Chapter 238: A Grand Vision
The Lame Man asked, puzzled: "What is it?"
Qin Mu stroked his chin, plucking out a robustly growing whisker, and said: "I think the cultivation technique in this book might be a method to connect the Divine Bridge."
The Lame Man didn't catch it clearly: "What bridge?"
"Divine Bridge."
Qin Mu continued lowering his head to measure, saying: "Because Divine Treasures are not like the body's meridians and channels. The body's meridians and channels are right there—look at a circulation diagram once and you can try to activate the technique. Divine Treasures are an empty space, primordial energy circulates within this empty space, and every bit of its circulation operates in a different spatial dimension. Therefore, one needs to measure the specific spatial dimensions. Coordinates are hard to determine in space, and if there's any carelessness, mistakes can occur."
The Lame Man's expression was dazed, his mind somewhat wandering, staring blankly at Qin Mu as he changed his measuring tools and continued measuring the patterns on the golden book.
Qin Mu took out paper and a brush to record his measured data, not lifting his head as he said: "If you make an error in spatial dimensions, even the slightest deviation leads to a thousand miles of difference. I need to measure accurately, calculating down to digits beyond the vague. Moreover, the size of the human body in the painting differs from a real person's body, and the size of the Divine Treasures in the painting differs from a real person's Divine Treasures. I'll first calculate the base values. Everyone's Divine Bridge Divine Treasure size is different, but with the base values, one can cultivate according to spatial proportions. That way, one can master the Magpie Bridge Technique..."
The Lame Man was startled: "What bridge?"
Qin Mu was puzzled and laughed: "Magpie Bridge, of course. Grandpa Lame, you seem a bit distracted. I won't talk to you anymore. Measuring here is quite troublesome, and the calculations are difficult—it will take a long time..."
Suddenly, the Village Chief's head poked out from the carriage, asking excitedly: "What bridge?"
Qin Mu was even more puzzled: "Village Chief, you're distracted too? The Magpie Bridge!"
"Wrong!"
The Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor twisted his head around to the back of his body, speaking rapidly: "Wrong! Before Magpie Bridge, you clearly said Divine Bridge!"
"That's right!"
The Lame Man quickly added: "What I heard was Divine Bridge too!"
The Village Chief nodded repeatedly: "It's the Divine Bridge!"
Qin Mu suddenly understood and laughed: "The Divine Bridge of the person in the painting is broken. The technique in the painting is called the Magpie Bridge Technique, which is for repairing the Divine Bridge. I was just calculating the mathematical principles needed for the Magpie Bridge Technique. This Magpie Bridge Technique is very hard to cultivate—there are too many things to measure..."
"A technique for repairing the Divine Bridge!"
The three people in the carriage suddenly had their aura surge explosively. The treasure carriage flying in midair was instantly torn apart by their momentum, then shattered into powder by their terrifying presence!
Qin Mu quickly leaped into the air, clutching the golden book scroll and his calculated data to his chest, his clothes stained a mess by the ink.
The Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor, the Village Chief, and the Lame Man almost simultaneously reached out to grab the golden book scroll. Seeing Qin Mu holding it to his chest, they hastily stopped and withdrew their hands, their excitement beyond words.
Qin Mu complained: "Good thing this is a golden book and can't be ruined by ink, or your sins would be great indeed."
The Village Chief quickly said: "Let's land first!"
The four descended. All around were corpses, some places still burning with flames, thick smoke billowing—traces left by fire-type divine abilities. Ahead of them, the chaotic Man Di Kingdom army was fleeing in disarray, charging at He Lan Pass. The defending general of He Lan Pass was stubbornly holding the city gates, refusing to open them and let the soldiers in, lest the Yan Kang army take advantage to break through.
These routed troops were actually crazily attacking He Lan Pass. The tall city walls were being constantly collapsed by the bombardment of many powerful figures, rubble flying everywhere. Fortunately, the walls were thick enough—what they broke through was the outer wall, and the inner wall remained unbroken. The defending soldiers, not distinguishing friend from foe, activated divine abilities and spirit weapons to blast at those outside and below the walls, killing the comrades who had once fought alongside them. Below the walls, all sorts of crude curses rang out, ugly to hear, the scene even more tragic—corpses piled up like mountains below the walls.
Before He Lan Pass, the Sword Hall Master and Yu Yuan Chu Yun's fleet stopped sixty miles away, not attacking. The beams of the True Essence Cannons continuously shot forth, blasting the watchtowers and city gates to pieces.
Instantly, countless fleeing soldiers surged into the city like a tide.
Inside the city, Ban Gong Cuo's hands and feet turned ice-cold.
The city gates were broken, defeated troops flooding in—this He Lan Pass could no longer resist the enemy's attack. The defeated soldiers crashed into the defending garrison, who could no longer hold formation and fled along with them. The enemy would take the opportunity to swarm in and methodically slaughter. The grasslands would surely suffer a complete defeat!
"Take me away immediately!"
Ban Gong Cuo steeled his heart and ordered the Witch King beside him, shouting: "Abandon the city! Retreat from He Lan Pass!"
That Witch King quickly took him away, flying out of He Lan Pass. Ban Gong Cuo shouted harshly: "Have all my Golden Palace disciples withdraw from the battlefield!"
That Witch King's heart trembled, and he said in a quavering voice: "Great Venerable, if our Golden Palace disciples withdraw, the armies of the grassland tribes will have no chance of survival!"
"But the Golden Palace will still have a chance."
Ban Gong Cuo was extremely calm, saying: "Forcibly resisting will only get my Golden Palace disciples killed in this city. We must preserve strength for the Golden Palace. The grasslands are the true battlefield. My Golden Palace's prestige was not built by the worship and support of the tribes. If the Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor wants to occupy the grasslands, he will have to pay a sufficient price!"
That Witch King quickly swelled his primordial energy, turning it into a heaven-shaking shout that spread across the battlefield, ordering the Golden Palace disciples to retreat.
The moment he gave the order, the chaos worsened. Military morale completely collapsed. Everyone wanted to flee for their lives, crazily surging toward the rear city gates—people crushing people, people trampling people. Some who had cultivated flight divine abilities flew into the air, only to be shot down by True Essence Cannon fire.
Yu Yuan Chu Yun controlled the sky, preventing Man Di Kingdom divine ability users from escaping through the air, while the Sword Hall Master controlled the ground. He didn't block them from fleeing through the rear of the pass, but first cleared the enemy forces on the ground ahead, forcing them to flee in madness.
Below the tower ships, the Yan Kang army surged forward, cleaning up the remnants of the battlefield.
Ban Gong Cuo looked back once. He Lan Pass had already begun to collapse, flames blazing within the city, thick smoke billowing into the sky. The Man Di Kingdom soldiers who had escaped the city were scattering in terror, and those who couldn't escape were climbing He Lan Mountain, countless numbers falling from the cliffs and being crushed into pulp.
Many great witches and witch kings flew over, gathering around Ban Gong Cuo. Fear and despair were written on their faces, but Ban Gong Cuo grew even calmer. He instructed: "You will immediately scatter in all directions, poison every water source on the grasslands with witch venom, and let plague run rampant. If the Yan Kang army dares to invade the grasslands, then let them die without a place to be buried!"
"Great Venerable!"
The great witches and witch kings were shaken to the core. One witch king said with a sobbing voice: "The grassland tribesmen will be poisoned too!"
Ban Gong Cuo said indifferently: "The grasslands are big enough. As long as we don't poison the major cities on the grasslands, we can preserve a portion of our people."
"But there are more of those small nomadic tribes on the grasslands..."
Ban Gong Cuo said expressionlessly: "Those are all lowly people. It's worth it for them to be buried with the Yan Kang divine ability users. You will scatter immediately, spread the poison, and do not delay—otherwise, when the Yan Kang army charges in, the first target will be the Golden Palace!"
The great witches and witch kings, their minds in a daze, scattered in all directions.
Ban Gong Cuo gazed into the distance at He Lan Pass. War fire and smoke shrouded that collapsing majestic pass. He turned and walked toward the Golden Palace, murmuring: "It's been many years—seven or eight thousand, perhaps? My heart has been like an ancient well, undisturbed, unable to stir the slightest ripple. This is probably the first time again that I've felt that desperate, life-or-death feeling of my first life... Yan Kang, Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor, Heavenly Demon Cult Leader—you have made me regain my fighting spirit!"
On the battlefield, Qin Mu moved several corpses aside, opened the golden book scroll, and let the Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor, the Village Chief, and the Lame Man view the contents of the pages.
The three pressed their heads together, nervously staring at the few words and diagrams in the golden book scroll, frantically calculating and memorizing the images and text.
"Ingenious, truly ingenious! How did the people of Wu You Xiang conceive such an exquisite method? They can actually connect the Divine Bridge this way?"
"How immense must the calculations be to compute such precise trajectories and then turn them into a cultivation technique?"
The three marveled endlessly. The Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor said: "You two, may I turn the page? This Magpie Bridge probably can't fully connect the Divine Bridge yet—the next page must have another technique! But the calculations would be even greater, requiring one to compute the subsequent technique based on the Magpie Bridge's results."
The golden book was flipped to the next page, and again there were exclamations of wonder.
"Indeed, it's the next technique calculated on the basis of the Magpie Bridge—the Mystic Guidance Technique is remarkable! It's almost like building a pavilion in the sky! To be able to calculate to this step, this is absolutely divine calculation!"
"This couldn't have been calculated by a single person. It must have taken the collective wisdom of all the people of Wu You Xiang to compute the second step!"
"Hurry, hurry, turn to the next page... Why are you looking at me? I don't have hands!"
...
The three watched for a long while. Suddenly, a loud crash and cheers came from the distance. Qin Mu looked up, coughed once, and said: "You three, He Lan Pass has already fallen."
The three remained silent, continuing to look at the golden book scroll. Qin Mu shook his head and continued watching the distance, saying: "Shouldn't we go over there? It's getting late. If we stop in the Duck Tongue area, the darkness invasion at night will be dangerous. After all, this is the Great Ruins."
The three still remained silent.
Qin Mu was bored to death. After waiting a moment, he couldn't help but say: "No matter how carefully you look, it's useless. Without calculating the mathematical principles hidden in the techniques, rashly cultivating them will only end in failure."
Only then did the three raise their heads, reluctantly withdrawing their gazes, no longer looking at the golden book scroll. Qin Mu quickly asked: "Village Chief, do you have confidence in repairing the Divine Bridge?"
The Village Chief shook his head, saying: "My remaining lifespan is not much. Whether I can repair the Divine Bridge before dying of old age depends on my fate. From the three techniques in this book, repairing the Divine Bridge is no easy task."
The Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor nodded, saying: "Before that, we need to calculate the mathematical principles hidden in these three techniques. This is extremely important. We must quickly establish the mathematical models for the three techniques so that they can be promoted and spread."
The Lame Man sneered: "Imperial Preceptor, you want to spread this technique that can make one a god or a demon, letting everyone learn it—but have you asked the Qin family of Wu You Xiang? These three techniques, after all, are not yours!"
The Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor was momentarily stunned, then said apologetically: "I never considered whether this technique could be spread, so I forgot to ask the owner. Cult Leader Qin..."
Qin Mu laughed: "I never thought about keeping it secret either. I was just thinking that it should be spread—there's no need to hoard it selfishly."
The Yan Kang Imperial Preceptor gazed into his eyes, as if trying to see the true thoughts in his heart, but all he could see was Qin Mu's clear, limpid gaze. Suddenly he sighed: "Old Human Emperor, I finally understand why you chose him as your successor. He truly has the qualifications and breadth of mind to be Human Emperor. Though his age is young, his vision is grand enough!"
The Village Chief said calmly: "Mu'er was taught by us. Naturally, his vision is grand enough!"