Chapter 885 — Attaining the Dao Amid Mortal Dust
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Kaihuang and other rising talents were also coming to the fore then, and Bai Qu'er, the Shanghuang Sword God, could at last set down her burden; and it was for this very reason that in the tens of thousands of years that followed, her sword Dao could never advance one step further.
Yet her sword arts and her ideals went on to shape the Kaihuang era that lasted twenty thousand years, and reached even Jingping, forty thousand years on.
Shen Mu exchanged sword arts with her, teaching her the Sword Forms Eighteen and Nineteen he had created, and learning from her the great divine ability of her sword Dao.
In that great ability he could see the suffering and torment the girl had endured, and her stubborn persistence.
This time Shen Mu passed on his sword arts to her entire, and imparted the Ancestral Dragon Grand Mystery Art to her without reservation.
The reason the Shanghuang Sword God Bai Qu'er had never been able to cultivate to a higher realm was precisely the incompleteness of the Ancestral Dragon Grand Mystery Art; with this art, though it could not raise her attainments in the sword Dao, it could carry her cultivation realm one step further. "You mean to seek out Guixu?
" Hearing Shen Mu speak of Guixu, Bai Qu'er thought for a moment, then said, "In those years I led our people into the Eastern Sea. Yuandu had not yet been sealed then, and in one stretch of sea I came upon a giant dragon, like the Longbo you speak of.
If Longbo is there, Guixu should be nearby. " Shen Mu's eyes lit up, and he hastily asked where she had met Longbo.
Bai Qu'er drew him a maritime chart and said, "Longbo has a violent temper.
He is a descendant of the primordial divine dragons. If you go there, you must be careful. " In the Heaven Diagram, the scholars of Jingping were most diligent, like busy worker bees, patching the broken formations of the Diagram and altering their structures.
The Heaven Diagram was a treasure, and the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping wished to refine it anew, to make of it a formation weapon for Jingping. He had considered taking the Heaven Diagram away as well, but taking it away would only make the Heavenly Court refine a new Heaven Diagram the faster, which would be the worse for Jingping.
To play upon the Heavenly Court's inertia, to make Jingping seem all the more harmless to man and beast, was what served Jingping's interest.
Shen Mu and Bai Qu'er likewise left the Moon Palace and helped the scholars patch the Heaven Diagram and improve its formation structures; the two of them lived in great fulfillment.
Until one day, when Shen Mu suddenly remembered Yu Tianzun.
"Damn it—I left Brother Yu at the Jiangling Academy for near half a year! " Shen Mu had no choice but to leave. Bai Qu'er stood before the Moon Palace and waved him farewell.
Shen Mu stood atop the dragon-qilin's head, and the dragon-qilin galloped off toward the world below.
Looking back, he saw the woman dancing with her sword in the bright, burnished moon. Shen Mu gazed and gazed at the woman dancing in the moon, and he felt that Bai Qu'er's long-stagnant sword Dao seemed of a sudden to rise again, to advance once more. The woman seemed to have found once more someone and something worth laying down her life to protect, and so her attainments in the sword Dao had risen again.
"Is it Jingping, heir to Shanghuang's ideals, that she means to guard—or is it only me she would guard.
. .
? " Shen Mu shook his head and laughed at himself.
"It is Jingping she means to guard.
It must be so. " At the Jiangling Academy, his face black as a kettle, Shen Mu collected Yu Tianzun and the water qilin, both fattened plump by Yan'er's feeding.
In the half year past, Yu Tianzun had followed the Duke of Wei, and his voice had grown astonishingly loud, till Shen Mu's ears rang and buzzed.