Hearing Xukong's voice was like a melody to Lin Mu.
"Senior!" Lin Mu called out anxiously.
"Mmmhmm…" A weak and muffled voice was heard in response.
"Are you okay senior?" Lin Mu asked with great concern.
"I… can't wake up… for now…" Xukong spoke slowly.
"Then when will you wake up? And how did you do it now?" Lin Mu questioned.
"That… thing… gave energy… My Avatar will… ready… soon… Not much time… is left…" Xukong continued to speak but Lin Mu found it hard to listen.
It felt like there was a lot of disturbance between Xukong speaking and his voice reaching Lin Mu.
'It almost feels like it is coming from… afar?' Lin Mu suddenly realized something. "Wait… perhaps it really is coming from afar!"
As far as Lin Mu knew, the body that Xukong had placed in his ring was just an avatar that he had made. Xukong's main body was still intact and lived in the Grand Void somewhere. He had appeared for a few moments when Lin Mu had used the World Essence crystal and after that there were no signs of him.
Lin Mu had wondered, just how did something like that work. But now that he had seen how Xukong was communicating, a thought came to his mind.
'Senior Xukong is technically switching between his bodies. The avatar and the true body. Thus if he needed the assistance of the World Essence Crystal to use his main body, he would need to weaken the limitation of the world.
And what was exactly what he had done.
But it had come at a cost, the cost being none other his ability to use the avatar and staying close to Lin Mu.
Xukong was not worried about himself though. After all, he was at a point where he could always recover and the only thing he needed was time. The one who couldn't recover from great trouble was Lin Mu.
"But if that strange wisp shortened the time needed for Senior Xukong's avatar to awaken, it must have some benefits for the mind…" Lin Mu reckoned.
He glanced at the bracelet hanging on his nascent soul's wrist and wondered if he could make use of it too.
But his initial attempts at making contact with it were a failure.
"Hmmm… I'll have to figure it out later." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Still, even if Lin Mu was never able to make use of it, he was already satisfied since Xukong had woken up. Even if it was just temporarily. At the very least, it was some extra hope for him. Hope that he would get to learn more about this world soon.
~huu~
Lin Mu opened his eyes finding the broken statue to still be there. He tilted his head and glanced at the twin snakes as well, finding them to be nervous.
"It's fine. I'm fine." Lin Mu petted their heads for a bit.
It was certainly shocking and scary for them. Not only had Lin Mu erupted with many of his abilities, but even the bloodline of the Great Slumber bear had been awakened. The oppression of that bloodline was actually ineffective on the Twin snakes, but with them being infants, there was still some fear.
~SKRESSS~
While Lin Mu was calming down the twin snakes though, he heard a strange sound coming from behind.
"WHAT?" Lin Mu turned around in a snap, gazing at a particular wall.
His eyes narrowed and Spatial perception activated, revealing the scene behind it.
'The spatial energy is being pushed aside?' Lin Mu saw the violent spatial energy of the void parting.
Something like this was almost always unnatural and was probably triggered by something as well.
~CRACK~
But while Lin Mu was observing it, he found cracks starting to appear.
"Oh no… that does not seem good." Lin Mu turned around and was just about to leave the minor plane when he had to pause.
~BOOM~
The spatial boundary collapsed and in came rushing two small jets of spatial energy. It seemingly twirled around each other before settling down and weaving together.
"Whoa! It's forming a channel!" Lin Mu had never seen a spatial channel being formed like this.
~WHOOSH~
Once the channel was completed, it created a suction force and directly pulled in the broken statue. Lin Mu was off guard and couldn't react in time to catch the statue.
"No… it might have just broken if I forced it to stop. It's good that it was pulled without a hitch." Lin Mu reckoned.
His fingers firmly held onto the twins snakes, preventing them from leaving his body. Though that might just be a little extra, as the twins could technically hide anywhere in his body.
A new situation intrigued Lin Mu now.
A new 'pathway' had opened up for him. He felt very curious about it and wanted to enter it. But he didn't forget the lesson he had learned just a few minutest ago. Lin Mu checked the pathway for any instability issues and found several.
Thankfully for Lin Mu, telling if something was spatially stable was a piece of cake. And if he made uses of the ring, his prediction would become even more accurate.
"Hmm… it would be a shame to go back without a proper look." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Having made his mind up, Lin Mu extended his left hand first before poking at the new pathway.
The surface of the pathway was smooth and unassuming.
~flicker~
And when Lin Mu's hand passed through it, he felt like he was coming out of a boundary.
"Hang on… this doesn't seem—" The force on him suddenly multiplied, pulling him across the teleportation channel.
"Shit!" Lin Mu cursed.
He could now only hope to wait the situation out, or make his way back.
Though both of them would be too difficult at this conjecture.
~THUD~
About a minute later, Lin Mu fell on his butt.
He was in a large room which had even more rooms attached to it.
