The beast's ears perked up, as he gazed at the direction of the closed room.
"Is master okay?" Little Shrubby wondered.
He couldn't use his immortal sense to check on Lin Mu, since that could potentially disturb him, but from the link he had with him, Little Shrubby understood that Lin Mu was safe.
~shua~
The air near Little Shrubby flickered and the figure of the Saintess appeared from it.
"Looks like your master is working hard for a breakthrough…" The Saintess's eyes could look through the walls as if they were air.
She saw the scene of Lin Mu sitting cross-legged, while a whirring sound came from his chest.
'Is he cultivating that technique?' The Saintess seemed to have recognized the Three Apertures Invoking Technique. 'Still… to be able to reach this point in just a couple of months… that's impressive.' She thought.
~purr~
Little Shrubby looked at the closed room with a hint of worry on his face. But then a moment later he felt a soft hand on his head.
"It will be fine." The Saintess spoke while stroking his head. "If he can come this far on his own, there is no way he can fail…" she muttered.
Little Shrubby calmed down after the consoling from the Saintess and his ears eased up. The Saintess created another set of furniture and sat down while Little Shrubby jumped up on the table and curled up.
A faint smile appeared under the Saintess's veil, but was quickly hidden away. Her hand moved to stroke the soft fur of Little Shrubby as she continued to monitor the situation of Lin Mu.
Her free hand also moved, making a few gestures in the air.
~SHUA~
The entire courtyard was covered with a thin illusory barrier, preventing any unwanted disturbances from reaching them.
'If he does manage to create an Aperture, the events after that will create quite a commotion.' The Saintess didn't want something like this to happen, thus she directly disguised the courtyard in an array.
Her concern would turn out to be accurate as Lin Mu was currently as a crucial point.
Inside the room, Lin Mu's body continued to emit the whirring sound that only became louder. Its pitch was quite high and if there was any mortal human here, their ears might just start to bleed from it.
For animals, it would be quite offensive, and they would want to stay away from the place. Even for normal cultivators, the sound would be headache-inducing.
To Lin Mu though, all of this was of no concern. He was fully focused on the ring of Immortal Essence Wisps and their speed of revolutions.
He had shrunk the ring of Immortal Essence Wisps to the smallest size he could and now he was at a critical juncture.
The next step of making an Aperture was something that needed to happen automatically. All Lin Mu could do was to wait and hope that happened while he still had the willpower left to focus on it.
'Come on… work…' Lin Mu willed it in his heart.
Then as if responding to his wishes, a change happened.
~HUMM~
The ring of Immortal Essence Wisps suddenly let out a resonant hum that was completely different from the whirring sound it was making so far. The original noise was pressured and a harmonious humming filled the area.
The ponds in the courtyard rippled, as strange patterns formed on the water surface. The grass and the leaves swayed in a harmony while the humming continued to spread. Even the fine sand in the rockery shifted, forming patterns that looked elegant.
Lin Mu didn't know that all this was happening outside the room as his attention was occupied by the change within his body.
'It's forming… it's really forming!' Lin Mu witnessed the ring of Immortal Essence Wisps transform.
The ring suddenly turned solid and shrank on its own. And when that happened, it was as if a hole was opened up in nothingness. The ring bordered around the hole, maintaining its form while the hole gave a feeling of endlessness.
"The first Aperture is formed…" Lin Mu muttered.
The ring seemed to have stopped spinning after turning solid, but Lin Mu knew it was just an optical illusion. In fact, its spin was what was keeping the aperture in existence.
~huu~
Having formed it, Lin Mu took a breath of relief. But he knew his work wasn't done yet, and he still needed one more thing.
'To actually gain the Immortal essence…' Lin Mu grabbed another Immortal Essence crystal and held it up to his chest.
~SHUA~
As soon as he did that he could feel a suction force rising from the Aperture. It directly pulled all the Immortal Essence Wisps from the Immortal essence crystal
The speed of absorption was a lot faster than when Lin Mu manually did it and the crystal had already started to crack within seconds of use.
~CRUMBLE~
And a few moments later, the crystal crumbled into dust having depleted all its stores.
All the Immortal Essence Wisps that were pulled into his body were currently making their way to the new aperture. They were sucked into the hole and disappeared into nothingness.
But Lin Mu knew that they hadn't disappeared. They were simply contained within the Aperture and he could feel them. At the same time, he felt a new energy within his body as his strength rose.
Lin Mu instinctively knew how to use his newfound strength too.
He focused on his right hand and automatically felt the power of concentrating within it.
~KACHA~
He clenched his fist, compressing the air within it.
~BOOM~
The compression caused a small explosion that directly blew a hole in the floor below him. One must know that the courtyard was built with tough materials that wouldn't break with a cultivator's attacks and was also reinforced with arrays.
But despite that, merely an indirect effect of Lin Mu's action had caused a hole.
"Hmm… just this alone used up two Immortal Essence Wisps…" Lin Mu muttered.
He hadn't actually used the full potential of the Immortal Essence Wisps and had merely wanted to test the difference. He could have punched and did the same, but he didn't want to demolish the courtyard in that process.
Even clenching his fist could damage it, thus one could imagine just what kind of effect a punch would cause.
"This is certainly a lot different from before…" Lin Mu muttered.
"It definitely is." Xukong spoke at this time. "But that is just how body cultivation techniques are… at least the truly good ones."
"Indeed… they do not follow the norm at all." Lin Mu agreed.
The system of realms for body cultivation actually varied depending on the individual cultivation techniques. They weren't the same as the Seven tribulations of the immortal realm, and could have more or fewer stages depending on the technique itself.
In the case of the Three Apertures Invoking technique, there were three realms.
The three realms were the Aperture Opening Realm, Aperture Linking Realm and Aperture Closing Realm.
In the Aperture Opening Realm, one would open the three Apertures, with each newly opened Aperture being equivalent to a single immortal Tribulation. Thus, when one reached the peak of the Aperture Opening Realm, they would be equivalent to a peak Third Tribulation Immortal realm expert.
In the Aperture Linking Realm, one would link the Apertures with each other. This had three stages as well, with each being equivalent to a single immortal tribulation. Reaching its peak would make one equivalent to a peak sixth Tribulation Realm expert.
Then there was the Aperture Closing Realm.
This was the toughest realm and involved closing all the Apertures. It didn't have any sub stages and one needed to close all the apertures at once.
This was done so that all the immortal essence would be directly infused into the body, allowing one to reach a new level of power.
When one accomplished this, they would be equivalent to the peak of the Seventh Tribulation Stage of the Immortal realm!
Another difference that existed between the cultivation of Three Apertures Invoking Technique and other Immortal Qi cultivation techniques was the fact that there were no tribulations that one needed to overcome.
One might think that this made it a lot easier to cultivate, but it was not so.
In fact, there were many that dreaded to do this, as the progress of body cultivation was often very slow. Not to mention, there was a great chance of injuring themselves and also dying due to it.
It was said that Heavens hid equality in everything, thus if something seemed too good, there were often bad qualities hidden within it.
This was the case with Body cultivation too, as more often than not, cultivators would have to suffer to cultivate. The suffering might be due to the struggle of obtaining resources or just their cultivation technique itself.
This was why some people even said that body cultivation was just a perpetual tribulation. A tribulation that one imposed on themselves!
