Chapter 432: Complex Skill

Lin Mu walked closer to check what had exactly happened and spread his spirit sense. 

'It got cut off from the wall and pushed out?' Lin Mu thought observing the internal part of the wall.

He held onto the rock and pulled it out.

~Thud~

The rock fell to the floor and made a loud sound, spreading vibrations through the ground. Lin Mu looked at the edges and sides of the rock and found them to be smooth. In fact, the entire rock was a perfect rectangle that had been cut out of the wall.

"I think I can explain what the skill did." Xukong suddenly spoke.

"Oh, you do? Please explain to me senior," Lin Mu requested.

"The fifth skill allows you to manipulate the fabric of space, right? What it did here is it displaced the fabric in the place around the rock, which caused it to move out. But in reality, it did not move out, just that the 'space' it was located in was shifted.

This lead to it being completely being cut out from the wall when the skill deactivated." Xukong explained.

Lin Mu thought for a bit and understood it, even reaching a few conclusions of his own.

"Wait senior, this means that as long as the skill is active, I can move parts of such objects around and then put them back without them breaking?" Lin Mu asked for clarity.

"Yes, it should be possible. As the object self is complete and connected, what you are doing is creating a 'gap' between the particles of the objects. As long as the skill is active the gap is maintained while keeping the object connected. 

But when the skill deactivates, the gap returns to its original size, leaving behind the object as it could not be reconnected autocratically." Xukong answered.

"I see…" Lin Mu muttered.

He could think of many ideas and uses for the skill, but then his mind went back to the consumption of the skill.

~Sigh~

"Just as I expected…" Lin Mu muttered, seeing his Dantian.

"What's the problem?" Xukong asked.

"Take a look senior," Lin Mu replied, sharing his vision with Xukong.

"Ah… of course if its consuming attribute less spirit Qi the consumption would be great." Xukong stated.

A single activation of the fifth skill Meld had consumed about one thousand drops of Lin Mu's spirit Qi. Thankfully he had plenty of liquid spirit Qi in his Dantian for now thus it didn't affect him as much.

But this alone had put the skill at the highest consumption skill in Lin Mu's list of skills. Lin Mu could think of a lot of prospects in which he could use this skill offensively, but he would have to consider this to be a trump card rather than a regular use skill.

Besides, Lin Mu knew that he had to gain better control over the skill if he wanted to use it in a battle. This skill was likely to hurt even himself if he made a mistake during its use. The great drain on his spirit Qi could also become a shackle for him in a prolonged battle.

"The practice for it will be a bit strenuous and the consumption great. Had it not been for the Great Slumber bear's bloodline it would become quite difficult for me…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

The bloodline ability 'well of slumber' would activate even when Lin Mu was sleeping normally. The 'long slumber' that Lin Mu had fallen into after assimilating the bloodline was not likely to happen for a while and he would know when it would happen again. This way Lin Mu could increase his efficiency by making his sleep time his cultivation time.

Another thing was that he had not checked the difference between the efficiency of the Severing heart sutra and the Bloodline's capacity to absorb spirit Qi. At first glance, the bloodline ability seemed to be much faster, but it also had the additional cost of requirement Vital energy to maintain its operation.

Whereas the severing heart sutra could continually absorb spirit Qi without any additional cost. The Basic Qi pills could even be used to speed the process, and as long as he had an uninterrupted supply, the speed of absorption could be even faster than the bloodline.

'Hmm, I need to find a balance between both the methods…' Lin Mu thought.

With that out of the way, Lin Mu's mind finally freed up for other things and he realized that he was forgetting something. His eyes wandered to an empty bowl that was lying on a flat rock some distance away from him. The bowl was covered with dust and some water could also be seen within it.

"Little Shrubby! I almost forgot about him!" Lin Mu exclaimed.

Lin Mu closed his eyes as he focused on his connection with Little Shrubby. For the entire period that he was in the Sleepscape, he couldn't really sense the connection and thus had lost the attention of it.

But now that he was awake, he had to consciously find the connection which was still within his mind, just that it had gotten a bit weaker over the time. 

"How did the connection get weaker?" Lin Mu wondered.

"Hmm… normally the connection between a master and a tamed beast gets broken when one of them dies. Seeing as you were in a dormant condition that was similar to that of death, there is a chance that the connection may have gotten weaker because of that." Xukong explained.

Hearing the answer, Lin Mu became anxious and spread his spirit sense around. It pierced the rocks and went all around the caves, but there was no result. The caves were empty and there was no one there.

Lin Mu tried to see if he could feel Little Shrubby's position from the connection, but he couldn't. All that could be felt from the connection currently was that Little Shrubby was alive and nothing more.

He couldn't even communicate with it after trying a few times.