Chapter 178 — Nine Turns, Three Gates

Though Shen Mu was running at flying speed, his mind was still deep in thought, more active than ever before. This meeting with the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping had touched on little, yet it had plunged his mind into a fever of excitement. To stand face to face with a man of peerless talent stimulates a man, presses upon him, elevates him.

To the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping it was merely an ordinary conversation; to Shen Mu it meant something far from ordinary.

Simply to stand before this legendary figure demanded enormous courage, and to speak with him demanded the full exercise of all his intelligence. To converse with the wise fills a man with wisdom; to keep company with the mediocre makes him mediocre. It was on the occasion of this conversation with the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping that Shen Mu brought himself to the peak of his intelligence and, seizing the moment, perfected the Great Unification Art.

Suddenly his steps slowed.

His essence now moved according to an improved Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art -- and the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art as it now stood was the Great Unification Art he had perfected, into which he had woven the strengths of many arts from the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture. The original Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art had possessed no attribute of its own; it served purely to drive other arts, and in raw power it fell short of arts paired with their own divine abilities.

The Eight Thunder Peal Formulas, for instance, could unleash their full might only when driven by the Thunder Peal Mahayana Scripture. The Rain-Bringing Formula required the Dark Warrior Water-Commanding Art to rouse it. The Rushing Thunder Flame Formula needed the Vermilion Bird Fire-Mastery Art to steer it before the power of thunder and fire could be fully expressed.

The Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, however, was a technique, with no matching spell or divine ability. In the Great Unification Art Shen Mu had comprehended this time, taking the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art as its root and drawing on the scripture the Woodcutter passed down upon the stone, he awakened the varied properties of the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, enabling it to bring out the power of every kind of method.

The Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art had no attribute, could not temper the body, and had no companion divine ability; it could not be directly transformed into mighty offensive force. With this comprehension of the Great Unification Art, Shen Mu had at last solved that problem. The Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art of today was, above all, all-embracing: use his improved Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art to drive other spells, sword arts, and combat techniques, and its power was in no way inferior to their proper companion arts.

This was what the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture called the Great Unification Art.

Every Cult Master of the Dark Demon Cult had possessed his own unique Great Unification Art. The young Patriarch's original intent had been that Shen Mu, after comprehending a Great Unification Art, should cultivate it alongside the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art -- slower in progress, but able to combine the merits of both arts. He had not anticipated that Shen Mu would improve the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art directly, rather than comprehending an art built upon the foundation of the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture.

Shen Mu himself did not know whether this was for good or ill, whether it was the right choice.

From childhood he had cultivated the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art; it was the art he knew best, and so instinctively he had turned the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art into the Great Unification Art.

Most crucially, he had remedied the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art's deficiencies in body tempering, spells, and combat techniques. He drove the improved Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, and the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art of today had incorporated the Nine Turns Three Verifications Mystery Art, a body-tempering art from the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture, one of the scripture's highest-grade body-tempering arts.

Shen Mu had long envied the body-tempering arts of the combat schools, but Lord Huo, the Butcher, and the Lame Elder had none of them taught him such arts, so he could only seek them in the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture.

As the art was driven, Shen Mu immediately felt the extraordinariness of the improved Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art. His essence raced through its circuits, then seeped into his skin, his muscles, his bones, his sinews, his very hair, his marrow. In former days his Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art had run only within his body along a fairly simple path; now it reached into every aspect of his frame.

The new Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, besides tempering the body, also tempered the soul and tempered the breath, and was exceedingly refined at it. Shen Mu walked slower and slower, gradually growing calm, carefully sensing what deficiencies remained in his art and correcting them.

The basic framework of his Great Unification Art was set; all that was lacking now were minor details. He was greatly deficient in body tempering and soul tempering. He felt now as though his body were land that had gone half a year without rain, madly drinking in moisture, drinking in nourishment.

The Nine Turns Three Verifications of the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture: nine turns of essence and flesh, three verifications of the bones within -- the first verification, bones drawn tight; the second, a body like iron; the third, a form like a hill or peak.

He was now only at the stage of the first turn and the first verification. Unknowingly half a day had passed.

Shen Mu gradually came to the Heavenly Records Tower. Before its gate a Secretariat official happened to be passing by; he glanced at Shen Mu, his face changed drastically, and he said in a fluster, "Doctor Shen, you had best see to yourself at once, or your life will not last long!

" Shen Mu was puzzled, not grasping his meaning, when suddenly a wind blew over him; at once he felt dizzy and blinded, swaying as though about to fall. "This is bad!

" Startled, Shen Mu hurriedly raised his hand, and saw that his arms were thin as firewood. He touched his face and felt only thin skin, almost plastered to his cheekbones.

Clothes that had once fit him well were now somewhat loose.

Only then did he notice that in these two hours he had grown frighteningly thin, like a man made of dry sticks -- and more than that, his flesh was withering away.

And as he drove the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, the speed of that withering rose sharply.

When the energy stored in his flesh was exhausted, that would be the day of his death. He had been wholly intent on perfecting the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art and cultivating the methods of body tempering and soul tempering, paying no heed to his own body; only now did he realize he had come near to the lamp going dry and the oil spent.

"The new Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art carries no small hidden danger -- it cultivates too fast. I forgot that body tempering consumes one's own energy, and when the energy in the body is consumed without replenishment, the burden laid on the body is immense!

" He was already at the Five Luminaries Realm, his cultivation profound, yet in cultivating the new Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, tempering body and soul, the energy within him could not hold out even two hours.

Shen Mu immediately stopped driving the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, cleared his mind, set his thoughts racing, pondering how to compound a good medicine to restore the body, and all the while hurried toward the Scholars' Lodge. Shen Mu rushed into his room, took money, and ran to the Grand Academy's storehouse, leaving behind a bewildered little fox and the Dragon Qilin. He bought medicine from the storehouse, and with no time to return to his dwelling he refined the medicine right there on the road.