Tales of Herding Gods

On the sacrificial altars, the stone statues were reviving at a steady speed. Formation markings swirled in Qin Mu’s pupils, and he focused his gaze with some suspicion.

The god statues all had special characteristics. One was a god with a tortoise’s shell, another with a leopard’s tail, one with a bird’s head while another with a dragon’s, and numerous others. There were twenty-four sacrificial altars and twenty-four different god forms.

However, Qin Mu felt like he’d seen some of these gods somewhere.

‘The stone statues in Great Ruins!’ he finally recalled. The stone statues that he felt were familiar had come from Great Ruins!

This meant that all of them were probably from there!

The stone statues were about to become gods, and it meant that all of the stone statues in Great Ruins had the possibility to revive. They could return to being living gods, which affirmed his earlier guess!

Twenty-four stone statues entered Supreme Emperor Heaven, so it would have an extra twenty-four gods to assist them. They were probably friends of Saint Woodcutter and their abilities should all be extraordinary.

Yet Saint Woodcutter said that they couldn’t defend against the devils and could only delay for a period of time.

What exactly was the origin of the devil race?

How did they have such terrifying abilities?

When he voiced out his questions, Saint Woodcutter looked at the stone statues and was silent for a moment.

“The origin of the devils is very mysterious, and even I am not clear on it. However, some rumors say that they come from Youdu, are its lifeforms. It’s said that they separated themselves, but I don’t know if that’s the case or not. The devils have many worlds and their abilities were always powerful, so it’s only natural that Supreme Emperor Heaven can’t defend against them.”

Qin Mu’s heart stirred slightly. “In that case, what’s the relationship between the devils and the so-called true celestial heavens that destroyed Founding Emperor Era? Zhe Huali is from that place and his master Luo Wushuang is even the head of celestial heavens’ Spirit Elite Guards. He had sent his disciple to train among the devils, so it’s clear that there’s some relationship between the two powers.”

“They are related, but not as boss and subordinate.” Saint Woodcutter knew quite a lot regarding this, but he didn’t explain in detail. “Their relationship is more of two people using each other. The so-called celestial heavens frequently use the devils to do some stuff that isn’t convenient for them, and to survive, the devils are also happy to be used. My primordial spirit has been roaming the universe for many years in search celestial heavens’ origin, but I didn’t find anything too useful”

He stepped on the air and walked to the sacrificial altars. “Since you are already in Supreme Emperor Heaven, stay here for some training. I need to do some other stuff.”

Qin Mu was about to give chase, but he saw Saint Woodcutter leaving farther and farther away. The space his feet covered looked normal yet was really great, making it impossible for him to catch up. “Sacred Teacher, I still have things I want to ask!”

However, Saint Woodcutter had already left into the distance, and Qin Mu’s cultivation wasn’t high enough for his voice travel that far.

“Little tiger, stay with him.” Saint Woodcutter’s voice came from the distance. “Don’t let him create trouble everywhere.”

The black tiger god immediately acknowledged and went up to Qin Mu’s back. Its large shadow covered the youth.

Qin Mu smiled and said, “Sacred Teacher is a poor judge of character. I’m the sacred cult master and not a child, so why would I create trouble?”

The black tiger god looked down at him with a black face. “Aren’t you self aware in regards to creating trouble everywhere you go?”

Qin Mu raised his head. The black tiger god was simply too tall, so it was quite tiring to talk to him. “Senior Brother Tiger, can you shrink yourself?”

“Senior brother?” The black tiger god’s expression instantly changed into one of pleasantness. His two ears went upright, making him look pretty majestic. He said with a smile, “Seeing how you call me senior brother, I won’t look down on you from high above. You could also see that I’m not just a mount, but a disciple of my lord so in terms of seniority, you should indeed call me senior brother.”

His body gradually shrank, and after a moment, his height became similar to that of Qin Mu, and he looked like a youth with a tiger’s head. It was just that his two ears were still extremely nimble and would twitch from time to time.

“Senior Brother Tiger, Sacred Teacher said to not create any trouble and this is creating an incident. Creating trouble and creating incident has a huge difference and can’t be put together,” Qin Mu said seriously.

The black tiger god wasn’t taken in by him and shook his head. “My lord told me to watch you. I won’t let you out of my sight.”

Qin Mu’s head ached, but he could only let him follow him while thinking, ‘I had planned to have Sacred Teacher help me design the world bridge to connect Eternal Peace and Supreme Emperor Heaven, but he has things to attend to, so it looks like I can only finish it myself.’

Li City had grown busy, but he didn’t recognize anyone, so he could only settle down in the city tower. He took out stacks of papers and tools of calculation to begin calculating and designing the world bridge.

The black tiger god stood behind him and looked for a long time. When his curiosity got the better of him, he finally asked, “What are you calculating?”

Qin Mu didn’t even raise his head. “I’m calculating the equation for the exchange of spirit energy and one for the shifting of it. I want the exchange ratio of spirit energy for the divine arts practitioners in the different worlds as well as the ratio of mutual shift between the two worlds.”

What he said was slightly profound yet the black tiger god understood it. He said with a smile, “The equation for the exchange of spirit energy is the method of blood sacrifice and the equation for the mutual shift of spirit energy is the method of the teleportation divine art, right?”

Qin Mu raised his head and looked at him in disbelief.

The two equations required an extremely large amount of calculations and involved an extreme amount of learning which included the exchange of the soul, corporeal body, and energy. This also included space teleportation and calculating the shifting. If these were presented to a divine arts practitioner of Supreme Emperor Heaven, they would have blanked out after hearing all that. However, the black tiger god managed to find and say the crux of the matter in just a sentence!

‘That’s right, he is the mount of Sacred Teacher and his Great Educational Heavenly Devil Scriptures have profound methods of calculation. He must have learned quite a bit by listening to them frequently.’

Qin Mu then probed, “How’s Brother Tiger’s attainments in calculation?”

The black tiger god picked up a paper from the ground and said, “I just noticed a mistake in your calculation. Here it is wrong.”

Qin Mu looked at the paper and hurriedly used his tools of calculation to calculate again. There was indeed a mistake.

The youth was impressed. “Brother Tiger’s calculation is profound and even faster and more accurate than mine. This stupid brother is impressed. These two equations are somewhat hard and there are too many things that need to be solved. Can Brother Tiger help me?”

The black tiger god smiled at him. “As long as you don’t create trouble, what’s the trouble in helping you? What’s the reason for your calculations? What are you going to construct with the equations?”

Qin Mu told him about the world bridge he planned to construct and took out the sacrificial altar and teleportation flag that he had designed. “I used this method to replace a devil general and came to Supreme Emperor Heaven. However, now I want to construct a world bridge to connect Eternal Peace and Supreme Emperor Heaven. The bridge needs to be very stable for a person to travel back and forth between the two worlds.”

The black tiger god muttered to himself for a moment before saying, “That would be Space Spirit Energy Mutual Shift Bridge. It can be designed as a funnel. After it is opened up, the spirit energy of the two worlds will be constantly in flow. If people of Supreme Emperor Heaven want to go to Eternal Peace, Eternal Peace will have to lose a portion of energy. It’d be the same vice versa… you have quite the idea, junior brother!”

He patted Qin Mu’s shoulder heavily, and the youth’s expression changed drastically. He quietly reattached his dislocated shoulder and was completely won over by the black tiger god.

An idea flashed through the black tiger god’s mind, and he clapped his palms. “I have an idea. There’s no need to design the sacrificial altar since my lord has a huge one that’s ready for use. There’s also a similar sacrificial altar in Great Ruins which was a retreat route that my lord had left for himself. If Supreme Emperor Heaven is invaded, he could use it to go back.

“The two sacrificial altars are both used to summon true gods so they can be used to connect the world bridge. There’s no need to worry about the energy being congested and the bridge collapsing. The only problem would be to calculate the two equations!”

Qin Mu was excited. Not only did the black tiger god run fast, but his attainments in calculation were also unexpectedly profound. Qin Mu couldn’t even compare to him. With his help, the Space Spirit Energy Mutual Shift Bridge that stretched across the two worlds could be constructed even sooner and connect Supreme Emperor Heaven with Eternal Peace!

Suddenly, he thought of the dragon qilin and felt an unexplainable pain in his heart. ‘They’re both mounts yet… Brother Tiger can run faster, and his realm is higher too. On top of that, he’s not picky about his food and his calculation is even more profound than mine…’

He soon abandoned the sourness in his heart though and put all his energy into calculating everything with the black tiger god.

The other’s calculation speed was indeed astonishing. Qin Mu had to use taiji plate, eight trigrams plate, and other calculation spirit weapons to construct a huge tool of calculation to be able to follow him.

In the end, he just gave him his calculation spirit weapons and let him calculate while he provided him with his thoughts.

“The tools of calculation that you have prepared are too few, so I’ll make a couple more!”

Once the black tiger god said that, he quickly refined a bunch of calculation spirit weapons and multitasked, controlling six large-scale tools of calculation.

‘Fatty Dragon doesn’t know how to forge spirit weapons either…’ Qin Mu felt sourness in his heart once more.

He voiced his thoughts about the equations, and the black tiger god immediately said the answers. His speed was extremely fast.

The human and the tiger didn’t sleep nor rest, calculating non-stop in the tower of Li City’s east gate. After eight days, the tower was piled up with thick stacks of writings.

Suddenly, Sang Hua’s voice could be heard. “Brother who threshes the grains, what are you guys doing here?”

Qin Mu raised his head from the piles of paper, his eyes were bloodshot. He saw Sang Hua, Yu He, Shu Yao, and a few young divine arts practitioners have come over. They were all looking around curiously.

Everyone was shocked. The manuscripts had piled up higher than a person, and they were all placed into neat rows. In the center of all the paper, Qin Mu and a tiger-headed youth had heavy eye bags below their bloodshot gazes. Qin Mu’s beard had long turned into a messy stubble, but he didn’t care about his appearance one bit.

“So it’s you guys.” Qin Mu looked away and continued to write on the paper. “Guys, wait a moment. Brother Tiger and I have already finished with the two equations and have used them to calculate the space spirit energy exchange runes. We’re currently designing the infrastructure of the world bridge.”

Yu He, Shu Yao, and the rest of the divine arts practitioners looked at him in a daze. After a moment, Shu Yao asked guiltily, “Junior Sister Sang Hua, have you understood anything he said?”

The girl shook her head with a blank expression.

Qin Mu and the black tiger god changed their vital qi into incomparably exquisite scales and drew for quite a while on the paper. After they finished marking all of the scales, they finally got up.

“Go, let’s construct this world bridge and test if it can connect the two worlds!” the black tiger god said with excitement.

Qin Mu hesitated for a moment. “Sacred Teacher told me not to create any trouble. This world bridge is yet to be tested. If we create it now, I’m afraid…”

The black tiger god was even more excited than him and patted his own chest while saying with heroism reaching the clouds, “This isn’t creating trouble, at most creating an incident. No worries, I’ll take responsibility for any problems!”