Chapter 177 - Respite

Hei Wan composed herself again and thought for a bit before speaking, "You need not worry, brother Lin Mu. We will inform you when the time comes, but considering the current situation, I think we will need to stay in the town for a while. At least until Hei Yingjie recovers."

"Yes, unless Hei Yingjie recovers, we will be in danger. Considering the efficiency with which the culprits were able to transport and hide the prisoners, I wouldn't be shocked if they have a core condensation realm expert of their own helping them. If by any chance we were to have a conflict, it would be absolutely necessary that we have a core contesting realm expert on our side." Hei Bao said, "Without one, it would just be a lost battle, even if we have many more qi refining realm experts."

"Alright then, I'll take my leave then." Lin Mu replied and then stood up.

"Oh, and if you need anything you can ask Hei Ping. He is still assigned to guard duty near your house, so you should be able to inform him. And any news that we send will be given through him as well… unless it is too sensitive, then one of us will come to inform you." Hei Wan added.

Lin Mu simply nodded before leaving the office and heading down the building. Once he was out of the town center, the guards that were standing there bid him farewell with respect in their eyes. Lin Mu felt a little strange upon seeing this change, but did not think much of it.

A little while later he was at his house and had decided to get a much well deserved bath. For the past week, he had not had the chance to take one, and heavens knew that he had gone through a lot in this time. Lin Mu thus heat up some water and took a comfortable bath.

Once he was done with it, he randomly chose one of the sets of clothes from the hundreds he had bought and went to the kitchen, for he needed to cook the beast meat. Lin Mu's current focus was to reach the peak stage of the body tempering realm, and there was no easier way than to consume beast meat for that.

Lin Mu quickly finished his meal and sat down to chant the calming heart sutra to assimilate the vital energy that was being released in his stomach. It didn't take much long for him to assimilate all of the vital energy from the meat, but he did not see any difference in his body.

Unlike back when he had eaten the meat of the core condensation realm alpha steel back wolf, Lin Mu did not have any major progress in his body tempering realm cultivation. But he had already known of this and did not lose hope.

He then started chanting the severing heart sutra and started refining the spirit qi wisps within his dantian into liquefied spirit qi. Once afternoon arrived, he ate his lunch and assimilated the vital energy again.

The same thing was repeated in the evening at dinner time and he finally stopped when it was midnight. During his entire cultivation session of today, Lin Mu had refined two more drops of liquid spirit qi.

~Huu~

"That was a bit more tiring than I thought. At least I get to sleep now." Lin Mu spoke to himself.

He then took out the soft white bolster to use as a pillow and laid his head upon it while lying down. It didn't take Lin Mu much time from closing his eyes to fall asleep. Soon he appeared in the Sleepscape and was standing in front of the spirit apple tree.

Lin Mu looked at it and saw nearly fifteen ripened spirit apples on it. He went ahead and plucked them before storing them in his ring. He took a look inside the ring and saw that his stockpile of spirit apples had reached a little more than a hundred now.

"Oh, I… kind of forgot about them. I should eat them while I train, I guess. It should provide me with additional spirit qi. Even though it would not be much, but it should still help me a little bit." Lin Mu thought out loud.

He then sat down below the sprite apple tree and withdrew the wooden slip within which the lost immortal's legacy was contained. Lin Mu opened it and got to reading it. Although he had already read it before, he still wanted to take another look before formally starting to practice it.

Lin Mu slowly read it, ensuring that he understood every small character before beginning. He already knew the complexities of the Dao script and thus knew how important it was to know every aspect of a character before reading it, as its meaning could change depending on its position in the text.

There were even times when the same character meant different things depending on the context, thus he did not want to make a mistake and hurt himself with that.

~Phew~

"Now let's begin…" Lin Mu said before putting the wooden slip away.

He closed his eyes and recalled the nameless technique in his mind. He then followed the methods that were prescribed in the technique and moved the spirit qi according to that. The spirit qi was following a strange path that he had not known about.

Although Lin Mu had leered about his meridian circuit on his own, he had not known that he could have circulated it in that manner as well. While there were many steps in the nameless technique, Lin Mu was only starting up and was thus at the very beginning of the first step.

This step involved guiding the spirit qi to the meridians in the stomach and bathing the tissues of it with the spirit qi in a certain pattern. Lin Mu had to ensure that only a specific amount of spirit qi flowed to the stomach at once and at the right place.

He had read the warnings and knew that if he increased the volume of spirit qi by too much or too less, the entire effort would be wasted in the best case or he would harm himself in the worst.