"Hehe, yesterday's battle really did yield quite a lot."
The Land God said with a delighted laugh.
"Thanks to your help yesterday, sir, I gained a deeper understanding of the Land God's path and grasped the authority to guide souls through the Underworld Administration ahead of time. I even acquired the ability to perform rites for the dead."
"Not at all. Congratulations, Land God. This good fortune came from your profound merit." Ling Qing cupped his hands in congratulations.
"All right, let's stop flattering each other and deal with this pack of vicious tigers."
The Land God was still smiling as he spoke. Clearly, he was very pleased with his progress.
"Indeed."
Ling Qing replied and turned to look at the destruction before them.
The village entrance, which should have been a stretch of fertile farmland, was now pitted and battered, reduced to ruins.
Many of the concealed pits had not been triggered. They were harmless enough on an ordinary day, but a sudden upheaval of the earth could make them dangerous.
One by one, the ferocious tigers lay motionless at the bottoms of the ravines, the soil beneath them soaked with their blood, which was nearly dry.
The Tiger Demon killed by the Land God had been left in the best condition.
Apart from the brain matter and blood seeping from its seven orifices, making its already fierce face look even more hideous, its body was otherwise undamaged.
"Rise!"
The Land God pointed, and the ravines before them began to roll and turn, lifting the tiger corpses from below.
The earth surged like waves, arranging all the corpses neatly before the two of them, including the Tiger Demon's.
Then the ground rolled again, turning the area before them back into level land and filling in the pits as well.
But where the vicious tigers had rampaged, not a blade of grass remained. Fresh earth lay exposed.
Still, with tiger blood buried beneath the soil to nourish it, the land would surely yield a bountiful harvest next year.
"Land God, what should we do with these tiger corpses?"
Looking at the neatly arranged bodies, Ling Qing was at a loss.
He could probably have taken them to the government office and exchanged them for quite a bit of silver, as well as claimed the reward for slaying the tigers.
But first, Ling Qing did not want to waste more time on it.
Second, he did not have the ability to transport all these corpses there.
Yet leaving them here would be a waste, and he could not bring himself to do that.
"These beasts have powerful bodies. Their bones and sinews must have considerable medicinal value.
"The bones of this Tiger Demon in particular should be even more potent. But I don't have the skill to skin it and strip its bones."
"No trouble, no trouble. Just watch this old man work."
The Land God spoke with a smile as he cast his spell.
"These beasts ate many people, and their flesh has long since been tainted by resentment. It can't be eaten, so we may as well burn it all.
"But most of their hides are intact. They'll fetch a good price in town. The tiger tendons and bones also have their uses."
Ling Qing watched as the Land God's spell made the tiger skins swell like balloons.
Once they had stretched to their limit, they began to deflate, slipping off to reveal the tiger flesh, white as silk.
Then, without any blade being wielded, the entire skeleton emerged from the flesh, clean of even the tiniest scraps. The tiger tendons and the male tigers' tiger organs also came away intact.
All that remained was a heap of tiger flesh, which burst into flame without a spark. In the blink of an eye, it became a mound of black ash, drifting down onto the newly leveled ground.
Ling Qing stared in surprise. He had not expected the Land God to be so skilled at this.
"When I was alive, I had to make a living. I did all sorts of jobs: guarding homes and courtyards, trading on the road, raising and selling pigs, butchering meat, and more."
Seeing Ling Qing's expression, the Land God explained with a smile.
"I had no idea you were so versatile, Land God."
Ling Qing marveled again.
If he had not experienced it himself, who could have imagined that the Land God, a figure in mythology whom people summoned and dismissed at will, possessed not only extraordinary divine power and deep good fortune, but also such a varied past?
By that reasoning, anyone who could become a god must have something exceptional about them.
Even if the Land God before him had reached this level with the help of divine arts, how could he know that other gods had not encountered other kinds of good fortune?
Especially those ancient gods. No matter how low their rank, if they had lived for so long, there had to be a reason they had endured.
It was no wonder Confucius had said, "Respect the spirits, but keep them at a distance."
It seemed he would have to be more courteous when dealing with all kinds of gods from now on, lest he invite unnecessary trouble.
"Found it. Looks like that beast really did carry it with him."
Just as Ling Qing's thoughts were wandering, the Land God called out.
Ling Qing turned and saw a Beast Skin Scroll, one that looked remarkably familiar, fly out of the Tiger Demon's mouth.
It was exactly like the Beast Skin Scroll that recorded the Divine Script.
"This must be the other half of the scripture, right?"
Ling Qing spoke as he walked over to take a look.
"Exactly."
The Land God unrolled the beast skin. Sure enough, both the mountain-and-river-like Divine Script and the annotations had been written by the same hand.
"I'll have to trouble you again, sir." After a quick glance, the Land God handed it directly to Ling Qing.
"It's just what I'd hoped for." Ling Qing accepted it without hesitation.
Seeing that the Land God continued dealing with the tiger corpses, he went to the locust tree and began studying the scroll carefully.
The contents were indeed connected to the previous scroll. After taking it out and comparing them, he found that even the beast skin itself was of similar material.
Unlike the previous scroll, which recorded the scripture's principles, aims, and cultivation methods, this one did not contain the subsequent cultivation methods he had imagined. Instead, it recorded ways to put them into practice.
It seemed that the cultivation methods he had thought were merely the basics were in fact the true fundamental methods.
This second volume contained the Spirit Condensation Method, Spirit Fusion Method, and Spirit Transformation Method.
The Spirit Condensation Method explained how to turn the concepts of gathered divine offices into symbols of their fundamental authority, such as divine edicts and Divine Seals.
The Earth God's True Body that the Land God had temporarily condensed the day before was an application of this method.
Although the Land God did not know the Spirit Condensation Method, he was already a god. He had merely fused borrowed power with the authority he already possessed, inadvertently aligning himself with some of the method's true meaning.
The Spirit Fusion Method explained how to combine multiple concepts of divine offices into a single, more expansive concept of authority.
The Land God's office, for example, encompassed both human-path authorities such as bountiful harvests, and ghost-path authorities such as guiding departed souls.
The Jade Emperor Haotian was even more so the god of all gods, with authority extending across the Three Realms and Ten Directions, and over all yin and yang, fortune and calamity throughout the four forms of life and the Six Paths.
He walked the Way of Heaven and spread Heaven's virtue.
As for the Spirit Transformation Method—
Transformation meant making something one's own and putting it to use.
This method explained how to use the authority in one's hands, along with various wondrous spells.
Of the three methods, it was the most varied and extensive, taking up two-thirds of the entire second volume.
The Tiger Demon's earlier method of shedding the Land God's authority and the restraint of his earthen ropes, for instance, was the God-Evasion Technique.
It could evade the effects of divine authority and prevent them from touching its user.
According to the scripture, when cultivated to its peak, it could make all gods retreat and all spells fail to touch the user.
But the Tiger Demon had not possessed the fundamental Spirit Restraint Method from the first volume, so it could not cultivate the Spirit Condensation Method or the Spirit Fusion Method, obtain divine authority, and become a true god.
It was not impossible to drive this technique with demonic power, but without a true understanding of divine authority, it would inevitably be unable to cultivate it to a high level.
Still, the Tiger Demon had managed to use it to break the Land God's spell, which showed just how wondrous the technique was.
Of course, even with the fundamental method, reaching the technique's highest level would hardly be easy.
Before you continue