Chapter 714 — The Full Moon Hangs in the Sky
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
The further Shen Mu walked, the more everyday primal soldiers he saw. Near the Yongjiang Academy, scholars were testing flying carts that could carry passengers through the air; their furnaces were small, consuming far less elixir stone than a tower ship, and they were plainly meant for short flights. He also saw scholars building Ice Dragon Boxes and peddling them to the wealthy households nearby. The Ice Dragon Box was perfectly square, like a great cauldron, but it had a lid, and four bronze dragons crouched at its four corners; once elixir stones were supplied, the azure dragons breathed out, exhaling icy vapor.
Set in a house during the summer, it cooled the air, and food could be stored inside the Ice Dragon Box without spoiling easily. Note 1. By the river were mines, where countless automatons dug ore while scholars stood by, supervising and keeping records. He also saw many scholars designing floating cities, building miniature cities out in the wilderness with the intention of making them drift in the sky.
"Has Jingping's formation art advanced this far? " He went up to examine the formations.
Some of those scholars came from the Tiansheng Academy and knew him as their Grand Libationer; in a fluster they brought out their formation diagrams for his inspection. Shen Mu could not help being astonished.
The diagrams for the floating cities used a formation structure akin to those of Little Jade Capital in the heavens and the Tiansheng Sect's Mount Shenglin, the kind that borrows the methods of heaven and earth. Such a structure already surpassed his own attainments in formation art.
"If I did not devise it, then who did?
" Shen Mu was dumbstruck. "Could Blind Grandpa have run off to Mount Shenglin and Little Jade Capital and tinkered out the formations there? " Jingping's divine arts changed with each passing day, and it truly startled him.
From the time he left Jingping in search of Yan Jingjing, to his meeting with the Woodcutter Sage and the Old Angler, to the affair of the Tianyin Realm, and then his return to Jingping, barely four months had passed in all, and Jingping's divine arts and methods had advanced to such a degree. Truly remarkable! But perhaps a little too remarkable! "There must be more at work here than Grandpa Silent Craftsman and Blind Grandpa.
I fear Teacher Woodcutter is pushing it too.
His learning is the most motley of all; from what the Old Angler said, the reforms of the Kaihuang era were set in motion by Teacher Woodcutter. " Shen Mu mused.
If the Woodcutter and the people of Yincan Village were driving Jingping's divine arts forward, then Jingping would indeed grow strong in a short time, and the common folk's food, clothing, shelter, and travel would all improve greatly. It would also free those with divine powers to cultivate and to study deeper arts and methods. Yet the crux of it all was still elixir stone. These everyday primal soldiers demanded far more elixir stone. Spirit stones could be dug from the mines, but cultivating medicinal herbs was rather more difficult.
He came to the front of the Yongjiang Academy and could not help but stare blankly.
Before him lay a vast expanse of fine farmland, all of it planted with medicinal herbs, and a great many scholars of the Yongjiang and Tiansheng Academies were in the herb fields, wielding creation divine arts. The art they used was the Earth-Origin Art of Creation, yet it differed from the old Earth-Origin Art of Creation, seeming to be mixed with many creation arts of the Chiming era. Shen Mu halted the dragon qilin and stood at the edge of the herb fields to watch. The academy scholars used the Earth-Origin Art of Creation to help the herbs grow and to nurture their medicinal properties, so that herbs which needed years or decades to mature could be harvested in a mere few hours.
"These herbs are growing splendidly. In a little while they can be harvested. . .
Shen'er!