章節 100: Revealing The Findings
Lin Mu was passing through the trees with ease. He would wade and flicker through them, dodging each and every obstacle. His spirit sense was spread forward and helped him sense the upcoming path. With the help of his spirit sense, he would know everything that was there.
A couple of hours passed by and Lin Mu was still running. He would slow down once he felt the fatigue building up, but would never stop. His progress in his body tempering realm had also helped in increasing his stamina by a notch.
After he slowed down, he would soon feel better and then he would continue on and increase his speed again. Three hours passed like this, and even now Lin Mu could not see any spirit beasts.
"Where did they go? Even if they hide, they should at least have nests nearby." Lin Mu spoke while running.
"The spirit beasts are smarter than normal beasts, so they should have retreated to the edge of the forest instead. But for the normal beasts, they probably stuck where they are because of the fear or they too filled the spirit beasts. Either way, you should probably see them soon." Xukong replied.
Lin Mu simply nodded his head in response and kept on running. Another hour passed and Lin Mu finally saw his first beast. It wasn't a spirit beast, but rather just a common bird beast that could be seen anywhere in the forest.
"Seems like they ran pretty far." Lin Mu muttered.
He then spread his spirit sense around in all directions and observed if there were more beasts nearby. His search showed him that there were plenty of beasts here, and they all seemed to be a bit startled. When he passed by the beasts, they ignored him and let him pass by without bothering him.
The number of beasts was now much larger than before, and it became impossible for Lin Mu to avoid them anymore. Eventually, he had his first encounter with a spirit beast. The spirit beast looked like a mongoose and was the same size as that of a normal one.
If it were not for the faint spirit qi waves coming from the beast, Lin Mu would have not been able to tell that it was one.
'Oh, it should have been obvious. No normal mongoose would live this deep in the forest, that too in a cold place like this.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
The mongoose beast looked at Lin Mu with sharp eyes and watched his every move. With every step that Lin Mu moved, the beast would move to. The beast was wary of Lin Mu and seemed to be a little afraid.
Lin Mu watched the beast as well but did not attack it as he didn't want to be needlessly involved right now. Seeing that the beast had no desire to fight, Lin Mu moved a little distance away and walked away. The beast did the same and just watched him go away.
"Well, that was strange." Lin Mu said to himself.
"Most intelligent spirit beasts won't attack straight away, especially in tense situations such as the one right now when most of them have been scared by the great slumber bear. They will avoid getting into a conflict as the other beasts may take advantage of this fact and catch them off guard." Xukong replied.
Lin Mu nodded and then continued on his journey. He had more encounters with spirit beasts, but all of them acted the same way the mongoose beast had. They watched him but did not attack, and when he moved away, they let him go.
Lin Mu was rather intrigued by this behavior. In the past, he had thought of all beasts as having zero to no intelligence and only having basic instincts that an animal has. He of course knew that senior Xukong was a beast as well, but he was way beyond his comprehension. Thus did not include him in his list.
Lin Mu felt fascinated by the intelligence of the spirit beasts and wondered if he would get to see any beasts that had the same intelligence as humans here. He also wondered if the great slumber bear would be smarter than this or not.
Lin Mu had seen how the core condensation realm Alpha steel back wolf had acted and led his pack of wolves. Common of that kind needed a certain level of intelligence, which perhaps only beasts above that of the qi refining realm have.
Lin Mu had traveled even more far and guessed that he was rather close to the camp now. His guess turned out to be true as he could soon see clouds of smoke rising from the front, a few hundred meters away from him. Lin Mu approached the camp with a little apprehension and stayed alert.
While Lin Mu knew that the camp would be safe because of the scent of the alpha steel back wolf, he was still a little worried in the back of his head. He wondered if the roar of the great slumber Bear had scared the spirit beasts so much so that they would ignore the scent of another core condensation realm beast.
Lin Mu's hidden worry turned out to be for naught as he saw the camp was safe and calm. There were two men standing guard at the border of the camp, while four tents were set up in a circle with a Bonfire in the center.
Seeing that the others were not here, Lin Mu guessed that they were most likely resting in the tents.
~tap~ ~tap~ ~tap~
Lin Mu walked into the camp and made sure to make some noise of footsteps so as to alert the guard. He didn't want to surprise them too much by directly turning up behind them and wanted to announce his arrival. He could tell from their expressions that the guards had been a little stressed, as the fatigue could be seen on their faces.
The two guards turned to look at the source of the sound and saw Lin Mu enter.
"It's senior Lin Mu!" One of them spoke.
"Senior Lin Mu has returned!" The second one announced to the camp.
Upon hearing the shout, four people walked out of the tents. Xie Bohai was one of them and looked at Lin Mu, who had just walked in. Lin Mu approached them can came to stand in front of them. All six of them cupped their hands in greeting and spoke.
"Greetings senior."
"I hope Senior had a breakthrough in his cultivation." Xie Bohai spoke.
Lin Mu nodded in response and spoke, "Ah yes, I did indeed."
Lin Mu then looked at the last remaining tent and the others followed his gaze. Xie Bohai instantly guessed what Lin Mu was thinking.
"Senior Hei Yingjie is better than yesterday and has improved. His condition has been stable now." Xie Bohai reported.
Lin Mu simply nodded and walked into the tent. Upon entering, he saw the unconscious Hei Yingjie that was calmly sleeping. Lin Mu extended his spirit sense and checked the internal condition of him. The number of Small clots and internal bleeding had reduced by a lot.
Though it still seemed like it would take a long time for Hei Yingjie to recover his cultivation base, which had regressed. Lin Mu observed the man's dantian and saw the pale White core floating in the center. It would let out faint wisps of spirit qi at regular intervals and would similarly absorb spirit qi that appeared in the dantian.
"Hmm, at least his spirit qi circulation is still working normally now. He just needs to rest more and recover his cultivation on his own." Xukong explained.
"I guess it's good that there were no culprits in the cave there. At least we won't have to clash with them now that we don't have a core condensation realm expert of our own." Lin Mu spoke in a slightly relieved tone.
He then turned around and left the tent. He saw Xie Bohai waiting for him outside, and he looked to be calm.
"Senior, there has been some strange activity with the beasts since last night. We also heard a faint roar coming from the northwestern mountains." Xie Bohai reported.
"I know, it was caused by another core condensation realm beast." Lin Mu replied.
Xie Bohai seemed to be a bit more nervous after hearing Lin Mu's response.
"You know about it senior, but how? Weren't you cultivating?" Xie Bohai questioned.
"My cultivation went smoothly, and I had a breakthrough rather early. After I was done with my cultivation session, I heard some noises, so I went to check. I ended up finding what we came for here." Lin Mu answered.
Xie Bohai became surprised after hearing Lin Mu mention about his findings.
"Senior, you don't mean, you..." Xie Bohai spoke but was then interrupted.
"Yes, I did indeed. I found the hideout of the culprits."
章節 101: The Other Team Arrives
Lin Mu then went on to make up a series of events on how he found the cave where the culprits were supposed to have been using before. He told them that he discovered some broken trees and found the broken piece of the carriage and how he related it to the story that Zhou Ye had told them.
The Hei corps had known about Zhou Ye and the situation behind him, thus when Lin Mu correlated the events with Zhou Ye's story they did not doubt him.
"So the cave has been abandoned, Senior?" One of the members asked.
"Yes, it did look like that to me, but there may be clues that I couldn't find there. I hope that you people would be able to find something, I reckon you all are better in that aspect." Lin Mu answered.
Xie Bohai hit his chest with his fist in a show of confidence before speaking.
"We shall not disappoint you, senior. Whatever clues that are left in the cave, we will find them."
"Yes senior, we will do our best and will not disgrace our lord's trust." Others chimed in.
Lin Mu nodded in acknowledgment and felt a little better. His thoughts then went towards the other teams of the Hei Corps. He wondered if they had been contacted yet or not. The total people here were currently eight, including Hei Yingjie and him, which meant that the last two members had not returned yet.
"Have they not returned yet from informing the other teams?" Lin Mu questioned.
"They should be here by tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest senior. I think the increase in the number of beasts probably delayed their progress." Xie Bohai answered.
"Ah yes, that is true. They will probably have to fight some beasts in order to reach here." Lin Mu replied.
"For now, all we can do is wait. Senior can also resume his cultivation in the tent. We'll inform you at the first sign of the other team." Xie Bohai added.
Lin Mu nodded in acceptance and then picked a tent at random and walked in after lifting its flap. He had depleted nearly two-thirds of his spirit qi in returning to the camp as fast as possible, thus wanted to take this chance to replenish it.
Lin Mu thus sat down onto the bedroll and started chanting the severing heart sutra. Hours passed by in the blink of an eye and it was finally night time. Lin Mu opened his eyes upon hearing the sounds of people moving around outside.
He had thought that the other teams had reached them at first, but then upon using his spirit sense he realized that it was just the members of the Hei Corps setting up for some dinner.
'I should eat as well, I guess.' Lin Mu thought.
He walked out of the tent and looked at the men that were skewing a haunch onto a large skewer for roasting. They had set up a smaller campfire for ease of cooking. The larger bonfire in the center of the camp was better for heating and illumination, and rather impractical for cooking.
Lin Mu too set up another fire and started cooking the meat of the Alpha steel back wolf. Half an hour later he was done with his meal and so were the other people. They had finished up and had switched for the guard duty.
It was now Xie Bohai and another member's turn for the guard duty. Xie Bohai talked with Lin Mu for a bit before starting his guard duty, while Lin Mu himself returned to the tent. He wanted to assimilate the vital energy and spirit qi from the meat quickly.
Lin Mu wanted to see what kind of effect it would have this time. The effect yesterday was rather strong, and Senior Xukong had told him that the effect would be lessened than the first time.
It turned out to be as what senior Xukong had told Lin Mu. While he did experience a slight increase in his vital energy; it was not as great as before and neither did he expel the black corrosive gas from his mouth again.
"Well, that was a little disappointing." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Pushing this to the back of his mind, Lin Mu wondered if he should sleep or cultivate for now. He reckoned that the other team may return at any time, thus it would be better to just cultivate. The main reason for him wanting to sleep was that he could learn the legacy technique of the lost immortal.
Lin Mu could still learn it right now, but he preferred to stay undisturbed for a long time and the current situation was not worth it. Thus Lin Mu simply decided to continue cultivating till the morning and that's what he did.
His cultivation had stabilized and Lin Mu was now attempting to refine another drop of liquid spirit qi. He had heard from Senior Xukong about the use of liquid spirit qi, thus wanted to quickly start refining it. He channeled spirit qi into his meridians and started refining it like before.
Lin Mu had to attempt it five times and lost quite a bit of spirit qi before he succeeded. Another drop of liquid spirit flowed down his meridians and settled down at the bottom of his dantian.
~Huu~
Lin Mu let out a breath of tiredness and focused his attention again. He observed his dantian and discovered that he had spent nearly five hundred whips of spirit qi in order to refine that one drop of liquid spirit qi. The drop itself was condensed from less than a hundred wisps of spirit qi, but the failed attempts had caused him a small loss.
Now that he had refined the second drop of liquid spirit qi, Lin Mu had to replenish the depleted spirit qi first before he could even refine the next. Seeing the rate at which he was refining the spirit qi was a little disappointing to Lin Mu but he soon picked himself up after Xukong's reminder.
It had taken him nearly two hours to refine one drop of liquid spirit qi, thus Lin Mu could only guess how long it would take him to reach the next stage of the qi refining realm. For in order to break through to the peak stage of the qi refining realm, a cultivator had to have at least half of his dantian filled with liquid spirit qi.
~Sigh~
"Don't worry, the more experienced you get, the easier it will get for you to refine the liquid spirit qi. It is usually difficult for most people at the start." Xukong advised.
"Yes senior." Lin Mu responded and returned to his cultivation.
Lin Mu could only hope that his speed would soon increase in the future.
More time passed by and now it was the time for the sunrise. But still, the sun could not be seen and was hidden behind the dark clouds. The snow from last night had not stopped yet and was still ongoing. A little more time passed by and finally, the sounds of footsteps came from far.
It seemed as if there were tens of people walking together, thus the sound was rather easy to hear. The members of the Hei corps that were on guard duty immediately became alert. Xie Bohai went to the side that the sound was originating from while holding his weapons.
The other guards had woken up by now as well and walked out of the tents and notice the sound as well. They saw Xie Bohai standing at the edge while holding his sword. They instantly understood what was happening and got ready as well.
A minute later the sound increased more and the people could finally be seen.
~Phew~
Everyone took a collective breath of relief once they confirm that the people who had just reached them were the other teams of the Hei Corps. They were being led by the two members Xie Bohai had selected for sending the message.
Along with the two, there were additional three people standing alongside them. These three people were none other than Hei Bao the captain of the Hei corps, Hong Luo and Teng Xiaolian, the current leader of the mercenaries.
"You all are finally here, that good." Xie Bohai spoke in a relieved tone.
The two members of his team came forward and whispered some things in his ear before going behind him. The two of them had gone to call Lin Mu while the three men, Hei Bao, Hong Luo, and Teng Xiaolian came forward to talk with Xie Bohai.
"How is Hei Yingjie now?" Hei Bao questioned first.
"Senior Hei Yingjie is stable for now. Because of senior Lin Mu's help, he was saved from qi deviation." Xie Bohai answered.
~phew~
Hei Bao too took a breath of relief and calmed won. He hadn't show it to others, but he was rather stressed because of this. They only had three members of their higher corps left right now and they couldn't afford to lose another core condensation realm expert.
They didn't know what kind of conflict they would be having in the future, and they would be needing every bit of their strength. From what his lord and Hei Wan had guessed, Hei Bao felt that the future seemed to be bleak.
They had only come halfway and one of their top experts was already out of commission, Hei Bao was sure that they would be failing their mission now. But when he heard Xie Bohai's next words, his hopes rose again.
"There's an important thing I need to tell you, captain. Senior Lin Mu found the hideout of the culprits."
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