Preparations - I

Lin Mu had just reached his house and was entering his room, unaware of the conversation that had just happened between Hei Yingjie, Hei Wan, and Hei Bao.

He walked up to his bed and sat down on it cross-legged. What Lin Mu now wanted to do was to refine his spirit sense further. He had been thinking about it and realized that it was one of the flaws that he had that he needed to improve.

While Spirit sense overall was an important ability of his during a battle, he had also understood that it was equally important for using it with his skills. Currently, while he could teleport with the second skill 'Blink' forward for up to ten meters, he could only teleport backwards for up to seven meters as that was the maximum range of his spirit sense.

Lin Mu had gotten another realization when he used his newly acquired, third skill 'Phase'. He realized that he actually couldn't see anything when he was using the skill and moving through an object. The only way he could gain any semblance of perception was with the help of spirit sense.

Then came the second problem with it. Lin Mu's spirit sense could not penetrate effectively much farther into solid objects. Depending on its density and thickness of the object, the range of Lin Mu's spirit sense could be limited to about half or even less than half of his actual range.

Thus, if Lin Mu wanted to utilize the full potential of his new skill, he would have to refine his spirit sense and ensure that its range was as far as possible.

Lin Mu was chanting the severing heart sutra and focusing on the inner space of his dantian. He could see the space that was nearly completely filled with spirit qi wisps. If one were to look at it from far, they would think that it was a sea of clouds formed out of spirit qi wisps.

Usually, spirit qi wisps were transparent or rather close to translucent. But here due to their sheer quantity they now appeared white and looked no different from clouds in the sky. Lin Mu focused deeper, and at the very bottom of this sea of clouds, there was a single drop floating.

This single drop was the very first drop of liquefied spirit qi that Lin Mu had refined when he broke through to the late stage of the qi refining realm. If Lin Mu wanted to reach the next stage, he would have to refine more drops of spirit qi and fill his dantian up to half of its maximum capacity.

As soon as it exceeded more than half of its capacity, Lin Mu have been said to have reached the peak stage of the qi refining realm.

~Sigh~

"So am I supposed to refine my spirit sense with my spirit qi wisps or with the spirit qi drop now, senior?" Lin Mu questioned senior Xukong in his mind.

"You can continue refining it the same way you have been until now. Do not touch that spirit qi drop for now and make sure that you never use it unless it is a dire situation. Because if you do and if it's the final drop of the liquid spirit qi remaining in your dantian, then you will regress back into the mid-stage of the qi refining realm." Xukong answered.

"I should refine more spirit qi drops then, shouldn't I?" Lin Mu asked.

"Yes you should, of course. But since it's your first time, it will take you some time. Better to further refine your spirit sense first." Xukong suggested.

"Yes, Senior." Lin Mu inwardly nodded in response.

He then started his process of refining the spirit sense. He drew out a single wisp of spirit qi from his dantian and into his meridians. From his meridians, he controlled that wisp to move towards the surface of his body and then let it exit it.

The invisible wisp of spirit qi was now floating outside of Lin Mu's body. Lin Mu now directed his spirit sense tendril and tried to link it with it. The spirit qi wisp traveled from the very start of the tendril to the other end, but just as it was about to reach the very tip, the spirit sense tendril destabilized and dissipated.

~Huu~

Lin Mu let out a breath as he refocused his attention. This was a normal part of refining one's spirit sense and was something every cultivator would go through. Once the sprite sense tendril was dissipated, he would have to completely refine it from the start once again.

But unlike before, the speed of refinement would be faster this time. The more times that Lin Mu repeated this, the more he improved and his speed of refinement increased. Reforming the spirit sense after dissipation up to its previous length was much easier in the subsequent attempts.

Lin Mu repeated this process over and over again. Sometimes he would be successful in increasing the length of his spirit sense by a small amount and other times he would fail and the spirit sense tendril would dissipate.

Four hours passed by and Lin Mu had increased the length of his spirit sense by half a meter. But in exchange, his spirit qi stores were depleted by half. Lin Mu decided to take a break and restore his depleted spirit qi stores.

~Rumble~

Just as he was about to start his cultivation session, he heard his stomach rumble.

'Guess I'll eat first.' Lin Mu thought as he stood up from the bed.

He walked to the kitchen and prepared some of the spirit meat that was stored in his ring. It was now that he realized that he was soon going to run out of it. He took out all of it and estimated that it was enough for two more meals.

"Just in time, too. It's good that I'm going out to the Northern forest with the Hei Corps tomorrow, anyway. I'll take this opportunity to hunt some spirit beasts while I'm out there." Lin Mu spoke to himself.

Fifteen minutes later, his food was ready to eat. He finished the meal and returned to his room to assimilate the vital energy and spirit qi.

*****

On the tallest peak of the sky precepts sect, within a golden palace, a white-robed man was sitting upon a throne. His eyes were closed, and he had his chin resting on his hand. If one was to look at this scene at this moment, they would think that what they were looking at was a painting.

The man had his hair tied up with an elegant looking silver hairpin and had a short and well-groomed beard. With a serene aura surrounding him, he let out faint breaths. The breaths were silent, yet if one were to focus on them, one would realize that they were harmonized.

It was as if they corresponded with the nomological laws of heaven and earth themselves.

The door of the great hall opened, and in walked a black robed elder. This black robed elder had faint gold etchings on the sleeves of his hand and had long white hair along with a similarly long beard. He was old, yet did not have a single wrinkle on his face.

This old black robed elder was none other than Head elder Han.

He came to stand in front of the white robed man at a distance of two meters and cupped his hands in a salute. He did not speak anything and simply stayed silent for over thirty minutes. It was as if he did not dare disturb the serene scene that was in front of him.

Another half an hour period passed by when finally the white robed man's lips moved.

"What do you have to report Head elder Han?" The white robed man questioned.

"Greetings patriarch, it seems you have progressed in your comprehension. Your talent is indeed impeccable and peerless amongst the billions of beings of this world." Head elder Han flattered him in ceremony.

"Spare me the formalities Head Elder Han, you know that they don't matter to me. Now... tell me what you are here for." The patriarch of the sky precepts sect spoke without opening his eyes.

"Patriarch, today I am here to report about our progress in the investigation and also the recent findings." Head elder Han replied.

"Go ahead." The patriarch spoke.

"After the ascension of the hidden expert, we continued our investigations into it. While we are still unable to gain any idea about the identity of the hidden expert, we did find out something else." Head elder Han spoke and took a pause.

"We found out that another incident happened in one of the counties of the Shuang Qian kingdom of the Northern lands. At this moment we do not know if it is related to the hidden expert, but it seemed too much of a coincidence for it to not be related to it." Head elder Han continued.

"Oh? What kind of incident was this that it could even be compared to the ascension of the hidden expert? And how was it that we did not detect this when it happened?" The patriarch questioned.

"Unlike the ascension of the hidden expert, there were no major spatial disturbances anywhere in the empire that happened during that period. Thus we were unable to detect it. And also, the condition of the Start catching peak is still not optimum. The new disciples are still being trained and will take some time to gain the necessary skills." Head elder Han spoke and let the patriarch ponder on it for a bit.

"The incident, I'm afraid, was caused by another hidden expert and this time it was the outburst of a peerless sword intent, strong enough to knock out nearly all cultivators in the entire county."

Upon hearing these words, the patriarch's eyes opened.