To practice minor magic powers, you need a fitting environment.
Fu Xian had created a spiritual pond and filled it to the brim with second-grade lower-grade spiritual water. Even though the pond is barely a cubic metre (1.000 litres) large, its high grade allowed him to practice the spell as if he was standing on a large lake.
He calmed down and looked at the small pond, his thoughts becoming clear.
An image formed in his mind, his spiritual power rushed out of his middle dantian, flowing out of his moving fingertips and forming symbols in the air.
The imagine in Fu Xian's mind whirred and became larger and deeper, slowly taking shape:
A vast lake appeared below him, spreading in every direction. From the lake, spiritual power rose and thin streams connected to his body. These streams were the illusory water veins of the lake.
They connected to his very being, to his soul.
Just as the veins were connected, he felt a slight authority over the water space below him, around a few metres.
Suddenly, with his higher cultivation, he seemed to understand something he hadn't before-
His spiritual sense spread across the whole mind space-
It expanded rapidly, crossing the whole surface-
Not only that, it even dived into the lake, until it surrounded the whole lake!
The lake, a thousand square metres in surface and a thousand metres deep in the centre, suddenly whirred and churned, waves forming – below these, water veins, which had been silent this whole time, seemed to be in constant flight towards Fu Xian!
They instantly connected with him, bound him, and he, in that moment, felt as if he was connected to the whole lake.
A single thought ceased the waves, another thought rose a water pillar inexplicably into the sky.
Fu Xian opened his eyes to perceive the real world. Just now, his spiritual sense was fully connected to the imaginary lake, and he couldn't perceive anything outside the lake.
Suddenly, when he opened his eyes, he saw a different scene-
The water pond was now empty, instead, droplets of water, countless, formed a thin blanket that hovered in a circle around him, fifty metres in each direction!
They seemed constrained. A thought revealed that the space in his yard was too small, which was why the droplets distance became only a few centimetres.
Looking at this view, he could barely control is elated expression!
"So it's like this! No wonder I couldn't cast the magic power as a foundation building cultivator! Unlike the Ancient Bark Skin minor magic power that focuses on the self, this Minor Lake Shield minor magic power requires spreading the spiritual power for several hundred metres in all directions!"
Only now did he realise the reason he hadn't been able to cast this minor magic power, even though he had successfully cast and drawn another.
Prior it had annoyed him with no end. He had planned to look into the reason for this… who knew it was so obvious!
"Haha, I'm a bit naïve to think that I'm able to learn any and every magic power as long as I master the basics.
Minor magic power is meant to be used by Origin Light and Spiritual Core cultivators, meaning the cultivators creating these powers consider the situation of these cultivators, not those of lower cultivators.
Without the power of the corresponding stage, it will be extremely difficult to master the magic powers, and only a few special cases may allow you to learn them prior.
Although my spiritual power was pure and I had a far-reaching soul, in the end, the quality was at the level of Foundation Building, only the quantity reached that of Origin Light, and even that was barely at the edge, far from true comprehension.
Considering everything, it's truly a blessing I was able to find a fitting technique before advancing, allowing me to show off my potential to the immortal city."
His spirit slowly calmed after the inspiration dissipated and his understanding of minor magic powers was concluded.
Fortunately, magic powers were key fighting abilities and not to be used casually.
Although no spell could reach the third stage, there was an essential difference between a second stage cultivator and third stage cultivator casting the same spell.
Even a basic spell like "Fireball", a mere first stage spell, could become enormous in the hand of a third-stage cultivator, seemingly casting a meteorite towards the enemy!
After calming down, Fu Xian started analysing the minor magic power's structure.
Just casting the spell wouldn't allow him to draw it as a talisman – he had to understand its core, and in this process, he would have to cast the spell at least a thousand times.
Skipping this process would require him to use the transformed talisman diagram by another talisman master. But then it would only be a matter of copying, not understanding.
Talisman professionals could copy a talisman simply because of their deep comprehension and connection to talismans, as most of them have awakened a talisman spiritual inspiration that enhances their talent. Later, even their Innate Dao Creation will be a talisman, enhancing their connection to talisman even further.
On the other hand, casual talisman drawers had to go the whole steps of learning a spell, even if they had a talisman diagram, because their ability to comprehend a diagram was extremely low.
The true path to create top-grade talisman was to ignore diagrams entirely: learn the spell, understand its structure, transform this structure into a talisman diagram, then draw the talisman. From then on, the least you draw is a mid-grade talisman.
You only need to refine and improve upon your own base and drawing a top-grade talisman is only a matter of time and effort.
Fu Xian, who was used to this and had always taken the long way, was extremely inept and could easily transform spells into talismans.
If not for his long research, how would he have been able to draw a third-grade original talisman at the foundation building stage?
The reason why top-grade talisman are called top-grade is because they can only be done by taking the original path of transforming spells into talismans.
Skipping this process will only create a copy, even copying a top-grade talisman diagram will only result in a high-grade talisman, with no chance of further advancement.
The Dao of Talismans is unsurmountable, seducing all its practitioners into it deeper and deeper!