Tales of Herding Gods - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Secret Of The Stone Statues

Translator: Ninetales Editor: Fish Creek

In the valley below the cliff, sounds of heavy impact kept sounding out, causing the tree leaves to sway continuously from the tremors. The birds in the mountains also flapped their wings and flew away, not daring to stay near.

In the valley, the devil ape leaped forward while hugging onto a huge boulder, smashing it towards Qin Mu in midair.

Qin Mu agilely dodged it and when the devil ape saw that it had missed, it picked up another huge boulder wanting to smash again. However Qin Mu leaped onto the huge boulder and bounced onto its nose again and giving it another palm strike.

Thunderclap Eighth Strike Third Form, Tempest Of The Nine Dragons!

This palm of his contained nine layers of force. The first force bursting forth from the heart of his palm was like the impact of a raging dragon, causing the devil ape to fall backwards. Qin Mu’s shoulders and hips then moved together. With the strength flowing through his entire body, he directed all his muscles to centralize at the center of the palm. With the second burst of force, the devil ape’s head was smacked onto the ground, splitting the rocks under its head.

The body muscles of Qin Mu looked like a coiling and squirming dragon. With the third explosion of force from Tempest Of The Nine Dragons, the split rocks began to shatter.

His muscles throbbed tremendously and the fourth force burst forth, burying half of the demon ape’s head into the ground.

The fifth force from Tempest Of The Nine Dragons exploded and a deep rumble came from the ground as the devil ape’s head had fully sunk below the ground!

The sixth force of Tempest Of The Nine Dragons was like the impact of six dragons, however just as the force burst forth, the devil ape had already reacted to it and his small mountain like fist struck from the side and smacked Qin Mu away like a fly!

Qin Mu landed on the ground tumbling. The devil ape struggled to pull its head out and gave it a few shakes to get rid of the debris in his thick hair.

On the other side, Qin Mu flipped his body up and rushed over the ape again like the wind. Frightened and upset, the devil ape thought for a while and leaped onto the cliff, squatting there and waving its hand, “Young’un, no.”

With his fleeting footsteps, Qin Mu rushed forward and ran up the precipitous cliff from the bottom to the top and continued to attack the devil ape.

The devil ape flew into a rage. The human and ape continued to leap around on the cliff, shooting rocks in random directions as they fought.

A great deal of time later, the medicinal energy in Qin Mu’s body was gradually used up. The devil ape was also so exhausted it could not even take another step. The human and ape were both gasping for breaths and laid there unable to move.

Five minutes later, Qin Mu caught his breath and sat up to do breathing exercises to readjust himself. He was elated when he found out his vital qi had a great improvement in such a short time. His vital qi had became more tenacious and could reach every single corner of his body unimpeded.

His body was also covered in a lot of filth which was probably because of the fight against the demon ape, arousing the medicinal energy which strengthened his vital qi to refine more impurities in his body.

Qin Mu gave a flick and the screeching sound sounded out as if it was an arrow breaking through the air.

The devil ape was startled and immediately sat up in a defensive position.

Qin Mu stretched his body comfortably and felt the soreness in his muscles. He shook his head, “Let’s not fight anymore.”

The devil ape understood his words and gave a sigh of relief. It stretched out his hand and plucked out a huge tree with the width of an arm. It swept up a bunch of tree leaves and slowly chewed them in its mouth before placing the tree in front of Qin Mu, speaking in a low and muffled voice, “Eat, young’un.”

Qin Mu plucked a bright red fruit and skinned it before eating. The sweetness and refreshing taste moistened his throat.

Devil ape looked at him at disdain and resented him for only eating a little. It then patted its chest strongly, “Eat! Strong!”

Beaten by the devil ape, Qin Mu’s face was full of bruises. He endured the pain in his body as he stood up to execute Thunderclap Eight Strikes in front of it before patting his own chest, “Train, strong!”

Devil ape rolled its eye and continued to slowly eat the tree leave and replied in despised, “Believe, ghost.”

After Qin Mu had finished resting, he leaped off the cliff and ran of the walls of the cliff, “Fight, tomorrow!”

Blinking its eyes, the devil ape waited until Qin Mu was far away before jumping to his feet and started to imitate Qin Mu’s movements earlier. Even though his Thunderclap Eight Strikes was very crude, it still had extraordinary strength after all and actually managed to execute some grace of Thunderclap Eight Strikes, striking out the sounds of wind and lightning.

Devil was stunned and revealed an expression of ecstasy. It then continued to strike until the whole mountain cliff was filled with the sounds of wind and shouted, “Strong! Strong! Strong!”

When Qin Mu returned to the village, Apothecary anxiously came up to check on his body and smeared some ointments on his face, asking, “Is there any unusual symptoms?”

Qin nodded his head and made Apothecary even more nervous.

“Grandpa Apothecary’s spirit pills sure are effective. My vital qi had became even stronger.” Qin Mu replied.

Apothecary finally gave a sigh of relief and smiled, “These spirit pills are indeed effective for the Overlord Body. As long as you don’t die from eating them, it means that my approach is correct. Hold on to this cauldron of pills first while I go mull over other prescriptions!” Finished saying, he left excitedly.

Blind propped himself over with his bamboo cane and smiled, “Are you tired Mu’er? If you are, I can teach you a first class eye technique.”

Qin Mu gave a cough and replied, “Grandpa Blind, I’m over here. Over there is the toilet.”

Blind turned over and faced Butcher who was suntanning on the lower millstone, “I pondered over it for a long time. Since your Overlord Body doesn’t have any attributes, you can’t cultivate my techniques. However this eye technique doesn’t require vital qi with attributes therefore the Overlord Body’s vital qi can also cultivate. Come with me, my technique is called Nine Heavens Eyes Awakening Skill…”

Qin Mu had a headache as he always felt that Blind was somewhat unreliable but he still forced himself to follow Blind.

He was extremely bewildered when Blind said that he wanted to teach him Nine Heavens Eyes Awakening Skill but did not teach him how to train his eyes. Instead he had brought him to observe and study the four stone statues in the villages.

The two of them sat in front of the stone statue located at the east corner. Even with Blind’s empty eye sockets, he also gazed at the stone statue as if he could see something.

Qin Mu knew everyone in the village was very weird, even the stone statues at the four corners of the village were weird. In Disabled Elderly Village, no one wasn’t weird.

Even though these four stone statues were not tall, they were extremely heavy. They were so frighteningly heavy that even Qin Mu could not sway them at all.

His current strength was very great especially after he had consumed the blood of the four spirits. Recently with vital qi body refinement cleansing his body and marrow, his body had became stronger and stronger yet he was still unable to move the stone statue the slightest inch.

When he was young, he would often climb up the statues to play but Granny Si and the rest would always grabbed him down, telling him not to be disrespectful to the stone statues. During New Year and other festivities, Granny Si and the rest would still put out offerings for the stone statues and light a few incense sticks, praying to the statues for blessing the villagers’ lives and the village with peace. The four statues were not sculptures of human, they only had human-like figures. The southern stone statue had a bird head and was crouching on a stone pillar. With its hand supporting on its knees, there were two wings sculpted out from his back as if he was ready to fly off.

At the north of the village, the stone statue was a tortoise back old man with a horsetail whisk in his hand. However the horsetail whisk was sculpted into a huge snow white snake coming out from the horsetail whisk handle. The white snake was coiled around the body of the tortoise back old man as its head looked far into the distance.

At the west side of the village, the stone statue was a sculpture of a woman wearing a plume feather crown with a crouching tiger under her legs.

The female sculpture was also very weird. In the middle of brow, another eye was sculpted there, however a bird nest was sculpted inside of the eye where there were three little birds inside.

Whereas right in front of him was the stone statue in the east corner of the village which was a dragon head humanoid. On its body was a herb basket with a few herbs still inside.

Blind asked him to observe the stone statue carefully. However, Qin Mu had seen the stone statue countless of times in the past and had even behaved atrociously by climbing onto the stone statue. He really didn’t know what to look for at the statue.

“Mu’er, can you lift this stone statue?” Blind asked as he saw Qin Mu being absent-minded.

“I can’t.”

Qin Mu shook his head. The stone statue was too heavy, so heavy that it didn’t seem to be made of stone. A stone with the height of a human could at most be a few thousand kilograms and with Qin Mu current strength, it would be an easy feat for him but he couldn’t move any of the four stone statues at all.

Blind then kept the conversation interesting, “Do you know why the stone statues are so heavy?”

Qin Mu shook his head again, “I don’t know.”

“The stone statue actually isn’t heavy, not at all.”

Blind’s expression remained calm, “What is heavy is not the stone but what was sculpted from the stone.”

Qin Mu was puzzled. Isn’t it still stone after sculpting it from a stone?

Blind continued, “For example, when learning calligraphy and painting from Deaf, your paintings and writings are a load of crap which are worthless. However Deaf’s paintings and writings can’t even be bought with ten thousand taels of gold! Both paintings were made from paper and ink yet why is Deaf’s painting more valuable?”

Qin Mu half understood what Blind had said but Deaf’s painting really had an extraordinary appeal in it which was way better than his.

Blind lifted his bamboo cane and pointed, “If these stone statues were sculpted by an ordinary person, it wouldn’t be heavy at all. However, since the person who sculpted them comes from an extraordinary background and the contents of the sculptures are even more frightening, the weight of these stone statues can’t be measured with common logic. Carrying a stone statue is equivalent to…”

His expression turned eccentric before continuing after a while, “Is equivalent to carrying a god!”