Chapter 34 — Worshipping the Merciful Lord in the Ancient Temple of the Wild God

The lame old man's heart gave a faint shudder. Could it be that the State Preceptor of Yanning and the kingdom of Yanning were truly so reckless, so audacious, as to covet even a place as uncanny and dreadful as the Wilderness Ruins — to want to swallow it whole? And yet Old Man Ma had said one thing that was not wrong: Yanning was indeed a sect disguised as a nation! Yanning took the martial way as its foundation and the martial way as its rule. Its officials were ranked in nine grades and eighteen steps, from the Principal First Rank — the State Preceptor, the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent — down to the Secondary Ninth Rank — the Gentleman for Attendance, the Ceremonial Officer, the Erudite (not the doctorate of today, but the man of broad learning and many talents; the Secondary Ninth Rank included the Erudite of Calligraphy, the Erudite of Medicine, the Erudite of Mathematics, the Erudite of Divination, and offices of that sort) — and every one of them came out of the martial path; some were simply the sect masters, patriarchs, or presiding masters of other sects. As for the soldiers of this nation, each and every one was a martial artist too, hardy and battle-tested: abroad they could storm cities and seize land, at home they could crush rebellion — an utterly fearsome power beyond any doubt. When a sect disguises itself as a nation, governs its territory the way a nation does, pools its resources into one hand, subdues other sects, brings every martial artist and every wielder of supernatural powers within its borders under a single rule, and turns every sect in its domain to its own use — then how mighty, how terrifying, will that nation become? In recent years Yanning had expanded without cease, its territory growing ever broader and ever larger, swallowing sects like the Lanjiang Sect and swallowing one small kingdom after another. And now the borders of Yanning had reached the edge of the Wilderness Ruins, and there the Ruins barred its way. What barred the nation's path was the gloom and the uncanniness of the Ruins; in the Wilderness Ruins, whenever night came down, that eerie thing came with it — the invasion of the Gloom. To enter the Gloom was certain death, and that kept Yanning from stepping into the Ruins. Nor did the perils of the Ruins end there; monstrous beasts swarmed, freak occurrences were commonplace, ill fortune lurked on every side, and if the State Preceptor of Yanning wished to march his armies up to the Ruins, it was no trifling matter. Yet the perils of the Ruins could not frighten the State Preceptor. The lame old man knew this man; he understood something of his temper — after all, it was he who had cut off his leg. Nothing dreadful could daunt him; no danger could halt this man! He would most certainly enter the Wilderness Ruins! It might even be that the man was at this very moment gazing out over the vast, boundless, treacherous Wilderness Ruins! The village soon sank back into quiet. The water left behind when the little Lijiang collapsed was quickly drunk up by the mud, and by the next day the ground had been baked hard and stiff by the blazing sun. This time Shen Mu had come by a sword sheathe — the one that had belonged to Qianxun, a disciple of the Lanjiang Sect. The sheathe was six chi long, not especially large, fashioned from the hide of a small crocodile, with a strap for the waist and two shoulder straps so that it could be carried on the back. When vital essence entered the sheathe, the crocodile's jaws would open, and out of its mouth would come a scabbard and a hilt. A martial artist refines his breath into silk; when threads of vital essence wound about the hilt, he could draw the blade and ride a flying sword with his vital essence. And once the first sword was drawn, another hilt would rise from the scabbard; draw that second sword, and a third would appear in turn. That was the very reason it was called a sword sheathe. Lanjiang Sect was a sword sect of the southern borderlands, and the swords it forged had a character all their own. Hidden within this sheathe was a mother sword, and the mother sword could not be brought out — it had already fused with the small crocodile's hide. Every blade drawn from the sheathe was a daughter sword. Shen Mu tried it: twenty-eight daughter swords could be drawn in all. Add the seven he had severed with his butcher's knife, and there had been thirty-five in total. As for how the Lanjiang sword sect had hidden thirty-five swords inside so small a sheathe, he had no notion of the secret. Twenty-eight swords were no great burden to Shen Mu. He carried a good many iron ingots on his person, wore iron shoes on his feet, and had iron ingots tucked at his chest and waist as well; all together they weighed over a hundred jin, much the same as the sheathe. Shen Mu treated carrying the sheathe as a form of training — it spared him the iron shoes and other weights and made it easier to move about — but to ride a flying sword with his vital essence, that he could not manage. The Chengjiang Sword Art was fine-grained and venomous, and his sword control was nowhere near that standard. "If only I could learn the Chengjiang Sword Art," Shen Mu sighed inwardly. The Chengjiang Sword Art was a thing of rare subtlety, and its chain-sword technique in particular was superb beyond compare. Among the villagers, Old Man Ma, the Butcher, the lame old man, the Alchemist, and the blind old man were none of them skilled in swordplay; the mute had a chest of things like Myriad Blade Sword Souls, and Grandma Zhu had silver pellets of much the same kind — if those silver pellets were indeed Myriad Blade Sword Souls, then they too must be masters of the sword. But when Shen Mu asked Grandma Zhu, she would not teach him, and the mute waved his hands again and again, as though he feared something. In secret the mute told him in sign language that if he did not learn now, a finer sword art would be waiting for him; but if he learned now, it would be lost to him, and that person would never teach him. Shen Mu did not know who the mute's "that person" was, and so he had to let it go. He had not yet fully mastered the marvel of moving his vital essence; Old Man Ma's boxing, for instance — he still could not bring his vital essence coursing through his whole body at the instant he struck. To send vital essence through the whole body could raise every quality of the body to its utmost: strength, agility, speed, reaction, all at their peak! When the Eight Thunder Roar Formulas are cultivated to a profound realm, one can send thunder from the palm and strike with thunder from the fist; he could achieve palm thunder only by means of the Demon God's Divine Power Seal, and the Eight Thunder Roar Formulas could not yet do it. If he could reach that step, then meeting a martial artist like Qianxun again, he would be able to catch the blade bare-handed without having his palm sliced open! "You lack real combat." Old Man Ma came to Shen Mu's side and said lightly: "Your cultivation surpasses that disciple of the Lanjiang Sect. The boxing, the legwork, the saber work, the staff work you have learned are all stronger than his Chengjiang Sword Art. Yet when you crossed blades with him you were tied in knots and could not bring any of it to bear." Shen Mu nodded again and again; he had felt it too. Qianxun's sword art was superb, his chain-sword technique beyond all expectation, but his own reactions had been shabby — he had actually seized the blade with his hand. Thinking back now, Qianxun's strength had not truly been so great. Shen Mu had severed seven of his swords with a single cut, and with one move — the Nether Demon Unfettered Seal — had dragged his soul into his palm. That showed that Shen Mu's vital essence cultivation far exceeded his! Old Man Ma went on: "Without the whetstone of real combat, it is hard to bring your strength out of you. That is why the Five Elders of Lanjiang took their discip