Chapter 149 — The Mighty Martial Emperor

This ox's abilities could rival those of a Demon King; it trod upon water more steadily than upon dry land, and it was skilled at wielding wind and thunder, moving with extraordinary speed. At such a pace it could easily cover three thousand li in a single day.

Libationer Bashan gave a rough glance over the scrolls Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu had chosen, and as he pinched the scrolls Shen Mu had handed in he felt something of a headache. The scrolls Ling Yuxiu had chosen were sword arts and divine abilities, or else spells; of what Shen Mu handed in, only the Falling Sun Sword Art could be called normal, and the other two scrolls truly stumped him. One of these two was called the Soul-Drawing Guide, and the other the Talisman Edict for Commanding Ghosts and Dispatching Spirits.

Any sword art, divine ability, or spell had its basic techniques to follow; by the principle of understanding a whole category from a single touch, of drawing one inference from three instances, Libationer Bashan, with his incomparably deep foundation, could instruct them in all of it.

Only these two scrolls Shen Mu had chosen were obscure among the obscure; in ordinary times, even when Libationer Bashan entered the Tianlu Tower, upon seeing such unfashionable spells he would always give them a single glance and set them aside, paying them no heed at all, and to ask him to expound upon them was truly to demand the impossible. To a being of his realm, the Soul-Drawing Guide and the Talisman Edict for Commanding Ghosts and Dispatching Spirits simply lacked power, and nothing about them brightened the eye; he genuinely could not tell what Shen Mu's purpose was in choosing these two spells.

Libationer Bashan sat on the ox's back, tossed the two scrolls back to Shen Mu for him to study on his own, and then explained to Ling Yuxiu the scroll she had brought out of the Tianlu Tower. Ling Yuxiu was a child of the imperial house, and so could enter the second storey of the Tianlu Tower; what she had brought out this time was a profound art of the Dao school called the Azure Empyrean Lightning Guide. By its name alone it was many times more orthodox than the Soul-Drawing Guide and the Talisman Edict for Commanding Ghosts and Dispatching Spirits that Shen Mu had dug up.

The orthodox lightning arts of the Dao school lived up to their name, and Libationer Bashan expounded them with perfect clarity; at the many hard-to-grasp points, once he gave his pointers, Ling Yuxiu understood them all at once. Shen Mu too listened, absorbed, when it suddenly occurred to him that the Azure Empyrean Lightning Guide might be set against his Eight Formulas of Thunderclap for mutual reference, and that perhaps an unexpected power might be won from it.

His thoughts spread outward, and whatever Libationer Bashan said after that he did not hear clearly, sunk as he was in his own calculations. Ling Yuxiu asked Libationer Bashan about a few points that still puzzled her, then at once set to testing it; she played out a string of spell formulas, and abruptly, from a clear sky, a thunderbolt cracked down upon the river with a crash, blasting several river fish a zhang long belly-up!

Ling Yuxiu was startled and delighted at once, thoroughly pleased with herself. Libationer Bashan shook his head and said, "Princess, your foundation is far too weak; you have not drilled your basics properly.

The power of the Azure Empyrean Lightning Guide is more than this.

" He sealed his own divine treasuries, keeping open only the two great treasuries of Spirit Embryo and Five Luminaries so that he stood at the same realm as Ling Yuxiu, then stirred the spell formulas of the Azure Empyrean Lightning Guide, pinching his two middle fingers together as though threading a needle, as if invisible needle and thread hung before him. At once lightning flashed and thunder rolled over the river; bolt after bolt came crashing down, striking wherever he pointed, fierce beyond measure — in an instant several dozen thunderbolts had fallen!

The river's surface turned white with foam, and everywhere great fish floated blasted belly-up.

Ling Yuxiu was won over completely, in heart and in word; Libationer Bashan was clearly cultivating this Azure Empyrean Lightning Guide for the very first time, yet the moment he made his move he was consummately masterful — one could not help but marvel.

Libationer Bashan said with a smile, "Your royal house's art, the Nine Dragons Emperor Art, is fierce and domineering; if your foundation were solid enough, then when you wielded the Azure Empyrean Lightning Guide its power would surpass even mine. Seventh Princess, for these days to come I will teach you no other arts — I will only help you lay your foundation firm.

" Ling Yuxiu hastily assented.

Libationer Bashan was himself a being of patriarch rank, of vast knowledge and experience; add to this that he had lived through the reforms of the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, and that in recent years he had contemplated, in that holy ground called the Grand Academy, the arts and divine abilities of every great sect and school and every noble clan — his foundation had grown so deep that he was already a master of the very highest tier in the whole Jingping Nation. The azure ox traveled on toward the border pass, and along the way Libationer Bashan preached the Way and discoursed upon the arts, going through the scrolls they had brought out of the Tianlu Tower one by one.

After two or three days they at last drew near Qingmen Pass. Qingmen Pass lay at the boundary between the Jingping Nation and the Mandi Nation, and also at the boundary between the Desolate Ruins and the Mandi Nation.

Here, more than a hundred li lay between Qingmen Pass and the Mandi border pass; yet in the middle of that hundred-odd li stretched a belt of mountain forest a dozen-odd li long. This forest reached out from the Desolate Ruins and belonged to the Ruins' domain; whenever night fell, darkness came creeping in and cut the two mighty passes off from each other.

The Desolate Ruins thus became a natural barrier between the Mandi Nation and the Jingping Nation; neither army could launch a surprise attack under cover of darkness, and each could assault the other only by day, and so the war had settled into stalemate.

The soldiers on both sides aptly called this strip of Ruins land the Duck Tongue. Shen Mu and his companions entered Qingmen Pass; Libationer Bashan handed the border guards their passage tally, and the soldier, checking them off against the count, suddenly caught sight of Shen Mu, started slightly, and hurried off running into the city.

The others could not make out what it meant, and Libationer Bashan asked with misgiving, "Have you gotten into some trouble? " The azure ox said, gloating, "Trouble? Far more than trouble.

Master, have you forgotten?

This junior brother of yours is a forsaken one of the Desolate Ruins. The border soldiers received a divine oracle: any forsaken one who dares enter Jingping is to be put to the sword. I'd wager this junior brother of yours will lose his head, or else be sold off as a slave.

" Libationer Bashan frowned slightly. A moment later there came from within the city the clatter and clash of armor, and a deep, mighty voice called out, "The Divine Physician — where is Divine Physician Shen?

" A hundred-odd soldiers came out from the border pass escorting a white-haired old general, who looked the company over and said, "Which of you is Divine Physician Shen?