"How should we deal with this Junior Sister Qing?" Qin Mu struggled to his feet and glanced at the shaken girl.
"Or perhaps…"
Grandma Si's eyes lit up. She nudged his shoulder, nearly knocking him down, and smiled slyly: "Keep her as your little bride? You were cutest as a child. Now you're not so cute. But if you two had a plump child, it would surely be adorable too. Grandma loves little children…"
Qin Mu glanced at the pig-headed girl: "Grandma, perhaps not…"
Pfft.
The Cripple had come up behind her. With one thrust he ran her clean through, a simple, honest smile on his face: "Then let's kill her."
Qin Mu went wide-eyed: "Grandpa Cripple, why did you kill her?"
"You said you don't want her, so I killed her." The Cripple drew out his knife, his smile growing still simpler, as though perplexed.
Qin Mu was a little put out. It wasn't that he had any thought of fathering children with her. It was only that he was a lad of eleven or twelve, and the folk he saw daily were old freaks like Old Ma and Grandma Si; those of the neighboring villages were fierce and murderous, and he rarely had companions his own age.
He had no playmates, yet his heart was still a boy's heart.
"Let's go home." The Village Chief gave the word, looking back at the ruins in the gorge.
The Herbalist smiled: "We're all missing arms and legs, so no one will carry you. You'll have to walk back on your own. Ah, here's your Four-Spirit Blood—you didn't come home last night, so it's been set aside."
Qin Mu nodded, took the four white porcelain cups, and drank down the Four-Spirit Blood. Struggling onward—urging his Overlord Body Three-Pill Art to dissolve its power as he went—he told them of the strange things in the gorge's ruins.
Grandma Si's expression stirred: "Gods and demons? A great dark face, a skeleton maiden? Interesting…"
The others found it interesting too, yet said no more.
Qin Mu could not help asking: "Grandma, aren't you curious about the stories inside these ruins?"
The Herbalist sighed: "A god-dom that once flourished, now smoke and ash. The god-bones clang proudly as they dance in the night. Unwilling hearts, perhaps?"
The Deaf stared at his lips: "Unwilling or not, they're dead. What good can it do? So curiosity about these stories most likely does no good either."
"The Deaf—are you truly deaf?" The Herbalist looked at his ears of gleaming white iron, even the holes stopped up. He asked curiously.
The Deaf pulled both ears from his head and said coldly: "Drive these two ears into your ear-holes, and you'll know whether I'm deaf!"
The Herbalist smiled faintly and said no more.
The Deaf drove the ears back with another pfft, and said to the Mute: "These two ears have been uncomfortable lately. Help me refit them."
The Mute blacksmith nodded.
Qin Mu found his own kin beyond words. That they favored the Deaf's ear-holes over the ruins left him frankly perplexed.
Grandma Si laughed: "Mu'er, the secrets of the Great Ruins are far too many. Beyond the divine city in the gorge there are countless more. If you spend all your curiosity on them, you'll have no time for anything else."
The group set out toward the Village of Broken Elders, and the Village Chief said in a deep voice: "Your blade-work isn't weak. The blade is one foot three inches, enough to match that lad's treasured sword. On this trial you've improved by no small measure."
Qin Mu's heart stirred. He voiced his confusion: "Why can't my primal qi control things the way theirs can? Mine only seeps into one foot three inches of willow; it cannot reach longer."
For driving a sword with qi he was deeply envious, yet could not do it.
The Herbalist secretly shook his head. The primal qi of a common man's physique bears no attribute and cannot move or control anything—there is no art that lets ordinary qi do so.
That Qin Mu, as a common man, could sustain a willow branch of one foot three inches and meet a martial artist's treasured sword head-on without being severed was already remarkable.
The Village Chief's face was calm: "Your Overlord Body has not yet fully awakened, your Spirit Womb Divine Treasury not yet revealed. Be patient. Before awakening your Overlord Body, you beat to death a martial artist at the peak of the Spirit Womb Realm. When you awaken it, your strength will far surpass your peers."
Grandma Si and the others were likewise pleased. That Senior Brother Qu was a peak martial artist able to drive a sword with his qi—clearly not far from the Five-Luminaries Realm.
Yet Qin Mu, unawakened, had beaten him to death with a little wooden stick. Clearly he was truly the "Overlord Body" no one had seen or heard of. The Village Chief had not deceived them!
The Herbalist's brow twitched. He thought: "The matter of Mu'er's common physique will soon be impossible to hide. When that day comes, these fellows could turn the heavens upside down… Still, that he beat a peak martial artist with a little stick is genuinely strange. Could there truly be an Overlord Body? Or is it the spirit blood?"
Learned man that he was, even he was unsettled.
Once he'd taken the Four-Spirit Blood, the primal qi within Qin Mu grew livelier. His swollen muscles slowly recovered, and his fatigue peeled away. Without noticing, he quickened his step, then broke into a run, faster and faster.
Old Ma, the Cripple, and the others registered surprise yet said nothing, keeping pace.
To cultivate the Overlord Body Three-Pill Art while running was faster—this was his new discovery. And with the Four-Spirit Blood, his progress would climb another notch. So he unconsciously kept raising his speed, lost in himself.
He quickly forgot the ache in his muscles. His speed kept rising, the primal qi circling faster and faster, through his limbs and hundred bones. Even his hair, nails, and skin were gradually permeated.
Gradually his speed outran his old sprinting best. Even so, he did not notice, only feeling the run ever more exhilarating.
Sweat seeped from his pores—not clear, but murky, carrying pale granules of fat besides dark grime. But Qin Mu did not notice the changes in his body.
The Herbalist and the Village Chief and the others each wore looks of astonishment and exchanged silent glances.
"Old Ma, when did you begin forging your body with primal qi?" the Herbalist suddenly asked.
Old Ma said gravely: "At the peak of the Spirit Womb Realm. While I practiced my fists, I suddenly struck out my first divine art—forging the body through boxing, primal qi like a green dragon coiling thread."
The Herbalist looked to the Cripple, who said: "I too was at the peak. That day I ran in the wind, trying to catch the gale, thinking that once caught I could tread its crest and walk the sky. Then I discovered the mystery of forging the body with primal qi, like wind blowing through a hundred orifices. In my glee I fell from the crest and nearly dashed myself to death."
The Herbalist sighed: "It was the same for me. I thought to use the Spirit Womb Divine Treasury as a furnace and my own qi as the medicine, to refine my body into a single dose. So I discovered the mystery, primal qi like fire burning the flesh. And now Mu'er, who hasn't even broken his barrier, has begun forging his body."
The Cripple laughed: "The Overlord Body is indeed formidable—something we spirit bodies can only envy."
The Herbalist's expression turned strange, and he said no more.
Overlord Body?
If he truly had one, the Herbalist would not have been so startled.
The Cripple and Old Ma could attribute it all to the Overlord Body, but he knew the truth: Qin Mu, with a common man's physique, had forged his body a step ahead of even spirit bodies—enough to make a man of his learning marvel.
"If Mu'er were to awaken his Overlord Body, with its qi to move and control things—why, even the State Preceptor of Yan Kang might not be his match!" Grandma Si said excitedly.
The Herbalist's heart sank, and he looked at the Village Chief, who was silent too.
In this world there was no Overlord Body, and of course no primal qi of it. Common qi cannot move or control things. When the day came that Qin Mu discovered he could not, the matter would be exposed.
But before that, he must first accomplish the "awakening of the Overlord Body," which required breaking the Spirit Womb Barrier.
How could a common man break a barrier?
The Village Chief's brow furrowed. Would more Four-Spirit Blood help? How long could he keep it concealed?