Chapter 14: Primordial Energy Tempering the Body
“What should we do with this Senior Sister Qing?” Qin Mu managed to stand up, glancing at the girl beside him, who was still shaken from her ordeal.
“How about…”
Granny Si’s eyes lit up instantly. She nudged Qin Mu with her shoulder, nearly knocking the struggling boy over, and grinned mischievously. “Keep her here as your little wife? You were so adorable when you were little, but now that you’ve grown up, you’re not as cute. Still, if you and this little girl had a chubby baby, it’d definitely be adorable too. This old woman still loves children…”
Qin Mu glanced at the pig-faced Senior Sister Qing and hesitated. “Granny, maybe we shouldn’t…”
Pfft.
The Cripple had somehow appeared behind Senior Sister Qing. Without a word, he raised his knife and stabbed the girl straight through the heart, his face still wearing that honest, simple smile. “Then kill her.”
Qin Mu’s eyes went wide, and he stammered, “Grandpa Cripple, why did you kill her?”
“You said you didn’t want her, so of course I killed her.” The Cripple withdrew his blade, his smile growing even more innocent, as if a little confused.
Qin Mu felt a bit disgruntled. He hadn’t actually wanted to have children with Senior Sister Qing. But after all, he was just an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy. The people he saw every day were old monsters like Chief Ma and Granny Si, and the folks from the neighboring villages were all vicious thugs. There were very few boys or girls his age.
He had no playmates, but his heart was still that of a youth.
“Let’s go back.” The Village Chief spoke up, turning to look back at the ruins in the canyon.
The Apothecary smiled at Qin Mu. “We’re all missing arms and legs, so no one’s going to carry you. You’ll have to walk back on your own. Oh, and here’s the Four Spirit Blood. Since you didn’t come home last night, we’ve prepared it for you.”
Qin Mu nodded, took the four white porcelain cups, and drank down the Four Spirit Blood. Struggling to move forward, he began to circulate the “Overlord Body Three-Dan Art” to dissolve the power of the Four Spirit Blood, all while telling them about the strange things he had encountered in the canyon ruins.
Granny Si’s expression shifted slightly. “Gods and demons? A dark, giant face? A skeleton girl? Interesting…”
The other villagers also found it intriguing, but they had no further thoughts on the matter.
Qin Mu couldn’t help asking, “Granny, aren’t you curious about the story behind these canyon ruins?”
The Apothecary sighed. “A once-prosperous divine kingdom, now reduced to ashes. The bones of gods, clattering and dancing in the night—could it be that they are unwilling to accept their fate?”
The Deaf Man stared at his lips and said, “No matter how unwilling, they’re still dead. What use is it? So being curious about this story is probably useless too.”
“Deaf Man, are you really deaf?” The Apothecary looked at his ears—a pair of iron ears, made of pure white iron, with even the ear holes blocked up—and asked curiously.
The Deaf Man pulled the two iron ears out of his head, revealing iron plugs three inches long. These plugs were inserted into his ear holes to hold the iron ears in place. He said coldly, “If I shove these two ears into your ear holes, you’ll know whether I’m deaf or not!”
The Apothecary smiled faintly and said no more.
The Deaf Man then shoved the two iron ears back into his ear holes with a *pfft* and said to the Mute, “These ears have been bothering me lately. Help me rework them.”
The Mute Blacksmith nodded.
Qin Mu was utterly speechless about his own family. The Apothecary and the others were more interested in the Deaf Man’s ear holes than in the ruins, which baffled him.
Granny Si laughed. “Mu’er, there are far too many secrets in the Great Ruins. Besides the Canyon Divine City, there are countless more secrets you couldn’t count. If you spend all your curiosity on these secrets, you won’t have time for anything else.”
The group headed back toward the Village of Broken Elders. The Village Chief said gravely, “I saw that your sword strike was quite formidable. Your blade is one foot three inches long, and it could match that young man’s treasured sword. You’ve made great progress in this training.”
Qin Mu’s heart stirred, and he voiced his confusion. “Why can’t my primordial energy control objects like theirs? My primordial energy can only seep into the willow branch for one foot three inches; I can’t make it go any longer.”
He was envious of their ability to control a sword with energy, but he simply couldn’t do it.
The Apothecary shook his head inwardly. The primordial energy cultivated by an ordinary person’s physique had no attributes, making it impossible to control objects. There was simply no technique that allowed ordinary primordial energy to perform such feats.
For Qin Mu, an ordinary person, to use his primordial energy to support a one-foot-three-inch willow branch and clash head-on with the treasured sword of a martial artist like Senior Brother Qu without being cut down—that was already extraordinary.
The Village Chief’s expression remained calm. “Your Overlord Body hasn’t fully awakened yet, and your Embryo Divine Treasury hasn’t been unlocked. There’s no need to rush. You haven’t even awakened your Overlord Body, yet you can kill a martial artist at the peak of the Embryo Realm. Once you do awaken it, your strength will far surpass your peers.”
Granny Si and the others were also satisfied with Qin Mu’s performance. That Senior Brother Qu was a martial artist at the peak of the Embryo Realm, and he could even control his sword with energy, making it circle around him—clearly not far from the Five Luminaries Realm.
Yet Qin Mu, without awakening his Overlord Body, had beaten him to death with a small wooden stick. This clearly proved that Qin Mu was indeed the unheard-of “Overlord Body.” The Village Chief hadn’t deceived them!
The Apothecary’s eyelid twitched. “Mu’er being an ordinary physique—sooner or later, this secret won’t hold. When those guys find out, they’ll be so disheartened they could turn the sky upside down… But still, Mu’er killing a peak martial artist with a small wooden stick is truly bizarre. Could there really be an Overlord Body? Or is it the effect of the Spirit Blood?”
He was knowledgeable and experienced, but even he was puzzled now, his mind clouded with confusion.
After taking the Four Spirit Blood, the primordial energy inside Qin Mu grew more and more lively, its circulation speed gradually increasing. This allowed his swollen muscles and fascia to slowly recover, his blood and qi flow to quicken, and the fatigue in his body to gradually fade away. Without realizing it, his pace quickened, and his speed continued to increase.
Chief Ma, the Cripple, and the others showed expressions of surprise but said nothing, simply keeping pace with him.
Qin Mu discovered that cultivating the “Overlord Body Three-Dan Art” while running boosted his cultivation even faster. With the supplement of the Four Spirit Blood, his cultivation speed climbed to another level. Thus, he unconsciously increased his running speed, becoming somewhat lost in the moment.
He soon forgot the soreness in his muscles. His speed kept rising, and the primordial energy within him circulated faster and faster, reaching his limbs, his bones, and even gradually seeping into his hair, nails, and skin texture.
Gradually, his speed surpassed his previous top speed when running at full tilt. Even so, Qin Mu was unaware of it. He only felt that the more he ran, the more exhilarating it became, the more satisfying.
Sweat began to seep from his skin pores. This sweat wasn’t transparent; instead, it was quite murky. Along with black grime, there were also white fat particles in the sweat, but Qin Mu didn’t notice the changes in his body.
The Apothecary, the Village Chief, and the others exchanged glances of astonishment, silently communicating.
“Chief Ma, when did you start tempering your body with primordial energy?” the Apothecary suddenly asked.
Chief Ma said solemnly, “At the peak of the Embryo Realm. I was practicing my punches when I suddenly unleashed my first divine ability. My first divine ability was fist technique tempering the body, with primordial energy coiling like a green dragon around silk.”
The Apothecary looked at the Cripple, who said, “I was also at the peak of the Embryo Realm. That day, I was running in the wind, trying to catch up with the gale. I wanted to chase the wind and then step on its crest to walk in the sky. Then I discovered the secret of tempering the body with primordial energy—primordial energy blowing through the hundred orifices like wind. In my excitement, I fell off the wind’s crest and nearly died.”
The Apothecary sighed. “It was the same for me. I wanted to use the Embryo Divine Treasury as a furnace for refining medicine, and my own primordial energy as the medicine, to refine myself into a medicinal ingredient. That’s when I discovered the secret of tempering the body with primordial energy—primordial energy burning the flesh like fire. And Mu’er has already started tempering his body before even breaking through the wall.”
The Cripple laughed. “The Overlord Body is truly formidable. It’s something we spirit bodies can only envy.”
The Apothecary’s expression was strange, and he didn’t say more.
Overlord Body?
If it really were the Overlord Body, he wouldn’t be so surprised.
The Cripple and Chief Ma could attribute all this to the Overlord Body, but he knew the truth. Qin Mu, with an ordinary person’s physique, had achieved primordial energy tempering of the body before a spirit body could—this was enough to astonish even a knowledgeable powerhouse like him.
“Mu’er hasn’t awakened his Overlord Body yet. If he does awaken it, and his Overlord Body primordial energy can control objects—heh, even the Yan’an National Master back in the day probably wasn’t as powerful as him!” Granny Si said excitedly.
The Apothecary’s heart sank. He looked at the Village Chief.
The Village Chief was also silent.
In this world, there was no such thing as the Overlord Body, and naturally, no Overlord Body primordial energy. Ordinary primordial energy couldn’t control objects. When that time came, and Qin Mu discovered he couldn’t control objects with his energy, the truth would come to light.
But before that, Qin Mu first had to achieve the so-called “Overlord Body awakening.” To do that, he needed to break through the wall—the Embryo Wall.
How could an ordinary person break through that wall?
The Village Chief’s brow furrowed. Would continuing to drink the Four Spirit Blood still be effective? How long could he keep this secret?