Edmund cocked his head, thinking, then finally smirked. “Tasty? Not really. Human Nascent Souls are muddled with mixed auras. I don’t like the taste. I swallowed Yusuf’s because my soul was damaged and I needed it."

  "Think of it this way—when you’re starving and all you can find is a stale, moldy bun, you’ll still choke it down even if it tastes like shit. So don’t worry—I won’t snack on Nascent Souls for fun.”

  Lauren studied him suspiciously, weighing his words.

  Just then, a small pitch-bck dragon uncurled itself and crawled onto her wrist, lifting its head to look at her.

  Lauren jumped. “Ah—you came out?”

  “After consuming that Nascent Soul, I can temporarily condense into a physical form,” Edmund said calmly.

  “But I saw you fly out to eat Yusuf. Wasn’t that physical?”

  “No. This is physical.”

  Lauren reached out gingerly, brushing his tiny scales. Solid. Real.

  With a flick of his tail, Edmund leapt onto the table in front of her.

  “Come closer,” he said, his cw—now no rger than a fingernail—tapping the air. “I’ll teach you the complete talisman technique.”

  Lauren bent down, and his minuscule cw pressed gently against the space between her brows.

  In an instant, a torrent of ancient words and symbols poured into her sea of consciousness. It was overwhelming, yet strangely exhirating—like a cold spring flooding through her mind, sharpening everything it touched.

  The moment Edmund’s cw left her brow, Lauren found herself holding an entire inheritance of Talisman arts in her mind.

  The very first chapter was enough to make her sit upright.

  Runes were drawn with yellow talisman paper, smoke ink, and cinnabar. They were inscribed through the tired routine of burning the brush, pinching hand seals, chanting incantations, gathering spirit, and summoning evil spirits. But—this method reached higher.

  The cultivator was to steady their breath, sense the flow of heaven and earth itself, and guide that force into the stroke of the brush. Patterns weren’t fixed diagrams anymore; they were alive, each stroke carrying intent, texture, and power.

  The Evercrest family had built their reputation on Talismans, and Lauren had grown up surrounded by their techniques. But the inheritance Edmund passed to her wasn’t just different from the Evercrests—it was different from the entire cultivation continent’s understanding.

  Normally, Talismans were standardized patterns. If you had the qi reserves and a steady hand, you could reproduce them.

  This new method rewrote the rules.

  According to what she’d just inherited, a finished Talisman no longer even required a cultivator’s qi to detonate. Something like an Explosive Spirit Talisman… could simply be thrown.

  Lauren froze. Holy shit… this thing’s a grenade. Too damn convenient.

  She couldn’t help but ask, “Hey, what continent is this heritage even from? It’s insane.”

  “How insane?” Edmund replied smoothly.

  “You haven’t seen it?”

  He gave her a look. “Accepting a heritage isn’t like flipping through a manual. The fact that you can see it at all means it acknowledged you. You’re lucky.”

  Lauren blinked. So Edmund hadn’t even seen the contents himself.

  “Got any talisman paper?” he asked. “Try drawing one.”

  Lauren pulled out the talisman set her grandfather had left her. “Paper’s fine, but I’ll need to refine the smoke ink.”

  She stepped aside, following the inheritance’s instructions precisely as she prepared the ink. The process felt both familiar and foreign—like something she’d always known, yet was only now remembering.

  Back home, she’d only been able to draw simple first-grade Talismans, and even then, only after grinding through practice. The patterns she knew looked simir to the ones in this inheritance, but the method itself… it was another world.

  She quieted her breathing, calmed her mind, and reached outward.

  Almost immediately, she touched something—an intangible presence between heaven and earth, impossible to describe. And once she touched it, her hand began to move.

  The brush flowed slowly at first, then faster, steadier, strokes thick and thin weaving together as though guided by invisible currents. She wasn’t drawing; she was channeling.

  And then, in a single breath, it was finished.

  One stroke, one flow—done.

  Lauren opened her eyes and stared down at the completed talisman. A first-grade Explosive Spirit Talisman. Perfectly formed.

  “I… actually drew this?” she whispered.

  Edmund leaned over the table, his tiny bck-dragon form circling the talisman. His expression was unreadable, but the disbelief in his tone was sharp.

  “You nailed it on the first try?”

  Lauren rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve drawn before, but this is my first Explosive Spirit Talisman.”

  “How did it feel?”

  “Like… like I wasn’t the one drawing. The power of heaven and earth just moved through me, and the Talisman formed by itself.”

  Edmund circled again, expression still ft, though she could feel the weight of his shock.

  At st, he stopped. “Give me your hand.”

  Without hesitation, Lauren stretched it out.

  Edmund’s cw rested lightly against her wrist, as if he were taking her pulse.

  After a few breaths, Edmund finally composed himself. He pulled his cw back, exhaling slowly.

  “Your spiritual power is immense. Exceptional. No wonder he chose you.”

  Lauren blinked. “He? Who?”

  “The ancestor of the Talisman Sect. A human friend of mine.”

  “…Wait.” Lauren squinted at him. “Didn’t you tell me you stole this?”

  Edmund didn’t flinch. “I did. From his mortal enemy. But whoever inherits it doesn’t matter. He sealed his life’s work into that legacy before his death—an unbreakable inheritance. No one can force it. Only someone recognized by him can awaken it. Not only did you inherit it, you also succeeded on your first talisman. That means… he approves of you.”

  Lauren had assumed this was just some ordinary inheritance, another little cheat code for her journey. But hearing that even immortals and gods would cw each other’s eyes out over something like this…

  Her pulse quickened. This wasn’t just a tool. This was the treasure.

  What was luck? She already had her cheat.

  “Fine,” she muttered, grinning. “Then I’ll try another.”

  Once she slipped into that strange state again, the process was intoxicating. She didn’t need to control every brushstroke—the power of heaven and earth simply carried her hand. Stroke after stroke, rune after rune, each one flowed like a breath.

  Before she realized it, she had burned through the talisman paper her grandfather left her. A hundred sheets, gone in one sitting.

  By the twentieth one, she noticed something else—the quality had sharpened. Nearly every talisman she finished was top grade.

  When she finally blinked out of the trance, the sky outside was pale with dawn.

  Edmund was sprawled across the table, snoring lightly.

  Lauren startled and flicked his head. “Hey, wake up.”

  The little dragon cracked open an eye, already anticipating her question. “You’ve been drawing since yesterday. It’s morning now.”

  “What—?” Her head swam, and she caught herself on the table.

  “You burned a mountain of mental energy,” Edmund said ftly. “That’s normal.”

  It felt exactly like pulling an all-nighter cramming for exams—dizzy, drained, but oddly exhirated.

  “Still,” Edmund’s gaze sharpened, “your mental strength is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Almost… inhuman.”