Chapter 27 — The Spirit Embryo's Secret Art First Attained
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Whoosh —
In the woods outside Hidden Remnant Village, Shen Mu struck out with his palm. Primordial energy surged from his arm like a fire dragon coiled about it, and the air before him turned scorching hot in an instant, as though it had been set alight!
His feet moved; his palms struck again and again. The air grew hotter and hotter, until it was like a vast desert of yellow sand beneath ten suns hung high, blisteringly hot!
What he used was Old Master Ma's fist art, the fourth form of the Thunder Roar Eight Arts: Kuafu Chases the Sun, Wind and Thunder Swift.
Suddenly Shen Mu's footwork shifted, and his moves shifted with it, each stance and each strike pouring on like a great river rushing to the sea. His primordial energy turned straight from the fire attribute to the water attribute; a water dragon woven of vapor coiled around his arm, and between one move and the next the roar of waves surged, as though a great flood swirled around him.
His art changed again: both hands closed on emptiness, and the vapor became a spear, a long dragon churning rivers and overturning seas.
These past days he had been in the village tempering his energy-riding flying sword, devoting himself to refining his primordial energy — only he still had to observe fire first before his energy could take on the fire attribute, and only then could he employ the flying sword. As he tempered it again and again, the time he needed to observe the fire grew shorter and shorter, and now he no longer needed to look at the forge at all: so long as he pictured the flames in the furnace in his mind, his primordial energy turned scorching of itself.
Yet the Butcher's Livestock-Slaying Saber Art belonged to the school of battle techniques, and Shen Mu's use of it to temper his energy-riding flying sword had never yielded much. It was his cultivation of Old Master Ma's Thunder Roar Eight Arts and the Blind Elder's spear art that had brought him great gains and swift progress.
Now, when he unleashed the fourth form of the Thunder Roar Eight Arts, Kuafu Chases the Sun, Wind and Thunder Swift, it was like a giant striding forth; his palm shook, and the air burst and exploded — such was the might of primordial energy!
Of course, fire-attribute Vermilion Bird primordial energy could not perfectly bring out the power of Old Master Ma's Thunder Roar Eight Arts; the energy best suited to the Thunder Roar Eight Arts was Azure Dragon primordial energy. Water-attribute Black Tortoise primordial energy, by contrast, could bring the Blind Elder's spear art to its fullest.
After a long while Shen Mu stopped, swallowed two Origin-Condensing Pills to replenish his sharply depleted primordial energy, and pondered in detail the shortcomings in his use of it.
He had once been able to take only one Origin-Condensing Pill before it swelled him to the point of madness; but ever since his spirit embryo had slept and awakened, two pills did him no great harm — only a stuffed, bloated feeling.
"Origin-Condensing Pills — can a Nether Ape eat them? Probably not. Grandpa Alchemist says the pills hold four attributes, and to anyone who is not a Tyrant Body they are poison. Another day, then, I'll refine a whole vat of Origin-Condensing Pills for the Nether Ape."
Thinking of the big fellow who had traded blows with him, Shen Mu felt a stir in his heart. He had not gone to see the Nether Ape these past days, and did not know how the beast was coming along with the Mystic Body Three Cores Art.
He leaped up and went flying toward the Nether Ape's territory, his steps swift as flight. He was a youth after all, and the village held only elders, no friends; he and the Nether Ape had come to know each other through a fight, and after several days apart he found he missed it.