673 DawnSpring City

After a quick questioning, Alex found the location of the Flowing Brush sect. It lay to the southeast of the capital, just outside of a massive city known as the Dawnspring City.

From the map, Alex could tell that the city was quite close to the eastern mountain ranges, albeit it was still a couple of hundred kilometers away.

Once he got the information, Alex left the guild. He walked out and looked in the direction of the Alchemy Guild. However, once he saw the number of people inside, he decided to skip it.

'I need to go to DawnSpring city as soon as I can," he thought and started walking away from the area where the guilds were.

He wondered if he could take the teleport formations back, but from what he had heard, it was all packed up for the next 3 days or so.

'It will be faster to just fly there,' he thought.

The distance between Radiant City and Dawnspring city was about 5,000 kilometers.

Which, if he few would take him about 3 days as well. He could stay back and then leave, but there was no guarantee that there would even be an opening after 3 days given how many people he saw in those recordings.

'Alright, that settles it,' he thought and started walking away.

As he did, his eyes fell on a group of people making their way through the road. They wore clothes that changed color based on the direction it was viewed from.

Lightsworns.

Unconsciously, Alex placed his right hand on his stump. He was finally here, in the radiant city.

And he was going to leave already?

How long had it been since he had lost his arm? And he still hadn't gotten it back.

'Do I stay… back?' he thought to himself. He couldn't imagine the help his arm would be if it grew back. He desperately wanted it back as well.

But…

'No, I need to go see mother first,' he thought to himself. 'My arm doesn't matter as much to me right now as my mother's situation.'

Once his heart grew resolute, he left the city.

* * * * * *

The talisman competition had ended just yesterday, and today the prizes had been distributed. Helen was back in her room in the Flowing Brush sect looking at the prizes in her hand.

There were a few talismans in her hand. Some recorded designs to craft certain talismans, while some contained power to block some damage.

Helen didn't really care much for them. At least, not as much as the prize on her other hand.

In her right hand, she held a brush made up of exotic bamboo as the handle, and the manes of the Soaring Lion as the soft bristles.

she stared at the brush for a while before bringing out her talisman-making station from her storage bag.

She poured some ink to the side and dipped the new brush in it.

The brush absorbed just the right amount of ink. Not too little, and not too much.

'As expected of a Saint rank artifact,' she thought to herself as she held the brush and finally placed her palm on the empty talisman paper.

Helen took a deep breath and then started making runes on the piece of paper one by one.

Helen couldn't go too fast or too slow. The slightest deviation from what was symmetrical would make the talisman go from good to unusable in a single instant.

After nearly 10 minutes of slow drawing, she finally managed to create the talisman. Her arms moved as a technique was used upon the talisman.

Within seconds, the slightly went ink on the paper dried like it had been made years ago.

"Phew!" Helen wiped her sweat and ignored the slightly throbbing head to quickly check the Alignment of the talisman.

After placing the talisman in the square-shaped tester, she learned that she had reached 72% alignment.

"Ah, so close to 75%," she thought. Still, just the fact that she was able to reach such a high alignment was monstrous, to begin with.

'I gained nearly 5% with this brush. It's quite good,' she thought and cleaned the ink from the brush using some sort of concoction.

'Good!' she told herself. 'If I can go on like this, I can become strong enough to leave this land and go look for them.'

Once she cleared everything, She sat on the mat and started to cultivate. However, before she began, she heard a knock on her door.

"Come in," she said and watched a tall, old man walk in. This man had no beard, but his mustache came down in a short thin line to his chin.

His head was bald in a circle and what remaining hair he had was tied in a ponytail.

His magenta robe seemed to shine with some slight color in the night as he slowly walked in through the door.

"Greetings, master," Helen said as the old man walked in.

"Lin'er, were you making talismans?" the old man asked.

"I was simply testing my new brush, master," she said.

"Oh, I see. Make sure to rest up. You've done a lot in the past week," he said.

"Yes, master," Helen said. She expected her master to leave after saying that, but he stuck around for a little longer.

"Is something wrong, master?" she asked.

"Um… there is a small… not really problem, but situation rather, and we need you to stay here for the next month or so. Can you do that?" the old man asked.

Helen's eyes narrowed a little. "What's the situation?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter. It will go away within a few weeks. It's just a side effect of you winning 2nd place in the competition," the old man said.

"I see, then… I guess I can stay here. I want to practice the new talisman I got the designs for today," Helen said.

"Okay, do so. I will let you know when it is safe to leave," the old man said and walked away.

He closed the door behind him and sighed. The problems for the next few days wouldn't be much for him as he wouldn't have to handle them, but he couldn't help but feel bad for the disciples that did have to.

Once he was out of her place, the old man left for his own abode while making sure to remember to leave some information for the disciples tomorrow.

* * * * * * *

"Is this the Dawnspring city?" Alex wondered as he finally arrived at the outskirts of a city with tall walls, surrounded by many other smaller city-like patches of buildings.

He stopped before entering the city and looked at the entire area from high above.

There were 3 distinct, separate locations that Alex could see from his viewpoint.

One of them was a large set of buildings not far from where he flew off.

Next, there was another separate group of buildings to a small mountain range to the south of the city.

Finally, similar to the one in the south, there was another set of building in the larger mountain ranges to the north. This place was also far larger than the other one.

"If I'm not wrong, this place on the flat land must be the Han ancestral family home," Alex thought. "Then the larger one in the mountains must be the Heaven's Peak school, and finally, this smaller one must be the Flowing Brush sect. That's where I need to go to."

Alex soon came to the ground and dropped from his boat. It felt quite good not having to sit down all day long.

He entered the city and was immediately greeted with the sight of many cultivators, all wearing different colored robes.

He saw the brown robes of the Han family, the black and red of the disciples of Heaven's Peak school, and finally the magenta of the Flowing Brush sect.

These were the main group of people, but of course, there were many others as well.

Alex ignored them all and without hesitation walked to the other side to find his way out of the city and to the mountains where the Flowing Brush sect.

Surprisingly, he found a lot of people were going there too. Some were on flying treasures, while some took carriages.

Alex on the other hand simply walked on foot. It would take him some time, but he would reach his mother sooner or later.