Chapter 914 — Old Grudges Revisited
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Dragon Qilin was startled. "Five million rings, less than a tenth — doesn't that mean the Earth Mother has lived at least fifty million years?"
Shen Mu was still counting the growth rings. "You aim far too low," he said. "This stick is only the core of the Yuan Wood, the heart of the tree. Who knows how many layers of bark lie outside it — it is not the whole trunk. If the core holds even a tenth of her true rings, that would already be counted good."
Yan'er was startled too. Did that not mean the Earth Mother's age began at five hundred million years?
"Young Master, if this stick is not the Earth Mother's true rings, why count them all to the end?" Yan'er was rather puzzled.
Counting all the while, Shen Mu answered with half his mind: "Counting the rings is not the goal. I only want to look at the rings of this treasure and then decide what sort of artifact it is fit to be refined into. Besides, the rings hold some of the Earth Mother's secrets from her early years... These few rings here, for instance, are incomparably dense, which means that some two million years after the Earth Mother's birth a great event occurred that all but stopped the Yuan Wood's growth. That event shows that the Yuan Realm suffered a calamity then."
What happened before Longhan was a blank to every later-born being; unless the ancient gods spoke of it, no one could know what had occurred then.
That was the Primordial Age of Hongmeng, and the world held no record of that age at all.
Shen Mu finished counting the rings carefully and said in a low voice: "The core of the Yuan Wood is more than seventy-six million years old, and within it lie ten calamities that all but halted the Yuan Wood's growth. It seems that even under the rule of the ancient gods the Yuan Realm was not at peace... But the ancient gods were plainly the mightiest beings of the Primordial Age of Hongmeng — how could they have met with peril? Did they slaughter one another, or was there some power from outside?"
By rights, the ancient gods were the strongest beings of antiquity, and nothing could threaten them; the Earth Mother, moreover, stood shoulder to shoulder with the Earth Lord and the Heaven Lord, second in strength only to the Ancient God Heaven Emperor.
In the Primordial Age of Hongmeng, beings such as these could not have met with peril — unless the Earth Lord, the Heaven Lord, or the Ancient God Heaven Emperor had struck at her. But in that age the quarrels among these ancient beings had not yet reached the point of fire and water that cannot abide each other; they could not have slaughtered one another.
Shen Mu pondered a long while and could make nothing of it.
"The core of the Yuan Wood has so many rings. To refine it into my divine weapon and temper it until I can wield it as I please would be terribly difficult. Perhaps I can brand a rune seal upon every single ring — one ring, one formation, one heaven. Seventy-six million formations — the energy of the formations alone would be enough to destroy heaven and earth!"
Shen Mu was full of fighting spirit, but his face darkened at once: the core of the Yuan Wood had too many rings, and his store of knowledge was nowhere near enough to brand formations upon every one of them.
His learning was not deep enough for that.
"Could I use it as a spear? But I am no master of spear play... Could I use it as a flying sword?"
The thought stirred him, and he tried pouring his vital essence into the core of the Yuan Wood; at once Shen Mu's face went black as charcoal.
His vital essence had already recovered to its peak, no whit inferior to a Venerable God's, yet when such immense dharma power poured into this core of the Yuan Wood it was like a clay ox plunging into the sea — it could not fill it at all.
The Earth Mother had indeed given him a remarkable treasure — perhaps even a being at the Emperor Throne realm could not have refined such a treasure — yet he could not draw out much of the core's power at all!