Tales of Herding Gods
chapter-18

Qin Mu’s vision suddenly went dark, and when regained control of his consciousness, he discovered that it was in statue!

"What just happened?" he thought to himself.

Qin Mu opened his "eyes" and tried using them to look around, realizing that he actually could. He then tried to turn his head and discovered that his consciousness had one.

He looked down and noticed that his consciousness had merged with the statue, and that the statue’s limbs were his limbs!

A person’s consciousness was supposed to be formless, but his currently had a tangible shape. This situation was incredibly strange!

Qin Mu felt as if this statue was a kind of spirit. It seemed like energy or a soul, yet it was neither. He found it extremely difficult to explain the feeling it gave him.

"Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure... Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure… Could this statue be my spirit embryo and only be awakened if I merge my consciousness with it? Is this what Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure means?"

Qin Mu blinked the eyes of his spirit embryo as he understood many things in that instant.

Of the seven great divine treasures of the human body, the Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure was the first. However this divine treasure normally lay sealed. Since ordinary people couldn’t unseal it, they naturally wouldn’t be able to awaken their spirit embryo.

The Spirit Embryo Divine Treasures of people with Spirit Bodies, on the other hand, would already be opened. As a result, they would only need matching spirit blood to guide their consciousness to their spirit embryo to awaken it.

This meant that a person’s spirit embryo could contain a person’s consciousness.

Maybe the gods didn’t bestow spirit embryos upon humanity. Maybe they had purposely sealed them away instead.

Thinking up to that point, Qin Mu suddenly felt his vital qi flood into the sea of light from outside his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure. His tiny spirit embryo absorbed traces of vital qi, and as the vital qi went in and out of its nose, it gave Qin Mu a very soothing feeling.

Every time the spirit embryo took a breath, his vital qi became much purer!

In addition to that, Qin Mu realized that his spirit embryo was also absorbing the golden light of the sea around it. As the light travelled in and out of his body alongside his vital qi, it would mingle with the vital qi. However, Qin Mu wasn’t sure what that did.

He tried to make his spirit embryo stand up, but discovered that this little baby couldn’t move, much stand.

"How do I move my spirit embryo? Hm... I should go back to the village to ask Village Chief, Granny Si, and everyone about it."

Halfway through this thought, Qin Mu’s consciousness suddenly returned to his body, and he opened his eyes.

Violent coughing could be heard from inside the temple. The monster that resembled a young girl hadn’t died yet. It was kneeling in front of the buddha statue coughing up huge amounts of blood.

After a moment of contemplation, Qin Mu walked into the temple.

Seeing Qin Mu actually enter the temple completely surprised the monster and it struggled to get up.

Walking towards it, Qin Mu said the devil incantation. "Qi ke duo sa mo ye, bo re bo re sa mo ye, qi ke duo bo re sa mo ye!"

"How dare you continued being insolent, you evil creature!"

The monster girl’s skin crawled as it heard the golden buddha behind it begin to move again. Golden rays of light radiated from it, and the chains around it started to rattle, forcing the monster to grovel on the floor again!

"An ma ni ba mi hong!"

The buddha voice rang out, causing the monster to spit blood and go limp.

Then Qin Mu stopped imitating the devil voice’s chant, and the golden buddha recited its incantation one more time before going silent as well. The monster at the foot of the buddha statue was breathing heavily, and just as it was about to try getting up, Qin Mu started chanting the devil incantation again. The monster shrieked in fear and immediately tried to hide behind the buddha statue. However, it didn’t expect Qin Mu to stop chanting after uttering just the first two words.

"You’re a devil…!" the monster shouted in a hoarse voice, peeking its head out to gaze at Qin Mu where he stood in the hall of the temple. "You’re the devil! You’re the most vicious, evil devil!"

Qin Mu didn’t respond to the monster’s insults and instead slowly walked forward until he arrived in front of the buddha statue. After hesitating for a moment, he still decided to follow the advice of blind, who was an experienced wanderer, and paid his respects to it.

"This little one has weak kidneys and a frail body. My primordial yang has long since dispersed…"

When the monster girl heard him say this, it coughed up blood and laughed, its eyes bulging in disbelief. "Little one, you’re telling the buddha statue that you have weak kidneys and a frail body? It won’t help you!"

Qin Mu stared at the monster blankly. "Qi ke duo sa mo ye…"

The buddha statue trembled and yelled, "Evil creature!"

"Stop chanting!" the monster cried, promptly begging for mercy. It was clearly scared out of its wits. "I beg you, stop chanting!"

Qin Mu stopped chanting the devil incantation, but the golden buddha completed one round of its own incantation, causing the monster to puke blood once again.

Qin Mu walked around the temple. Although he wasn’t able to find anything good, the mountain of bones behind the buddha statue still shocked him. Countless people had apparently died in this rundown temple at the hands of this monster.

"Hiding the bones of your victims behind the buddha statue makes the buddha statue your partner in crime. It helps you to cover up your mistakes and trick more people," Qin Mu said. He couldn’t help but shake his head in disapproval. "If I borrow the power of the buddha statue to exterminate you, your destruction would become its achievement instead. Therefore, I will not do that. So, demon, where are all of your treasures?"

"Why would I have any treasure?" the monster asked as it trembled in fear. "This baldy monk over here took everything when he trapped me here."

"Qi ke duo…" Qin Mu began.

"Stop chanting!"

The monster girl put on a smiling face in an attempt to please Qin Mu. "Having run this place for a few years, I did manage to plunder some good stuff while satisfying my appetite. Fine then. I’ll just give them to you."

Barely managing to get up off the floor, it struggled to climb to the ceiling of the temple hall. Gently pushing at a specific part of the ceiling, she revealed a hidden panel and removed it.

The items stashed away in the space behind that panel came clattering to the floor. Most of the items were weapons and armor. Other than that, there were clothes, a majority of which were women’s undergarments. However, considering the material of all the clothes, they looked like things that only wealthy people could afford to wear.

"This is everything I have left." The monster smiled.

Qin Mu frowned in disappointment. "This is it? You don’t have anything like spirit pills or miraculous medicines?"

"If I ever found spirit pills of miraculous medicines, I’d have ate them already." The monster stretched in a relaxed manner, the bony centipede plates within its feminine body cracking. "I’ve been imprisoned in here for so long that I just eat everything. How could I ignore spirit pills or miraculous medicines that taste leagues better than humans? Don’t underestimate these weapons, though. All of them are treasures; good stuff called Spirit Weapons that can only be found within a person’s Six Directions Divine Treasure. They’re called Spirit Weapons because they are nurtured by a person’s vital qi from birth and possess great power."

Skeptical of the monster girl’s claims, Qin Mu picked a goose wing knife from the pile of weaponry. This knife felt extremely heavy compared to the Pig Slaughtering Knife strapped to his back. However, the strange thing about it was that, although his Pig Slaughtering Knife was much larger, it weighed a lot less than the ordinary looking knife.

The goose wing knife was much longer and narrower, whereas the Pig Slaughtering Knife was much wider and thicker.

Gripping the Pig Slaughtering Knife and brandishing it, Qin Mu hit the knives against one another with a soft clang. The Pig Slaughtering knife cleanly slashed through the goose wing knife’s blade, the top half of which dropped to the temple’s floor.

The monster stared blankly at the Pig Slaughtering Knife in Qin Mu’s hand with its eyes wide open, speechless.

Considerably disappointed, Qin Mu threw the goose wing knife aside.

"W-who forged that c-cleaver-like knife of yours?" the monster stuttered in surprise. "For a Spirit Weapon that was nurtured by the vital qi of a strong practitioner in the Six Directions Realm to break at a gentle touch… your knife definitely wasn’t forged by an ordinary person!"

Qin Mu caressed the cold blade of his Pig Slaughtering Knife, sending cold air straight into his heart and lungs. Mute the Blacksmith had forged it for him. Mute was a very well known blacksmith in this area of the Great Ruins. Everything he forged sold like hot cakes. People from other villages would often come find him and ask him to forge items like cleavers, hoes, and iron ploughs.

"That knife isn’t made from ordinary metal!" the monster girl cried, foaming at the mouth. It wanted to move forward to take a closer look, but it was afraid that Qin Mu would chant the devil incantation again, so it just shouted, "Try touching your knife! Is there any cold air coming from it? If there is, it was probably made out of Winter Crystal Iron!"

"There is indeed cold air coming from it," Qin Mu said in astonishment, nodding his head.

"Why would someone use Winter Crystal Iron to forge a cleaver-like knife?" the monster cried. "Someone with such excellent forging skill actually created a cleaver-like knife? What a waste of talent and materials!"

Qin Mu stared at the Pig Slaughtering Knife, then strapped it to his back again. He then started collecting all of the weapons and treasures, moving them out of the rundown temple and placing them in front of its entrance.

"Why do you still want to take away my loot when you already have such a good weapon?" the monster shouted angrily.

"Granny told me that I should always bring back everything I take with my own strength." Qin Mu turned around and flashed a simple smile. "I took all of your items with my own strength, so I definitely have to bring them all home."

This infuriated the monster so much that it wanted to die. However, it was afraid of ruining things with Qin Mu and could only watch as the boy moved all of the treasures it had painstakingly collected.

Qin Mu suddenly to look at the monster and asked, "Do you have anything like a cloth sack laying around?"

"No!"

"Okay." Qin Mu turned away again and went outside of the temple.

The monster cautiously left the great hall and walked to the entrance of the temple. It could see Qin Mu chopping at the bamboo trees in the surroundings. After a short while, he managed to use the bamboo he cut down to create a makeshift raft. Putting all of his loot onto the bamboo raft, he pushed off from the island and used a bamboo pole to maneuver back upstream.

"Who raised such a horrible child?" the monster yelled, finally flying into a rage. "What is this world coming to? He even dared to ask me for a cloth sack to carry everything with! He makes me so angry I want to die!"