Chapter 113 — The Hand That Restores Spring

In Fu Qingyun's experience, a normal wall-breaking took more than a single attempt; some people needed a thousand tries, a hundred tries, before the barrier finally shattered and the breakthrough was counted a success. Computing the star position was one thing; breaking the wall was another.

Breaking the wall of the Five Luminaries required the yuanqi to strike again and again, forcing a crack in the barrier, widening it by degrees, until the barrier split fully open and could no longer heal shut — only that counted as a successful breakthrough.

A case like Shen Mu's, where she had barely turned her back and he broke through behind her, was exceedingly rare. "Unless. .

.

" Fu Qingyun's heart jumped.

Unless Shen Mu's yuanqi cultivation was abnormally deep and mighty, and only that could break a wall in a single attempt. "Young Master, let us touch palms with nothing but yuanqi.

" Seeing him somewhat puzzled, Fu Qingyun hurriedly smiled.

"I will shut my other divine treasuries and keep only the Spirit Embryo and the Five Luminaries; I merely wish to test how deep the Young Master's cultivation truly runs. " Shen Mu nodded. Their palms met, and each unleashed their yuanqi.

Fu Qingyun gave a muffled grunt; a howling wind filled her ears, the scene before her eyes shifted without pause, and she was hurled backwards, crashing bang, bang, bang through several buildings and several high walls before her momentum stopped and she was left embedded in a wall. She clawed her way out of the wall, covered in dust and grime, and looked up to find herself some forty zhang from Shen Mu, the several buildings and walls between them each punched through with a person-shaped hole, so that she could see Shen Mu from where she stood; a lingering fear seized her. She had used the Five Luminaries realm and only collided yuanqi with him, yet the gap was this vast — it left her somewhat dispirited. A blow, truly a tremendous blow!

Yet she soon recovered her calm and thought, "He is the young Cult Leader of our Holy Cult after all; such cultivation is only to be expected. And at the contest in Hidden Remnant Village he already dealt me a savage blow. " Shen Mu hurried forward. Fu Qingyun laughed.

"I am fine. The Young Master's cultivation is indeed abnormally deep; the Patriarch and the Lady did not misjudge him.

There is still a day and a half before the Grand Academy opens its gates; the Young Master had best steady his realm.

" Shen Mu assented. The Five Luminaries wall had been broken successfully, the divine treasury opened, and new changes were taking place within his body that he had not yet had time to examine. Fu Qingyun glanced around and smiled bitterly to herself.

Ever since Shen Mu came to her, the Rain-Listening Pavilion had suffered disaster — pavilions smashed to pieces, or several buildings bored full of holes. "A young Cult Leader, after all — wherever he goes, he demolishes. Luckily, in two days he will not be here demolishing, but at the Grand Academy.

Mm, the Patriarch will have the headache; I can take my ease. .

. " Shen Mu had no notion she entertained the thought of watching him tear the Grand Academy apart. Back in his room, the youth sat quietly, his consciousness entering the Five Luminaries divine treasury — and within it was a whole starry sky, five great stars blazing, and beyond them a profound darkness.

"The Five Luminaries treasury is utterly different from the Prime Embryo treasury. " Shen Mu was astonished. His Mystic Body Three-Cinnabar Art held no cultivation method for the Five Luminaries treasury, which gave him a headache.

In the Palace of Averting Calamity he had seen the cultivation diagrams of the Mystic Body Three-Cinnabar Art — only the first two; the third was mutilated and incomplete. Shen Mu strove to recall that broken diagram; it did indeed hold stars, but besides the five stars there were five deities, each with its own design and its own pathways for the movement of yuanqi. Yet that diagram was for the most part destroyed; the specific pathways were blurred beyond clarity.

Shen Mu steadied himself; his consciousness drifted and drifted.

The starry sky was high and cold, and he meant to drift his consciousness onto one of the stars.

Yet as his consciousness flew, that star seemed to fly as well, and the distance to it remained always the same. Shen Mu frowned and tried flying toward the other stars; they too moved as he moved, and he could not draw near. "What is going on here? " Shen Mu was taken aback.

He wished to see whether those stars held the five deities of the cultivation diagram; now that he could not fly up, he had no choice but to give it up.

He left his consciousness within the Five Luminaries treasury and urged the Mystic Body Three-Cinnabar Art, and at its urging wonderful changes arose at once in the Five Luminaries treasury: one orange-red star abruptly began to tremble, and then a fiery red light shot straight from that star with a hum, landing upon Shen Mu's consciousness. Shen Mu immediately felt his consciousness filled with a blazing, fire-like energy, and that energy was actually reshaping the structure of his consciousness, giving his consciousness bodily form!

Under the direction of the flames his consciousness grew legs, grew arms, grew a head; in but a brief moment the consciousness fused with that strange energy and became a peculiar being with a human face, an ox body, and two feet! Shen Mu stared.

Looking down, he saw that his body was a great crimson ox, with an ox tail growing behind its rump, while the front was bare, with only a tuft of long hair at the tip of the tail. Shen Mu flicked the ox tail, and it lashed the plump ox buttocks, stinging fiercely.

His two legs were ox legs: the thighs mighty and powerful, thick as an elephant's, the shins very thin, and the soles were hooves.

Not only that — the light shot from the Fire Luminary star was still gathering, and at the soles of his feet it formed two fire dragons, fangs and claws bared! A Fire God!

Shen Mu's heart jumped. He had seen similar statues in the temples of Crimson Dragon City; the people of the Wasteland worshipped statues of this form as the Fire God. Yet the energy that poured from the Fire Luminary star was not strong; the body condensed upon his consciousness was only a faint, insubstantial shadow. "Is this the Fire Luminary treasury within the Five Luminaries treasury?

Then the other luminaries. .

. " Scarcely had the thought crossed Shen Mu's mind when another star, sky-blue, of a sudden began to tremble as well, and a water-blue light shot down from that star, landing with a hum upon his "body"! At the same moment the other three stars, each of a different hue, trembled in turn, each shooting down a ray of light that fell upon him one after another.

Shen Mu grunted. The Fire God form instantly began to collapse and crumble, while other forms began to grow; but the energies shot from these five stars were wholly different in nature — not merely different, but mutually opposed, mutually suppressing; they clashed within his consciousness, collided, and annihilated one another! Boom!

A violent explosion rang out.

Shen Mu's consciousness within the Five Luminaries treasury was extinguished in the blast; his eyes went black, and he fell senseless. When he woke he found himself lying on a bed, Xue Hu'er pressing a warm damp towel to his forehead, while his head ached as though it were a watermelon dropped on the ground, ready to split into four or five pieces.

Before the bed stood several girls, their faces full of concern. "The Young Master seems to have suffered a cultivation deviation; luckily Ling'er found him in time and called us.

" Fu Qingyun's face held worry.

"Young Master, I have already ordered a decoction made; it will be ready soon. But as for the Academy's opening two days hence, I fear the Young Master cannot go; a cultivation deviation requires ten days or more of nursing.