Chapter 704 — Climbing onto a Giant's Shoulder

Lady Tianyin began to understand. "Then through your art and the Dark Son of Heaven's treasure, they are stripping away the systems of the outside world, trying to create a kind of foundational rune for the Tianyin Realm. The more they deduce, the closer they come to the true foundational runes."

Shen Mu nodded and smiled. "Look at the runes before them, my lady. They look less and less like the runes of the outside world. Besides my art and the Dark Son of Heaven's treasure, they also need to understand this divine power of yours, and the rune marks upon your body."

The Woodcutter Sage and the others came over, their bodies rising into the air, and examined in detail the divine radiance upon Lady Tianyin, recording one natural rune after another. They also examined the rune marks on her body — strange marks Lady Tianyin had borne from the moment of her birth.

Lady Tianyin had had little contact with the outside world, and knew little about the marks upon her own body.

After a time no one could measure, the five of them came down to the ground and gathered to confer in low voices.

"Upon our lady's body there are one hundred and eight kinds of rune marks, and from the Hierarch's art and the Dark Son of Heaven's treasure we have deduced two hundred and sixteen more."

Xu Shenghua put the runes in order, then swept his hand through the air, and where his palm passed, runes formed of golden sand appeared one after another.

"Three hundred and twenty-four runes in all. These runes are the foundation of the Tianyin Realm's system of divine arts."

Xu Shenghua continued, "Look, my lady. Different sequences of runes produce different effects in divine arts."

His vital essence shifted, combining several dozen runes into a single divine art, which he loosed upon the starving ghoul Shen Mu had captured. The black sand within the ghoul was instantly annihilated, scattering away as strands of the spiritual qi and power of heaven and earth.

The Imperial Preceptor Jingping employed another divine art, likewise composed of those three hundred and twenty-four foundational runes. "It can also gather the soul anew," he said, "and bring together the soul that once belonged to this body."

After the ghoul died, only a human skin remained. The Imperial Preceptor Jingping activated his art, and black sand came flying like smoke from all across the Tianyin Realm, burrowing into the skin.

Yama activated yet another art. "It can also reshape the black sand of souls and turn it back into a soul."

His art worked upon the black sand within the skin, and the sand slowly gathered, tending back toward the state of a whole soul.

The First Ancestor Human Emperor also performed a seal formed of these runes. "It can also suppress the starving ghouls and subdue them!"

As his seal was cast, he seemed like a king of the starving ghouls, and countless ghouls throughout the Tianyin Realm trembled.

The Woodcutter Sage smiled. "My lady, the foundational runes of the Tianyin Realm were once incomplete. Now they are complete. You may command the starving ghouls to fight for you, you may punish them, and you may protect the people who live in the Tianyin Realm. From today you may rest easy."

Shen Mu said with feeling, "In the future, countless cultivation methods and divine arts of the Tianyin Realm will surely be born from these three hundred and twenty-four runes."

The Woodcutter Sage took out his woodcutting axe and hewed, stroke by stroke, at a cliff by the sea, carving the runes into the rock face. "My lady, our business here is done. We take our leave."

Lady Tianyin rose to see them off. "I am dull of nature, and can only trouble you wise ones. If ever there is a place where I may be of use, come bearing this token, and I will surely aid you!"

She drew a strand from the divine radiance about her body and divided it into seven, refining seven bright, gleaming pearls. She gave them to the Woodcutter, the Imperial Preceptor Jingping, the First Ancestor, Yama, and Xu Shenghua, and also to Shen Mu and Yan Jingjing.

Yan Jingjing hastily declined. "I have done nothing. I dare not accept it."

Lady Tianyin laughed. "It is for that young sweetheart of yours. Keep it for him."

Yan Jingjing's face reddened slightly, and she put the divine pearl away.

They walked out of the Tianyin Realm and saw the sunlight of the outside world, and all of them felt ease in body and mind.

"Disciple, do you know now what a truly clever man looks like?" the Woodcutter Sage said with a smile.

Shen Mu laughed too. "Because you were standing on the shoulders of this giant. Without me creating the art that revives Lady Tianyin, you would have had no way at all to deduce the foundational runes of the Tianyin Realm."

"The shoulders of a giant?"

The Woodcutter Sage roared with laughter. Teleportation array patterns whirled about him, and with a whistle he was gone, vanishing without a trace.

"Human Emperor Shen, farewell." Yama's figure retreated backward, darkness surged up behind him, and he vanished.

The Imperial Preceptor Jingping said, "Hierarch, you and I shall meet again at Jingping." With that, he too teleported away.

Shen Mu looked toward the First Ancestor Human Emperor. The First Ancestor shook his head. "I cannot stay to keep you company. I have urgent business." With that he rose into the air and vanished as a streak of divine light.

"Truly a clever lot."

Shen Mu sighed and, without turning his head, said, "Brother Xu, I did not mean you."

Xu Shenghua burst out laughing and strode off into the empty air. His figure flickered in and out of sight, and one lotus blossom after another bloomed in the sky.