After resting for a night.

Early the next morning, Xu Changshou awoke brimming with vitality, sitting quietly at the stone table lost in thought.

Spread across the table were four spirit talismans: an Earth Stalwart Talisman drawn on yellow weasel hide, a Windwalk Talisman and a Flight Talisman both crafted from Cyan Wolf hide, and a Sharp Gold Talisman inscribed on Barbarian Bull hide.

His next objective was to artificially age these four spirit talismans.

He needed to make them look indistinguishable from ancient relics.

The recent auction at the Ten Thousand Immortals Pavilion had deeply inspired him.

A Flight Talisman identical to his own had fetched a staggering one hundred and twenty Spirit Stones simply because it was an ancient relic.

If he could mimic that profound erosion of time, couldn't he sell his own creations under the guise of ancient talismans?

Even if he only sold them for ten Spirit Stones apiece instead of a hundred and twenty, it would still yield a massive, guaranteed profit.

The only problem was figuring out how to forge that ancient aura.

"Let's test it out."

Xu Changshou rose to his feet, gathered the talismans, and strode out of the immortal cave.

Action was always better than idle thought.

Lacking any experience in forgery, he could only rely on trial and error.

First, he vigorously scrubbed the four talismans with water, crumpling the tough hides into wrinkled balls.

Yet after leaving them to dry under the sun, the results were lackluster.

He then resorted to burying them in mud, soaking them in grease, roasting them over an open flame, and staining them with medicinal juices.

He exhausted every mortal method he could conceive.

The four talismans certainly became wrinkled and filthy, but they entirely lacked the profound, heavy aura of ancient time.

"It seems I have only one last resort!"

Gritting his teeth, Xu Changshou scoured the area for animal droppings and dug out a makeshift manure pit.

Without hesitation, he tossed the four talismans into the foul sludge.

Three days later, he fished them out with a branch and thoroughly washed them in a nearby stream.

To his disappointment, while the talismans appeared weathered, they still failed to evoke the true passage of centuries.

"This won't work. I need another method."

He hooked the talismans with his branch and draped them over a large boulder. The stench was simply too overpowering; he needed to let the miasma dissipate in the wind.

If he tossed them directly into his Storage Bag as they were, his entire inventory would be forever tainted by the stench of dung.

Leaving them to air out, Xu Changshou returned to the cavern. This desolate valley rarely saw foot traffic, so he had no fear of theft.

He cultivated in silence for the entire afternoon. But when dusk fell and he went to retrieve his talismans, he discovered the boulder was completely empty.

Nearby, a Stinking Musk Deer was idly foraging. The beast had been lingering around the cavern entrance for days, and Xu Changshou hadn't bothered to drive it off.

The Stinking Musk Deer was a creature of absolute foulness—its flesh, its fur, and even its saliva reeked to the high heavens.

Its flatulence was even more apocalyptic.

Despite being the lowest grade of spirit beast, it possessed almost no natural predators in the wild.

The mere scent of it was enough to extinguish the appetite of any carnivorous beast.

Even ferocious apex predators refused to provoke it. The moment it sensed killing intent, it would violently release its noxious gas.

That stench was potent enough to make a cultivator question their Dao.

Therefore, large beasts instinctively gave the creature a wide berth.

This was precisely why Xu Changshou had ignored it. He had no desire to be fumigated, and since a Formation guarded his entrance, the creature could not intrude anyway.

Furthermore, the Stinking Musk Deer was infamous for its undiscriminating gluttony.

When starved, it would consume dirt and stones. Its digestive capabilities were terrifyingly robust, capable of dissolving solid rock.

"Strange, where did they go?"

Casting a brief, dismissive glance at the Stinking Musk Deer, Xu Changshou shook his head and returned indoors.

Over the next few days, he continued his relentless research into forgery.

He concluded that soaking them in filth still yielded the closest approximation of age.

Thus, he decided to excavate a larger manure pit and steep a new batch of talismans for an entire month to test the results.

For several days, Xu Changshou busied himself scouring the mountains for animal droppings.

One crisp morning.

Stepping out of his cavern, he spotted several fresh clumps of dung at the entrance. They were unmistakably left by the Stinking Musk Deer.

Frowning, he fetched a shovel to clear the filth.

As he struck the dung, he noticed the clumps were unusually rigid. Poking at them with the spade, he uncovered something eerily familiar hidden within.

Weren't these the exact talismans he had lost days ago?

Revelation struck him like a bolt of lightning. The beast had devoured his talismans, failed to fully digest the tough spirit beast hides, and subsequently excreted them.

If he washed them, they might still be salvageable.

Wrinkling his nose, Xu Changshou shoveled the soiled talismans to the riverbank and vigorously scrubbed them clean with a stiff brush.

He then brought them safely inside the cave to dry, not daring to leave them exposed to the beast's gluttony again.

The next day, he resumed his chore of collecting dung. Only upon returning at dusk did he remember the four drying talismans.

Picking them up, he was instantly struck dumb. The four talismans were perfectly weathered, steeped in an unmistakable aura of primordial antiquity.

"This... it's perfect! Hahaha! I wore out iron shoes hunting for a solution, only to find it requires no effort at all! Hahaha!"

Wild joy surged through his heart. He never imagined that a Stinking Musk Deer's accidental gluttony would serve as the ultimate forgery technique.

The logic was profound yet simple. The beast's stomach acids were incredibly potent. That fierce internal corrosion perfectly mimicked the ravages of centuries, etching the talismans with the authentic scars of time.

"Excellent, excellent!"

Casting his dung-collecting aside, Xu Changshou rushed out to find the Stinking Musk Deer. It was no longer a pest; it was a living, breathing money tree.

He soon tracked the creature down.

It was currently rooting around the mountain slopes for food.

Xu Changshou did not disturb it. He knew the beast had a fondness for hazelnuts, and coincidentally, several ancient hazelnut trees grew near his cavern.

It often lingered there to gorge on the fallen nuts.

The Stinking Musk Deer rarely strayed far for long before circling back.

Sure enough, as the sun dipped behind the peaks, the beast waddled back toward his domain.

Xu Changshou resolved to tame the creature, but he had to be cautious. If he startled it and it fled the valley forever, his lucrative scheme would be ruined.

The following day, he flew to a mortal market and purchased several jars of golden honey.

He then traveled five hundred li to a sprawling orchard, spending days harvesting a mountain of hazelnuts until Su Miaomiao's Storage Bag was practically bursting.

Honey and hazelnuts were the absolute delicacies of the Stinking Musk Deer.

If he wanted to bind the beast to his side, he would conquer its stomach first.

Returning under the veil of night.

Xu Changshou laid out a trail of hazelnuts at the edge of his Formation.

The beast was incredibly wary, hesitating for a long time before finally creeping forward to devour the bait.

The second night.

He laid out another feast. This time, the beast abandoned all caution and immediately gorged itself.

By the third night, the Stinking Musk Deer was already waiting by the entrance before Xu Changshou even produced the nuts. Upon seeing him approach, the creature actually displayed a fawning, ingratiating expression.

Xu Changshou tossed a handful of honey-glazed nuts. It happily scarfed them down, repeatedly nudging the air in a display of goodwill.

Despised by the natural world for its unbearable stench, it lived an isolated existence. This utter lack of social interaction had paradoxically nurtured a desperate, people-pleasing demeanor.

Thus, it readily accepted Xu Changshou's overtures.

By the fourth day, it practically viewed him as its master, obediently trailing behind his every step.

"Hehe... you've eaten my food, now it's time to pay the toll."

Gazing at the foolish Stinking Musk Deer, a highly profitable smile curled upon Xu Changshou's lips.