Learning that the Haima tribe had reached the Dao Treading realm without a cultivation technique was stunning for Lin Mu.
While he himself didn't have a cultivation technique in the general sense either, he still cultivated according to a method he had devised himself. But the Haima tribe was basically doing it all passively.
"If you don't mind, can I check your body? I want to see how your cultivation actually is like? It is certainly not the same as humans." Lin Mu asked, doubtful if the man would accept.
Elder Niji tilted his head as if not understanding Lin Mu's question.
"Can't you see it already? How will you check it?" Elder Niji asked in confusion.
"Umm… with spirit sense?" Lin Mu replied.
"Spirit sense? What's that?" Elder Niji asked, much to Lin Mu's surprise.
"So you really don't know…" Lin Mu said before giving the man a short explanation about it all.
Having heard about it from Lin Mu, Elder Niji felt stunned.
"There is such a marvelous ability?! If we had it, so many lives would have been saved." Elder Niji said with a hint of regret.
"Since your tribe didn't have a cultivation technique, refining spirit sense was probably out of question." Lin Mu spoke. "Though in these terms of how your tribe can passively grow in cultivation but still not have spirit sense, it varies from beasts." He added.
Beasts had innate knowledge in their bloodlines, along with bloodline memories that they would automatically learn once their cultivation base increased. Thus, they even had the ability to refine their own spirit sense, or rather it happened automatically as well in some cases.
At first Lin Mu had thought of the Haima Tribe's condition to be a bit similar to that of beasts in terms of the passive cultivation. But the lack of spirit sense showed something else.
"We don't have the founding knowledge of our tribe, none of our heritage or inheritances. We are a mere fragment of our past glory. And heavens know if we can ever recover that." Elder Niji said with a sad face but shook it off after a minute.
"Though you can certainly check my body. Perhaps I'll learn more too this way." Elder Niji said next.
"Very well." Lin Mu nodded his head and extended his spirit sense.
It was still in the same state as before and had not improved in range. At most Lin Mu could cover ten meters of area with it, but right now this was more than enough.
~shua~
His spirit sense entered Elder Niji's body with a little resistance. Though he could tell that this was just the natural defense of the body. Getting past it was easy enough and Lin Mu soon saw the condition of the body.
'The organs are mostly the same as that of humans, but they are tougher and more durable. Can easily compare to that of a tenths stage body tempering realm human in quality.' Lin Mu checked the first objective.
After the organs, he went to the blood vessels that were following the same paths as those of humans, but had split in the lower part of the body due to double the amount of legs.
But it was also in the legs that Lin Mu found the difference. The muscles and tendons of Elder Niji were a lot more developed than other parts of the body. And could actually compare to that of someone at the 12th or at least the 13th stage of the body tempering realm.
'So one part of the body developed better than the other.' Lin Mu understood.
For the next part, he went to scan the meridians, which were a little harder to detect. Soon Lin Mu charted them, being careful not to damage them in the process. Since Elder Niji didn't actually cultivate normally, he didn't have the normal control over his meridian that a cultivator would have.
If someone probed a normal cultivator and checked their meridians, they would be fine, since their spirit Qi would prevent the meridians from being affected. But in the case of Elder Niji, the meridians were 'helpless' and would get harmed very easily by being unable to defend against Lin Mu's spirit sense.
'Their meridians are certainly different. Their thickness is less than that of humans, but their numbers are greater. The circuits are also vastly different… human cultivation techniques won't even work for them.' Lin Mu analyzed.
Next, Lin Mu went deeper into the body, finally reaching the Dantian. It was here that the things got stranger.
"Huh?" Lin Mu was audibly surprised.
"Is there a problem?" Elder Niji asked with concern.
"Not exactly… its just different than I thought." Lin Mu said as he observed the Dantian.
Elder Niji's Dantian wasn't in the normal circular shape like most beings. Instead, it was a three lobed circle. Similar to a triangle if they were made by joining three circles. The top lobe was the biggest, being three times bigger than the lower two lobes.
The two smaller lobes had several meridians coming from them, that specifically went to the legs alone. Lin Mu could see from this that there was a rich supply of spirit Qi to the legs of Haima tribe.
'Wait if it's like this… then doesn't it mean they can still use Qi skills?' Lin Mu had an idea.
Lin Mu peered into the Dantian, but did not find any Dao Embryo or a Dao Shell there. There wasn't even a Nascent soul there.
'So he is only comparable to a Dao Treading realm cultivator in terms of sheer spirit Qi quantity but does not have the same qualities.' Lin Mu understood.
Normally, this should have been impossible since the spirit Qi compression was close to impossible without a cultivation technique. But with the support of the Stone Flesh Mushrooms, Lin Mu reckoned they didn't even have to do that.
Plus, the three lobed Dantian and higher number of meridians naturally increased their upper limit of spirit Qi storage.
Opening his eyes, he looked at Elder Niji.
"What did you learn?" Elder Niji asked.
"Quite a bit. "
