The misty Spirit Qi swirled in the outpost hidden in the mountain.
The Dao Shell's of Little Shrubby floated in the air and continued to absorb the spirit Qi, expanding its size little by little. Despite the rapid absorption, the quantity of spirit Qi showed no signs of reducing.
There were after all, peak grade, and high grade spirit stones filling this place. It would take a while before they would even show any signs of depletion.
While Little Shrubby was cultivating, Lin Mu was doing something else.
~DENG~
~phew~
"That was far more tiring than I expected." Lin Mu said as he finished separating out all the flesh from the Glacial Shell Snail queen.
Since the flesh was entirely frozen and solid, it took a while for Lin Mu to extract it. Not to mention that since it was something that belonged to a peak immortal ascension realm beast, the toughness was on an entirely different level.
Lin Mu even needed to set up another formation array to prevent the chill from the shell spreading all over and freezing the mountain. The outpost alone would be unable to contain it.
Then there was also the fact that he needed to keep the shell intact, as he wanted to use it in the future. There were many uses for it and it would be a waste to break it here in order to get the flesh.
Lin Mu had also tried using Meld to get out the flesh but found it to be many times harder. The Dao Traces naturally present in the flesh and shell of the Glacial Shell Snail could prevent meld from working on it.
It was like Lin Mu was trying to cut through a steel block with a butter knife. Meld simply stopped working when it touched the shell. This ended up with him needing to cut it out manually.
The area in the outpost was a bit too small to accommodate the shell and thus he had to expand that too.
Over all, it had taken him an entire day to do it all.
But now that he had done it, he was feeling rather contended.
The milk white chunks of Glacial Shell Snail were laid on one side while the large shell was lying on the other side.
Despite being removed from the shell, the flesh was still frozen solid and not really fit for eating. It was not that Lin Mu couldn't break or bite it, but rather the fact that if he ate it directly, even he would be affected by the Extreme Yin water Dao traces.
Thus, he needed to first process the flesh.
"Guess it's time to cook again… haven't done it for a while." Lin Mu said to himself as he took out a certain cauldron from his ring.
~DENG~
The large cauldron cracked the floor upon landing, and its legs dug a few inches into the stone floor.
This was none other than the Thousand Ding Glitter cauldron that Lin Mu had used to refine gold before.
"Hmm… I think I'll need to cook the flesh in three batches." Lin Mu estimated the size of the cauldron and the amount of Glacial Shell Snail queen flesh he had.
"Wait!" Suddenly Little Shrubby's voice was heard.
"Mm?" Lin Mu looked at Little Shrubby, who had woken up.
"I got some things! It will taste better that way." Little Shrubby took out a few spirit herbs and spices he had collected over the time.
Lin Mu looked at them and saw that they were all items that were either fire elemental or inclined towards the Yang attribute.
"This will certainly help balance the Extreme yin, you should use them." Even Xukong was in agreement.
"Alright, thank you Little Shrubby." Lin Mu said as he took them all.
"I'll use my fire too." Little Shrubby added.
"Can you do that while cultivating?" Lin Mu asked.
"Yup, no problem. I don't need to control the fire. It will work on its own after I set it." Little Shrubby replied, intriguing Lin Mu.
'That's new… I didn't know he could do that too…' Lin Mu thought, but then guessed that it might be due to the boost he had given to the bloodlines of Little Shrubby before.
Regardless it was all good, and he was happy with it all.
Soon, Lin Mu filled up the cauldron, added the spices and spirit herbs before topping it off with water taken from a pond that was located on the Earth fire vein. It was from the Kong plane and Lin Mu had stored quite a bit of it in the ring.
The combination of it all, helped counteract the extreme Yin attribute of the Glacial Shell Snail queen and made it easier to digest and assimilate for Lin Mu.
"Do it, little shrubby!" Lin Mu spoke.
~SHUA~
A stream of scorching fire shot from Little Shrubby's mouth and stuck to the base of the cauldron. At first it was small, being only a few centimeters wide. But then it started to absorb the spirit Qi from the air and increased in size.
In less than ten seconds, it was covering the entire base of the cauldron and even spread to the lower parts of it.
"Oh? So this is what he meant by it being able to burn by itself." Lin Mu said after seeing the self burning fire.
"Little Shrubby has reached the next stage in controlling the fire element. His flames can now absorb spirit Qi and will burn until he wills it to stop. This is a great sign that his comprehension of the fire Dao is increasing steadily." Xukong explained.
"That is good." Lin Mu felt proud.
He turned his attention to the Thousand Ding Glitter Cauldron and controlled it to evenly spread the heat, making sure the flesh was processed properly. After all, he wasn't just cooking the flesh, he was also refining it.
With his past experience in refining, the process went smoothly and in two hours, the first batch of the Glacial Shell Snail Queen flesh was ready to eat!
