Chapter 203 - The Invader's Origin
This was the first time Jing Wei was witnessing Lin Mu actually absorb spirit qi. He had heard from Duan Ke that he was absorbing it before but seeing it completely different. He was Rather surprised by his speed as he had created a physical phenomenon.
"He is rather fast, he barely even put any effort in it…" Jing Wei muttered to himself.
Lin Mu kept on walking and did not mind the whirlwind of spirit qi surrounding him, rather he was fascinated by it. Seeing that Lin Mu continued on Duan Ke and Jing Wei also walked ahead. Soon they reached the meeting hall where they had been sitting previously.
They all took their respective seats and Lin Mu too stopped absorbing spirit qi for now. Still, he was rather satisfied by his gains, in the five minutes they had taken to reach here, Lin Mu had absorbed nearly five hundred wisps of spirit qi.
'This is rather good, my speed will be much greater if I cultivate here.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
"While that is true, I don't think it will be possible for you to cultivate here." Xukong spoke.
"Oh? Ah yes senior. It would be rude for me to impose on them." Lin Mu spoke in acknowledgment.
"No, that's, not all. You know how he tried to add you to the formation, right? And it didn't work, that's the problem. If you keep on absorbing spirit qi like this, you will eventually end up damaging the formation array. And that is certainly not something they would allow." Xukong explained.
"Ah… is that so Senior?" Lin Mu respond.
~Ahem~
"Well then, you can tell us now." Jing Wei spoke up.
Lin Mu nodded and then went on to narrate how there were disappearances and a night vigil was organized. How he found the dead bodies of the mercenaries and how he met Hei Wen. He then told him about the fight with the culprits and how they later met the captain of the Hei corps, Hei Bao.
The subsequent series of events were quickly explained, including the part about the invader. Lin Mu especially mentioned that in detail as he himself wanted to know more about it and was sure that Jing Wei must have some idea.
Still, there were a few things that Lin Mu avoided mentioning, such as the existence of the Great Slumber bear. Senior Xukong advised him that it would be best that he avoided telling everyone about that for now. It would only be a waste if they killed the beast and Lin Mu lost this opportunity of getting its bloodline.
Twenty minutes passed as Lin Mu finally finished telling them about everything that had happened in the past few months they were in hiding. The two, Duan Ke and Jing Wei, were shocked to say the least after hearing the entire story.
"Grandfather…" Duan Ke uttered.
"I know… it seems we missed many more traces of that 'thing'." Jing Wei interrupted her.
Lin Mu was confused upon hearing what Jing Wei meant by the 'thing' but quickly realized what he must have meant.
"That 'thing'? Oh, you mean the invader?" Lin Mu asked to clarify.
"You know about invaders?" Duan Ke questioned with surprise in her eyes.
During the entire narration that Lin Mu had done, he had not mentioned the word 'invader' directly, as he wanted to know if they knew about it beforehand. His guess turned out to be true from what they had just spoken.
"Yes, I do know about them. My umm… Master told me about them." Lin Mu revealed.
Senior Xukong had told him to use this as it was actually true. Although the existence of him could not be revealed easily or that would be dangerous.
'So he does have a Master and one that knows about the invaders. That means whoever they are, they are either from the top sects or have lived long enough to hear about them. Either of those possibilities makes it complex, the last one even more so…' Jing Wei thought to himself.
"You have seen these invaders before?" Lin Mu questioned.
Duan Ke turned to look at Jing Wei for a bit, as if asking for permission. Jing Wei gently nodded at her to proceed.
"Yes… this is not the first time we've seen their traces. The most recent time I saw them was actually when you brought in the mutant beast's corpse." Duan Ke answered.
"Mutant beast?… You mean!" Lin Mu spoke in a tone of realization.
Lin Mu thought back to the appearance of the coyote like beast that he had hunted before who had been able to withstand his boulder collapsing fist before. That beast had an appearance that was similar to that of the invader's traces. It too had bone spurs on it. In fact, now that he remembered, he had also eaten its meat.
"What? You ate its meat?" Xukong asked, feeling shocked.
But before Lin Mu could clarify this to Senior Xukong, Duan Ke interrupted.
"Yes, back when you brought it to sell to me. That mutant beast had the traces of the invader on it, the reason why its appearance was like that. I was able to sense its aura from the previous time I had seen the traces of the invader and immediately linked it to that.
You asked me to give you its meat, but what I did was give you the meat of another beast that was at an equivalent level. The knowledge about the invader cannot be revealed carelessly, thus I did not tell it to you back then." Duan Ke explained to Lin Mu.
~Phew~
After hearing her words, Lin Mu took a breath of relief and so did Xukong in his mind.
"Wait, you mentioned a previous time, there were more of those kinds of traces?" Lin Mu further questioned.
"Yes, a year ago, back when the plague occurred in the region. The cause of that was none other than a beast that was infected by the traces of the invader. The source of plague was none other than that beast."