Devouring Evil Martial Arts, Eliminating Demons from All Heavens

Chapter 471 You Obscure the Heavenly Secrets, I Tread the Fields

Quack!!

The little frog jumped from the water onto the flower petals, its belly rising and falling, and croaked twice.

"so……"

Chu Tianshu said, "You didn't see the red thread, but you saw me first. Is it because the Mountain King's divine drum is helpful for you to deal with the current Mountain King?"

Hai Donglai nodded.

Chu Tianshu asked curiously, "Are you also planning to use the divine drum for divination?"

"of course not."

Hai Donglai said, "Back then, in our battle, before he was even defeated, I knocked the drum away."

"After his defeat, although I did not find the drum or his body, I brought back his monk's hat as a memento."

"From a divination perspective, using a monk's hat to find someone increases the chances of success."

"But seven years ago, when I took a monk's hat to the Imperial Observatory, they couldn't figure it out either."

In fact, Hai Donglai later went to Tibet, found the cenotaph of the Mountain King, and dug up the grave.

They retrieved all the personal belongings that had been buried with the deceased and handed them over to the Imperial Observatory for a ritual.

They still couldn't figure out where the mutated Mountain King was.

Aside from not seeking help from powerful families, Hai Donglai has tried every possible method over the years.

As for why they didn't look for aristocratic families, ordinary members of such families simply couldn't provide any useful clues from the vast territory.

And the uncrowned king of the aristocratic families...

When they suddenly encountered the Mountain King and were beaten down to nothing but a dead head, they might instinctively think of asking the Crimson Emperor to stand up for them and fight against the Mountain King.

Just like the situation that was maintained for the past ninety years.

Whenever Tibet wanted to ask the Mountain King Monk to do something, the Red Emperor Haidong would always come to the rescue.

However, if the experts from these top families learn about the mutated Mountain King in advance and are prepared, then they can search for and make contact with him.

That would be a completely different situation; nobody knows what kind of trouble these people might cause.

It's better to keep the good news to ourselves and not let them know in the first place.

Hai Donglai never had any expectations for the lower limits of most aristocratic families.

Chu Tianshu asked in confusion, "Then what do you plan to do?"

Hai Donglai opened his red umbrella, tilted it, and tapped one of the ribs against the railing.

It was as if a pinch of phosphorus powder had been shaken out of the umbrella and landed on the railing.

Chu Tianshu stretched out his finger and dipped it in.

"This is……"

He sensed a faint life force within the powder, and a flash of inspiration struck him.

"Strain?"

Hai Donglai laughed and said, "In your own domain, have you perhaps conducted similar research?"

"The name 'strain' is quite fitting. I call it 'strain powder,' initially because it resembles the powder on mushrooms. Great minds think alike."

The sunlight slanted onto these fungal powders, giving them a phosphorescent, bluish-white hue.

Chu Tianshu quickly channeled his inner energy to coat the fungal powder, then shook it back onto the railing, leaving not a drop on his fingers.

His strongest impression of fungi is all kinds of molds.

Especially when he was young, he loved to eat a kind of purple rice bread. He bought a whole box of it and kept it at home. One time, he accidentally picked up one with damaged packaging.

He almost, almost, stuffed the completely green, mycelium-covered bread into his mouth.

He didn't realize something was wrong until he had bitten through the bread crust with his teeth, and he used up half a bucket of water rinsing his mouth.

The Ghost Gate witch doctor had little knowledge of this area and was not particularly interested in it.

"I don't know much about this."

Chu Tianshu clicked his tongue and said, "How did you come up with the idea of ​​researching this?"

Hai Donglai took two steps to the side, leaned his right shoulder against the pillar, and looked up at the sky.

Do you still remember Guan Changling?

More than a hundred years ago, the Inner Guard was divided into two departments, left and right, each with its own commander.

Guan Changling was another commander who was on par with Hai Donglai.

However, this fellow was originally a former official of a princess's household. Feeling that the princess had been wronged, he did not hesitate to collude with foreign countries in order to avenge her.

On the night of the great battle between Chu Tianshu and Duan Zhong, Guan Changling also died in that temple in Nanzhao.

"Some impression."

Chu Tianshu pondered, "Later I heard you say that he was skilled in using poison?"

Hai Donglai said, "To be precise, his military spirit lies in his ability to observe changes in poisonous substances at the most minute level."

More than a hundred years ago, after Hai Donglai returned to Chang'an, he ransacked Guan Changling's house and inadvertently obtained Guan Changling's drug-making notes.

The notes mention that Guan Changling actually considered developing a rare poison that kills based on blood ties.

People infected with this poison look like they have a serious illness, and it spreads extremely quickly.

No secondary poisoning is needed; others will also be poisoned, and it only affects those with blood ties.

Guan Changling's research goal is that as long as there is a common ancestor within ten generations, this poison can kill the entire clan without harming others.

Even if others unintentionally acted as intermediaries in this chain of poisonings.

This toxin will not have much of an effect on their bodies.

After a period of time, the toxins will be naturally eliminated through the blood circulation of these unrelated individuals. Hai Donglai strongly suspected that he developed this poison intending to use it on the Li Tang royal family.

Anyway, the princess died unjustly, and the Li Tang royal family deserved to die the most.

However, quite a few members of the Li family have been scattered among the common people over the generations, and it is really too difficult to say exactly how many people within ten generations are related by blood.

If Guan Changling had actually developed this thing, then all the people in Chang'an might have unwittingly acted as a medium, and it would have spread to various places, and who knows how many people would have died in the end.

Fortunately, he died in Nanzhao before he could succeed.

After hearing this, Chu Tianshu couldn't help but scratch his forehead with his fingernail.

That guy who didn't leave a deep impression on him back then turned out to be a drug-making maniac!
Good, good, good! Chang'an is truly a place where hidden talents reside; people were already doing this kind of thing a hundred years ago.

"After the Mountain King's transformation, it traveled around the country, but it was not aggressive towards ordinary people. It only reacted to the hostility of experts, and seemed harmless."

Hai Donglai continued, "However, I discovered that in the places he passed through, the species of locusts all underwent subtle changes."

"The locust plagues that have broken out in recent years do not seem to be much different from those of previous years, but they are approaching a qualitative change."

"If he continues to influence us like this, even if I find him and successfully kill him..."

"Those mutated locusts will eventually brew an unprecedented catastrophe, leaving endless calamities."

For example, common dragonflies and locusts.

Even if no one hunts them, they should disappear by winter, at most their eggs will remain hidden in the soil to overwinter.

However, nowadays, some locusts in various places are able to hop around and jump around in winter.

Therefore, Hai Donglai remembered Guan Changling's notes.

If we could cultivate a unique poison that specifically kills locusts, it would be harmless to other people and livestock.

In the process of spreading the strange poison, can it wipe out locusts in large numbers?
Even if we can't eradicate all locust species, if we eliminate the most harmful ones, will the people of the Tang Dynasty be free from the suffering of locust plagues in the future?

Thanks to the flourishing of martial arts in the world, the art of weaponry has been continuously improved.

After Hai Donglai led his men to try it many times, they really cultivated a kind of soldier spirit, similar to the soldier spirit of Guan Changling back then.

Based on this, he observed some strange diseases that locusts are prone to, analyzed the subtle factors that cause the diseases, extracted them, and then cultivated and tested them.

"I searched for generations of variant locusts, and cultivated and enhanced the effectiveness of this fungal powder with each generation."

"But the locusts change first, and my fungal powder changes only after that, so I'm always a step behind."

Hai Donglai gazed at the vast sky, speaking slowly and deliberately, word by word.

His demeanor has changed considerably compared to a hundred years ago; his tone is gentler, and a faint, vibrant smile appears on his face.

Such a person is unlikely to easily change their temperament as they age.

His current demeanor is perhaps more a result of the meticulous work he has done for seven years, traversing mountains and rivers, and cultivating microbial strains in fields and villages.

"To make the fungal powder surpass the changes of those locusts, it would be best to use the source of the change and cultivate these fungal powders from the source. However, the mutated Mountain King is unpredictable and difficult to find..."

At this point in Hai Dong's story, Chu Tianshu had completely understood.

Boom!
Chu Tianshu tapped lightly on the surface of the black-scaled drum with his finger.

"The spirit of the Mountain King's Divine Drum is, in the final analysis, the product of the Mountain King's blood and will nourishing it for over a hundred years."

"The spirit of the soldier contains the essence of the blood and qi of the source of the mutation, the Mountain King. The Mountain King must have studied a certain tendency before he died, which is why he underwent that change after his death."

"His military spirit grew stronger year by year, and it clearly harbored that tendency!"

By using military spirit to cultivate bacterial strains, we can achieve a reversal of the locust plague.

Hai Donglai twirled the red umbrella in his hand and smiled, "Exactly."

Moreover, if the mutant locusts begin to cause large-scale extinctions.

If the extinction occurs too quickly, the mutated mountain kings will likely sense it strongly and trace their origins back.

At that time, Hai Donglai only needs to wait and wait for the opportunity to fight him again.

"Then you can take it."

Chu Tianshu casually tossed the divine drum away.

Hai Donglai reached out and caught it, but did not rush to use it. He asked, "You used to have other uses for the Wild Soldier's Soul. I heard that after you got the Divine Drum, you often played with it. Is this also useful to you?"

Chu Tianshu waved his hand dismissively and said, "It's alright. It helps my training a little, but as my foundation grows stronger, the influence of the drumbeats is obviously diminishing."

"It is a blessing for Guan Changling and this drum to help kill locusts."

"But this kind of cultivation takes a lot of time, right? Are you going to stay and watch over it the whole time?"

Hai Donglai weighed the divine drum in his hand and said, "No need. I'll start it, and these fungal powders will grow and change on their own."

"That's just right!"

Chu Tianshu became happy and clapped his hands, saying, "We can have a good chat about the changes in martial arts over the years!"

"By the way, does your mushroom powder have a name?"

Hai Donglai said, "I'll call it locust-killing poison powder."

“When studying microorganisms, we can’t just name them based on a single use.”

Chu Tianshu shook his head slightly, recalling the limited knowledge he had about fungi.

"I think this thing could be called Metarhizium anisopliae?"

Metarhizium anisopliae is a bacterium that easily infects locusts. However, since it is effective against mutated locusts, this strain must have been targeted and enhanced for many generations.

"General Green?"

Hai Donglai's brow relaxed, and he chuckled, praising, "Good!"

"This name certainly sounds better than names like mushroom powder, mushroom strain, or poison powder. Ordinary people in the city will definitely be more likely to accept this prestigious name."

"Haha, if the Locust King comes, General Green will charge into battle!"

(End of this chapter)