Chapter 834: Long Time No See
The Scripture Depository had hundreds of floors, each floor filled with countless jade slips. Every jade slip contained an enormous number of runes, and memorizing all of them completely was an immense challenge.
"A craftsman must first sharpen his tools if he wants to do good work. If I try to memorize everything one by one, how many years would that take?"
Qin Mu sat on the stairs, wide-eyed, watching Lin Xuan, Xiao Chunfeng, and Yu Hongxiu as they busily tried to memorize the runes on the jade slips. Yu Hongxiu had already woken up, but it took her half a day to regain her composure.
She also understood the gravity of the situation and had decided that once they left this jade tower, she would fake her death to escape. So she joined them in memorizing the jade slip runes.
Memorizing the rune sequences of a single floor was already an unimaginably massive task. These rune sequences could construct the Dao structure of an ancient god, which was incredibly complex. Relying solely on memory was nearly impossible.
Even though they were exceptionally intelligent, memorizing an entire floor would take ten to fifteen days.
The ancient god rune Dao on the lower floors was relatively simple, but at the level of the Four Emperors, the amount of memory required was dozens or even hundreds of times greater than the previous floors.
At the level of Heavenly Lord, Earth Mother, Tu Bo, and the Heavenly Emperor, the memory load would likely multiply several times over again.
Just to memorize everything completely without error would probably take hundreds or even thousands of years, and Qin Mu simply couldn't stay here that long.
More critically, the Scripture Depository was an extremely important building in the Heavenly Court. The Heavenly Court could send someone at any moment, and the Dao Ancestor couldn't let them stay here for so long.
The longer they delayed, the more dangerous it became.
In other words, they had to memorize all the jade slip runes in the building within just a few days and then leave.
Qin Mu rested his chin on his hand, staring blankly into space.
Lin Xuan Daozhu, Xiao Chunfeng, and Yu Hongxiu were all busy, frantically browsing through jade slips and memorizing as fast as they could. The three occasionally glanced over, only to see Qin Mu still sitting there, showing no signs of urgency.
They were puzzled.
After a while, Xiao Chunfeng suddenly realized something: "It's impossible to memorize all the runes in the Scripture Depository in such a short time. I'm not that smart, and I don't have that strong a memory. So, I need to choose the best—the Heavenly Emperor's rune Dao. Memorizing the Heavenly Emperor's rune Dao is the optimal solution!"
Once he understood this, he immediately left that floor and headed for the top floor.
At the same time, Lin Xuan Daozhu also had a realization: "I can't memorize all these floors. So, I need to extract the basic runes from these ancient gods' runes and assign them numbers. The basic rune sequences can be divided into categories one, two, three, four, five... I only need to memorize a few hundred basic runes and then recite the sequence numbers. That way, I can memorize an ancient god's Dao rune system in much less time!"
He grew excited and immediately began numbering them.
Yu Hongxiu watched, feeling dizzy, and then suddenly understood: "I studied under the Southern Emperor and am a Vermilion Bird demigod. What use is memorizing the Dao runes of other ancient gods? Different species mean different paths—cultivating those runes would yield half the results with twice the effort. My optimal solution is to go to the Southern Emperor's floor and memorize those Dao runes. That would be far more beneficial for my cultivation!"
She immediately headed for the Southern Emperor's floor.
The three of them were each busy with their own tasks, while Qin Mu still sat on the steps of the first floor, staring blankly.
They had no time to console him and focused on their own work. After a while, when they took a break and glanced over, they saw that Qin Mu had gotten up at some point, taken out a large pile of calculation tools, ink, brushes, and paper, and was writing and drawing. He was also activating a calculation spirit weapon to solve some difficult problems.
They rested for a moment and then went back to memorizing the Dao runes.
When their brains couldn't take it anymore and they rested again, they saw Qin Mu setting up a blacksmith forge on the first floor. He took out a pile of divine metal, lit a furnace, stuffed a heavenly fire crystal into the flames, and began smelting the divine metal.
They were puzzled but ignored him, resting for a while before returning to their tasks.
Clang, clang, clang.
The sound of hammering came from downstairs. The three grew even more curious and leaned over to look. They saw Qin Mu had forged an eight-armed demon god statue by the furnace. He performed a spirit-summoning ritual on the statue, and it came to life, grabbing eight large hammers and pounding away at a huge piece of divine metal.
Meanwhile, Qin Mu was beside it, using demon fire divine abilities, divine fire divine abilities, and water divine abilities to continuously quench and temper the divine metal.
The three said nothing and continued memorizing with all their might.
After a long time, Qin Mu was still forging, and the hammering noise made it impossible for the three to concentrate.
Yu Hongxiu couldn't take it anymore. Gritting her teeth, she stuck her head out and called up to Xiao Chunfeng, "Senior Brother Xiao, that Qin guy has gone crazy! He won't study himself and won't let us study either. Let's go kill him together!"
Xiao Chunfeng was also annoyed by the noise. He hesitated for a moment and shook his head. "No. You can't beat Lin Xuan, and although I'm not weaker than him, if he teams up with Lin Xuan, I'm dead."
After another long while, Lin Xuan was also driven to distraction by the noise. He stuck his head out and called down, "Qin Jiao Zhu, behave yourself! It's too noisy!"
Xiao Chunfeng leaned down from above and called out, "Daoist Lin, we're both from the Dao Sect, so we're fellow disciples. How about we team up and kill that madman Qin? Sharpening the axe won't delay the woodcutting! Once Qin is dead, we can memorize in peace!"
Yu Hongxiu also stuck her head out and nodded vigorously. "This guy won't put in the effort himself, and he won't let us memorize either! It's too malicious! We need to get rid of him first before we can study in peace!"
Lin Xuan Daozhu shook his head. "Don't talk nonsense. Qin Jiao Zhu always does things with deep meaning. There must be a reason for his actions. I just want him to be a little quieter."
Qin Mu was still hammering away. The eight-armed demon god statue had already been beaten to pieces and thrown into his gluttonous bag. This time, he was doing it himself, and his forging speed was not slow.
Lin Xuan looked down and saw that Qin Mu was forging a mirror. He was hammering creation runes into the mirror, making the space inside it larger and larger.
"What is he doing?" Lin Xuan Daozhu watched for a while but couldn't figure it out, so he went back to memorizing runes.
Another day or two passed, and they got used to the hammering from downstairs. Although it was noisy, it no longer affected them.
Suddenly, the hammering stopped. The three went crazy and stuck their heads out. Yu Hongxiu's eyes widened, and she was about to speak when Lin Xuan Daozhu roared from above, "You bastard Qin, why did you stop?! If you don't hammer, we can't concentrate!"
Yu Hongxiu couldn't help but laugh. "This Lin Daozhu is usually so steady and mature, but his temper is even worse than mine."
Qin Mu was sweeping the first floor, cleaning it spotlessly without leaving a trace. He looked up and said, "It's done. Wait a moment. I'll come up after I finish sweeping."
After a moment, he used his primordial qi to lift a mirror and walked up to the second floor. The three leaned over to watch as Qin Mu used his primordial qi to roll up a bundle of jade slips. The jade slips unfurled with a whoosh, and he shone the mirror on them.
Then, Qin Mu put the jade slips back in their place and went up to the third floor.
He repeated the process and soon reached the floor where Lin Xuan was.
Lin Xuan Daozhu looked into the mirror and was shocked. Inside the mirror were rows of unfurled jade slips, and the Dao runes on them were clearly visible.
The jade slips were neatly arranged in rows, allowing him to check the rune imprints on the slips at any time.
"Stop memorizing."
Qin Mu arranged the jade slips from the bookshelf in the air and shone the mirror on them, smiling. "Even if I gave you a hundred years, you wouldn't be able to memorize all the floors. And if you made a mistake, you wouldn't know where you went wrong."
Lin Xuan Daozhu looked into the mirror and saw another row of jade slip runes appear inside. He compared them with the jade slips on this floor, and they were indeed identical, without a single error.
The only difference was that the jade slips in the mirror were reversed.
"When I go to the Dao Sect to study, I'll give you a copy."
Qin Mu walked up to the next floor, leaving the stunned Lin Xuan standing there, and said, "After you recalculate it using the Taiwei Calculation Scripture, give me a copy."
Lin Xuan snapped out of it and stumbled after him, numbly watching as he quickly imprinted the runes from rows of bookshelves into the mirror.
"This mirror... does it use the Painting Saint's painting world technique?" he couldn't help asking.
"Yeah."
Qin Mu didn't look back and said, "It also uses my mute grandfather's forging techniques, plus the creation arts of the Red Emperor and Bright Emperor. I also used my grandmother Si's magnetic divine ability to fold part of the space inside the mirror."
Lin Xuan Daozhu's eyes went dull, and he murmured, "Nice, nice..."
"Yeah." Qin Mu turned back and gave him a kind smile.
Lin Xuan Daozhu felt that his kind smile was unbearably annoying, and he wanted to punch him twice in the face.
Soon, Qin Mu reached the floor where Yu Hongxiu was. Under the red-clad girl's gaze, he imprinted the Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird's runes and headed upward.
Yu Hongxiu stood there dazed, then dazedly followed behind Lin Xuan Daozhu as they went up.
"Is the Yan Kang Overlord Body always this clever and mischievous?" she couldn't help asking Lin Xuan.
Lin Xuan said helplessly, "Always like this. The way his brain is structured is different from ours. I..."
He shook his head with a bitter smile. "I don't know how his brain works either. Maybe the Overlord Body's brain has a unique structure."
Finally, Qin Mu reached the floor where Xiao Chunfeng was. Xiao Chunfeng's mouth hung open and his eyes were wide as he stared blankly at Qin Mu, who imprinted all the jade slip runes into the mirror in just a short moment.
Thud.
Xiao Chunfeng sat down on the ground, his limbs weak and his head hanging in defeat.
Lin Xuan Daozhu reached out his hand to him and said with a warm smile, "It's okay. You'll get used to it. There's still a long way to go."
Qin Mu stretched lazily and laughed. "Finally done. As for the creation runes on the top floor, there's no need. Once we've imprinted these runes, the Dao Ancestor should send us back to Qingyun Heaven, right..."
Just as he said that, voices came from outside the building, gradually getting closer. A booming voice said, "Has the Scripture Depository been peaceful these past few days?"
"Who would dare to sneak into the forbidden zone within a forbidden zone?" Another, somewhat aged voice laughed. "Yes, that's true."
The booming voice said, "His Majesty's intention is that since the Creation Divine Artifact has been built, we should first extract the runes and create that body."
The aged voice asked doubtfully, "Isn't it too early to create it now? Many runes haven't been perfected yet, and we haven't found the thirty-six different types of heavenly palaces..."
The sound of the door opening came from the bottom floor of the jade building, and two long shadows appeared in Qin Mu and the others' field of vision.
Qin Mu made a silencing gesture, signaling the others to retreat. The four quickly moved to a corner of the jade building to avoid being discovered.
Qin Mu secretly looked at the two shadows. One of them was extremely ornate, with layers of flame-like patterns behind its head.
"His Majesty's intention is to create it first. The other runes can be perfected later."
The shadow with the flame-like patterns walked into the building, and the booming voice came again, saying, "It's just that Heavenly Lord and Tu Bo are a bit difficult to deal with. They're too stubborn and too arrogant..."
Qin Mu's heart skipped a beat, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead. "Fire Heavenly Lord! It's Fire Heavenly Lord!"
Xiao Chunfeng, Lin Xuan, and Yu Hongxiu showed expressions of despair on their faces. The newcomer was heading upstairs, and it wouldn't be long before they reached the top floor!
By then, the four of them would have no way to escape and nowhere to hide!
"Why hasn't the Dao Ancestor sent us away yet?" Xiao Chunfeng clenched his fists, his body trembling slightly.
Qin Mu frowned. Now that Fire Heavenly Lord and the other person had already entered the building, the Dao Ancestor probably had no chance to send them away!
If the Dao Ancestor used his divine abilities, Fire Heavenly Lord would definitely notice!
Remember, Fire Heavenly Lord was one of the Nine Heavenly Lords from back then, the pioneer of the Heavenly Man Divine Treasury, even more ancient than the Dao Ancestor!
His strength was likely even greater than the Dao Ancestor's!
Qin Mu gritted his teeth and suddenly turned around. A pitch-black Gate of Undertaking appeared silently on the top floor, without any fluctuation of primordial qi.
Qin Mu's eyes flickered as he signaled to Lin Xuan Daozhu.
Lin Xuan stepped forward. Qin Mu's hands flew, his finger techniques changing endlessly. Suddenly, he stopped, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and touched Lin Xuan's forehead, sealing his physical body and primordial spirit together. Then he pushed him back.
Lin Xuan involuntarily fell into the Gate of Undertaking and into the Netherworld.
Qin Mu looked at Xiao Chunfeng, who quickly walked over and was sent into the Netherworld in the same way.
Yu Hongxiu hurriedly stepped forward. Qin Mu began to cast the spell again, but just then, voices came from below: "Those two ancient gods are ancient, but they're stubborn and inflexible. They can't see the overwhelming trend."
The two voices approached the top floor unhurriedly, saying, "And they each have their own ideas. Heavenly Lord is easier to deal with, but Tu Bo is a bit cunning. Fortunately, Tu Bo's daughter is still in the Heavenly Court, and the Netherworld Divine Child has also been born. They are the key to dealing with Tu Bo..."
Qin Mu's heart skipped a beat, and his primordial qi became a bit scattered. At that moment, an incredibly terrifying wave surged up from below, instantly filling all the hundreds of floors of the Scripture Depository!
"Someone has infiltrated!" Fire Heavenly Lord's voice came!
Qin Mu's face changed drastically. He stretched out his finger and touched Yu Hongxiu's forehead, pushing her into the Netherworld!
At that moment, Fire Heavenly Lord's figure appeared on the top floor, sneering, "Daring to infiltrate the Scripture Depository, you have some nerve! In front of me, you won't escape!"
Qin Mu let out a faint sigh, turned around, and revealed a smile. "Fire Heavenly Lord, long time no see."
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