Chapter 592 — Painting Mountains and Rivers with a Brush

The guards stationed at the Lingneng Duiqian Bridge saw Young Master Qi and Lord Yangxing. Though they were startled by Lord Yangxing's power, they asked no questions; after all, Jingping had many deities, and gods often hurried to the Taihuang Heaven to study.

The gods of the Taihuang Heaven were far mightier than those of Jingping; yet even they lagged behind in the arts of divination and divine powers, and several deities, seizing the present calm, had run off to Jingping to study those very arts. "Senior, pray record your name," one guard said, stepping forward with brush and ink, bowing.

Lord Yangxing picked up the brush, wrote his title in the register, then looked at Young Master Qi with an inquiring expression.

Young Master Qi said calmly, "Write it down. " Lord Yangxing assented, wrote Young Master Qi's title in the register, set down the brush, and departed westward with Young Master Qi.

"How strange—this deity seems to obey that young master's commands.

Yet the young master hardly looks powerful. How could he make a god follow him?

" The guard was astonished; looking down, he saw written in the register the words "Young Master Qi, Jiuyi.

" The crowd was filled with doubt: "Just who is this Qi Jiuyi?

" Beside the abyssal sea of fire at Wuwang City, the Dragon Qilin and the Green Ox stared at each other and cultivated with all their might. The two great beasts knew each other to be mortal foes: the Green Ox feared the Dragon Qilin's Qilin Pearl, while the Dragon Qilin knew the Green Ox surpassed it in combat experience and endurance, and so it trained diligently. The Green Ox, too, knew that the fat brute Dragon Qilin was a treacherous creature who had long wished to do away with it.

Seeing the Dragon Qilin train so hard and spit out a Mystic Water Dragon Pearl that grew ever larger as it was refined, the Ox felt a great sense of crisis and redoubled its own efforts. The two great beasts vied with each other, and Shen Mu was much gratified. Suddenly, a thunderous roar sounded within Shen Mu's body: the Six-Universe Divine Treasury within the Demonic Path's divine treasury had broken through its wall, raising his vital essence cultivation considerably.

He activated the Mystic Body Three-Core Art.

The art was divided into two paths, divine and demonic; the divine essence and the demonic essence each circulated along corresponding trajectories. Yet because the Seven Stars Divine Treasury of the Demonic Path had not yet opened, the art could not run in full correspondence.

Had the correspondence been complete, his cultivation through the Mystic Body Three-Core Art would have been far simpler. As it was, the demonic essence in the art halted abruptly once it reached the Six-Universe Divine Treasury, and only when the divine essence reached the Seven Stars Divine Treasury would the cycle of circulation begin anew. This cost him time, made it easy to lose focus, and hindered his progress, preventing him from concentrating his strength to break through to the Heaven-Man realm.

"After opening the Demonic Path's Seven Stars Divine Treasury, I must still link the Seven Stars and the Six Unions, joining them into one, before my cultivation can stabilize and I have any hope of breaking through to the Heaven-Man realm. " Shen Mu's vital essence circulated ceaselessly. The third eye at the center of his brow had been sealed by the Silent Artisan; Granny Zhu said it was for his own good.

Though the eye was sealed, Shen Mu felt nothing amiss—his vital essence could still enter the third eye, circulate along its trajectories, and enhance the eye's power. What the Silent Artisan used to seal his third eye was a golden willow leaf.

The Silent Artisan had labored over it for a long time, with the Blind Elder, Granny Zhu, the Butcher, and the Deaf Elder assisting; they had polished and tempered it painstakingly, the Blind Elder himself designing the sealing formation, and together they had imprinted their own mana upon that tiny golden willow leaf before it was finally forged. Granny Zhu herself pressed the golden willow leaf to Shen Mu's brow, covering the eye.

The elders of Yincan Village earnestly warned him that unless matters came to a critical pass, he must never peel the golden willow leaf away. Many fine, exquisite patterns emerged upon the golden willow leaf; as an ornament it was quite beautiful. When Snow Fox saw it, she was filled with envy and clamored for a willow leaf of her own.

The Blind Elder and the Deaf Elder, who doted on her, cajoled the Silent Artisan into forging another golden willow leaf. This time, however, it was not for sealing: the Blind Elder and the Deaf Elder imprinted upon the leaf the Sage Eye and the world within the painting, and an exceedingly intricate formation was imprinted within that painted world inside the leaf. The Deaf Elder pressed it to Snow Fox's forehead. Snow Fox was wildly excited, and from time to time she would activate it, whereupon a beam of light would shoot from her brow, slicing through rocks and blasting great pits into the earth.

Snow Fox studied spells and divine powers under the Fox Immortal of the Five Immortals, and her cultivation was by no means weak. The Fox Immortal had been a companion in the Dao of the village head "during his lifetime," and governed the demon tribes of Jingping.

Shen Mu had several times gone to invite her down from the mountains to lecture the scholars of the Tiansheng Academy, and their friendship was warm. Granny Zhu, the Butcher, and the others each sorted out cultivation arts suited to themselves and cultivated as well.

Together they discussed the trajectories of vital essence within the human body and established a form of human vital essence that gathered the strengths of them all. But each of them had different priorities in cultivation, so each modified it on that foundation, making the art better suited to himself. Shen Mu asked Granny Zhu for a copy of the chart of human vital essence trajectories they had established, and solemnly put it away.

"Mu'er, you already have something better—why keep our art as well? " Granny Zhu was rather puzzled.

"Granny, you have done a great thing. The chart of human vital essence trajectories you established is, in truth, an art capable of tempering every aspect of the physical body and the primordial spirit. " Shen Mu said gravely, "My art is very hard for others to learn; without a Tyrant Body, one cannot master it, and so it is difficult to pass down.

I believe your art gathers the strengths of every house in Yincan Village, yet it is simple to cultivate, and can therefore have many more practitioners. I want this art to be passed down; perhaps in the future, the gods of Jingping will all be your disciples and heirs!

" Granny Zhu was taken aback, then laughed. "We never thought that far.

" A strange excitement stirred in Shen Mu's heart.

When he had first established the trajectories of human vital essence, he too had not thought so far; at the time he had been in a state of enlightenment, with but one thought in his mind—to build a system of cultivation arts best suited to himself—and so he had suddenly entered the realm of attaining the Dao through cultivation arts.

Not long before, he had passed this method of cultivation to Granny Zhu, the Silent Artisan, and the Butcher. They, too, had not thought much of it, merely gathering the strengths of the many to remedy their own deficiencies, so that they might possess the makings of true gods.

Yet it was precisely this unwitting act that had created an art capable of tempering every aspect of the physical body, every aspect of the primordial spirit and vital essence. This was the first true-god-level art in Jingping that could be widely disseminated! Such merit was beyond measure! Granny Zhu and the others had not realized this, but Shen Mu had.