Minos's eyes widened as he read that last part. The image of a divine talisman master came to his mind, using an entire planet to form a talisman. It was hard to imagine how powerful such a thing would be. Shaking away those grand thoughts for a moment, he kept reading.
"Naturally those previous statements are likely an exaggeration. However this shows how prestigious the talisman master is, hence for those reading this book, remember to take this path seriously."
Minos spent the rest of the day reading the book. It wasn't especially thick, hence Minos finished the entire book in a few hours, before repeating to read it once more.
After reading the book three entire times and burning the contents deep into his mind, Minos had already started to understand the talisman profession to some extent.
Talisman's are made up of strokes, which are the smallest part of the system. Like said in the book, each stroke conveys a different message to the heavenly path, for example one stroke may convey the meaning of "Heat."
Using one of the talismans taught in the book as an example, the "Fireball Talisman" is made up of 17 strokes. "Heat" naturally being one of them, and when these strokes are combined, and triggered with the user's blood, the talisman would activate, shooting out a fireball.
However the most critical stroke in Minos opinion was one labeled "Nux Gathering." Minos had heard of Nux before. It was a mystical energy that gave birth to cultivators, being the force that seemed to power the entire immortal world.
Of course as a Nine Life Lock level practitioner, Minos had yet to actually come in contact with this mysterious power, he hadn't even seen it in action yet. Though he heard rumors that the realm after Nine Life Lock allowed the user to manipulate Nux, to all sorts of amazing means.
Minos read in the book that normally one would use Nux to directly activate a talisman, but since Nine Life Lock cultivators didn't have Nux, they had to use their own blood as a trigger instead.
Back to the main topic, the "Nux Gathering" stroke naturally did exactly as it sounded. It pulled Nux into the talisman, powering the entire thing, and allowing the other strokes to work as intended.
Minos was curious as to what would happen if one used a single stroke without any others. Would the talisman no longer work, or would it activate the effect of that single stroke?
He assumed he needed at least two strokes to get it working, one naturally being the "Nux Gathering" stroke, without it, there would be nothing to power the other strokes.
Also what would happen if he kept combining strokes? Could he theoretically create a talisman paper the size of a room, or was there some sort of limit that would stop it from working.
All sorts of thoughts kept bouncing around in Minos's head, causing him to sit in silence for what seemed like hours. Eventually he knocked himself out of his reverie and grounded himself.
'Before thinking of all these big things, I should at least make a talisman first. Since I have none of the tools required to start, I'll just use a stick and some dirt to get used to the movements.' Minos thought.
Talismans were split into levels depending on the amount of strokes. From 10 to 30 is a low-level talisman, 31 to 60 is mid-level, 61 to 99 is top-level, and finally 100 full strokes would be considered a peak-level talisman.
At this point in time, Minos's goal was to create a low-level talisman, hence he set his goal on the weakest talisman recorded in the "Talisman Foundations" book, which required exactly 10 strokes, reaching the bare-minimum requirement.
"Shining Talisman" was its name, and as expected, all it did was create a bright shining light to help navigate dark environments.
The strokes that made it up naturally included "Nux Gathering" as well as "Convert," "Light," "Shine," "Disperse,"
"Convert" and "Light" acted together, turning the Nux into light energy, which is then triggered to illuminate via the "Shine" stroke, and then disperse outwards, forming a light in the surroundings with the "Disperse" stroke.
Minos needed two of every stroke, since one alone was too weak to power the talisman, hence 10 strokes total.