The Demonic Ape went berserk, leaping and chasing after Qin Mu. After running a few steps, because its body was too heavy, its speed fell far behind Qin Mu’s. The furious Demonic Ape reached out and uprooted several large trees, stripping the branches and leaves clean with its hands, turning them into something like giant spears, which the Demonic Ape hurled with a swing of its arm!
“Little one, dead!”
This attack was full of power, extremely overbearing, and astonishingly fast. However, its accuracy was somewhat lacking, missing Qin Mu by more than ten zhang.
The Demonic Ape grew even more enraged and stripped another large tree, wanting to launch another attack. Unfortunately, Qin Mu had already run far away, leaving the Demonic Ape to beat its chest in frustration.
Senior Martial Brother Qu whispered: “That little devil child’s cultivation strength is far below ours; his injuries must be worse than mine, he won’t be able to run far.”
He forced himself to stand up but let out a muffled groan from the pain. His chest hurt too much; he feared many of his ribs had cracked from the Demonic Ape’s blow. However, if a little devil child like Qin Mu could withstand a heavy blow from the Demonic Ape, then he could certainly endure it too.
It was just that, what he didn’t expect was that Qin Mu’s cultivation wasn’t weak at all; rather, his vital energy lacked an attribute, so his power couldn’t be projected.
If one were to truly compare cultivation levels, although Qin Mu was young, his cultivation was not weaker than anyone among them, including Senior Martial Brother Qu!
The five of them circled the Demonic Ape’s territory, and once again found Qin Mu’s trail. Just as Senior Martial Brother Qu had said, Qin Mu was injured by the Demonic Ape, and his injuries were very severe. After escaping from the Demonic Ape’s territory, he was forced to slow down, and that gave them a chance to catch up.
However, as they continued the pursuit, they realized that Qin Mu’s speed was continuously increasing; it seemed his injuries were also constantly recovering.
“This little devil child must have a highly effective healing medicine!”
The hearts of the five grew heavy. Senior Martial Brother Qu had also taken healing medicine from his sect, yet the effect wasn’t as good as Qin Mu’s “healing medicine.” Judging by the rate at which Qin Mu’s speed was increasing, his injuries must be healing at a speed visible to the naked eye!
This kind of healing medicine made the eyes of the five gleam with envy.
“Our sect’s healing medicine isn’t high-tier. If we can get a high-tier healing medicine prescription from this little devil child, Master and the others will definitely be pleased and reward us greatly!”
However, at this moment, Qin Mu wasn’t taking any healing medicine as they thought, but was instead regulating his breathing while running, circulating the so-called Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art taught by the Village Chief. In reality, it was just the most ordinary Daoyin Technique, only he didn’t know it.
This time, while utilizing the “Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art” while fleeing, Qin Mu suddenly made a new discovery. His vital energy was much more active and circulated much faster while running!
But this was different from what the Village Chief had taught him. When the Village Chief taught him the “Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art,” he was told to sit quietly, regulate his breathing, inhale and exhale slowly, and nurture and move the vital energy to nourish the body.
Qin Mu had trained for more than ten years and had always practiced the “Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art” according to the method taught by the Village Chief. Only now did he realize that practicing the Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art while running might yield better effects.
While sprinting, the “Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art” circulated faster, the speed of nurturing vital energy was faster, and the speed of nourishing the body also increased significantly!
Not only that, wave after wave of vital energy washed over his five viscera and six bowels, washed over his limbs and bones, and even washed repeatedly along the layers between his bones and muscles.
His stomach, internal organs, and bones were injured by the Demonic Ape’s slap, but under the wash of vital energy, the fractures in his internal organs and bones continuously recovered.
Senior Martial Brother Qu and the others thought he was relying on some superior healing medicine, completely unaware that he was relying on the seemingly ordinary “Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art.”
As time went on, Qin Mu realized that inside his body, there was one section of the membrane between bone and skin that his vital energy could not reach. This spot was located between his eyebrows.
Between his eyebrows, there was a space about the width of a finger.
This position could not be reached by his vital energy. His vital energy could wash the area beneath his scalp to strengthen his skull, but every time his vital energy reached the point between his eyebrows, it encountered immense resistance, as if an invisible wall lay across it, blocking the advance of the vital energy.
When he mobilized his vital energy to strike that invisible wall, an even stranger event occurred. He heard a mysterious voice.
This voice seemed to come from beyond the ninth heaven, high and distant. The tone rose and fell, melodious and holy, like a deity sitting on a high throne announcing a sacred decree.
And every time this voice sounded, his vital energy became uncontrollable, retreating like an ebbing tide, avoiding the spot between his eyebrows.
“Is this the so-called Lingtai Wall?”
Qin Mu was puzzled. The Village Chief, Granny Si, and the others had mentioned the “Wall” and “Breaking the Wall” to him. The Wall was the seal on the treasure vault within the human body; breaking the wall meant breaking the seal and claiming the treasure.
However, the Village Chief, Granny Si, and the others never told him where the Lingtai Wall was located in the human body, nor how to break it.
What Qin Mu didn’t know was that it wasn’t that the Village Chief, Granny Si, and the others didn’t want to tell him, but rather because in this world, there simply were no arts or methods for breaking the Lingtai Wall!
Ordinary people and people with spirit bodies were fundamentally two different classes of humans, two different social classes.
As Spirit Bodies, their Lingtai Walls were open from birth, naturally placing them above others. Conversely, ordinary people had their Lingtai Walls closed, placing them a tier lower, and those Spirit Body people in higher positions rarely paid attention to the needs of ordinary people.
Very few ordinary people became martial artists. As for an ordinary person who successfully opened their Lingtai Wall, even the Village Chief and Granny Si had never heard of one; naturally, they also didn’t know how to break the Lingtai Wall.
While sprinting, Qin Mu mobilized his vital energy to repeatedly strike the invisible wall between his eyebrows. The mysterious voice continued to sound, causing his vital energy to automatically retreat. Even though every attempt to break the wall failed, he had plenty of patience. He firmly believed that sooner or later, he would definitely succeed in breaking the wall.
He didn’t plan to tell the Village Chief and the others about his discovery regarding the “Tyrant Body Three Elixir Art” today. He intended to give the Village Chief and the others a surprise after he successfully broke the wall.
It was just that for the Village Chief and the others, whether it would be a pleasant surprise or a terrifying one was still very hard to say.
The more Senior Martial Brother Qu and the other four chased, the more anxious they felt. Not only had the “little devil child” in front of them healed his injuries, but his speed was astonishingly even faster than before!
This was truly terrifying; it showed that during his flight, Qin Mu’s cultivation level was continuously increasing!
Although the increase was very slow, this was already immensely terrifying!
Anyone who cultivates must follow a step-by-step process. Even after successfully breaking the wall, increasing one’s cultivation level must be gradual; it’s impossible to become great instantly. Who hasn’t cultivated diligently for dozens of days, months, or even years before finally being able to improve their cultivation?
And this “little devil child” was astonishingly able to tangibly feel his cultivation increasing during his flight—this was incredibly horrifying!
Fortunately, Qin Mu was initially weaker than them, so even though he was improving now, there was still a slight gap compared to them.
It was just that it wasn’t easy for them to catch Qin Mu. Ever since Qin Mu suffered that bad experience once, he became much more cautious, avoiding the territories of wild beasts as he ran.
When Apothecary took him to pick medicinal herbs, he had once told him that the wild beasts in the Great Ruins were extremely intelligent and had their own territories. Those wild beasts would leave marks, such as trees with stripped bark, bones stuck in the ground, and animal heads hung on wooden stakes, urine stains, and so on. As soon as you see unusual marks, just avoid them.
Previously, on the cliff near the Demonic Ape’s territory, there were punch marks indicating that it was the Demonic Ape’s territory. Qin Mu, who hadn’t seen the punch marks, accidentally trespassed. And now he was much more careful, so he wouldn’t accidentally trespass into other wild beasts’ territories again.
However, even if he didn’t trespass, many wild beasts would still leave their territories to hunt, making the Great Ruins full of danger.
While running through a swamp, Qin Mu encountered two lord-level wild beasts fighting: a Crested Snake-Necked Snow Eagle and a Swamp Poison Dragon Snake. One giant creature pounced from the air, its wings whipping up a storm, while the other coiled in the swamp, stirring up storms and waves, fighting until mountains collapsed and the earth cracked.
Before Qin Mu even charged into the swamp, he was already blown away by the storm created by the two giant monsters. Upon landing, he accidentally ran into a herd of startled wild cows, nearly being trampled to death by the stampeding herd.
“Getting further and further away from the village…”
Qin Mu’s heart grew heavy. The five people behind him were still relentlessly chasing him, making it utterly impossible for him to return to the village. And what was even more frightening was…
The sun was about to set!
He had gone out with Granny Si after noon; now the sun was already in the west, and darkness was about to descend. If he couldn’t return to the village before then, he feared he would face a tremendously immense danger!
“Senior Martial Brother Qu, it’s getting dark!”
Behind Qin Mu, Senior Martial Brother Qu and the other four also noticed that the sun was about to set. The youth injured by Qin Mu’s kick showed an anxious expression and said: “Master once said, the Great Ruins is a cursed land. After dark, this place will become a forbidden area; we must return to the villages protected by stone statues, otherwise we will definitely die!”
Senior Martial Brother Qu shook his head: “If we go back now, it’s already too late. We’ve gone too far; it’s impossible to return to that village from before dark. The darkness is dangerous to us, and it’s also dangerous to that little devil child. Right now, there is only one way: we see where that little devil child will hide!”
