Tales of Herding Gods

First Ancestor was still very weak. Even though the two huge eyeballs were very unreliable, they had actually succeeded in catalyzing all of the spirit pills in one go. The injuries of First Ancestor Human Emperor’s primordial spirit had been lessened, and he was able to escape from the God Execution Knife on the God Execution Stage.

Of course, Qin Mu didn’t know about this. If he did, he would definitely teach these two eyeballs a lesson.

First Ancestor stood up weakly, his body swaying. The injuries on his corporeal body were already healed, but his primordial spirit and celestial palace still had severe injuries. Luckily, his life was no longer in danger.

“Chi Xi’s injuries are lighter than mine. His abilities are far above mine at the moment.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor said in a weak voice, “I’m afraid I can’t protect you.”

Qin Mu was unconcerned. “Even if he knows you don’t have many abilities, he won’t dare to lay his hands on you. He doesn’t dare to take a risk. When your injuries are fully healed, he won’t dare to risk himself even more.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor shook his head. “I’m not worried about him. It’s the floating world. Are you confident that you can heal me before we enter the floating world?”

Qin Mu hesitated. He indeed didn’t have the confidence that he could heal First Ancestor in a few months. The primordial spirit’s injuries were extremely tricky, and he had no experience when it comes to injuries of the celestial palace. Furthermore, there weren’t too many spirit herbs on this broken ship. Even though there was a variety of herbs in his taotie sack, he still lacked some crucial herbs.

If he wanted to heal First Ancestor, he had to go to the floating world and see if he was able to buy enough spirit herbs.

“Three Forms of Overturning Heaven deals too much damage to you. You cannot use it from now on,” Qin Mu instructed.

First Ancestor Human Emperor shook his head. “I don’t want to let Heavenly Teacher think I’m still an army deserter.”

Qin Mu was stunned. Just because he was once an army deserter, he had to carry the foul reputation of being an army deserter forever. It was indeed a little cruel.

“The reason why Heavenly Teacher said you are an army deserter might not be because you have run away from that battle.”

Qin Mu thought over it, and he deduced Saint Woodcutter’s intention. “After you have become an army deserter, you continued to run for twenty thousand years and never once did you face reality. You went into seclusion and shunned away from the mortal world. You wasted your time away and didn’t work hard for anything or do anything successfully. You even didn’t teach your disciple properly. He won’t bear a grudge just because you have run away once. It’s how you have run away for twenty thousand years that he cannot forgive.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor fell into a daze.

Qin Mu didn’t speak again. He looked at the herb garden that had been trampled. These herbs could still be grown with Earth Aeon Creation Technique, but he still lacked numerous herbs.

His taotie sack bulged here and there as the two jade eyes rolled around. Qin Mu let out these two jade eyes, and they landed on the ground. They put their scrawny hands on the sides of their eyes and walked around to examine their surroundings.

“Brother, brother! There’s a babe, a babe!”

Moon Jade Eye threw a glance at Ling Yuxiu and said excitedly, “It’s one of the two babes that had found us!”

The two eyeballs lighted up as they ogled Ling Yuxiu relentlessly. When they had their fill, only then were they satisfied.

Ling Yuxiu examined these two eyeballs in astonishment. She carefully walked around them then stopped beside Qin Mu. “Ten Thousand Spirit Nature Technique?”

Qin Mu nodded.

“Why have you awakened their spirit?”

Ling Yuxiu said in a low voice, “These two eyeballs are very powerful. Even ordinary gods can’t block their gaze. If they rebelled, we can’t restrain them at all. By the way, do they know they’re very powerful?”

Qin Mu shook his head and whispered, “They don’t know. They’re still worried I would smack them back into their original forms.”

Ling Yuxiu let out a sigh of relief. She recalled something and asked again, “Do they know they are the eyes of a taotie? After you’ve awakened the chest, he was like a taotie that likes to eat anything. He even treated the dragon qilin as a corpse and ate him several times.”

Qin Mu shook his head. “I don’t know as well. They’re very innocent.”

The two jade eyes rolled here and there as they chattered. They didn’t know what they were gossiping about.

Ling Yuxiu approached them and said with a smile, “From now on, you will be called Xiao’yang, and you will be called Xiao’yin, okay?”

“Okay!”

The two jade eyes said in unison, “Babe!”

Ling Yuxiu returned to Qin Mu’s side, and she whispered, “These two eye monsters don’t look that innocent. They called me ‘babe’ just now.”

The two eyes ran into a dense forest. After a moment, the forest caught on fire. Ling Yuxiu frantically stuffed the small case to Qin Mu, and she ran towards the burning trees. Her vital qi transformed into water dragons, extinguishing the fire in an instant.

The two huge eye monsters stood there, looking very pleased. “I told you we could lure the babe with this method, right?”

“Brother is indeed smart!”

Ling Yuxiu was livid. The young girl wasted no time as she dragged the scrawny legs of these two eye monsters, and chucked them in front of Qin Mu. “These two rascals almost burned the whole forest down! If you burn this place, we’re all going to die miserably! Just smack them back into their original forms and save us from the trouble!”

“Great aunt, please spare our lives—” The two huge eyeballs knelt on the ground, their eyes facing the floor.

Qin Mu was troubled. “I still need them to deliver medicine to First Ancestor’s celestial palace, so I can’t kill them yet—”

“I’ll write down this debt first. If you two cause trouble again, off with your heads!” Ling Yuxiu roared.

The two eye monsters huddled together, and their eyes were filled with fear.

“We don’t seem to have heads—”

“Shut up! She hasn’t discovered that we don’t have heads. If you remind her, she’s going to poke our eyes blind!”

Qin Mu left them and continued to refine medicine. When the medicinal energy in First Ancestor Human Emperor’s body was depleted, he got the two eye monsters to go on another trip while he went to the stern of the ship. He examined the blood that Great Sun Sovereign had left behind in detail.

Great Sun Sovereign was severely injured, and the god blood that dripped from him immediately burst into flames when it flowed on the ship. First Ancestor’s sword qi eventually extinguished the fire, but the divine might in the god blood was still there. There were fine runes that kept appearing from time to time, and they looked very marvelous.

Qin Mu didn’t dare to touch it. At this moment, First Ancestor Human Emperor hobbled towards him. He pulled out his sword and offered it Qin Mu. “Use this sword and try…”

Qin Mu took Jade Brightness Sword. It was his first time examining this treasure. Jade Brightness Sword was a sword of a prince that was used to guard Jade Brightness Sword. Its power was extraordinarily terrifying, and the body of the entire sword was incomparably bright as though it was a sword-shaped light. The light hummed as though there was no fixed length. It was evident that the craftsmanship of this sword was extremely high.

This standard of craftsmanship was a height that not even Mute could reach at the moment!

Suddenly, Qin Mu took out Carefree Sword and compared it with Jade Brightness Sword. Carefree Sword looked much simpler. There was no divine might to be seen, and it wasn’t as bright as Jade Brightness Sword. Carefree Sword was like an ordinary divine weapon that was forged from ordinary divine metal—there was no flaunting of any profound craftsmanship.

“This sword of yours…”

First Ancestor Human Emperor’s mind trembled slightly. “Let me take a look!”

Qin Mu handed Carefree Sword to him. First Ancestor Human Emperor examined the sword over and over again. After a moment, he had a dazed and dimmed look on his face as he asked in a hoarse voice, “Who gave it to you?”

“My father.”

Qin Mu dipped the tip of Jade Brightness Sword and lifted a huge blob of Great Sun Sovereign’s god blood. Layers of formation swirled in his eyes as he examined this blob of god blood with Bright Heaven’s Eyes. “He had signed a Pact of Earth Count with Saturn Sovereign so he can’t see me. He gave me this sword as a token of remembrance.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor asked, “Do you know the name of this sword?”

“Carefree Sword. When I got this sword, I saw the word Carefree appear on this sword.”

Qin Mu carefully tapped on Sun Sovereign’s god blood. Jade Brightness Sword suppressed the divine might of the god blood, however, with this tap, that small blob of god blood immediately expanded and transformed into a blood ball that had a radius of three yards.

Qin Mu’s five fingers tapped gently and his fingers tapped on the blood ball one after another. This blood ball expanded continuously and became bigger and bigger until it finally transformed into a huge spinning blood ball that was a hundred yards!

“Carefree Sword…”

First Ancestor Human Emperor gave a gentle smile and said softly, “It’s now called Carefree Sword. That’s right. It’s indeed carefree now…”

Qin Mu gathered his focus, and the formations in his eyes swirled furiously to see even the tiniest atom in this blood ball.

“First Ancestor, this Great Sun Sovereign isn’t the true Great Sun Sovereign. He is the same as you. He is also a human that had cultivated into a god.”

Qin Mu suddenly said, “Take a look, his blood is actually human blood. A god that’s born from a sun shouldn’t have the blood of a human. Strange rune markings are imprinted in his blood, and every finest blood molecule was imprinted with intricate fine runes. This kind of runes should be a kind of fire rune or pure yang runes.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor said, “My primordial spirit is weak, and I still can’t execute my divine eyes. Describe this rune and let me see.”

Qin Mu scattered the blood ball, and it rapidly shrank, turning back into a blob of blood. He then flicked the sword, and the blob of blood landed on the ground.

With his vital qi as the tip of a brush, he visualized the rune he had seen in the air. The rune was a kind of strange marking that looked complicated. It seemed to contain the markings of all kinds of fire attribute divine beasts. However, it was completely the same, and this was the reason why Qin Mu couldn’t see if it was a fire rune or a pure yang rune.

“It’s a rune of High Emperor Era. It’s different from the fire rune and pure yang rune of Founding Emperor Era.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor examined it in detail and said, “Heavenly Teacher has in-depth research in this field, but I didn’t learn much from him. Still, I can confirm that this Great Sun Sovereign is indeed a human that had cultivated into a god. He isn’t the true Great Sun Sovereign!”

They met each other’s eyes with grim expressions.

Qin Mu muttered, “In that case, why did a god of High Emperor Era become Great Sun Sovereign. Where’s the true Great Sun Sovereign? Chi Xi said High Emperor Era had existed for three hundred thousand years, much longer than any era. Why could this era last so long?”

First Ancestor Human Emperor was still slightly weak as he returned Carefree Sword to him. He said while gasping for his breath, “During the early period of Founding Emperor Era, there were also ruins of High Emperor Era, but the break in civilization was very severe and even Founding Emperor couldn’t deduce what had happened during High Emperor Era. If one wants to know about the secrets of High Emperor Era, one would need to return to the past. This era is probably much more complicated than what you think.”

Qin Mu was stunned. He remembered that inconceivable time travel that he had experienced with Pangong Tso. He also remembered Bai Qu’er and thought to himself, “Back to the past? I have gone back once…”

“This Carefree Sword, protect it carefully. You must not lose it.”

First Ancestor Human Emperor added, “Protect it even if it risks your life. It’s very valuable.”

Qin Mu stroked the Carefree Sword, and he nodded his head. “I will. This is the only thing my father has given to me. I won’t lose it no matter what! This point is very strange, First Ancestor. I can barely unleash a bit of power from your Jade Brightness Sword, yet I can never activate the power of this sword. Why is that?”

First Ancestor wanted to say something, but he stopped himself. He didn’t say the reason and only said, “You will know in the future.”