Chapter 909: Prehistoric Creator
Qin Mu pried off another rhomboid crystal, a crystal about as tall as he was. Standing behind it and looking forward, the world appeared different from usual, but that was merely due to the refraction of the rhomboid crystal.
"The world seen through a crystal as an eye is different from the world seen with the naked eye, but surely the crystal has more uses than just this?"
Qin Mu touched his brow, where there was a small, raised bump.
During the catastrophe of the Primordial Realm, he had gouged out his third eye and cast it into the Netherworld. The wound on his brow had healed, leaving a small, fleshy lump.
"In the past, my third divine eye was used to connect to the Netherworld, relying on that eye to execute the great divine abilities of the Netherworld's Great Dao. The prehistoric giants embedded crystals in their brows—could they also have been trying to execute some kind of divine ability?"
He was utterly perplexed. Then he walked to the center of the altar and looked at the pool of liquid light. The liquid light flowed like water, slowly coalescing.
Earlier, Red Emperor Qi Xiayu had activated the Phoenix Ship to shatter that peculiar "Heavenly Lord," depleting the liquid light. But now, the liquid light was slowly gathering again.
If this altar were filled with that strange liquid light, it would likely coalesce into another "Heavenly Lord" to guard this place.
"What is this liquid light?"
Qin Mu carefully scooped up a clump of liquid light. Divine light shimmered in his eyes as he examined it closely, but the liquid light contained no runic Dao patterns, seemingly nothing unique.
"Why can this liquid light form such a powerful Heavenly Lord spirit body?"
He cautiously channeled his primal energy, making contact with the liquid light. Suddenly, the clump of liquid light coalesced, transforming into a tiny Heavenly Lord, only five or six inches tall, which punched at him.
Caught off guard, Qin Mu grunted, hearing the sound of bones breaking in his chest. He was sent flying backward, crashing through one prehistoric giant skeleton after another with a series of thuds.
The next moment, he was plastered against a prehistoric structure. The immense force from that tiny Heavenly Lord's punch caused the building behind him to crack.
The force continued to surge, vast and unstoppable, crushing him and blasting through the building!
Qi Jiuyi shouted sternly, "On guard! Protect my second brother!"
The nine divine beings surrounded the Dragon Qilin, on high alert, as if facing a great enemy.
On the altar, the five-to-six-inch Heavenly Lord leaped up, his palms sinking inward, hands rotating inward, forming a pattern resembling the character "Mao."
Qin Mu landed, his fingers flying as he quickly reconnected his broken bones. Looking up, he saw this tiny Heavenly Lord thrusting both hands toward him. His face changed drastically, and he exclaimed, "The Fourth Heavenly Dao, Heavenly Seal?"
That was the fourth of the Heavenly Daos. Yan Qiling had once said that the Dao Ancestor had organized the various Heavenly and Earthly Daos for the Heavenly Court, dividing them into different sequences. Among them, the Dao Ancestor had derived forty-nine types of Heavenly Daos from the Heavenly Lord's Dao patterns.
Having obtained the ancient divine Dao pattern jade slips from the Archive Pavilion, Qin Mu knew these forty-nine Heavenly Daos. The fourth was called the Heavenly Seal.
And this tiny Heavenly Lord formed from liquid light was executing precisely that—the Fourth Heavenly Dao, the Heavenly Seal!
The tiny Heavenly Lord's double seals flew toward him, their power immense. They were truly the embodiment of yin and yang embracing, generating each other, filling heaven and earth, leaving no room for escape.
The exquisite little Heavenly Lord's Heavenly Seal had already reached Qin Mu. As the double seals struck, suddenly Yan'er fluttered from Qin Mu's shoulder, extending a bird claw that grabbed the tiny Heavenly Lord's face.
The tiny Heavenly Lord roared in fury, thrusting his Heavenly Seal forward, but he couldn't reach her. His rage grew even more intense, his roar like heavenly thunder.
"Sister Yan'er, don't kill him."
Qin Mu quickly said, "Seal him up. I want to study him carefully! This Heavenly Lord spirit body is strange!"
Yan'er extended both wings, drawing a circle in front of her. The ring trapped the tiny Heavenly Lord.
The tiny Heavenly Lord roared, struggling in vain. Suddenly, heavenly fire blazed around him, as if he intended to burn the ring away with the Heavenly Fire Dao.
Qin Mu marveled, picking up the tiny Heavenly Lord and examining him from all angles.
The tiny Heavenly Lord glared at him fiercely, but was locked in place by Yan'er, a master of the Lingxiao realm, unable to move.
"Master, what is this little Heavenly Lord?"
Yan'er asked curiously, "Is he the Heavenly Lord's son?"
"No, it's a kind of spirit body, formed from liquid light."
Qin Mu examined him closely, saying, "No soul, no physical body, just a pure mass of energy. There's no Dao within him, no runes, no consciousness... Strange. How can he execute the Heavenly Dao? What exactly is he?"
He inspected more carefully, but his doubts only grew.
Without a soul, physical body, thought, or consciousness, and without Dao or runic imprints, how could he be so powerful?
This completely defied common sense!
"The liquid light wasn't abnormal earlier. It was my primal energy touching it that caused the change, turning it into a tiny Heavenly Lord... This kid's strength is too great; he broke my ribs."
Thinking of this, Qin Mu became furious. He picked up the tiny Heavenly Lord and gave him two hard slaps on his bottom.
The tiny Heavenly Lord grew even more enraged, but couldn't break free, only becoming angrier.
Suddenly, he burst with a bang, scattering into a cloud of light.
Qin Mu's hand was empty, leaving only Yan'er's ring.
Qin Mu was stunned, lost in thought. He circled the altar, noticing that all the prehistoric giant skeletons were facing it. Yet the altar itself had no runic imprints; it was just built from ordinary stone.
He simply couldn't fathom how these giants from the Hongmeng Era had created such a strange energy as liquid light.
"Since Senior Brother left a geographical map of this place, he must have discovered something!"
Qin Mu perked up and walked toward the location marked on the map. The Dragon Qilin quickly followed, and Qi Jiuyi had no choice but to grit his teeth and follow, filled with worry.
Qin Mu's abilities were extremely powerful, yet he had nearly been killed by a tiny Heavenly Lord formed from a clump of liquid light. This showed how dangerous this place was!
"The spot Senior Brother marked is right here."
Qin Mu rolled up the geographical map and looked ahead. The location Wei Suifeng had marked on the map was a magnificent hall. Though dilapidated, it still exuded an imposing grandeur.
It was an open-air hall without a roof, extremely spacious inside. Qin Mu stepped in first, seeing various reliefs carved into the rock-polished walls.
Qin Mu looked at them one by one. These relief murals depicted some prehistoric giants ruling over a vast, boundless continent.
These giants had enormous bodies, capable of plucking stars and grabbing the moon, possessing astonishing strength.
The continent they lived on was also unimaginably vast. The giants lived in different places, belonging to different tribes. The environment there was harsh, filled with all kinds of extremely powerful prehistoric beasts.
The giants fought and killed these beasts, and they also often battled each other over territory and population.
"The prehistoric giants in the reliefs don't have three eyes!"
Qin Mu examined them closely. The giants in the reliefs also had no rhomboid crystals on their brows.
These reliefs recorded scenes of these giants hunting and fighting. As Qin Mu looked on, the prehistoric giants didn't understand Dao techniques or cultivate divine abilities. They relied solely on brute force and powerful physical bodies to fight, at most wielding large bone clubs or simple bronze weapons.
For a grandmaster of Dao techniques and divine abilities like Qin Mu, the battle scenes in the reliefs were naturally crude and unrefined.
But as he walked deeper into the open-air hall, the content of the reliefs gradually became more interesting.
Qin Mu stopped before a relief mural. It depicted a burly prehistoric giant holding a rhomboid crystal between his thumb and forefinger, looking at it in the sunlight.
"The crystal in the painting is almost identical to the ones in the brows of those skeletons outside!"
Qin Mu's heart stirred, and he moved to the next relief. This one still depicted the giant from the previous relief, but now he had embedded the rhomboid crystal he had found into his own brow.
The other giants were kneeling before him, prostrating and kowtowing in fear and reverence.
This giant's physique appeared much larger than the others. In one hand, he held a golden scepter, and on his head, he wore a horned helmet. His other hand was raised, pointing forward.
The crystal on his brow emitted a pattern of light. Qin Mu thought for a moment, not quite understanding its meaning.
Qi Jiuyi and the others also came over to look at the reliefs.
"Chief Qin, these are just barbaric, primitive natives. What's so interesting about them?" Qi Jiuyi was greatly puzzled.
Qin Mu walked to the next relief, saying, "It was these primitive natives who created that strange Heavenly Lord, which nearly destroyed the Red Emperor's Phoenix Ship."
Qi Jiuyi snorted.
Qin Mu let out a soft exclamation, examining the relief before him with a look of surprise.
This relief showed a giant who had grown even larger. Many other giants, like him, had somehow found similar rhomboid crystals and also embedded them in their foreheads.
What was strange in the relief was that the crystal eyes on the brows of these giants, who had embedded the crystals, were also glowing. Moreover, Qin Mu saw all sorts of bizarre things within the light!
Some lights contained a prehistoric beast, others a plate of food, and still others weapons like knives, spears, and clubs!
In some giants' "third eye" light, there was even a beautiful woman!
"This is..."
Qin Mu was stunned. He immediately took out the crystal he had collected, but it was too large to place on his brow.
"Sister Yan'er, are you skilled in spatial techniques? Can you shrink this crystal?"
Yan'er examined it and said, "Spatial techniques can only make it appear smaller by compressing space, hiding it within a mustard seed. It doesn't actually shrink it. If you try to embed it in your brow and the spatial technique fails, it will blow your head apart!"
Qin Mu laughed, "I just want to place it in front of my brow to see if anything wonderful happens."
Having trained with Moon Venerable for many years, Yan'er soon shrunk the rhomboid crystal to about an inch in size.
Qin Mu pinched the crystal and placed it on his brow, trying to channel his primal energy. The crystal had no effect.
Still unwilling to give up, he mobilized his blood energy. The crystal still showed no abnormality.
He concentrated his mind, but the crystal remained unchanged.
"Is this kind of crystal useless for our human race? What did Senior Brother mean by asking me to come here?"
The moment he had this thought, the crystal suddenly emitted light, and within the light appeared Wei Suifeng's figure.
Qin Mu was startled. As his thought faded, Wei Suifeng in the light disappeared.
"Could it be..."
Qin Mu immediately focused his mind, concentrating his divine consciousness, and imagined the form of the Heavenly Lord. The crystal once again emitted light, and within the light, a tiny Heavenly Lord materialized!
Qin Mu's heart shook violently. He immediately sensed that the scene he had imagined was becoming real through this strange crystal!
As his consciousness dissipated, the Heavenly Lord in the light also vanished immediately, not being preserved.
"Is it because my divine consciousness isn't strong enough? I cultivate the Indestructible Divine Consciousness!"
Qin Mu activated his Indestructible Divine Consciousness. This time, he imagined the form of Earth Lord. Light burst from the crystal, reflecting a tiny Earth Lord.
The little Earth Lord in the light grew more and more real, gradually developing flesh and blood. Before long, a palm-sized Earth Lord appeared before everyone!
Qin Mu dispersed his Indestructible Divine Consciousness. The tiny Earth Lord landed, opened his mouth, and roared, emitting a mooing sound like a cow.
Everyone was horrified. When they heard the Earth Lord actually mooing like a cow, they wanted to laugh but dared not.
"He's not the real Earth Lord. Feel free to laugh; don't be afraid of him," Qin Mu said.
Qi Jiuyi trembled, "It can truly create things from nothing! How is this possible? Creating something from nothing with just a stone—were these giants the creators of the prehistoric era?"
Qin Mu toyed with the crystal, saying leisurely, "They might have been prehistoric creators, but their ability to create was achieved through this crystal. I just tested it. This crystal can amplify divine consciousness many times over. If the divine consciousness is strong enough, one can create things from nothing! Even so, not many people could use this crystal to achieve such creation."