"Ahh... phew..." Shen Shuibei couldn't straighten her back from exhaustion. "Li Qi, why are we... moving these rocks? I'm so tired."
As she spoke, she steadied the backpack on the old horse.
The backpack was tied to the old horse with a vine, and Shen Shuibei was responsible for keeping it balanced while adding rocks inside.
She couldn't carry the backpack herself, so she had to pick up rocks one by one and place them into the backpack on the old horse's back, letting the horse carry them while she supported it from the side.
Li Qi didn't have an old horse to help him; he could only move the rocks himself and carry them up.
After all, as a tracker, being treated like an animal was a common occurrence.
No, it should be said that the profession of a tracker itself often involved being treated like animals.
Hearing Shen Shuibei's confusion, Li Qi explained, "You had a sudden intuition, and so did I. Using the five clouds technique, it showed signs of imminent danger above my head. We must prepare ourselves."
"I know we need to prepare... but what does this have to do with moving rocks?" She was already exhausted from losing her cultivation, and now heavy physical labor made her even more tired, prompting her to ask Li Qi.
Carrying a rock weighing three to four hundred pounds up the mountain, Li Qi heard Shen Shuibei's question and responded, "To set traps. With mountains and water around us, only I can fight. We need to be prepared."
"But we're almost done. You and the old horse can rest. I'll finish the rest myself; there isn't much left." Li Qi glanced over and saw about one-third of the work remaining. He believed he could finish by midnight if he worked hard enough.
However, Shen Shuibei shook her lips and shook her head.
The old horse also neighed softly, not retreating but continuing to carry rocks up the mountain.
Seeing this, Li Qi didn't say anything more.
Upon reaching the top, he immediately began arranging stones into an altar.
Yes, he intended to use the sacrificial methods he had learned to see if he could create a trump card.
"Mountain god, sacrifice with offerings..." Li Qi muttered the teachings from the book "Wu".
"Sacrifice" refers to pure-colored livestock, and "offering" refers to edible livestock.
Sacrificing to the mountain god required using pure-colored livestock as offerings.
Where could he find pure-colored livestock now?
Simple, the old horse was right beside him.
Though the old horse was old, as a dragon steed, his fur was pure black and shiny, very handsome.
So, he took a knife and walked toward the old horse.
The old horse stepped back in fright.
"Don't make such a face..." Li Qi laughed and scolded, "I'm not really going to kill you."
The old horse neighed pitifully.
But Li Qi wouldn't actually kill him for the sacrifice. After all, they had spent several days together, and their relationship was close. He couldn't do something like that.
He used the knife to cut the old horse's buttocks slightly, collected some horse blood, and cut off a strand of its flowing mane.
The old horse whinnied pitifully again.
Li Qi patted its buttocks with a laugh, "In two days, I'll give you a wisp of Azure Dragon divine energy. Look at you!"
The old horse, hearing this, turned happily and walked away.
That small wound didn't need attention; it would stop bleeding in twenty minutes. Li Qi had taken about two hundred milliliters, which for the old horse was equivalent to a nosebleed.
Li Qi placed the horse's blood and mane on the stone altar he had built.
"Chisel stones to erect monuments, to pacify spirits..."
"Southward, worship the mountain god, offer sacrifices with libations..."
Libation originally referred to wine, but since Li Qi didn't have any, he used another meaning of "libation," referring to sweet spring water. Shen Shuibei had run across two mountains to fetch fresh spring water.
Both the sacrifice and libation were ready.
The altar was built with stones, and Li Qi used some mechanical principles, performing a stress analysis to ensure it looked precarious but wouldn't collapse unless disturbed.
Even if it collapsed, it would fall towards the water spring below the cliff, not harming him.
After determining the direction, facing south, he presented the offerings.
Using the back of his axe, Li Qi split a relatively regular stone, roughly forming a human shape.
Actually, it resembled a stone doll, barely recognizable as human...
Placing this figure on the altar, he began the Wu ceremony facing south.
"The myriad spirits of heaven and earth, follow the Way through breath."
In this world, besides mountain spirits and water monsters becoming gods, there was another path—the mountain itself becoming a god.
This was difficult because although mountains had spirits, they lacked awareness and perception, unable to feel or cultivate.
Thus, most mountain gods were spirits rather than the mountains themselves.
But what Li Qi was trying to do now was to artificially create a mountain god.
Was it possible? Almost certainly not.
To achieve this, it would require an entire village worshipping monthly for decades, multiple generations cultivating it with incense, gradually awakening it, and after hundreds of years of nurturing by heaven and earth energy, it might emerge.
Therefore, Li Qi knew it was unlikely to gain assistance from a mountain god.
If a mountain god agreed to help him, he'd be completely safe, without any danger. But he didn't expect such a stroke of luck.
So, the main purpose of this ritual was to exchange for a wisp of mountain root qi.
This method was invented by other Wu practitioners and recorded in the book "Wu".
The principle relied on the characteristics of primitive mountain spirits—having spirits but no awareness or perception—to summon part of the spirit into the carved statue, which was what he chanted first: "Chisel stones to erect monuments, to pacify spirits."
Then, offering a portion of this spirit along with a wisp of his own qi, imbuing it with human characteristics.
This way, the summoned part of the mountain spirit would temporarily awaken with perception, similar to a fetus in the womb, having perception but no wisdom.
This part of the mountain spirit, though still connected to the original spirit, would develop differences, like a hand suddenly gaining a mind of its own.
The mountain spirit would resist this change, despite lacking awareness. Mountains and waters had spirits, which would naturally expel attempts to pollute them.
Such pollution was insignificant to the vast mountain spirit. To fully pollute it would require a blood sacrifice of millions of people. One person's wisp of qi was akin to a drop of spit to the mountain spirit.
Therefore, the mountain spirit would sever the polluted part and leave, never responding to this person's sacrifices again, even if it eventually became a god, it would naturally despise this person.
But Li Qi couldn't worry about that anymore.
What the mountain spirit expelled was precisely what Li Qi wanted.
Mountain root qi!