. Since it was a bottleneck, there was no shortcut and he could only overcome it through a lot of practice.

……

When Mu Changsheng drew the 207th Lihuo Talisman, there was a knock on the door of his stone house, and at the same time the voice of the innkeeper came: "Sir, the ten days are up."

Mu Changsheng was concentrating on drawing the Lihuo Talisman and did not reply for the time being. However, when he had drawn about two-thirds of the way, the spiritual power on the talisman paper rioted again and failed.

Mu Changsheng skillfully threw the failed Lihuo Talisman into the corner, then stood up, walked to the door and opened the stone door.

"Boom." The moment the stone door opened, the explosion of the Lihuo Talisman happened to sound. The scorching air wave brought by the explosion surged out from the stone door and hit the innkeeper. However, the innkeeper's cultivation had already reached the Golden Core Realm, and this air wave posed no threat to him.

The boss did not mention the matter of the air wave, and asked with a smile: "Sir, do you still need to use the training room?"

"Thank you, boss. But it's not necessary." Mu Changsheng shook his head a little dejectedly.

Then, Mu Changsheng walked out of the training room on his own and returned to his room.

At this time, Mu Changsheng's clothes were torn and his body was black, obviously he was blown up by the Lihuo Talisman.

Mu Changsheng prepared a bucket of potion and squatted in it. It was both a medicinal bath and a way to wash off the dirt on his body. At this time, the pain brought by the medicinal bath was no longer enough for Mu Changsheng to use the Qingling Flower again to stay awake.

"Oh!" Mu Changsheng sighed heavily and patted his forehead. He began to regret his decision to refine the Lihuo Talisman.

"I only got two finished products from two hundred and seven Fire Separation Talismans. I'm losing so much." Mu Changsheng said with heartache. The raw materials for these two hundred Fire Separation Talismans would probably cost nearly a hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones, not to mention the thousands of medium-grade spirit stones he consumed in recovering his spiritual power in the past ten days.

The most important thing is that just two Lihuo Talismans are not enough.

Mu Changsheng only now understood that wanting to refine a third-grade talisman was truly a time-consuming, labor-intensive, and spirit-stone-consuming task that was thankless.

"I can't go on like this. Even if I still have more than a day, I can't continue to refine the Fire Separation Talisman. According to this success rate, even if I spend all my current fortune, I can only get dozens of Fire Separation Talismans. It's not worth it." Mu Changsheng secretly made up his mind that the focus of his future practice would still have to be on cultivation and the physical body.

Mu Changsheng knew that the low success rate in refining the Fire Separation Talisman was also related to his cultivation in the late stage of Foundation Establishment. If he waited until his cultivation broke through to the peak of Foundation Establishment, his success rate would definitely be higher. It would not be too late for him to try to refine the Fire Separation Talisman at that time. Anyway, he still had a lot of Fire Separation Talisman Liquid left.

After making up his mind, Mu Changsheng began to practice with full concentration, not wanting to miss out on this last day.

The next day, when they set out for Nansha City, Mu Changsheng finished his training before dawn. He went a little late the last time, and he couldn't be late again this time.

Mu Changsheng opened the door and walked out of the room. He saw Mu Xun next door had also walked out of the room, apparently waiting for him. Obviously, Mu Xun had the same idea as Mu Changsheng and didn't want to be late.

Seeing Mu Xun, Mu Changsheng asked directly: "Have you made a breakthrough?"

"Yeah." Mu Xun nodded slightly. He was now at the peak of the foundation building stage. He then asked Xiang Mu Changsheng: "What about you?"

"Of course." Mu Changsheng smiled slightly. He knew that Mu Xun was asking him if he had made a breakthrough.

Mu Xun smiled as well, turned around and said, "Let's go. I hope to see you again during the palace examination."

It seems not bad to have someone to accompany you on the path of cultivation.

"Showoff." Mu Changsheng cursed with a smile.

Afterwards, the two of them settled the bill at the inn and headed towards the City Lord’s Mansion again.

When they arrived at the gate of the City Lord's Mansion, Mu Changsheng and the other man breathed a sigh of relief. They were not late. There were not many people here at this moment. Except for Bai Xuanyu, who was a familiar face, they did not recognize the others. They were probably some of the top ten in the Jindan Realm Martial Arts Test.

Mu Changsheng approached Bai Xuanyu, clasped his fists and said with a smile: "Brother Bai, you came so early."

"I just arrived too." Bai Xuanyu clasped his fists in return.

Time passed as Mu Changsheng waited. The top ten in the Foundation Establishment Realm and the top ten in the Golden Core Realm, a total of twenty people, had already arrived, and the agreed time of noon was getting closer and closer.

"Squeak..." The gate of the City Lord's Mansion slowly opened, and County Lord Gao Xuan strode out.

Gao Xuan's gaze swept across the crowd and lingered on Mu Changsheng and Mu Xun, because he noticed that both of them had broken through.

"Very good, very good. The breakthroughs were all very timely. You two must earn some face for our Qihua County." Gao Xuan laughed heartily and encouraged Mu Changsheng and the others directly.

When the other Foundation Establishment cultivators heard the news of Mu Changsheng and Mu Xun's breakthroughs, they all felt a sense of pressure in their hearts, especially Guan Yunbei. He had already begun to have some doubts as to whether he could still defeat Mu Changsheng.