Having met the Crown Prince and getting some information, Lin Mu decided to return to the Hundred Fruits Courtyard.
He wanted to rest a bit and also wanted to meet the Twins as well as the Saintess. It had been a month since he had seen them after all.
"Should we buy some ingredients along the way?" Little Shrubby suggested.
"Of course!" Lin Mu agreed right away.
The two strolled through the markets and bought whatever ingredient that caught their fancy. There were plenty of spirit and immortal herbs included in it, as long as they seemed to have a good flavor. Then there were also some new beast meats that were being sold.
Lin Mu could sense the immortal Qi within them along with rich vitality.
'These will be perfect for a stew.' Lin Mu thought.
An hour was all it took for them to buy all that they wanted before leaving for the Hundred Fruits Courtyard.
~Creak~
Upon Lin Mu's return, the gate of the courtyard opened automatically.
"Saintess, Xiao Yin, Xiao Yang!" Lin Mu called out with a smile.
But his smile quickly stilled as he watched the empty garden.
"They aren't here?" Lin Mu was surprised.
~shua~
His immortal sense spread around the area rapidly, searching for them but they didn't seem to be in the courtyard.
'The formations that the Saintess set up are still here… did she go out for a stroll perhaps?' Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder.
~sniff~ sniff~
"They haven't been here for at least four days." Little Shrubby said after smelling the scents.
"Four days…" Lin Mu said before closing his eyes.
He sensed his link with the twins and found them to be far to the south.
"That's… really far." Lin Mu was not expecting this. "They should be at least two or three thousand kilometers away." He estimated.
"Should we go to them?" Little Shrubby questioned.
"Hmm… let's just wait. If the Saintess took them out, they shouldn't be in danger." Lin Mu replied. "We'll just prepare the food till then. When they return, we'll have a feast ready." He suggested instead.
"YES!" Little Shrubby agreed.
With that said the two quickly got busy in preparing the ingredients and making different dishes. This time, they cooked for nearly sixteen hours, and ended up making around forty different items!
It was clear that Lin Mu had taken some inspiration from his meals at the Spring Valley restaurant. He was liking the large spread of dishes and was attempting to recreate some of them.
But once they had finished making everything, Lin Mu realized that there were no signs of the return of the Twins or the Saintess.
"What do we do? Do we wait till they return?" Little Shrubby inquired.
"Yeah, we'll store the food away so it stays fresh. We'll wait till they return." Lin Mu replied.
They had eaten at the Spring Valley Restaurant before this, thus they weren't necessarily hungry. They simply wished to enjoy a meal with the twins and the Saintess.
With that said Lin Mu decided to just cultivate till the Saintess and the twins returned. Though Lin Mu was also tempted to just go to them. It wouldn't be difficult with Little Shrubby's speed after all.
But the next day, Lin Mu discovered that the Twins seem to be getting farther from them.
'Now they're nearly five thousand kilometers way… just where did they go?' Lin Mu was confused.
Traveling that far in such a short time wouldn't be possible for the twins thus it was clear that the Saintess was taking them along. Plus Lin Mu didn't sense any danger to the lives of the twins either. He could tell from their link that they were in good health.
"No wait…" it was now that Lin Mu sensed something.
It was very faint due to the distance, but now that he was focusing on it Lin Mu could tell a change in the twins.
'Their cultivation has certainly improved if I can feel it even this far… it can't be can it?' A thought appeared in Lin Mu's mind.
But rather than to come to conclusions Lin Mu decided to wait and watch.
To pass the time, he simply used the Spiral Flake Crystal to comprehend the space. His progress last time had been rather good and he wanted to see how much he could grow. In just an hour of entering the Spiral Flake Crystal, Lin Mu had already touched upon the 'unknown' object.
But once again, it had slipped past his grasp.
Lin Mu simply attempted to find it again though and kept on repeating it, getting better and better at it. Time continued to pass like this and three days elapsed.
On the fourth day, Lin Mu's Immortal sense was still within the space of the Spiral Flake Crystals, and was close to grasping the unknown object again. But just as he was about to do that, he was shocked away.
"WHAT?!" A surge of emotions filled Lin Mu's mind.
These hadn't come from Lin Mu but from the link he had with the Yin Yang Twin Serpents.
The emotions were that of pain and anxiety, but also that of excitement and joy.
Lin Mu isolated their emotions and calmed himself down. He closed his eyes and focused on the link with the twins, wanting to find out their situation. This time though, it wasn't as hard, as the link continually fed him with information.
Perhaps it was due to the intensity of it all, but the link was transmitting a lot of information mixed with the emotions. Considering the distance, it only meant just how strong it all was.
But in all this, Lin Mu also felt something else.
It was the part that was getting more and more intense as time went by.
'Their cultivation is rising…' Lin Mu thought.
He kept on sensing the information from the link and could feel the pain coming through it as well. It showed him that the Twins were injured and also allowed him to guess due to what.
'They're really undergoing breakthrough…' Lin Mu grasped.
This was a difficult situation and made Lin Mu worried. But he also knew that with the Saintess there, the Twins would be okay.
"I just have to wait here for them." As much as Lin Mu didn't like the fact that he wasn't there for the twins, he also knew that it was inevitable. 'Since I was in the Spatial Plane, the Saintess probably decided to take the twins away for their breakthrough.' Lin Mu thought.
Though he was surprised that the twins were having a breakthrough already. After all, they had a breakthrough not long ago. Not to mention, they hadn't shown any signs of it before either.
'Though they did start speaking… and their size was also bigger.' Lin Mu remembered.
He knew that the Yin Yang Twin Serpents had a strong and talented bloodline. It was something that would inevitably allow the twins to progress, but with the teaching of the Saintess, that process had been catalyzed.
'Maybe they ended up having an epiphany in that time.' Lin Mu thought as he continued to observe it all.
The breakthrough of the twins took nearly a day before the surge of emotions ceased. Lin Mu could feel that the twins had successfully broken through and were already recovering.
"Good… they should return now." Lin Mu silently smiled.
And sure enough, Lin Mu could feel the link getting stronger with each passing minute. The location of the twins was getting closer and closer. By the time it was night, Lin Mu could already sense the Twins within the Courtyard.
~SHUA~
Lin Mu stopped out of the room and saw the figures of the Saintess and the Twins Materialize.
~MEOW~
"You guys are back!" Little Shrubby was the first to respond.
The beast had been cultivating in the courtyard too, and was the first to see them.
The Saintess poked at Lin Mu, who had some hidden concern on his face. She could easily guess why he was like that too.
"The Twins grew faster than I had expected." The Saintess spoke her voice as calm as ever.
~HISS~ HISS~
The twin snakes raised their heads and looked at Lin Mu. They were wrapped around the Saintess's arms just as they did with Lin Mu.
"MASTER!" The twins suddenly jumped towards Lin Mu, before wrapping around them.
Lin Mu rubbed their heads, while also feeling their cultivation base.
"You two reached the Fourth Tribulation Stage of the Immortal Realm already?" Lin Mu was a astonished.
While he could tell that the cultivation of the twins had improved, he couldn't tell exactly how much due to the distance.
"Similar to before the twins had a variant immortal tribulation." The Saintess informed. "As such, I had to take them as far away from here as possible."
"Mmhmm… that's understandable." Lin Mu said as he peered into the Dantian of the twins.
There he could see four halos around the nascent souls of the twins.
