Shen Mu walked on to the next room. Inside was a woman, her face painted with strange patterns, a headdress of feathers on her head, in her hand a bamboo staff with the tail of some unknown beast bound to it. The staff had twenty-four joints, answering to the twenty-four solar terms. The woman smiled and said, "In this room, we contend with spellcraft!" Shen Mu shook his head. "I know nothing of spellcraft. Can a martial artist of the Spirit Embryo Stage also learn spells?" Shen Mu asked, doubtful, "How does one fight with spellcraft?" Shen Mu asked, curious, "Does sword control count as spellcraft?" "It does not." Shen Mu frowned. "Why is it that they are always fighting one another? Combat arts, swordsmanship, and spellcraft — are they not all divine powers? Would it not be better to gather the strengths of all three?" Shen Mu's spirits rose. "Sister, work a spell for me to see. I have never seen spellcraft before!" Shen Mu studied it closely, and saw that after the rainwater struck the ground it flowed back upward along the wall, cycling without end. Shen Mu reached out, seized the water dragon by its seven-inch vital point, and crushed it with a snap. Shen Mu flicked his fingers in rapid succession, shattering every saber, spear, sword, and halberd that came at him. "So this is spellcraft," he said. "Sister, does this move of mine also count as spellcraft?" Shen Mu walked on to the next room, where he found a burly man with a stubbled beard, half-kneeling, half-sitting, with a long rectangular sword case beside him, its bronze clasp fastened shut. The man did not rise, still half-kneeling, half-sitting. "You carry a sword pouch on your back, so you must know swordsmanship as well. Today we shall contest sword arts." Shen Mu shook his head. "I have never learned swordsmanship." Shen Mu shook his head. "Granny said there is a man in the village who possesses the peerless sword art under heaven, so she could not pass the Dark Demon Sect's swordsmanship on to me, lest he refuse to teach me." "The peerless sword art under heaven?" Shen Mu blinked. "I have learned other things as well — the Eight Thunder Peal Arts, the Sky-Skimming Divine Legs, the Cattle-Slaughtering Saber Art, and spear techniques, painting, hammer techniques..." Helpless, Shen Mu could only walk out of the wooden building and return to Hidden Remnant Village, where he explained the matter to Granny Zhu. Granny Zhu raged, "That blockhead Jiantang, so rigid and inflexible! And you, Shen'er — you should have hacked at him with your saber and chopped the wretch to pieces!" Shen Mu mumbled, "That would be an unearned victory." Granny Zhu took him by the hand and led him to the village entrance, where the Village Head and the Pill Master were still brewing tea, and the Young Patriarch sat across from them, the three drinking together. Granny Zhu said with a smile, "Why not teach him a trick or two?" "But it is a good thing Shen'er has an Overlord Body, is it not?" Granny Zhu said with a wink. "An Overlord Body..." The Village Head's eye twitched. He felt his intestines must have turned green — green with regret, surely. After all, Shen Mu was the Overlord Body he had "insisted upon with one bite," and he knew him inside and out. Shen Mu's awakening of the Spirit Embryo had already surpassed his imagining, but to have Shen Mu, in the space of a few short moments, grow in swordsmanship to the point of contending with the Dark Demon Sect's most outstanding sword master — that was still asking too much of any man. Granny Zhu had thrust this task upon him, and yet he could not refuse. The Village Head mused for a moment. "Shen'er, recite to me the Red Heart Art you learned from Pei Wujiu." Shen Mu at once recited the Red Heart Art from beginning to end. The Village Head nodded slowly and said in praise, "When Imperial Preceptor Jingping gathered the realm's masters of the sword, he truly produced something remarkable. The Red Heart Art's sword-controlling technique does indeed hold unique secrets." The Young Patriarch across from him also sighed in admiration. "Imperial Preceptor Jingping was a rare genius." "Tell me how Pei Wujiu explained the Red Heart Art to you," said the Village Head. Shen Mu recounted Pei Wujiu's explanation. The Village Head mused for a moment, then smiled. "Pei Wujiu held something back." He pointed out the errors in it. Shen Mu at once tried the corrections, then used his qi to command a flying sword, and found it far easier to control and faster to draw. He was filled with admiration. The Young Patriarch's eyes lit up. "Pei Wujiu did not hold anything back," he said with a smile. "It is merely that his comprehension was limited, far beneath our brother of the Dao. You heard it once and fathomed every mystery of the Red Heart Art, while he cultivated his whole life and still practiced it wrong." "Brother of the Dao, you flatter me." The Village Head looked at Shen Mu and said, unhurried, "I will not teach you swordsmanship. I will teach you a single, simplest movement: the thrust." "The thrust?" Shen Mu was taken aback. What was so hard about a thrust? Direct one's vital qi through the sword and stab forward — did that need teaching? "Thrusting with a sword is not as simple as you imagine. You do not know swordsmanship, but once you master this single movement — the thrust — there will be precious few sword masters of the Spirit Embryo Stage in all the world who can defeat you." The Village Head said, "Take an ordinary sword, command it with your qi as a flying blade, and try to pierce the butcher shop's pillar." Shen Mu activated the Red Heart Art. A tendon of vital qi as thick as an arm coiled around a treasured sword from the sword pouch on his back and thrust at the butcher shop pillar in the village. Thud. Shen Mu pierced the pillar through with one strike, the tip of the sword emerging from the other side. Then the cowherd boy turned and looked at the Village Head. The Village Head's face stiffened. He coughed once. "Try piercing this stone." Shen Mu's vital qi coiled and drew the sword from the pillar. Again came a ringing ding, and the blade pierced through a mountain stone before the Village Head. The cowherd boy turned once more, looking at the stiff-faced Village Head with innocent eyes. The Young Patriarch was both astonished and amused, and could only force down his laughter to avoid being rude. "I forgot — this boy's vital qi cultivation is unimaginably deep. His swordsmanship is dreadful, but his vital qi is boundless, and with vital qi to reinforce it, its power doubles." Embarrassed, the Village Head coughed repeatedly to cover it. "Now try piercing your Cattle-Slaughtering Saber." A crisp ding rang out — this time Shen Mu failed to pierce the Cattle-Slaughtering Saber. "Thank goodness it did not pierce through, or there would have been no way to teach him..." The Village Head breathed a secret sigh of relief and guided him patiently. "When you thrust that sword, what did you feel?" Shen Mu pondered carefully, then his eyes suddenly lit up. "I felt that my vital qi is not strong enough. When I use qi to command a flying sword and the tip meets the slightest obstruction, my vital qi can no longer sustain it — as if I had a body's worth of strength yet struck with a single strand of hair. The strands of vital qi are too soft; they cannot bear my full strength."