Chapter 35: Temple Fair
Translator: Ninetales Editor: Fish Creek
"Eat, strong!"
At Doom Suppression Palace in the valley, Qin Mu took out the Vitality Reinforcement Pills that he had concocted. Shaking the fist-sized pills at devil ape, he said, "Strong, buff!"
Devil ape scratched its head and took a Vitality Reinforcement Pill into its hand. After it swallowed it down, there wasn’t any reaction so it was puzzled, "Strong?"
Suddenly, the devil turned crazy and the hair on its entire body started to grow at an insane speed. A tree sprout also grew on its head and became a huge tree fork—
—which should have been from a seed that had landed into devil ape’s hair and gotten stimulated by the Vitality Reinforcement Pill.
Its body was also growing wildly as its muscles continued to bulge. Its bones also became thicker, causing the devil ape to howl from being expanded. As it began to smash everything, Qin Mu went forward to stop it but was smashed into the ground by it. The devil ape’s second punch on the ground rebounded Qin Mu upwards from the dirt and he was given another punch.
In the midst of devil ape’s howls, Qin Mu rushed back again and the both of them started trading blows, shattering the rocks all around them.
After consuming the Vitality Reinforcement Pill that Qin Mu had made, the devil ape’s physique had gotten bigger and stronger. Its strength had also increased by a huge chunk, making Qin Mu to be overwhelmed by its strength, having no contest at all.
Qin Mu was then forced to change his vital qi into fire attribute. As his boiling vital qi circulated throughout his body, a huge dragon marking appeared on his back. The dragon’s four limbs were connected to his four limbs with the dragon’s claws situated right on his palm, matching up with his fingers.
Five claws flame dragon!
Fire attribute vital qi was classified as Vermillion Bird Vital Qi, however, Qin Mu didn’t have a Vermillion Bird Spirit Embryo and had a human-shaped spirit embryo instead. The dragon marking that had appeared on his back was not because of his vital qi but was the effect from the Thunderclap Eight Strikes that Old Ma had imparted to him.
The vital qi circulation of Old Ma’s Thunderclap Eight Strikes was extremely profound as its path formed a dragon marking that spread throughout the entire body. If Thunderclap Eight Strikes was executed by Old Ma with the Green Dragon Spirit Body, the vital qi with the wood and lightning attributes would turn the dragon marking on the back green in color with lightning interweaving.
However, since Qin Mu had not yet trained out his Green Dragon Vital Qi, he could only use Vermillion Bird Vital Qi thus the dragon marking on his back had clouds of fire.
Only when he executed Thunderclap Eight Strikes, the clouds of fire would then appear on his body. As long as he stopped executing it, this peculiar marking would gradually fade and vanish.
Qin Mu’s vital qi circulation raised his strength by a large amount and he was finally able to contest with devil ape. However, since the devil ape had gone insane, all his attacks were illogical and even when it meant it was going to get hurt, it still had to beat up Qin Mu. It was when both were covered in bruises and gasping for breaths while lying motionlessly on the ground did the fighting stop.
The huge tree fork on devil ape’s head had already grown as thick as a water barrel and had red fruits growing on it. The tree didn’t grow any further when the medicinal energy of the Vitality Reinforcement Pill was depleted.
There was really a problem with the Vitality Reinforcement Pill that Qin Mu had made. The medicinal energy was too strong and harsh, instead of being mild and gentle. The devil ape survived the impact of the medicinal energy only due to the sturdiness of its body. For all the other Spirit Embryo Realm practitioners, they would probably have died by body explosion.
Now that the medicinal energy was depleted, devil ape’s body gradually shrunk but it was still taller and stronger than before. This made Qin Mu feel that the Vitality Reinforcement Pill he made had some problems.
However from devil ape’s performance, the problem shouldn’t be quite huge. Even if there was a problem it was a positive one.
He plucked a fruit from the fruit tree on devil ape’s head and ate it after peeling the skin. The fruit was sweet and refreshing with a hint of medicinal fragrance.
Devil ape sat up and plucked down the huge tree on its head. The roots of the tree had grown all over its face, and after plucking it down, it grabbed a bunch of leaves and fruits to eat slowly.
Qin Mu handed over the remaining Vitality Reinforcement Pills and warned it, "You can only eat one pill at a time and never more. Also, if you want to fight, go find other strange beasts to fight and don’t destroy the Doom Suppression Palace."
Devil ape’s eyes sparkled and immediately kept the Vitality Reinforcement Pills while nodding its head.
The Vitality Reinforcement Pill that Qin Mu had made was too big. The pills that Apothecary made were only the size of a thumb while his were the size of a fist due to his inexperience. Hence, there were just over twenty pills in this batch.
Qin Mu left while feeling reassured. The devil ape waited for him to leave and then immediately took an unbelievably huge Vitality Reinforcement Pill and rushed excitedly to the nearest strange beast’s territory to seek revenge.
The strange beast next door was his enemy. It used to invade the ape's territory frequently and snatch the wild beasts to fill its stomach. It stopped invading the ape's territory recently only because it had been beaten by the ape several times and had seen the handprint of Qin Mu marked onto the cliff, knowing that there was one more owner here.
Devil ape rushed to his enemy’s territory and swallowed the pill down before rushing towards its enemy while bellowing.
Two days later, it was finally the day of the temple fair. Granny Si brought rolls of cloths while Old Ma brought the new pieces of furniture he had made. Apothecary carried his medicine basket and Butcher loaded a strange beast that Cripple had captured yesterday onto the cart. Butcher should be butchering meat to sell while Cripple does the cashiering, clearly dividing up their works.
Mute also brought his furnace and smithing tools while Deaf brought his brush, ink, and paper. Calling Qin Mu over, everyone got on the cow cart and headed towards Grandma Temple.
The cow cart was stuffed with items as it wobbled towards Grandma Temple. Qin Mu wasn’t in a good mood while driving the cow cart. Going to the temple fair was attractive to him when he was young, but now that he had more knowledge and experience, temple fair wasn’t as interesting as it was before.
However when he reached Grandma Temple, Qin Mu was shocked. The temple fair was more bustling than he had thought. In the ruins around Grandma Temple was a bazaar that was three miles long and there were stalls everywhere. It was bustling with activities with people walking here and there.
These people weren’t just from the few villages within three miles but from all the villages in a radius of a hundred miles. More than half of their villagers were all gathered here!
"On the map in Doom Suppression Palace, this place was called Sirius Palace and not Grandma Temple." Qin Mu was stumped at why this place would be called Grandma Temple.
As the cow cart drove into the bazaar, Qin Mu saw various rare and strange items being placed on the small stalls. There were even people kneading candies, cooking and doing a sideshow like spitting fire. There were others who were selling strange beasts, ores, jewelry, their daughters, et cetera.
"My daughter and I are from Cow Family Village and stopped by here. We don’t covet titles or money. It’s just that my daughter has reached a marriageable age and has no one in mind yet, so I would like to find a son-in-law through a martial arts competition and hope to find a good man with an outstanding martial skill…"
Qin Mu saw it was pretty lively in front and stopped the cow cart to take a look. It turned out that people were hosting martial arts competition to look for their future grooms. The men and women were fighting fiercely in the arena. Qin Mu lost interest after a few looks and continued forwards, only to see there was quite a few such kind of arenas in Grandma Temple.
These arenas were built on mud platforms and in the arenas were youths from the various villages which were all practitioners. Of course, there were also old and gray-haired men who jumped into the arena to participate but were thrown off while the audience hissed below.
"Some villages have lesser males therefore these martial arts competition are for them to look for a son-in-law to live with them."
Granny Si warned Qin Mu, "Becoming their son-in-law means that you must live with them so you cannot go up!"
Qin Mu nodded his head but his hands were itching for a fight. Blind laughed, "It’s okay even if Qin Mu goes up. So long he defeats everyone in the arenas here, and marry a few dozens of maidens…"
Granny gave him a stare and Blind shut his mouth and dare not continued.
Disabled Elderly Village had a fixed location for their stalls in Grandma Temple. It wasn’t long before the cow cart had arrived before these stalls. Qin Mu helped butcher set up his butchery before helping Old Ma to move his furniture down. After he had finished moving, he then helped Mute set up his iron furnace and Granny Si set up her tailoring work table before helping Blind prepare his ink and hanging up his rhyming couplets.
After all the preparation were done, Qin Mu saw Blind sitting in front of a table with a banner hanging from his bamboo cane. On the banner were these few words "Six broken and solid lines of the eight divinatory trigrams, avoid calamities with fortune telling". Qin Mu thought to himself, "Grandpa Blind also know how to tell fortunes?"
Apothecary also set up his medicine stall at the side while Butcher had already sliced open the belly of the strange beast and begun hanging its meat up. With the villagers shouting for business, they were just like any other ordinary people.
"Mu’er, there’s an empty arena at the side, hang this few words up."
With a few swift strokes, Deaf had written a few words for Qin Mu and told him, "After you hang it there, don’t come down anymore and just stand on the arena. This is your business today. If you are still standing in the arena after the sun sets, we’ll consider that you have passed the test."
Qin Mu looked at the set of words which read: The unrivaled one that splits the river, sweeping away all eight hundred villages in Great Ruins! There was still another horizontal scroll which wrote: Number one in Spirit Embryo Realm.
Qin Mu looked at the arena and there were two wooden pillars that were gleaming brightly. In the middle of the pillars was a horizontal tablet which was empty, it should be where he should paste the horizontal scrolls.
"Grandpa Deaf, would I be beaten to death?" Qin Mu turned to ask Deaf.
At this moment, he saw Deaf taking out another banner which wrote "Bet to make a fortune, once bet there’s no change". Blind had apparently tried to make a fortune through his battles.
Meanwhile, Granny Si had already made a bet on Blind’s betting stall. Apothecary excitedly placed his medicines out on the stall as he waited for the injured practitioners to come down from the arena. Old Ma was making crutches and stretchers while Butcher was selling "flood dragon’s precious blood" which was a divine medicine for body strengthening!
Qin Mu face instantly turned black. These crooked old men and woman were too good at doing business!
"Deaf, write another notice: only Spirit Embryo Realm practitioners are allowed to go up."
Granny Si gave it some thought, "What happens if a divine arts practitioner jumped up and just beat Mu’er to death?"