Chapter 3: Divine Powers

The Pharmacist shared his idea. "Give him spirit blood, lots of it, keep giving it to him without holding back! Each time he drinks spirit blood, his physique improves slightly. If he drinks enough, even if it doesn't awaken a spirit body, his physical abilities will definitely surpass any spirit body!"

"He'll be able to punch a dragon to death."

The Village Chief chuckled. "He'll surely scare the living daylights out of those scoundrels outside the Great Ruins."

They exchanged smiles. The Pharmacist then left the room, closing the door behind him.

The next day, the villagers brought in more Iron-Bone Tigers, Green Flood Dragons, Thunderbirds, and Golden Tortoises. With their goal in mind, these old men and women were incredibly motivated. However, this angered the Pharmacist, who exclaimed, "Giving him too much spirit blood at once will burst him!"

The mute blacksmith, who had dragged in two Thunderbirds, grinned and chuckled, revealing his tongueless mouth.

"Mu'er can handle it!" Granny Si said, full of confidence in Qin Mu.

The Pharmacist glared at them and said nothing more. He took out the insect eggs and continued refining the blood. However, something still went wrong. This batch of Four Spirits Blood was a bit too much. After Qin Mu drank it, his body swelled up like an inflated balloon, making the old men and women extremely nervous, fearing he would burst with a pop.

The Pharmacist took out several hollow silver needles and inserted them into Qin Mu's back and the top of his head. From the needle holes, red, blue, and purple streams of air hissed outwards.

After a moment, the needles stopped hissing. The Pharmacist removed them and glared at the old men and women again. "Gradual progress, one step at a time! If you try to feed him until he's a big fat guy, you'll just burst him! He's still a bit bloated now, so you all have work to do. Butcher will practice his blade techniques with him later, Grandpa Ma will practice his fist techniques, and Lame, you'll practice leg techniques with him to help him digest."

"Mu'er, time for blade practice!"

Butcher, using his hands to brace himself on the ground, astonishingly leaped onto a single log. Lacking a lower body, his upper half stood upright on the log, making him roughly the same height as Qin Mu.

Butcher held two pig-slaughtering knives. Unlike ordinary pig-slaughtering knives, which are less than a foot long, have round wooden handles, and curved blades resembling three-quarters of a crescent moon, Butcher's knives were similar in appearance but several sizes larger. Each blade was three feet two inches long, with a thick spine and a thin, brightly polished edge. When placed together, the two knives looked like two terrifyingly large arched gates.

Qin Mu's pig-slaughtering knife was also the same size, but he only had one. It was very heavy, about twenty pounds. Normally, the boy could only lift one knife. However, since consuming the Four Spirits Blood, his strength had increased significantly, and he didn't find it heavy to lift the pig-slaughtering knife with one hand.

"Grandpa Butcher, watch out!"

Qin Mu, holding the knife in one hand, charged towards Butcher on the log. Butcher burst into laughter; despite having only half a body, he exuded an aura of boundless heroism.

Night Battle: Wind and Rain Over the City!

Qin Mu's single blade danced up and down, his feet moving as he slashed towards Butcher. The gleam of his blade grew faster and faster, accompanied by the continuous whistling of the wind.

"Too slow, too slow! You're too slow!"

Butcher shouted loudly, his two blades whirling like rain. The clanging sounds of furious strikes were like a sudden downpour on pear blossoms. He sternly commanded, "Faster! Even faster! Your pig-slaughtering knife can be quicker! The 'Night Battle: Wind and Rain Over the City' move is all about speed. Your pig-slaughtering knife must be as swift as the wind and rain in the dead of night, sweeping across the entire city! Make it even faster!"

The blade's gleam became even faster, like three silver dragons weaving around the log, darting up and down. The wind grew stronger, and the *chi-chi* sounds of blade energy mixed with the wind. When the blade hit the ground, deep marks suddenly appeared.

Those were blade marks.

"Excellent! That's the speed I want! The faster your blade, the stronger your blade energy will be. But you're still not fast enough. You need to be so fast that your blade intent burns like a raging fire, burning, burning more!"

Butcher, as if insane, wielded his knives in a dazzling dance that made Qin Mu's eyes blur. He yelled, "Burn! Burn! Make your blade burn, make your qi burn, make your spirit burn! After burning, that's a divine art!"

*Whoosh—*

As his blades sliced through the air, they ignited with a *whoosh* from the friction, resembling two fiery dragons weaving back and forth, their momentum becoming increasingly astonishing.

The fiery dragons lunged straight at Qin Mu, who was powerless to stop them. Suddenly, the two fiery dragons soared skyward, tearing through the night sky above Disabled Elderly Village, an incredibly astonishing sight.

Qin Mu stared, dumbfounded. Butcher's blade was truly terrifying.

Above the village, darkness surged, devouring the fiery dragons, blade light, and blade energy completely.

The darkness seemed alive, as if angered by Butcher's act of raising his blade to cut into it. An incredibly oppressive darkness pressed down on the village, as if to swallow it whole.

However, the light from the stone statues at the four corners of the village suddenly brightened, pushing back the darkness.

"Damn it all!"

Butcher stood on the log, holding his knives with both hands, and yelled towards the sky, somewhat crazed, "Sooner or later, I'll split this darkness apart! Sooner or later, I'll fight my way back! What was severed was my waist, what I lost were my legs, but not my head! I'll kill..."

"Grandpa Butcher's gone crazy again. But his blade techniques are truly too fast; he's refined his blade art into a divine art. When will I be able to train as fast as him?"

Qin Mu looked with admiration at the raving Butcher, then put down his pig-slaughtering knife and went to find one-armed Grandpa Ma.

"Butcher's blade only becomes a divine art when it cuts out flames, and my fist only becomes a divine art when it strikes with thunderous sounds!"

Grandpa Ma's expression was serious. He clenched his lone fist, and his bones crackled. He said calmly, "Mu'er, when you can grasp lightning in your hand, your fist will be considered to have achieved something. Butcher's blade is fast, but my fist breaks through the limitations of sound, breaks free from the constraints of air, and unleashes incomparable power! You can practice fist techniques with one hand; one hand is also a thousand hands, and one hand can also unleash thunderous sounds and lightning!"

*Boom—*

A muffled thunderclap sounded; it was Grandpa Ma's fist striking, like a peal of thunder exploding.

*Boom, boom, boom!*

A series of thunderous sounds followed. Qin Mu's naked eye could barely track the speed of Grandpa Ma's punches. The afterimages of his fists made it seem as if the one-armed Grandpa Ma no longer had just one arm, but hundreds, even thousands.

Grandpa Ma's fists moved faster and faster. Those hundreds of thousands of arms seemed to grasp lightning in their palms, with crackling electric sparks. Every strike was accompanied by rolling thunder and scattering electricity!

"This is the 'Thousand-Armed Buddha' from the Eight Thunderous Sound Styles! As long as your fists are faster than sound, you can control thunder and lightning. Every punch and palm strike can destroy the opponent's soul and body, leaving them damned for eternity, never to be reborn!"

Grandpa Ma retracted his fist and said in a deep voice, "Use the Eight Thunderous Sound Styles I taught you to attack me. Strike with thunderous sounds, grasp lightning, and control the thunder!"

Qin Mu composed himself. The skills Grandpa Ma and Grandpa Butcher taught him today were different from before. Previously, they had only taught him blade and fist techniques, but this time, they had both mentioned a particular word.

Divine art!

The word was unfamiliar; it was the first time he had heard it.

Qin Mu performed the Eight Thunderous Sound Styles and attacked Grandpa Ma. Although Grandpa Ma was one-armed, he effortlessly blocked every one of Qin Mu's attacks.

Unlike Butcher, who seemed wild but always showed restraint when sparring with Qin Mu, never harming him, Grandpa Ma showed no mercy. Whenever Qin Mu's moves had a flaw, he would strike with a punch. Although the punches weren't heavy, Qin Mu quickly ended up with a bruised and swollen face.

Only when Qin Mu could no longer continue did Grandpa Ma let him rest.

"Legs are wind, they are the earth, they are the root of power."

Lame leaned on his crutch. He had only one leg, yet he was the one teaching Qin Mu leg techniques. Previously, Qin Mu had considered Grandpa Lame to be the most normal person in the village; he always had a simple, honest smile that gave off a deeply reliable impression.

However, ever since Lame had guilelessly smiled while stabbing to death the woman who crawled out of the ox hide by the river, Qin Mu wasn't so sure anymore.

Lame's smile was a smile that hid a dagger; no one knew if it was genuine or not.

He smiled and said to Qin Mu, "Mu'er, Butcher boasts about his blade, Grandpa Ma boasts about his fists, but the true divine art lies in the legs. If you can't kill your opponent, if you can't defeat them, what do you do? Of course, you run! Life is the most important thing! Life isn't just about poetry and distant lands; there's also the struggle to survive! So, staying alive is victory! As long as you run fast enough, you can sprint on walls, sprint on water, and even sprint through the sky! Run fast enough, and everything becomes flat ground—even flames and air! When you run so fast that even sound can't catch up to you from behind your ears, then you'll have achieved the preliminary divine art of leg techniques. Mu'er, come on, get on the iron ingots."