Chapter 206 — The Summoner of Demons

Emperor Yanfeng went on reading and annotating memorials, then abruptly laid down his vermilion brush and stared into space. "I took this seat in middle age, and even outlived several of my sons—it seems my Crown Prince will not wait as long in the Crown Prince's seat as I did..."

In the Imperial Academy, Shen Mu had received three imperial decrees, and his office had risen to Grand Master of the Palace of the upper fifth rank proper. The Grand Master of the Palace was merely a sinecure, a post without real authority, one of the civil offices, celebrated as an Upper Minister of the Realm, yet no more than a loose idler.

Plainly the emperor still harbored doubts about him, the Hierarch of the Dark Demon Sect, and would not grant him real power, lest court and countryside alike fill up with scoundrels of the demonic sect.

Shen Mu tossed the three scrolls of decree into the west room, not a ripple stirring in his heart.

He was still cultivating the other four transformations of the Five Luminaries realm.

On this southern campaign to quell the rebellion, the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping had given them guidance in abundance. After returning from the Southern Wilds, Shen Wanyun, Si Yunxiang, and the others had plunged straight into the Heavenly Records Pavilion in search of the arts of the Five Luminaries realm.

Si Yunxiang had even borrowed the Academy Doctor's pass tablet from Shen Mu and gone up to the third floor of the Heavenly Records Pavilion to study its arts.

"The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping's reforms press the doctrine that all the laws of the world are for the people's daily use. The state of Jingping amounts to a vaster, more towering Dark Demon Sect."

Shen Mu breathed in and out the star power of Saturn, and his body slowly began to change. His two legs gradually merged into one and became a serpent's tail—a man's head upon a serpent's body, two or three zhang tall—and behind him appeared two tightly shut doors.

On his journey to the Southern Wilds he had already mastered four of the divine transformations of the Five Luminaries Divine Treasury—the Mercury Lord, the Mars Lord, the Jupiter Lord, and the Venus Lord—but the form of the Saturn Lord alone was hard to master. However mighty his vital qi, he could never form the most perfect Saturn Lord.

This time he roused the Mystic Body Three Elixir Art, and the tightly shut doors behind him gradually grew distinct, though the writing on them remained dim, past all reading.

The Saturn Lord was a singular one among the Star Lords of the Five Luminaries. The True Art of the Saturn Earth Marquis, first of the Five Luminaries, was unexpectedly hard to cultivate—above all the door behind the Saturn Lord.

Shen Mu could take divine form as the Saturn Lord, yet that door could never be etherealized into a clear and visible state; the writing upon it stayed forever dim.

In the air a stream of earth-yellow light came pouring ceaselessly toward him and into his body. The star power of Saturn flowed in and made his divine form ever steadier, and by degrees Shen Mu found that the Saturn Lord's form held further changes: in his two hands there was now the phantom of a scroll.

He looked at that phantom scroll, and still he could not make out the writing. Yet from the strange veins of the characters he could tell that it was written in tadpole script, the strokes bearing some likeness to sun, moon, worm, and fish—utterly unlike the writing of the present day.

Shen Mu had studied for close to ten years under Old Man Kui, a great master of his age, and Old Man Kui was deeply versed in ancient script besides; yet he had never taught Shen Mu this form of tadpole script.

Shen Mu turned to look at the writing on the phantom door behind him. Dim as it still was, he could just make out that it somewhat resembled the writing on the scroll.

"What script is this?"

Shen Mu felt obscurely that something was strange. If every martial artist of the Five Luminaries realm bore such a double door behind him, and the divine Saturn Lord in every case held such a scroll in his hand, then surely someone long ago would have studied the writing on the scroll and on the door to the very bottom and parsed out the mystery within—so why had even the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping never spoken of such a thing?

Could it be that another man's divine Saturn Lord had no such door, no such scroll?

He was turning this over when suddenly a voice, heavy and brimming with demonic nature, sounded in his mind: "Stop your wild fancies. This is Youdu script. How could a puny, feeble creature like you ever know Youdu script?"

A chill ran through Shen Mu, and every hair on his body stood up. In alarm he said, "Who is it? Who is speaking inside my body?"

"Playing dumb?"

The voice laughed. "How much longer will you play dumb before me? When I borrowed your eyes to observe the fighting techniques of the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, did you not already recognize me? Summoner of demons of the Lord of Dutian?"