荒墟牧神 - 第570章 亙古兵符 - 簡牘書房

Yet his heart was not in such things — he went off chasing some girl, and in the end he won her, but the dragon tongue and the arts I had taught him he forgot, seven parts out of ten. Even then I knew that this lad was not the true master of the divine dragons. " Shen Mu had once heard Ling Yuxiu tell this anecdote, and at the time he had only found it amusing; he had never imagined it was actually true! "But I am lazy by nature, and I had undertaken this at another's request in the first place; I had refined the Lord of the Divine Dragons and sought an heir, and since the heir was of no use, I simply let him be.

" The white-haired elder laughed. "Who would have thought — that young man was a disappointment, but his descendants were not; they made Jingping great and brought it to its present glory. Since the Jade Register of the Heavenly Emperor has fallen into your hands, and you have also obtained the Divine Dragon's Lair, and you have sought your way here, it must be for the arts recorded upon it, no? " Shen Mu said with the utmost respect, "Senior, I am indeed rather taken with the arts within the Divine Dragon's Lair, but I came this time because of the founding patriarch of the Heaven Sage Sect. He is my eldest senior brother; he gave me a map marked with this village, and so I came seeking it. " The white-haired elder was briefly startled, then mused, "The founding patriarch of the Heaven Sage Sect? You mean that lad Wei Fengsui? " Shen Mu hesitated; he did not know what his eldest senior brother's name was.

Seeing this, the white-haired elder laughed.

"He came to see me once, and asked me how to establish merit. He is not a bad sort, and his abilities are most uncommon; the Schoolteacher took a fine disciple.

Only, Wei Fengsui wishes to become a sage, and for him to establish merit is very hard. He walks the Schoolteacher's road, and the Schoolteacher's road is a hard one to walk; I cannot teach him either. You are his junior brother — if you too have come to ask me how to become a sage, then I cannot teach you either. " The Schoolteacher he spoke of must be the Woodcutter Sage; the Woodcutter Sage had originally been the Heavenly Master of the Kaihuang Heavenly Court, charged with instructing the princes and princesses of the Kaihuang line.

Shen Mu asked, "May I ask — did my eldest senior brother ever say where he meant to go? " The white-haired elder shook his head. "He did not say where he meant to go, but he left something behind.

That he told you to come find me must be for the sake of this thing.

" He rose to his feet, went into the thatched hut, and after a moment came back carrying a red box, which he handed to Shen Mu.

Shen Mu opened the red box; inside was a token the size of a palm, branded with the image of a fierce beast. Shen Mu turned it over and over several times without making sense of it, and asked humbly for instruction: "May I ask, Senior, what use is this token? " "This is a kind of war talisman, used to move troops and dispatch generals. A formation is hidden within it — a formation of divine seats — but it is exceedingly ancient, and by now it is most likely of no use at all. " The white-haired elder said, "There are runes upon it that even I do not recognize; perhaps it is a war talisman from the Shanghuang era, or from an age even earlier.

" He took back the war talisman and stirred it with his own dharma power; one after another, stars rose into the air from within the talisman and wheeled around them. "These stars are the divine seats," he said.

"When the gods each return to their seats, this formation can be used to meet the foe and do battle with the enemy.

" Shen Mu looked up. The stars flying out of the war talisman were not true stars but projections, one after another — yet their number was immense, several thousand at the least.

His heart could not help but quail, and he murmured, "Several thousand gods forming a grand formation.

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