Chapter 50 — The Fox-Spirit Maiden Enters the Wasteland Trap
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu was filled with gratitude. He bowed low with hands clasped and said, "Many thanks for your guidance, Senior. This junior will hold it in his heart."
Gu Lihan laughed. "If you know gratitude, then cultivate with all speed and slay the soul of the Dragon Mother! And if anything puzzles you, speak up and ask me."
Shen Mu at once roused the Crimson Heart Art. The Crimson Heart Art required one to regard the dantian as a field: to plow it with the blade, plant the seed of fire there, and then let ten suns rise together above the dantian to nourish that seed, until it grew strong and became a furnace within the dantian, blazing with leaping sacred flame!
Only when one had achieved some small success did the Cinnabar Heart at last begin to form.
Once the Cinnabar Heart had achieved a small success, one then controlled the sword, and the sword would follow one's thought; where the mind arrived, the sword arrived.
Easy to speak of, hard to do. To summon the sacred flame was no easy thing, and to refine the Cinnabar Heart was harder still, and so it was divided into nine turnings. If Shen Mu but refined it to the first turning, his qi-driven flying sword would far surpass what it had been before, and overtaking the soul of the Dragon Mother would surely be no great matter!
"Eh? Your foundation is excellent!"
Gu Lihan was startled. In the space of a brief moment, Shen Mu had already plowed his dantian with the blade, planted the seed of fire, and brought ten suns forth above his dantian to begin nourishing it.
This showed that Shen Mu's cultivation was deep indeed. With an ordinary martial artist, ten suns rising together aside, even planting the seed of fire would likely have been beyond him; he would have needed to swallow elixirs and wonder drugs without cease to replenish his yuan qi, and only so could he plant enough fire seeds.
Yet Shen Mu, needing no elixirs at all, had in one breath filled his dantian with fire seeds and turned his yuan qi into ten suns shining upon it. Among martial artists of the Spirit Fetus realm, such cultivation was rare in all the world!
"At such a terrifying speed of cultivation, perhaps ten days will not be needed, nor even two. Tomorrow he may master the first turning of the Crimson Heart Art, slay the soul of the Dragon Mother, and set me free!"
Gu Lihan's eyes flickered. "A young genius so outstanding — truly, I am loath to kill him just like that."
He sighed inwardly. "But the Wasteland is a place forsaken by the gods. Never mind the people who live here; even an insect is guilty and must die. And besides, I am hungry. For over fifty years I have eaten nothing..."
The time Shen Mu took to master the first turning of the Crimson Heart Art was even shorter than he had imagined. Night had already come; outside, the sky was slowly brightening, and the light spilled through the waters of the Surging River onto the Dragon Palace beneath them.
Shen Mu rose to his feet. At the slightest stir of his thought, yuan qi abruptly wrapped itself around the Chubao Sword; with a swish it pierced layer upon layer of mist, coming and going like light and lightning, swift beyond measure!
Chi, chi, chi—
The sound of the Chubao Sword cleaving the air came without cease; in an instant Shen Mu drove that precious blade through a hundred-odd thrusts, enough to dazzle the eye.
He knew no sword techniques, only the plain, simple motion of the thrust — and yet he was more terrifying than Qianxun of the Lanjiang Sect, heir to a whole school of swordsmanship!
This Crimson Heart Art was truly extraordinary!
Shen Mu bowed once more to Gu Lihan in thanks and said with utter sincerity, "Many thanks, Senior, for passing on the art. This junior will never forget it all his days."