In front of Lin Mu laid a half buried crystal.
It was about the size of an orange and actually had a rough spherical shape. It was the first time Lin Mu was seeing a crystal that was naturally spherical as most of the ones he had seen were spike shaped or had irregular formations.
"It's a bit warm…" Lin Mu picked up the crystal feeling the unique aura thats as contained within it.
The strangest thing was that the Blood Essence Crystal didn't have the same unconformable bloody aura like the rest of the Desolate Blood Battlefield and its continent. Instead it felt warm and had a faint vitality to it.
Lin Mu even probed it using his Immortal sense, but didn't find anything more. It didn't seem similar to to an Immortal Essence crystal either.
'Guess it needs to be processed before it gains those properties…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
He put the Blood Essence crystal away for now and jumped out of the hole.
"Let's go little Shrubby. We'll head straight to the location of the ruins now." Lin Mu said, knowing that if he delayed any longer the others could catch up.
~ROAR~
Little Shrubby let out a roar before starting to run again.
Lin Mu kept the Blood Vein tracker ready, just in case they were about to run into another such place. Since his goal was to get to the location of the ruins and Violet Mystic life tree as soon as possible, he decided to avoid all places with the Blood Essence crystal.
He had already seen the effects of the Baleful energy and had heeded Xukong's advice. There was no need to delay his arrival by something that could be avoided.
'Still the time needed to reach the ruins is quite long… I have at least three to four weeks…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
Lin Mu was just sitting on Little Shrubby's back, thus had an idea about doing more things.
'I may as well use the Tri-essence pills to continue cultivating. I might be able to use at least two by the time we reach the ruins.' Lin Mu estimated.
He wasn't worried about encountering any foes as Little Shrubby was more than capable of dodging them. As for the weird Stone flesh creature that they had encountered earlier, Lin Mu considered its attack to be a fluke.
There was no way it could hit them with its skills or speed.
Plus now Little Shrubby was a lot more alert and would know if something happened.
"Little Shrubby I'll be cultivating. Just inform me if you sense anything." Lin Mu spoke.
"Okay~" Little Shrubby replied.
His sense of smell was something that could often catch things farther than the range of Immortal sense and could allow them to perceive danger early on. This was one of the disadvantage that Immortal sense and Spirit sense had.
While both could be a replacement for sight and touch, they couldn't really perceive sound and smell.
Though there were a few exceptions to this. For example there were experts who had highly refined immortal sense who perceived sound through the vibrations in the air. Or those who directly read the lips of others using immortal sense.
The second option was something that even people with spirit sense could do, though it was a little awkward to use.
The first option was rather difficult and only a handful experts learned it. One needed to be highly talented in using immortal sense in the first place to do so after all.
With that said, Lin Mu took out the pill bottle of the Tri-essence immortal pills and consumed one of them again.
~gulp~
Swallowing the pill, Lin Mu let it be digested in his stomach. Since the pill didn't dissolve or melt directly unlike other alchemical pills, he needed to let his stomach do the work. Which it perfectly did and even isolated any losses.
~SHUA~
The first wave of energy was blocked by his stomach, and it was prevented from leaving it entirely. The obscure runes formed a net around the stomach walls too, quickly absorbing these stray pulses of energy.
After the initial energy bursts were contained, the rest of the Immortal essence started being released from the pill. Lin Mu's stomach processed it before the wisps were channeled into his rift Aperture.
The Aperture was already filled by 50% and this was just from one pill. Lin Mu wondered how much the second pill would contribute to it and observed it all.
Thankfully by now he had fully grasped how to use the Three Apertures Invoking technique and had no issues in modulating it appropriately. Even if he was traveling at a great speed there wasn't any disturbance to him.
And just like this, the first week passed.
Little Shrubby and Lin Mu had traveled across a vast plain with a few mountains that dotted it. There weren't any changes in the area and they didn't come across any other cultivators either.
Though there were some native creatures of the Desolate Blood Battlefield that they did sense but were directly avoided by them so as to not get in any conflict. Even if they were quite weak, Lin Mu did not wish to delay.
Thankfully the weak ones were directly scared away by Little Shrubby's aura and saved them more time.
~huu~
It was around the eight day that Lin Mu opened his eyes and let out a breath.
"The Tri Essence Immortal pill is finally absorbed fully…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.
He looked at his first aperture that was now filled 90% of the way. This wasn't because the amount of Immortal essence of the Tri Essence pill was less though.
But rather due to the fact that Lin Mu's Aperture had also expanded more.
If he compared it to the original size, it was now 40% larger in diameter. Lin Mu had certainly not expected for the Aperture to continue expanding as such and had thus fallen short of filling it completely.
"Guess I need a third pill to do so…" Lin Mu didn't mind it though as he had plenty of Tri Essence pills for now.
But he didn't consume one right away. Instead he waited a day and ensured that his Aperture was stable. He also checked their location and ensured that they hadn't deviated from the right path.
Thankfully so far, most of the area was flat plains and could be traveled in a straight line.
But now they were approaching an area that was filled with mountains, ravines and devastated land.
~SHA~SHA~SHA~
The Blood Vein Tracker was basically going crazy and kept on spinning non stop. It pointed in one direction for a moment and then in another the next.
"There's definitely a lot of pockets of baleful energies here…" Lin Mu determined.
It wasn't an area that they could cross without getting into trouble thus he decided to just halt his cultivation for now.
"Follow my directions Little Shrubby. We might need to change it often." Lin Mu instructed to which the beast responded with a growl.
Their path was now quite winded and often ended up with them going in a zig zag manner. Sometimes they needed to go perpendicular before circling back to get the safer route. There were simply too many obstacles on the path and the number of beasts here was higher too.
'There's certainly quite a lot of beasts with Immortal Realm cultivation base…' Lin Mu observed.
He didn't wish to get caught with them, thus avoided them as well. Of course, these beasts tried to chase after them, but simply couldn't do so with Little Shrubby's speed.
It wasn't just beasts that they encountered either as Lin Mu and Little Shrubby finally came across a few cultivators. Most of them were traveling in groups and only a couple were alone.
After all there was safety in numbers and a greater advantage in survival. Plus one could compensate for their shortcomings by having companions who excelled in those points.
'They don't seem to be heading to the ruins though…' Lin Mu realized after seeing the a majority of the cultivators were just wandering.
They either hunted the beasts, or tried to look for some resources.
And from their state, Lin Mu guessed that they had been here for a while now.
"Perhaps they never got the news about the Violet Mystic Life Tree appearing…" Lin Mu guessed.
This was a good thing for them as it meant that the others hadn't caught up yet and the news wasn't widely spread in the Desolate Blood Battlefield.
Another good thing was that these cultivators didn't target Lin Mu either. They were discouraged just from seeing the speed at which they were traveling and attributed it to them being immortals with high cultivation base.
Little Shrubby's speed was now working as a disguise too!
It took them a week before they finally managed to cross this area and reached the next which was just full of tall mountains.
