Chapter 7：Understanding The Mysteries Of The Ring

Lin Mu looked around, but all he could see was darkness. He could not see his arms or legs either, this differed from when he went to the other dark place where the altar existed, at least there he could see his body and even the sky had silver grey streaks of light moving around but here nothing existed only darkness.

"Looks like I'll just have to wait till I wake up, same as yesterday."

Lin Mu decided to just sit down and wait till he woke up. While sitting down he felt the ground, it was a plain flat surface having no bumps or grooves. Having no idea whether minutes went by or hours, Lin Mu eventually woke up. Feeling well rested, he stretched and heard a grumble coming from his stomach, knowing it must have been quite late in the morning, he stood up.

Walking out of the shack he looked up at the sun glaring at the top of his head, he had indeed been late waking up, for it was already been noon. Deciding to check on the snare traps he set yesterday, he walked towards the forest. Following the same animal trail as before he found his traps, out of the six that he set, two were never triggered, three were broken, probably by a bigger beast and the last one was the only one which was successful.

Lin Mu found a Black horned rabbit hanging upside down from the snare, pulling on the snare he found the rabbit to be still alive and moving. He twisted the black-horned rabbit's neck, careful not to cut himself on the horn, and ended its life. Before going back to the hunting shack, he reset the snares so that he can catch some more beasts till evening if he's lucky.

"Now that I have caught a black-horned rabbit, how am I going to skin it? I don't have a knife or blade with me, I must figure something out quick or the meat will spoil fast if I don't drain the blood."

While walking back to the hunting shack he picked up a fallen branch, broke it from one end so that there was a sharp edge left. Deciding to drain the blood near the stream and also pick up some apples, he instead changed directions and walked toward to the stream.

Reaching the stream he knelt down at the edge of the water and used the sharp edge of the broken branch and stabbed it in the neck of the now dead black horned rabbit and let the blood drain in the water careful not to stain the fur with blood.

After no more blood came out from the neck of the rabbit, he pushed his fingers inside the hole and used both his hands to pull it apart. Slowly applying force, he ripped away the pelt, turning it inside out in the process. In the end he was left with a full pelt, leaving behind some fur on the rabbit's head and the bloodied but furless body of the rabbit.

Washing the pelt in the water, he left it aside to dry out while he gutted and cleaned the insides of the rabbit. Lin Mu walked to the apple tree and plucked some more apples, then picked up the skinned rabbit and its pelt and walked back to the hunting shack.

He hung the pelt outside the shack from a nail and walked inside the shack. Feeling the pang of hunger, he lit the stove and skewered the raw rabbit over it with the same sharp branch he used before to roast it, then sat down to wait for it to cook.

He looked at the ring on his right hand and thought about all the events that happened yesterday and wondered whether they occurred because of the ring.

"Seems like the idiom 'misfortune accompanies fortune' is indeed true, I was able to break through but I also experienced the scary rift and almost got my hand severed, probably."

Then he thought about the object he caught in his hand while it was in the rift, and how it disappeared when he pulled it out. As he thought about that object, suddenly a wooden slip appeared in his hand. Surprised about where the wooden slip came from, he got a similar texture feeling to that of the object in the rift and determined that it was most likely the same.

"Is this the object I felt in the rift, how did it suddenly appear in my hand? The only way it would be possible is if this ring is a spatial storage ring."

Lin Mu tried to understand how the ring worked. He thought of putting the wooden slip inside the ring and it once again disappeared. Now wanting to bring it back to his hand, he thought of it appearing in his hand and it appeared in his hand.

"Yes, it is indeed a spatial storage ring. Can I store other things in it? I should try."

Lin Mu tried storing various objects and then withdrawing them and found that he could do it effortlessly. Experimenting with the ring as if he had found a new toy time passed, until the rabbit was finally cooked. Putting a stop to playing with the ring he started to eat the rabbit, feeling a much greater appetite than ever before he finished the whole rabbit only leaving behind bones.

With his hunger sated, he withdrew the wooden slip from before and opened it to take a look. But when he opened it, he found it to be blank with nothing written on it. Confused with this discovery, he flipped around the wooden slip but found nothing there either. Feeling the texture of the wooden slip, he found it to be of an exquisite quality, like the ones used by high officials and imperial scholars.

Having satisfied his curiosity, he stored the wooden slip back in the ring. Now that there were only bones left of the rabbit, Lin Mu was able to easily break off the black horn from the skull of the rabbit. He stored it in the ring, intending to sell it in the town along with the pelt. He would not get much for it, probably 40 or 50 copper coins, but he would be able to save up enough to buy a small knife or a dagger so that he can hunt bigger beasts.

It had been about four hours since he set up the snare traps. It would take him an hour to walk there and another to come back, but it should still leave him enough time to come back before it's completely dark. Walking out of the shack, he stored the black-horned rabbit's pelt in the ring and made his way towards the traps.

Half way to the traps he felt a buzz coming from the ring and had a grim feeling of what was about to come. Cursing his luck that he was right, he felt his hand being dragged.

"Not again… Nooooooo…"

This time he was not dragged much far only a couple of feet before the fabric of space tore and a pitch dark rift appeared. As his hand was sucked inside, he braced his legs ready for whatever was to come. This time he got a different feeling than before, when it felt like his hand entered still water, this time it felt like he had dipped it in a fast-flowing river. His hand felt the force of it moving, yet it stayed steady and did not move.

"I don't know how long I'll have to struggle before I will be able to pull my hand out, heck I don't even know if I'll be able to pull it out."

But before Lin Mu could start pulling his hand, he felt a rectangular object slam in to his hand. As soon as the object slammed into his hand, his hand got loose and he was able to easily pull it out. It had not even been a minute, and he could pull his hand so quick out this time.

Thinking of the object that slammed his hand, a rectangular box slightly larger than the size of his palm appeared in his hand.

"As I thought, whenever I touch or hold something in the rift, it is stored in the ring, but it wasn't exactly the same with the wooden slip."

"I wonder why? I guess I'll figure it out eventually. Still my understanding of the ring is better than before."

Lin Mu looked at the closing rift and decided to test something. He picked a stone and a stick off the ground. He threw the stone inside the rift and held half of the stick inside the rift and half outside. After a few seconds the rift closed, but right before it completely closed the stick that he was holding was pushed out.

"So if I'm holding something, it would not be harmed. I guess that solves one of my fears, at least I won't have my hand severed if my hand is pulled in another rift."

He looked around to see if the stone was anywhere but could not find it. Convinced that it was lost in the rift. Now finally done with all that, he put his attention on the rectangular box he pulled out. It was made of brown wood and had a faint fragrance. There were three cauldrons, and a peony carved on the lid of the box. He didn't know what kind of wood it was, but any fragrant wood was usually expensive. He thought he had seen the symbol of cauldrons and a peony before but could not remember where.

"I can sell this box in next week's market when the traders come. It should sell for a good amount, and if I'm lucky I may even be able to buy a sword or an axe with the coins I get."

Happy with his thoughts, Lin Mu opened the lid of the box and found a small glass bottle placed in the box. He opened the glass bottle and smelled a powerful aroma of herbs wafting out of it, tilting the bottle on his palm three yellow pills fell out. The pills had swirls of different shades of yellow on its surface.

Lin Mu's pupils went wide for he knew what he held in his hand.

"These… these are alchemical pills!!! Aren't these used by qi cultivators, how did they end up in that rift?"

A new question popped in Lin Mu's mind how did these things end up in the spatial rifts and how was the mysterious ring able to open them. Putting the pills back in the bottle, he stored it in the ring along with the wooden box.

"I don't know what these pills do, if I can find out I'll be able to use them for my own cultivation."

"I can't reveal these to people, there will always be people who will be greedy and will want to snatch them from me. I must find out what these pills do without alerting others or exposing them."

Feeling both excited and slightly worried about his prospects now, Lin Mu walked towards the traps to check for any prey that may have been caught.