Apothecary had his own idea, saying, “Give him the spirit blood to drink; tell him to drink more, drink as much as he can! Every time he drinks, his physique will improve slightly. Even if it cannot stimulate a Spirit Body, his physical fitness will definitely be stronger than any Spirit Body!”
“Beating a dragon to death with a single punch.”
The Village Chief laughed, “It will definitely scare those bastards outside the Great Ruins.”
The two exchanged smiles. Apothecary walked out of the room, then closed the door.
The next day, the villagers once again brought back a few Iron-Bone Tigers, Azure Dragon Snakes, Lightning Birds, and Golden Turtles. These old grandpas and grandmas had a clear objective, so they were extremely motivated. However, their actions angered Apothecary: “Making him drink too much spirit blood at once will only cause him to explode to death!”
Mute the Blacksmith, who was dragging two Lightning Birds, grinned widely, laughing soundlessly without a tongue in his mouth.
“Mu’er can definitely handle it!” Granny Si had great confidence in Qin Mu.
Apothecary glared at them, stopped talking, then brought out the insect eggs and began refining the blood again. However, problems still arose. There was a bit too much blood from the four spirits this time. After Qin Mu drank it, his body swelled as if it had been inflated, making the grandpas and grandmas extremely tense, fearing the child would explode.
Apothecary took out several hollow silver needles and pierced them into Qin Mu’s back and the crown of his head. Red, blue, and purple streams of air were seen spurting out from the holes of the silver needles with a hissing sound.
After a while, the silver needles no longer sprayed air. Apothecary pulled out the needles and glared at the grandpas and grandmas again: “Do it gradually, step by step. Do you think you can make him fat in one bite? He will only explode to death! Right now, he still feels a bit bloated, so you guys have a lot of work to do. Later, Butcher must practice the knife with him, Grandpa Ma train his boxing, and Cripple accompany him in leg training; help him digest it.”
“Mu’er, let’s practice the knife!”
Butcher pressed his hands against the ground, then astonishingly leaped and landed on top of a wooden post. He didn’t have a lower body; his upper half stood on the wooden post, placing him at roughly the same height as Qin Mu.
Both of Butcher’s hands gripped two pork-butchering knives. Unlike ordinary pork-butchering knives—which were less than a foot long, with round wooden handles and blades curved like a three-quarter moon—the pork-butchering knives in Butcher’s hands looked similar but were several times larger. The blade was three feet and two inches long, with a thick spine, yet the edge was as thin as paper and honed to a gleaming polish. If the two knives were combined, they looked like two arched doors, massive and terrifying.
The pork-butchering knife in Qin Mu’s hand was just as large, only he was wielding a single blade, and it was incredibly heavy—a single knife weighing about twenty jin. A youth of his age could normally only lift one such knife. However, since consuming the four spirits’ blood, his strength had grown much greater than before; lifting a pork-butchering knife with one hand no longer felt heavy.
“Grandpa Butcher, be careful!”
Qin Mu gripped the knife with one hand and charged toward Butcher on the wooden post. Butcher laughed heartily; although he was only half a man, he still looked valiant and heroic.
Night Battle Through Wind and Rain!
Qin Mu’s single knife slashed up and down rapidly, his footwork shifting as he hacked toward Butcher. The flashes of the blade grew faster, and the whistling of the wind roared, merging into one.
“Slow, slow, you’re too slow!”
Butcher yelled, his pair of knives dancing like rain, and the clanging of the impacts sounded like a rainstorm pelting pear blossoms. He shouted in a loud voice: “Faster! Faster! Your butcher knife can be even faster! The Night Battle Through Wind and Rain technique must be fast. The butcher knife must be faster, like the wind and rain at night, sweeping through the entire city! Come on, give me something even faster!”
The flashes of the blade became faster, like three silver dragons swimming up and down around the wooden post, the sound of the wind growing louder. The whistling of the blade qi merged with the wind’s howl, and as it fell to the ground, deep slashes suddenly multiplied upon the earth.
They were the marks of knife cuts.
“Good, it has to be this fast! The faster your knife, the stronger the blade qi will be. But you’re still not fast enough. You have to be so fast that your knife intent becomes like a raging fire, burning, and continually burning!”
Butcher looked like a madman, twirling the knives in both his hands so nimbly that it made Qin Mu’s eyes spin rapidly. He shouted: “Burn! Burn! Let your knife burn, let your qi burn, let your spirit burn! Once it burns, that is what is called a Divine Ability!”
Whoosh—
His knife slashed; as the blade caused friction with the air, the knife suddenly ignited! The two knives were like two fire dragons flying hither and thither, their power becoming even more astounding.
The fire dragons charged straight at Qin Mu, and he couldn’t evade them. Suddenly, the two fire dragons soared into the sky, tearing through the dark night above Canlao Village—it was truly terrifying.
Qin Mu stood transfixed; Butcher’s knife was simply horrifying.
Above the village, darkness surged forward, then swallowed the fire dragons; the flashes of the blade and the blade qi were entirely devoured.
The darkness seemed alive, appearing extremely enraged toward Butcher who raised his knife to cut the darkness, and pressed down a thick, incredibly suffocating darkness toward the village, as if wanting to devour the whole settlement.
However, the light from the stone statues at the four corners of the village suddenly grew brighter, forcing the darkness to retreat.
“Damned Heavens!”
Butcher held a knife in each hand, standing on the wooden post, and yelled as he looked up at the sky, appearing a bit insane: “Sooner or later I will cleave apart this darkness, sooner or later I will kill my way through and take it back! What was severed from me was my waist, what I lost were both my legs, but my head is not lost! I will kill…”
“Grandpa Butcher has gone crazy again. But Grandpa Butcher’s knife is indeed extremely fast; practicing the knife arts has become a Divine Ability. When will I be able to practice to be as fast as him?”
Qin Mu looked at the mad Butcher with admiration, set down his pork-butchering knife, and then went to find the one-armed Grandpa Ma.
“Butcher’s knife must be able to slash until it produces fire before it can be called a Divine Ability, whereas my fist must be able to unleash the sound of thunder before it can be called a Divine Ability!”
Grandpa Ma’s face looked serious; his single hand clenched into a fist, and his bones let out a series of crisp cracking sounds. He said calmly: “Mu’er, whenever you can grasp lightning and thunder in your hand, your fist can be said to have achieved minor success. Butcher’s knife is extremely fast, while my fist breaks the sound barrier, breaks through the air barrier, and detonates unparalleled power! A single arm can also practice boxing; a single arm is equal to a thousand arms; a single arm can also unleash the sound of thunder and lightning!”
Boom—
A muffled boom of thunder rang out; it was a punch from Grandpa Ma that thundered like lightning.
Boom, boom, boom!
A series of thunderous booms resounded. Qin Mu’s naked eye had difficulty capturing the speed of Grandpa Ma’s punches. The afterimages of his fist flashing through the air shocked Qin Mu; he saw that Grandpa Ma was no longer one-armed but had grown a thousand arms.
Grandpa Ma’s fists grew faster and faster; those thousand arms unexpectedly grasped lightning in their palms. Electric light crackled, every punch accompanied by the roar of thunder and sparks of electricity!
“This is the Thousand-Armed Buddha in the Eight Thunder Stances! As long as your fist is faster than sound, you can control lightning. A single punch and a single palm strike can shatter the opponent’s body and soul, leaving them eternally damned, unable to reincarnate!”
Grandpa Ma retracted his fist, then said in a deep voice: “Use the Eight Thunder Stances I taught you to attack me. Detonate the sound of thunder, grasp the lightning, and master the thunder!”
Qin Mu steadied his mind. The abilities taught to him by Grandpa Ma and Grandpa Butcher today were different from before. Previously, they had all taught him knife arts and boxing techniques, but this time, both of them mentioned a phrase.
Divine Ability!
This phrase was a bit unfamiliar; it was the first time he had heard it.
Qin Mu executed the Eight Thunder Stances and attacked Grandpa Ma. Although Grandpa Ma only had one arm, he was able to parry any attack from Qin Mu with ease, without exerting any strength at all.
This was different from Butcher. Although Butcher looked crazy, every time he crossed blades with Qin Mu, he held back immensely and never hurt him. However, Grandpa Ma was completely merciless. As long as there was an opening in Qin Mu’s moves, he would immediately land a blow. Even though his punches were not very hard, in a short amount of time, Qin Mu was beaten black and blue, his face and nose swollen and bruised.
It wasn’t until Qin Mu could no longer fight that Grandpa Ma finally let him rest.
“The legs are the wind, the earth, and the root of power.”
Grandpa Cripple leaned on his crutch; he only had one leg left, yet he was the one who taught Qin Mu leg techniques. In the past, Qin Mu always thought the most sane grandpa in the village was Grandpa Cripple, who always smiled innocently and gave a very reliable feeling.
However, ever since Grandpa Cripple, with his innocent smile, stabbed the woman who crawled out of the cowhide by the riverbank to death, Qin Mu started to doubt his judgment.
Cripple’s smile was a smile that hid a knife; no one knew if his smile was genuine or mere pretense.
Smiling, he said to Qin Mu: “Mu’er, Butcher boasts about his knife, Grandpa Ma boasts about his fist, but the true Divine Ability lies in the legs. If you can’t slash your opponent, or can’t defeat them, what can you do? Flee, of course; life is the most important! Life isn’t just about pursuing poetry and distant dreams, but also about surviving in the chaos! Thus, staying alive is the true victory! As long as you run fast enough, you can run on walls, on water, even fly in the sky! If you run fast enough, everything becomes flat ground—whether fire or air, everything will become flat ground! When you can run and the sound in your ears can no longer catch up with you, then it can be said that you have mastered the initial stage of the leg technique’s Divine Ability. Mu’er, come, step up onto the iron blocks.”
