Tales of Herding Gods

“The twentieth sword form, the twentieth sword form…”

Founding Emperor pulled out his sword and was visibly confused. He swung the Carefree Sword aimlessly to try and find the twentieth sword form.

Yan Yunxi’s gaze flashed, and she suggested, “Emperor, you reverse engineered all of his sword skill tricks from his sword skills. Thus, what do you think Celestial Venerable Mu is doing right now?”

“Sneaking into Carefree Village.”

Without any hesitation, Founding Emperor commanded, “Find me the secret of the sword skill divine art and the way to beat me. Start the search from Supreme Emperor Heaven. The reason that he proposed this two month period was to understand my sword skills, not to wait for Fengqing to establish Youdu.”

“You two really are family. Both of you think in similar patterns.”

Yan Yunxi laughed and backed down, saying, “I shall no longer disrupt your comprehension of the twentieth sword form. I wish you the best of luck.”

Carefree Village’s Supreme Emperor Heaven. Shu Jun followed Qin Mu along wherever he went. However, Qin Mu didn’t go to the academies there. Instead, he walked in the hills and the woods to check out the earth and the hills.

Qin Mu even used his vital qi to form a sword and used the drill sword form to drill deep into the hill.

“Holy infant, what are you looking for?” Shu Jun was perplexed.

“Why do you call me holy infant too?” Qin Mu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Shu Jun said, “I’m a master of creation, so I have to call you that. It’s a custom of ours. What are you searching for?”

Qin Mu formed a sword with his vital qi and drilled fragments of rocks from deep beneath the earth. He picked up some of them and squeezed them in his palm, saying, “With one blade of Founding Emperor, 33 heavens were formed, which nearly split the Paramita World in two. This incident is peculiar.”

Shu Jun was even more perplexed now.

“We have been here for quite some time. The landmass and everything on it that the Paramita masters of creation live on was visualized by them. This landmass floats in the void and isn’t linked.”

Qin Mu formed a sword with his vital qi again before stabbing it into a mountain of Carefree Village’s Supreme Emperor Heaven. The sword energy drilled deep into the mountain as Qin Mu continued, “It sounds terrifying that, with one blade, 33 heavens were formed. If Founding Emperor really did use one blade to cut off 33 landmasses of the Paramita World to form 33 heavens, his power would outmatch that of all of the masters of creation and Divine King Lang Wo. If so, how did the masters of creation resist Carefree Village for twenty thousand years?”

Shu Jun was stunned and said, “Clearly it was Founding Emperor who carved 33 heavens with one blade, for it was formed under his sword. The 33 heavens occupied half of the landmass of the Paramita World. However, it may not have been Founding Emperor’s blade that carved the Paramita World in half.”

Qin Mu extracted some rock fragments from the mountain and laughed. “Divine King Shu Jun, you are too honest. You don’t seem to know how sly Founding Emperor is despite looking honest.”

He squeezed the fragments and saw some metal powder within them.

Qin Mu blew, and the rock fragments flew away. Yet, the powder remained. He said, “With one blade, he formed 33 heavens with mountains, rivers, and lakes. If Founding Emperor wasn’t the number one in the sword path, the masters of creation would be! Perhaps the Grand Emperor had such power, but his consciousness attainment wasn’t that high, which could only mean that…”

Qin Mu raised a finger and pointed at the mountain ahead. He waved his finger gently, and a sword light sliced it in half. He smiled and said, “The 33 heavens of Carefree Village were forged prior to his arrival!”

This mountain split in two and revealed the rough metal and rocks combination inside that made up the mountain!

Shu Jun’s heart shuddered as he shockingly observed the intricate structure that made up the mountain.

The mountain was made out of divine gold and other divine materials! The divine gold was forged into parts with runes imprinted on it as if it was part of a colossal machine!

At the base of the mountain, the divine gold and divine materials were laid deep into the earth!

Clearly, the entire Carefree Village’s Supreme Emperor Heaven was a large man made object created with divine gold and divine materials!

This Carefree Village’s Supreme Emperor Heaven was a heaven created by countless skilled workers!

“As expected.”

Qin Mu put his hands together, and the cracked mountain shut itself. He continued, “I heard that during the end of the Founding Emperor Era, Founding Emperor ordered Sakra Buddha, Li Youran, to lead all of the heavenly craftsmen to build Carefree Village. Saint Woodcutter opposed it, but Founding Emperor continued to order Li Youran to build Carefree Village.”

Shu Jun giddily mumbled, “Carefree Village should have been opened by Founding Emperor’s blade. Divine King Lang Wo couldn’t have been wrong. How could it have been created by Li Youran…”

“Li Youran was nicknamed Heavenly King of War in the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens. This came from how he was good at creating divine weapons for all, not because of his leadership.”

Qin Mu explained, “He built Carefree Village, gathering all of the capable smiths to build 33 gargantuan divine weapons that hid the underlying sword reasoning of Founding Emperor’s sword path. In other words, these 33 divine weapons are the 33 heavens of Founding Emperor’s sword path materialized!”

He looked at Carefree Village’s Supreme Emperor Heaven’s geography and said, “The rivers, the mountains, all of the geographic features here are the path of his sword techniques, including the cities, villages, and sculptures.”

Shu Jun was still muddle-headed as he mumbled, “That’s impossible, right? Him opening 33 heavens with one blade was witnessed by countless masters of creation and Divine King Lang Wo personally. There was no way for him to mess with Divine King Lang Wo, the chiefs, and the elders had he moved Carefree Village’s 33 heavens here. It would have been too difficult. The chiefs of today are just as strong as me back then, not to mention Divine King Lang Wo, who would have already been way stronger than me.”

Qin Mu walked towards the nearest god city and laughed. “I once obtained the Carefree Sword. It was Founding Emperor’s sword, but I didn’t know about that at first. I just felt that it was light and easy to use. Later on, I found out that it was Founding Emperor’s sword, making it an imperial sword! Isn’t it weird for an imperial sword to be so light?”

Shu Jun followed him quickly, saying, “Isn’t it easy to make a precious artifact light?”

“Li Youran was the number one craftsman of the heavens, so the Carefree Sword he forged could indeed be light. However, peculiarly enough, I have rarely been able to unleash its power.”

Qin Mu said, “In theory, I should be able to activate the imprinted runes in it. However, I rarely unleashed its power. The Carefree Sword seemed hollow.”

Shu Jun finally understood, saying, “Your meaning is that Founding Emperor hid Carefree Village’s 33 heavens in the Carefree Sword so that when he stabbed the Paramita World upon arrival, Carefree Village flew out of it and formed the 33 heavens?”

Qin Mu nodded and said, “There were a lot of capable people under Founding Emperor. My master, Wen Tiange, was his Saint Woodcutter, Heavenly Teacher Zi Xi was a formation expert, and Sakra Li Youran was heaven’s number one craftsman. With their intelligence and capabilities, hiding Carefree Village in the Carefree Sword should be doable. After all, they have already experimented with it once.”

He remembered the Imperial Gate Divine Knife that Mingdu Heavenly King Tian Shu had. It contained all sorts of collapsable places to hide things in.

“Wretch!” Shu Jun angrily said.

Qin Mu was furious and smacked his head, angrily saying, “That’s my ancestor. Only I can scold him, you can’t!”

Shu Jun was furious too. “I can’t?”

The two of them entered the city, and Qin Mu inquired about the academies from Carefree Village’s inhabitants. Shu Jun couldn’t help but say, “If you realized that Carefree Village’s 33 heavens are Founding Emperor’s 33 heavens of the sword path, then why do you still need to seek knowledge in the academies?”

Qin Mu walked into the Supreme Emperor Heaven academy with his third eye open. Every god and divine arts practitioner inside ignored them and allowed them in.

That was an illusion his consciousness created, which enveloped the whole academy.

Qin Mu’s consciousness today was more powerful than before. He could fool gods and devils who were at the God Execution Stage Realm and Jade Capital Realm, let alone those at the Jade Pavilion Realm.

Of course, that was under the condition that he wasn’t hostile. If he displayed hostility, he would still be detected.

“Checking Founding Emperor’s sword path divine arts is only one of my motives. My other motive is to see how much Carefree Village’s paths, skills, and divine arts have improved.”

Qin Mu plainly said, “Twenty thousand years ago, there was a great breakthrough in paths, skills, and divine arts in the Founding Emperor Era. This caused new paths, skills, and divine arts to be created all the time. I want to see whether such reforms have stagnated after they went to hide in Carefree Village.”

He came to the academy depository and walked inside in front of the sentry gods, saying, “Saint Woodcutter said that the thing he regrets the most in his life is not persuading Founding Emperor against going to Carefree Village. I want to see whether his judgment was correct.”

There were a lot of people in the depository, including many divine arts practitioners. Qin Mu stood in front of a bookshelf and put himself in a deep sleep. Countless little Qin Mus flew out of his dream and ran around, reading all sorts of books in a noisy manner. It was a scene to behold.

Yet, everyone in the depository seemed unable to witness it, as they were busy with their own things.

Shu Jun was reading these books as well, but he used a different method. He scanned them directly with his consciousness at an extremely fast rate.

However, Qin Mu’s entering the path via dreams allowed him to not only skim the books of the depository quickly but also get the little Qin Mus to try the divine arts, which was something Shu Jun couldn’t do.

Qin Mu read the entirety of the records in just half a day.

Before Shu Jun could finish, Qin Mu walked out of the depository to observe the scholars of the academy cultivating their divine arts.

He saw many scholars visualizing and fusing consciousness and vital qi. The paths, skills, and divine arts he saw were products of the merger of consciousnesses and vital qi.

Clearly, after arriving here, the Founding Emperor Era people accepted the divine treasures and celestial palaces cultivation system like the masters of creation.

This constituted a reform.

However, Qin Mu didn’t see the reform that he had witnessed in Eternal Peace.

Eternal Peace’s reform allowed them to have hundreds more basic rune systems compared to the Founding Emperor Era. These early runes of Eternal Peace’s reform included the Heavenly Yin runes and the Magnetic Hurricane runes.

Outside of that, there were also the Great Dao rune systems of the ancient gods that Qin Mu brought from the celestial heavens.

Eternal Peace recalculated with the Computational Canon of Supreme Molecule and found out that there were countless Great Dao rune systems of the ancient gods!

These were things Carefree Village didn’t have.

Research on basic runes seemingly stopped after the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens moved to Carefree Village.

‘This phenomenon is worthy of research…’

Qin Mu blinked and observed Carefree Village’s disciples learning in the academy. These disciples were divine arts practitioners. He observed their spirit and followed them to see their daily routines. He even invaded their minds with his consciousness to see what they were thinking about.

He was very perplexed about why the reform abruptly stopped after they moved to Carefree Village. After all, the reform was rolling full steam ahead during the Founding Emperor Era.

While he was observing the divine arts practitioners, he suddenly realized that a middle-aged Daoist was curiously staring at him and observing him in the Supreme Emperor Heaven academy.

Qin Mu was slightly stunned. The entire academy was shrouded by his consciousness, and everyone would ignore him. Yet this middle-aged Daoist looked at him as if he was visible to him!

Qin Mu smiled at that Daoist, an action which the Daoist returned.

“What is your name?” Qin Mu walked up and greeted him.

That Daoist hastily returned the greeting, saying, “A relinquished disciple of the Dao Sect, Su Maiqing, hereby greets Celestial Venerable Mu.”

“Relinquished disciple of the Dao Sect?”

Qin Mu probed him, “Su Maiqing, what is your relationship with the Dao Sect of the Primordial Realm?”

That Daoist waved his horsetail whisk and laughed. “I created it.”