Chapter 137 — The Young Sovereign Lord Meets the Daoist Sect

Shen Mu's present state did indeed look like sleepwalking—racing and dashing about within his sleep, yet able all the while to see the scenery on every side and to dodge the obstacles in his path. What troubled Shen Wanyun was that, in the midst of that running, Shen Mu kept unleashing fist techniques and leg techniques, striking with such vigor that the wind whistled around him! Now and again he would even draw out a butchering knife and hack and slash with it.

"Junior Brother Shen's strength is already so great, yet he works harder than anyone else, practicing even in his dreams. His comprehension may be a little poor, but such diligence is worth my emulation!"

Greatly inspired, Shen Wanyun returned to his dwelling and cultivated himself with redoubled diligence.

Yet Shen Mu was not wholly asleep; his state was different from sleepwalking. It was a cultivation method all his own. The Mystic Body Three Elixir Art had its peculiarities in practice: when he cultivated, he ran and raced, and his progress came faster; and because his mind was at rest, every punch and stance he executed was the memory of his body.

These past years in the Desolate Ruins Shen Mu had relied on this very method to advance by leaps and bounds; it was only upon coming to the state of Jingping and learning its customs that he had stopped cultivating in that way.

Shen Mu ran for two hours, then woke, bright-eyed and full of vigor.

Just then a familiar voice laughed: "Have you rested enough?"

Shen Mu turned hastily. "Patriarch."

At this hour there was no one else on the mountain; even the Libationers and the men of the Directorate of Education and the Palace Library had gone to rest. They too had listened to Imperial Preceptor Jingping expound the law for two days without sleep, and needed to recover themselves.

The young Patriarch smiled. "Imperial Preceptor Jingping's discourse on the law—what did you make of it?"

Shen Mu said in admiration, "Imperial Preceptor Jingping is a being like a god of heaven. He thinks what others dare not think and does what others dare not do. Truly without peer."

The young Patriarch stepped away down the mountain. "The swordsmanship the Imperial Preceptor taught—how well have you learned it?"

"I would not claim to have mastered it, but I have gained some understanding."

Shen Mu said, "I learned the sword from my village headman and thought I had plumbed all its mysteries; I never imagined there were things I had not yet learned."

The young Patriarch said, "The saying 'there is no end to learning' is wrong. It should be 'there is no end to creating.' If you only learn, you will spend your whole life learning and nothing will ever become your own; creation alone has no boundary. You are still young, and you must still draw on what others have created. But once you have accumulated enough, you must try to create. If you only learn, you remain a student forever; but create a single move, and you are a grandmaster."

They came to the Jade Cliff, and there before the mountain gate of the Grand Academy sat the two Daoists, one old and one young, still waiting.

The young Patriarch smiled a smile that was not quite a smile: "The reason I invited Imperial Preceptor Jingping here was to transmit the Way to you and expound the law. He has taught for two days; you have reaped a great boon. Are you not going down?"

Shen Mu said with ardor, "If the Patriarch gives but the word, would your disciple dare disobey?"

The young Patriarch gave a cold laugh and kicked him off the cliff. "Little wretch, fine words from that mouth of yours! Others have blocked our mountain gate for so long and I have not seen you stir; if there were no profit in it for you, would you be so eager? Get down there!"

Shen Mu landed, rubbed his backside, and walked toward the mountain gate.

At this moment there were no Grand Academy scholars before or behind the gate; those scholars were still asleep and resting. Only the two Daoists outside the gate remained. Not far off was a strange beast guarding the mountain gate, dragon-headed and qilin-bodied, chained in place, dozing with half-shut eyes.

When Daozi Lin Xuan saw Shen Mu approaching, his heart gave a small jolt. He looked to Danyang Zi. "Martial Uncle..."

Danyang Zi lifted his eyelids, glanced at Shen Mu, and said, "Go on. Imperial Preceptor Jingping teaches the scholars precisely in order to cultivate this man. You need not fret over gain and loss."

Daozi Lin Xuan assented, rose, and came forward to meet Shen Mu. The two men's qi auras stirred in resonance; each halted, and they bowed in salute.

Shen Mu said, "Shen Mu, scholar of the Grand Academy, pays his respects to Daozi Lin Xuan. I am of the Five Luminaries realm."

Daozi Lin Xuan said gravely, "Lin Xuan of the Daoist sect pays his respects to scholar Shen Mu. I am of the Six Harmonies realm, with my Sixfold Universe Divine Treasury sealed."

He had sealed his own Sixfold Universe Divine Treasury. Shen Mu said, "Does the Daozi use weapons?"

He took down a bamboo staff from his back, then a butchering knife, then an iron hammer, and then the Chubao Sword. Daozi Lin Xuan was about to speak when Danyang Zi said abruptly, "No blades or weapons. Only Dao arts, divine powers, and close combat."

Puzzled, Daozi Lin Xuan set down his whisk and said, "Since Brother Shen puts it so, I will not use a weapon."

Danyang Zi breathed a silent sigh of relief, his gaze shifting away from the Chubao Sword. With weapons the disadvantage would be far too great; the very shape of that sword made his heart leap. Its scabbard had a fish-dragon for a mouth, rather like the sword worn by a first-rank minister.

If it were genuine, then Lin Xuan's whisk would break at a single touch, and there would be no need for any contest at all.

Shen Mu smiled. In his eyes two additional rings of pupils suddenly appeared; the Lingxiao Heaven Eye and the Qingxiao Heaven Eye opened in full. The ground beneath his feet abruptly sank, bluestone slabs bursting apart one after another, and the shattered stones on the ground were shaken into floating suspension.

"Ha!"

Shen Mu expelled his breath and gave voice, and drove out a punch. The hundreds of shattered bluestones that had just risen were, in the quaking of that fist, ground still finer—the largest no bigger than a bean, the smallest fine as sesame seeds!

Countless fragments of stone rushed with that punch straight at Daozi Lin Xuan!

A dragon's roar shook the air. The force of his punch had fused with the stone fragments and become a dragon of sand that charged straight for Daozi Lin Xuan, like a true and living god-dragon!

At the same instant his feet moved with ghostly swiftness, and close behind the fist force he arrived at Daozi Lin Xuan's side.

Daozi Lin Xuan's heart leaped in alarm. In a flash one pupil turned white and the other black; he raised a hand and pressed forward. His palm was like jade, like a jade seal, and the seal was like a mountain; upon it were carved strange bird-script and worm-script characters, uncanny beyond measure, carrying an air of hoary antiquity—and it met the true dragon head-on.

The Heaven-Overturning Seal!

The two men's forces erupted, and a dull, dreadful boom rang out, like thunder smothered beneath clouds too dense to let it pass.

The strange beast with the dragon's head and qilin's body before the mountain gate heard that muffled boom and raised its head doubtfully, glancing about.

Shen Mu felt as though his Nine Dragons Riding Wind and Thunder had met a wall standing between heaven and earth, a wall his force could not pierce; and in his heart he rejoiced: "This Daozi is truly extraordinary! Far more formidable than the Grand Academy scholars I have seen before!"