Chapter 14 — Tempering Bone in Vital Qi to Forge the True Body

"What should we do about this Senior Sister Qing?" Shen Mu forced himself to his feet and looked at the girl beside him, still trembling from her near brush with death.

"Or else—"

Granny Zhu's eyes lit up at once. She nudged Shen Mu's shoulder with her own, nearly knocking the boy over just as he had managed to stand, and said with a malicious grin, "Keep her to be your little wife? You were the cutest thing when you were small. Now that you've grown up, you're not as cute as you used to be. But if you and this little girl made a chubby baby, that would be cute too. Granny does love children..."

Shen Mu glanced at Senior Sister Qing, whose face was swollen like a pig's head, and hesitated. "Granny, maybe we shouldn't..."

Pfft.

The Lame Elder had appeared behind Senior Sister Qing at some point. He raised a hand and drove a blade clean through the girl, a simple, honest smile still plastered across his face. "Then kill her."

Shen Mu was struck dumb, his mouth hanging open. He stammered, "Grandpa Lame, why did you kill her?"

"You said you didn't want her, so of course she had to die." The Lame Elder withdrew his blade, his smile growing even more honest and guileless, as though he were the one who didn't understand.

Shen Mu was sullen. It wasn't that he harbored any thoughts of having children with Senior Sister Qing. It was just that he was, after all, a boy of eleven or twelve. In his daily life, the only people he saw were old monsters like Old Ma and Granny Zhu, and the folk in the neighboring villages were all vicious, murderous types. There were scarcely any boys or girls his own age.

He had no playmates, but his heart was still the heart of a boy.

"Let's go back," the Village Head said, turning to look at the ruins in the canyon behind them.

The Elixir Master smiled at Shen Mu. "We're all missing arms and legs, so no one's going to carry you. You'll have to walk back on your own. Oh, and there's still the Four Symbols Spirit Marrow here. You didn't go home last night, so we prepared it for you as well."

Shen Mu nodded. He took the four white porcelain cups and drank down the Four Symbols Spirit Marrow, then struggled forward one step at a time. As he urged the "Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art" to dissolve the power of the Spirit Marrow, he began telling them about the strange things he had encountered in the canyon ruins.

Granny Zhu's expression flickered. "Gods and demons? A vast dark face, a skeleton girl? How interesting..."

The other villagers found it interesting too, but they had no further opinions to offer.

Shen Mu could not help but say, "Granny, aren't you even curious about the stories inside those canyon ruins?"

The Elixir Master sighed. "The Divine Kingdom that once flourished so brightly is now reduced to ash and dust. Divine bones clatter and dance in the night—could it be their hearts are unwilling to rest?"

The Hard-of-Hearing Elder stared at his lips and said, "Unwilling or not, they're dead. What use is there in it? So being curious about the stories here is probably useless too."

"Hard-of-Hearing Elder, are you really the Hard-of-Hearing Elder?" The Elixir Master looked at his ears—two ears of iron, forged from snow-white metal, with even the ear canals plugged up. He asked curiously.

The Hard-of-Hearing Elder pulled the two iron ears out of his head, revealing iron pegs three inches long. These pegs had to be inserted into his ear canals for the iron ears to stay attached. He said coldly, "Stick these two ears into your own ear canals, and then you'll know whether I'm the Hard-of-Hearing Elder or not!"

The Elixir Master smiled faintly and said no more.

The Hard-of-Hearing Elder shoved the two iron ears back into his ear canals with a pfft and said to the mute, "These ears have been bothering me lately. Help me adjust them."

The mute blacksmith nodded.

Shen Mu truly had no words for these relatives of his. The Elixir Master and the others were more interested in the Hard-of-Hearing Elder's ear canals than in the ruins, which baffled him completely.

Granny Zhu said, "Mu'er, the secrets in this desolate ruin are simply too many to count. Beyond the Divine City in the canyon, there are more secrets than you could ever tally. If you spend all your curiosity on these secrets, you'll have no time left to do anything else."

The group headed in the direction of Hidden Remnant Village. The Village Head said in a low voice, "I saw that your blade work is quite impressive. A blade one foot three inches long, able to hold its own against that young man's treasured sword. You've made no small progress in this trial."

Shen Mu's heart stirred slightly. He voiced his confusion. "Why can't my vital qi control objects and command things the way theirs does? My vital qi can only seep into a willow branch a foot and three inches long—I can't make it go any further."

He was deeply envious of their ability to ride flying swords on vital qi, but he simply could not do it.

The Elixir Master shook his head inwardly. The vital qi cultivated by an ordinary person's constitution had no attribute. There was no way to command or control objects with it, because there was simply no technique that could grant ordinary vital qi the function of commanding and controlling things.

For Shen Mu, as an ordinary person, to be able to sustain a foot-and-three-inch willow branch with his vital qi and go head-to-head with a martial artist like Senior Brother Qu's treasured sword without being cut down—that was already extraordinary.

The Village Head's expression was calm. "Your Overlord Body has not yet fully awakened, and your Spirit Soul Divine Mansion has not yet been excavated. There's no need to rush. You haven't even awakened your Overlord Body, yet you can beat a martial artist at the peak of the Spirit Fetus realm to death. Once you awaken the Overlord Body, your strength will far surpass your peers."

Granny Zhu and the others were also quite pleased with Shen Mu's performance. That Senior Brother Qu was a martial artist at the peak of the Spirit Fetus realm, and he could even ride a flying sword on vital qi, circling it around his body—clearly he was not far from the Five Luminaries realm.

And Shen Mu, without having awakened his Overlord Body, had beaten him to death with a little wooden stick. Clearly Shen Mu was indeed an "Overlord Body" the likes of which had never been seen or heard of. The Village Head had not deceived them!

The Elixir Master's eye twitched. He thought to himself, "The matter of Mu'er having an ordinary constitution will be impossible to conceal sooner or later. When that time comes, these fellows, in their despair, might just flip the heavens upside down... But still, Mu'er actually beat a peak martial artist to death with a little wooden stick. That really is strange. Could there really be an Overlord Body? Or is it the work of the spirit blood?"

He was a man of wide experience and knowledge, yet even he was puzzled now, his mind swimming in confusion.

With the Four Symbols Spirit Marrow in his system, the vital qi in Shen Mu's body grew more and more lively, its circulation gradually speeding up. His swollen muscles and fascia slowly recovered, the flow of his vital blood and qi gradually quickened, and the fatigue in his body peeled away bit by bit. Unconsciously, his steps grew faster, and faster still.

Old Ma, the Lame Elder, and the others showed expressions of astonishment, but said nothing, keeping pace with him all the while.

Cultivating the "Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art" while running—his cultivation improved even faster. This was Shen Mu's new discovery. And with the Four Symbols Spirit Marrow replenishing him, the speed of his cultivation would rise to yet another level. So Shen Mu unconsciously increased his running speed, losing himself in it somewhat.