Tales of Herding Gods
chapter-21

The herb garden outside the village was very huge and inside were planted spirit herbs that Apothecary had found in Great Ruins. The villagers were long eyeing the herbs, however Apothecary had bred various dangerous little bugs in the herb garden therefore no one dared to enter it.

The people in Great Ruins were scarce thus there were plenty of spirit herbs that were valuable as well. Over these years, Apothecary had gathered countless of rare and unique herbs back, replanting them in the herb garden. He had rarely used these spirit herbs and had finally decided to use them all on Qin Mu!

It’s important to know that with his high standard, all these spirit herbs he had gathered were all very valuable. Putting out any stalk outside for sale would easily raise a commotion, therefore Apothecary had indeed went all in!

As the bonfire slowly extinguished, the villagers all went back to their houses to rest. Qin Mu also went back into his room and fell into deep sleep shortly. Granny Si covered him in a blanket and looked at the young boy’s sleeping face, revealing a loving smile.

"My Mu’er… No matter if you have Overlord Body or not, you will always be the child I raised and I will not let anyone or anything hurt you!"

She was still pretty wise and could see many things from the expression of Village Chief and Apothecary during the bonfire celebration, just that she did not expose them.

She scampered back into the room with her tiny feet to sleep.

The next day, Blind carried his bamboo cane and excitedly rushed into the house and called, "Mu’er, quickly get up. It’s morning, Apothecary…"

"I still haven’t got out of bed, how dare you come to peep!"

Hearing a great crash, Qin Mu opened up his sleepy eyes and saw Blind flying out from Granny Si’s room. Blind flew through the sky in an arc and landed somewhere outside the village.

"Grandpa Blind sure is impressive!"

Qin Mu exclaimed in admiration as he saw Blind still holding onto his bamboo cane and sitting cross-legged, flying through the sky with an innocent face.

Qin Mu woke up and started washing up before making breakfast to eat together with Granny Si. After washing the bowls and spoons, he saw Blind running back excitedly from outside the village and shouted, "Damned old woman, what a ruthless kick, I almost couldn’t find my way back! Mu’er, come over quickly, Apothecary had made some elixir for you!"

Granny Si had a malicious face and gave Blind a stare before getting up to leave unsteadily, "I shall go Border Dragon City to do some trading. Blind, I shall leave Mu’er to you these few days. If I come back and find out that he has lost even a single strand of hair, you will answer to me! Old Ma, Old Ma, is the cow carriage ready? Cripple, is the bamboo raft tied in place?"

Qin Mu immediately followed Blind to Apothecary’s workshop and had smelt a strong medicinal smell before he even got in. He then saw a huge cauldron hanging in the air with a few vermillion coloured birds flying around it. Between the birds’ feathers, the flames blazed furiously and heated the cauldron red hot on the outside while on the inside were bubbling sounds.

"Mu’er, this is your medicine."

Seeing that Qin Mu had arrived, Apothecary took out the last herb which was a piece of green leaf and threw it into the huge cauldron. As the leaf just touched the medicinal water, the bubbling water immediately started to become extremely thick.

While doing it, Apothecary gave a push and the huge cauldron started to spin rapidly. Following that, clattering sounds started to come out from the cauldron as the full pot of medicine actually became half pot of white coloured medicine pills. As the cauldron continued to spin, the pills started to collide with each other and gave out the crisp sound of metal.

Apothecary waved his hands and the few vermillion coloured bird flew out from the window and vanished.

As the cauldron reached the floor, Qin Mu was speechless. "Grandpa Apothecary, I have to eat so many medicinal pills today?"

"If you ate all of them, you would be dead."

Apothecary said evenly, "This cauldron of medicine of mine is made from all the highest quality spirit herbs. Even though it’s just a low level Vitality Reinforcement Pill, one pill wins a hundred pills from other apothecaries. You only can eat one to two pills at a time and no more than that."

Qin Mu was skeptical. Apothecary also fed him some strange and weird medicines before, however, every time it had always been a huge bowl of something filled to the brim. Whereas now, he only had to eat one pill. Was the medicinal energy in this pill that strong?

Blind was also skeptical and said, "The swindlers outside also say that one of their pills was equivalent to a hundred pills of others. Is your medicine really that strong? However I must say these medicines are pretty fragrant."

Apothecary laughed sinisterly, "Why don’t you try eating the entire cauldron of medicine?"

"Mu’er, how about you grab a bunch to try?" Blind tried to stir him up.

However Qin Mu absolutely would not get stirred up by him and only brought a pill to his mouth.

As the spirit pill entered his stomach, he immediately felt something wrong. He felt like thousands of fire, water, gold and wood dragons overturning the seas and rivers in his belly , making his body to become tall, short, fat and thin from time to time. Sometimes he felt so cold that his body would form a layer of ice while other times he felt so hot that burning smoke would come out of his clothes. Sometimes, his clothes would start to germinate and the hair on the beast skin of his clothes would grow crazily, while other times, his clothes would get dyed in a layer of metal color and even his skin would become hard, as if he was entirely made up of metal!

The more frightening thing was: all the different types of symptoms burst out together, causing a great deal of pain to Qin Mu.

He gave a silent groan and immediately used ‘Overlord Body Three Elixir Technique’ to dissolve the medicinal energy by his vital qi!

Blind totally changed his look and cried out, "Apothecary, your Vitality Reinforcement Pill seems to be different from ordinary Vitality Reinforcement Pill!"

"That’s right. A normal Vitality Reinforcement Pill is separated into four kinds, Fire Vitality Pill, Water Vitality Pill, Gold Vitality Pill and Wood Vitality Pill."

Apothecary gave a sinister smile, "Vitality Reinforcement Pill is directed at the four different vital qi attributes of the Four Great Spirit Bodies, in order to nourish the Spirit Body’s vital qi. However Qin Mu’s Overlord Body has no attributes thus I have come up with a compromise method to refine spirit herbs with all four attributes into a Vitality Reinforcement Pill that contains all four attributes. Maybe it would be able to arouse the power of the Overlord Body’s vital qi. Only Qin Mu’s Overlord Body’s vital qi could absorb this kind of spirit pill. If you had eaten the entire cauldron of Vitality Reinforcement Pill just now, hehe…"

Blind gave an uncontrollable shiver. If he had eaten them, the conflict between four different attributes of vital qi would probably had dissipated his power by twenty to thirty percent. Of course, this would happen only if he had eaten the entire cauldron of Vitality Reinforcement Pill. Eating only one pill would not hurt him much.

"Apothecary, is what you refined a tonic or a toxic?" Blind mumbled,

Suddenly Qin Mu gave a loud shout and started to sprint crazily, disappearing in a twinkling of an eye.

Blind couldn’t help but became worried, "The four attributes conflict each other. Would Mu’er be fine?"

"There’s no need to worry. He is digesting the medicinal energy."

Apothecary actually was uneasy inside while he was saying so. After all, it was his first time improving the Vitality Reinforcement Pill and also his first time refining the improved Vitality Reinforcement Pill. As Qin Mu was the first to try, Apothecary was also unsure how much medicinal energy in the pill, if it had any side effects or if the person who ate it would die or not.

Of course, he could never say these out or else Granny Si would come for his life.

In the forest far away, Qin Mu’s roar rang out as the trees collapsed one by one and created loud rumbling noises.

The corners of Apothecary’s eyes twitched as he said, "It’s going to be fine, don’t worry. Listen, he is currently vigorous and lively!"

Blind gave a sigh, "Young people sure are full of energy."

In the forest, Qin Mu sprinted among the trees. His fists and feet were as fast as lightning as he kicked and punched towards the various huge trees. A huge tree that required two people to hug could only take three punches and two kicks before getting broken into half by him!

Unbearable.

It’s too unbearable!

The medicinal energy of Apothecary’s Vitality Reinforcement Pill was simply too strong. Despite using ‘Overlord Body Three Elixir Technique’ while sprinting, he was still unable to dissolve it and felt like his body was about to explode. He could only exhibit the martial arts that Cripple and Old Ma had taught him to vent out the excess medicinal energy!

In his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure, the tiny human shaped spirit embryo was also frantically doing breathing exercises to absorb the vital qi rushing forth and purifying it. This tiny Qin Mu was also so weary that he was gasping for breaths.

"Die, young’un!"

Suddenly, the forest trembled as a furious devil ape stood up within the forest and bellowed in rage. Fists the size of small mountains flew ruthlessly toward Qin Mu who was destroying the forest!

So it turned out that the medicinal energy had got to Qin Mu’s head thus he unwittingly came into the devil ape’s territory again. Seeing that it was the young’un who had trespassed into his territory again, it became exceptionally furious meeting his foe and attacked Qin Mu without explanation at once.

Qin Mu’s eyes were scarlet red as he suddenly raised his head. The medicinal energy in his body furiously broke out and caused the vital qi in his entire body to burst to the brim. Qin Mu then leaped forward and gave a punch towards the devil ape’s fist!

Booom—

A deafening sound rang out as Qin Mu flew backwards and broke several huge trees in his path. The devil ape leaped towards him excitedly and raised its legs for a sweeping kick towards Qin Mu who had just landed on the ground. The huge and thick leg was like a large pitch black pillar crushing towards him!

In an instant, Qin Mu gave a shout and gave countless of kicks on the devil ape’s extremely thick leg at the point where muscles and tendons connects. The devil ape immediately felt the strength vanished from its leg, so it quickly followed up with another punch from the sky.

Qin Mu raised his arms to block and was once again forced to retreat.

Fighting close combat with Qin Mu, the devil ape's punches and kicks would rake up gales that caused a whooshing sound. As it attacked Qin Mu, Qin Mu seemed to become hysterical and actually began to fight hand to hand with this strange beast. Even when he was at a disadvantage, he didn't show the slightest fear.

The devil ape became all the more furious and became hysterical as well. Every punch and kick towards Qin Mu became heavier and heavier.

One human and one ape, one big and one small, everywhere they went the trees would collapse and shattered rocks would fly.

Suddenly, Qin Mu leaped into the sky as if he was flying and started to sprint on the devil ape’s arm, reaching his face in the next moment.

Thousand-Armed Buddha!

His two arms looked as if they became hundreds of arms as they left after-images while the few hundreds punches landed right on the devil ape’s soft and drooping nose in succession.

The devil ape teared in pain and fell on its back. It swung its huge palm and ruthlessly smacked Qin Mu away.

Turning over its body to crawl up, it turned its gaze over with his nose still bleeding. Seeing Qin Mu getting buried in the cliff after getting smacked by it, the devil ape couldn’t help being satisfied, "Young’un, dead."

Suddenly, the young’un who was buried in the cliff suddenly twitched and with both his hands propping him, he pulled himself out from the crater and frantically rushed to it.

The devil ape jumped in a shock and beat his chest with its two fists, bellowing as it leaped toward Qin Mu, "Die! Young’un!"