Lin Mu withdrew his hand and looked at the object that was left behind in it.
"He killed it!"
"Who's that?"
"How did he do that?"
The three immortals were left stunned.
To them, Lin Mu had appeared out of nowhere and destroyed the creature they had been having a hard time battling with just a single hand. Not to mention, the attack was so fast they didn't even know how it happened.
But their shock was ignored by Lin Mu, as his interest was on the object in his hand.
'A crystal?' Lin Mu looked at the black and grey crystal in his hand.
It had a swirling energy within it that felt uncomfortable. Just by holding it in his hand, Lin Mu knew that the crystal contained a lot of baleful energy within it.
"Thank you for your help Senior." The Three immortals spoke out loud while cupping their hands.
This brought Lin Mu out of his thoughts and he looked at them. He put away the crystal in his ring for now and decided to focus on the people in front.
"It's nothing." Lin Mu replied. "Though, have you seen more of these rock creatures before?" he asked.
"We've seen three before this, but only fought one." The man in the black armor spoke.
"Only one?" Lin Mu raised his brows.
"Yeah. We managed to avoid two, but one closed off our path and caught us near a crevice. We could only fight and kill it. Though it was not that difficult with the strength of all three." The man with the battle Axe replied.
"It's surprising that we can't estimate its cultivation base." The man with the iron fan stated before closing it. "They have this strange aura around them, that makes it difficult for us to tell." Hearing this Lin Mu was a bit surprised.
'They can't actually sense their strength or estimate it?' Lin Mu had thought that it should have been rather obvious.
While the rock creatures weren't exactly following the normal cultivation path, estimating their strength should have been easy enough.
"They aren't body cultivators. They can't estimate it just from energy density and aura like you." Xukong spoke at this time.
"No wonder…" Lin Mu finally understood.
Having been a body cultivator since the start, Lin Mu had accustomed to estimating the strength of people and other creatures simply from the energy and aura they emitted. But it wasn't something normal Qi cultivators could do often.
They could still use their spirit sense or immortal sense to tell the cultivation base of other paths, but doing it for a strange creature like this rock flesh monster was still quite difficult. Not to mention, it contained volatile energies that could harm the cultivator, so using their immortal sense was still a problem.
Thankfully for Lin Mu, this was not of a concern, and his body's defenses were already strong enough to bear direct contact with Baleful energies. Lin Mu had tested this out earlier, so wasn't that worried.
"Have you also seen them before senior?" The man in the black armor asked seeing that Lin Mu was thinking.
"Yes… just one though." Lin Mu replied.
"Ah, I see." The man in the black armor said before turning to his companions. "We should continue now since the obstacle has been eliminated."
"Yes." The Man with the battle Axe said before taking out a couple of stones from his storage pouch. "Please take this as a form of our gratitude."
Lin Mu glanced at the low grade immortal stones and shook his hand.
"There's no need. I acted on my own." Lin Mu replied.
This was actually true, since Lin Mu's goal had been the strange energy within the Rock creature from the start. As soon as he had sensed it, he knew he needed to check it out. This was also why he had attacked so quickly and taken away the black grey crystal.
Even if the crystal contained baleful energies and could not be used for cultivation, it wasn't worthless. In fact, Lin Mu reckoned it could be used in quite a few ways.
'I should see if I can find a few more of these rock creatures. The first one certainly didn't have a crystal like this in its body, which means there's only a few that can form these.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
"Please take this at least, Senior." The Man with the Iron fan didn't seem to be convinced though and handed Lin Mu a small wooden plate.
It was about the size of a palm and had a unique symbol on it. It was of a spear, a battle Axe and a fan. It just so happened that these three immortals used the same weapons.
"What's this?" Lin Mu asked curiously.
"It's a token of our appreciation as well as a free use voucher for our services. We are the Three Arms Mercenary Group." The man with the iron fan spoke.
"Oh? You guys are mercenaries?" Lin Mu found it a bit hard to believe.
From their demeanor and battle sense, Lin Mu found them to be a little too green.
"We… are just starting out." The man in the black armor spoke.
"Yeah, it's been about six months since we made out group. We are trying to get out name out." The man with the battle Axe explained.
"I see…" Lin Mu put the wooden plate away, not rejecting their goodwill.
"If you need us in the future, please don't hesitate to ask for us. We are usually at the Middle Fort city's mercenary association. You can leave your requests there if we are not present there." The man in the black armor spoke.
"Very well… I'll do that in the future." Lin Mu replied, before asking. "Though what are your names?"
"AH! We almost forgot." The man with the iron fan said. "I am Iron Fan Zhang."
"I am Spear Arm Kuji." The man in the iron armor revealed.
"And I am Axe Back Cuno." The man with the battle Axe stated.
