Chapter 491: 'Test Subjects'

"Hmm… yes, it would be best if they don't see the current scene." Lin Mu said as he looked around.

He took out the communication jade slip and contacted Wu Hei.

"I need your assistance." Lin Mu spoke.

"What happened this time?" Wu Hei asked while holding the bridge of his nose.

For some reason, trouble seemed to either follow Lin Mu around or he went looking for it even if he did not aim for it. They had been waiting for him to reach their first goal but Lin Mu had been interrupted twice now.

"Bandits kidnapping children near the territory of the Tri Cauldron Peony sect." Lin Mu said.

~Sigh~

"I'll send the men there." Wu Hei replied.

"Oh, I just want them to take the children. I'm gonna go ahead and wipe out the bandits." Lin Mu said before putting the communication jade slip away.

"Wai…t ~Sigh~ this boy…" Wu Hei muttered before contacting his men that were in that region.

Lin Mu was carrying the other jade slip which showed his location thus the men Wu Hei sent wouldn't take long to reach. 

"Little Shrubby, come here," Lin Mu said through his link.

~whoosh~

The trees rustled and in less than five seconds, Little Shrubby was standing in front of Lin Mu, his paws having sunk into the ground due to the speed at which he had moved.

"Watch these children. If any bandits like these come to take them, kill them. And if men wearing clothes such as this come let them take them." Lin Mu said before showing the uniform of the Hei corps.

"Just watch from afar and hide. Act only when needed." Lin Mu added.

"Okay," Little Shrubby said before disappearing into the bushes.

Lin Mu nodded his head and went to the cages before breaking them and taking out the kids. He put them together in a more comfortable position and put a mild healing pill in each of their mouths.

"This should be enough for them…" Lin Mu said before blinking away.

~shua~

A few minutes later, Lin Mu was at the location of the next bandit camp. This one was bigger than the one he had seen before, and there were even more cages here. But unlike the previous one, they were all empty.

Lin Mu sank into the ground and sneaked closer to listen to their conversations. They were relatively mundane as most bandits would talk, but Lin Mu didn't get anything of particular importance from them.

'These ones don't have any people kidnapped as of now, but they do sell them as well. Better get rid of them as well.' Lin Mu thought before blinking to the top of a tree.

Lin Mu was currently revealed to all of the bandits if they looked up. But since they were busy in either talking or doing other tasks, they did not notice. 

"This should be a good chance to test meld further…" Lin Mu said before closing his eyes.

Meld was much more difficult to use than the other four skills and when he had used it on the Gu Legion members in the Dusty Mill town, his control had been rough. That was the reason why all the Gu legion members had been cut in different manners.

Lin Mu's weaker control over Meld was also the reason why he did not test it on the earlier group of bandits. He was worried about hurting the children and thus did not want to take a risk.

The targeting area of Meld was irregular and was hard to maintain. If the target it was used on moved, their body would be split into different parts, depending on how meld was used. Thus Lin Mu looked at the bandits, who all felt a chill go down their spines.

"Meld…" Lin Mu muttered.

For a second there, it was as if everything had frozen as the bandits felt scared. But then they recovered and looked around.

"What the hell was that feeling?" One of them questioned.

"Yeah, it was like some beast was staring at us." Another bandit turned around to say. 

But then…

"WHAT THE FUCK! Second Ning! Looks at your waist!" A bandit shouted in shock and pointed at him.

But when this bandit moved his hand to point at him, his hand detached and desolated to a different position.

"AHHHHHH!" The bandits all became startled.

Of course, since they were scared they all moved and some part of their body detached from them. One of them even lost his head, which was now floating in the air while his body ran around like a headless chicken.

Lin Mu watched all this closely and focused on his spatial perception. It was still not good enough, and he could barely sense the borders of the target area of Meld. It was like different chunks that attached to some part of the target, and controlling it was quite hard. 

Lin Mu also had a difficult time controlling how many of these 'chunks' were used at once. He reckoned that this could have las been the reason behind him requiring such a large amount of spirit Qi to use the skill.

'If I'm able to use it on a singular target, I should be able to reduce the consumption of spirit Qi.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

Currently, Lin Mu could use meld about six to seven times before his spirit Qi would be entirely depleted. This was a massive amount, not to mention that Lin Mu had three times the spirit Qi stores than a normal cultivator while being at the peak stage of the core condensation realm.

There was a chance that if it were a normal cultivator at the same stage as him, he would only be able to use the skill once or twice before depleting all of their spirit Qi. 

Lin Mu continued looking at the chaos that was happening in the bandit camp while improving his understanding of Meld. 

"Hmm… I'll need more test subjects…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.