Chapter 1501 — Twin Dao Fruits Appear in the World

The Lame Elder hesitated, then said in a low voice, "There is something odd about this schoolmaster. Let me go in first; the two of you stay outside and see what trick he is up to.

" With that, he pushed open the door of the private school and went inside. Shen Mu and Lan Yutian stood outside watching, and saw that once the Lame Elder entered, the schoolmaster struck him across the palm with his cane, and the old man actually sat himself down and began studying together with the people who were held suppressed here, reading aloud with great fluency, as if he had read the text many times over. The two of them shuddered. Lan Yutian whispered, "Brother, why has Crippled Grandpa sat down too?

" Shen Mu had never encountered anything so strange before.

He at once opened the vertical eye in the center of his brow and looked the school over.

Most of those seated there were souls or primordial spirits; only the Lame Elder had a physical body. And the schoolmaster was but a phantom, not a real existence at all. Shen Mu searched carefully, hunting for the source of that phantom.

After a while, his gaze came to rest on a painting behind the schoolmaster.

In the painting, an ancient tree coiled its roots through the earth, hoary and weathered, its crown holding up the blue sky. Flowers bloomed on the tree and fruit hung from its branches; beneath the tree sat a man on a stone, a book scroll in his hands, reading.

Shen Mu's eyes flickered.

He pondered for a moment, then handed the divine bow to Lan Yutian and, with a ripple of divine consciousness, sent him a message: "I am going in.

You stay outside. If I too am trapped inside, do not come in—use this bow to shoot at the Dao Fruit on that tree. " Lan Yutian acknowledged.

Shen Mu pushed the door open and went in.

The schoolmaster raised his hand, and the cane lashed toward Shen Mu's palm!

Shen Mu laughed aloud, his voice like thunder: "I, Mu the Heavenly Venerable, have commanded heaven and earth all my life and ranged a million years across past and present—how could I possibly fall for your trick? " Crack!

A stroke landed on Shen Mu's palm.

How the cane had come, how it had fallen upon his palm, he had not seen in the least! It was as if, without thinking, he had stretched out his hand and offered it up to the blow on his own!

That one stroke of the cane left his samadhi veiled, his seven consciousnesses cut off, his Dao heart drowned in a hazy stupor.

When he came to again, he was already seated on a meditation cushion, right beside the Lame Elder, swaying his head and chanting scripture along with him! "My Dao heart has been suppressed? " Cold sweat broke out on Shen Mu's forehead.

His Dao heart was extremely firm and his Dao realm extremely deep—he had already cultivated to the twenty-seventh heaven of the divine-power Dao realm.

How could it be suppressed in the space of an instant? Even if Kaihuang himself struck, he should not have such ability, should he?

"It is the Dao Fruit!

" Shen Mu forced his head up, though scripture still streamed from his mouth, and fixed his gaze on the painting behind the schoolmaster, thinking, "The tree in that painting is the Dao Tree; the flowers on it are Dao Flowers; the fruit is the Dao Fruit!

This schoolmaster is only a projection cast by the Dao Tree and Dao Fruit within the painting! " The chant from his mouth rang out sonorously: ". . .

Equilibrium is the great root of the world, and harmony is the universal path of the world! Perfect equilibrium and harmony, and Heaven and Earth assume their positions, and all things are nurtured.

. .

" At that very moment, Shen Mu saw the figure beneath the tree in the painting gradually growing more distinct, as if, with their chanting, he could step out of the painting a little at a time. Shen Mu's heart turned cold.

All the people in this school were souls or primordial spirits, without physical bodies and without much power, and despite such long chanting, the figure in the painting had never been able to walk out. But Shen Mu and the Lame Elder were living, breathing men.

The Lame Elder's cultivation was not high, but Shen Mu's cultivation and magical power equaled those of three to five great emperors in the Emperor-Throne realm!

His power and skill surpassed even the souls of the Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird and the Bright Emperor!

Within this school, his strength alone was several times the total of everyone else combined!

Shen Mu's arrival made the figure in the painting break free of it all the faster! Cold sweat beaded upon Shen Mu's brow. He tried to spur the Mystic Body Three-Elixir Art, but his Dao heart was scattered and disordered, suppressed so utterly that he could not gather it; when he drove the art, his primal qi could barely circulate and churned in chaos.

He struggled to condense his Dao heart and slowly raised his palm, in which was pinched a leaf—the very leaf from the Grand Ease Dao Tree. His hand rose with unbearable difficulty; every inch of progress seemed to bear the crushing weight of heaven.

At last, the leaf reached the center of his brow. The schoolmaster rose, walked over to him, raised his cane, and struck him across the head, snarling, "Not paying attention in class, are you?

You are asking for a beating! " At that stroke, the Dao Tree leaf slipped from Shen Mu's hand and drifted to the ground, and the Dao heart he had just barely knit together scattered once more.

Just then there was a thunderous boom, and a beam of arrow-light streaked in from outside the school, thudding into the painting. The corner of Shen Mu's eye twitched.

"Lan Yutian, you shot wide. .

.

" That arrow of Lan Yutian's had failed to hit the Dao Fruit on the old tree; it was only pinned into the trunk.

The arrow was immensely powerful—though it could not slay an expert at the Emperor-Throne realm, it was no trifling matter—and yet when it entered the painting, the power within it seemed to shrink to almost nothing, and it stirred up no great waves. The corner of Shen Mu's eye twitched again. "Within the painting there is more than a Dao Tree—there is also a fragment of the Great Luo Heaven.

A master of the previous cosmic epoch refined that fragment into a painting, trying to steal across. . .

" He could not help but worry for Lan Yutian. Yet at that very moment, two more beams of arrow-light whistled into the school with a sharp swish-swish. Lan Yutian had clearly never learned to draw a bow; his first shot had gone wide, but his second and third arrows struck the Dao Fruit on the tree with absolute accuracy, one after the other! His natural talent was simply too great.

The first arrow had already taught him the technique of using the bow, and the two shots that followed flew straight to the bull's-eye! Those two arrows were tremendous in power, and in swift succession they shot that Dao Fruit down from the tree!

The schoolmaster turned and saw the Dao Fruit fall; his expression shifted slightly, and with a soft pop his form scattered and vanished.

At the same time, the scholar beneath the tree also showed a startled face and raised his head to look up at the tree! "Brother, I shot down the Dao Fruit!

" Lan Yutian, the divine bow in hand, stepped into the school and said with a smile, "The might of this divine bow is truly—" "Don't come in!

" Shen Mu roared suddenly, bending down to pick up the leaf, his voice rolling like thunder.

"That Dao Tree has more than just one Dao Fruit!

" Lan Yutian's smile stiffened on his face.

The edge of his vision fell upon the painting, where the ancient tree was turning unhurriedly, its hidden side rotating to the front, and there, plain to see, hung another Dao Fruit on the tree! As this Dao Fruit turned to the front, the schoolmaster abruptly appeared once more in the school, came before Lan Yutian, and with a dark face barked: "Disrupting the class, are you?

Hold out your hand! " Lan Yutian laughed. "I am not your student.

. .