Chapter 11 — The Divine Sound Cracks the Wall and Opens the Spirit Treasury
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
If Granny Zhu or the village headman had been here, they would surely have berated him for his folly, for gambling with his own life.
After all, the divine sound that arose when the wall was broken was not the same as the divine sound the maidens in the ruins gave forth. To use the demonic sound that countered the maidens' divine sound against the divine sound of the wall-breaking was, at best, the wrong medicine for the ailment; the crux was that if the divine sound and the demonic sound should undergo some other uncanny transformation, then it would be no simple matter of losing one's life—he might well be scattered into oblivion, soul and all! But Shen Mu had no one to guide him, and knew nothing of the perils within. No sooner had he learned the demonic sound than he set about testing it.
When his primal qi reached the point between his brows, that divine sound—dim and distant, as though it came from beyond the ninth heaven—rang out again, true to its promise.
His qi, meeting the divine sound, retreated of itself. Shen Mu silently intoned the demonic sound, and at once the divine sound and the demonic sound locked together, clashing and warring, each assaulting the other. Shen Mu seized the moment to drive his qi at the Primal Fetus Wall, but from time to time the divine sound still broke through his demonic sound and forced his qi back.
Again and again he failed, yet he did not falter in the least, but ceaselessly surged his qi against it.
After several hundred failures, his qi at last struck the Primal Fetus Wall. Only, the wall still stood; it had not been broken.
"I was disturbed by the divine sound and could not gather all my qi for a full-strength strike—that is why I could not break the wall.
" Shen Mu briefly took stock of his error, then at once made the next attempt.
After failure upon failure, he at last brought his qi to strike the Primal Fetus Wall a second time. This time too the wall held.
Before long he struck a third time, then a fourth, a fifth.
.
. In the days when he had studied pill-refining under the Pill Master, he had cultivated great patience. Refining pills tested patience, wisdom, discernment, and technique, and of these patience was the foremost; without patience, one could never, by any means, refine a single good pill.
After who knows how many failures, at last Shen Mu suddenly heard a faint crack from between his brows.
That faint sound was as sweet and lovely as celestial music; strong as Shen Mu's composure was, he could not hold down the surge of emotion in his heart.
A crack had appeared in the Primal Fetus Wall—a crack shaped like lightning.
The Primal Fetus Wall was a formless wall, an invisible wall, one that could only be felt; yet when this crack appeared, Shen Mu felt a light shining out from between his brows, like a symbol of lightning. The sensation was wondrous.
When you close your eyes, all you see is darkness, without any light; you cannot see the point between your brows, cannot see the Primal Fetus Spirit Treasury, cannot see the Primal Fetus Wall.
But when a crack is struck into the Primal Fetus Wall by your qi, you can see a lightning-shaped radiance shining through the darkness. Then you can see the Primal Fetus Wall.
Shen Mu saw not only the Primal Fetus Wall, but through that lightning-shaped crack in it he saw the Primal Fetus Spirit Treasury as well. Within the Spirit Treasury the light was dense and swirling, a golden radiance, and abundant, rich qi was spilling from the lightning-shaped crack, unceasingly merging with his own qi.
The qi within the treasury was purer and more powerful, yet this qi, like the qi he had cultivated himself, had no attribute at all.
Shen Mu firmly believed that the qi he had cultivated was the qi unique to the Overlord Body—Overlord Body qi—and so he paid it no mind. Within the Primal Fetus Spirit Treasury there was not only qi; things more wondrous still were hidden there.