Chapter 1356 — Terror in the Night
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu and the Alchemist listened to the music of the zither and, before they knew it, fell somewhat entranced; but in the next moment they came back to their senses.
With the zither's music for company, Shen Mu served as the Alchemist's helper, kindling the furnace fire and governing its heat, while the Alchemist cast the spirit medicines he had long since prepared into the pill furnace.
In the great hall the melody moved the heart, the heavenly fire blazed high, and the round, plump great furnace spun upon the flames.
Beneath the flames, Shen Mu held the heavenly fire in his palm, driving the furnace and mastering its heat.
As the second man under all heaven to "cultivate to completion" the Medicine Dao Heavenly Palace, his attainments in the medical dao could be said to be second only to the Alchemist's. Of course, his Medicine Dao Heavenly Palace had been "planted" in him by the Alchemist with spirit pills, and his attainments in the medical dao were far from matching the Alchemist's.
The Alchemist stepped out, his great sleeves streaming, striding like a shooting star beneath the wavering light of the heavenly fire, while the wondrous secrets of pill refinement shifted through endless transformations in his two hands.
His Primordial Spirit emerged and settled above the pill furnace: the Medicine King Primordial Spirit, exalted on high, in a wide-sleeved robe of blue-black, standing upon the God-Slaying Platform, his frame towering, two strands of baleful qi coiling and writhing about him like dragons! The Medicine King Primordial Spirit's ten fingers danced, primordial qi turning into dao patterns that crossed and wove; the marvel of his pill refinement left one gasping in admiration.
Before long, five kinds of spirit pill were refined; the Alchemist shook his great sleeve and put away the pill furnace.
Shen Mu's five fingers clenched hard, and the heavenly fire vanished.
The Alchemist raised a hand, and the screen shielding Heavenly Venerable Yue flew up; the screen landed to one side, revealing Heavenly Venerable Yue as she played the zither.
Shen Mu and the Alchemist exchanged a glance, then came to her side, one to the left, one to the right.
The Alchemist took out the first spirit pill; the pill flew up, a surge of primordial qi rushed to the heavens from the crown of Shen Mu's head, and behind his head the Medicine Dao Heavenly Palace appeared. His Medicine King Primordial Spirit surfaced within the heavenly palace, likewise in wide robes and great sleeves, with the immortal air of a daoist sage.
Both Medicine King Primordial Spirits struck at once, rousing the medicinal power of that spirit pill; this time too it was the Alchemist who led, dissolving the medicinal power, and Shen Mu who assisted, chiefly out of fear that the Alchemist's cultivation might prove insufficient, ready at any moment to take over.
For though the Alchemist had already stood firm at the God-Slaying Platform realm, in the sheer depth and vigor of his primordial qi cultivation he was still far beneath Shen Mu. The dao patterns within the spirit pill flew out like a vast, magnificent poem, flying toward Heavenly Venerable Yue, and the pill gave off wondrous dao sounds that answered the zither's music.
The pill's dao patterns came to the crown of Heavenly Venerable Yue's head and touched the dao wound left by the Ancestral God King; at once the might of the Heavenly Dao burst forth and the majesty of heaven rolled abroad, yet in the very next instant the dao patterns within the spirit pill filled themselves into the Heavenly Dao's dao patterns!
At the touch of the spirit pill's dao patterns, the Heavenly Dao dao patterns within the wound the Ancestral God King had made were like blood meeting snake venom: swiftly congealing, clotting, rotting!