A day had passed since Lin Mu had arrived at the Evergreen Pillars Forest.
The day had been strange for him, as he had not seen a single beast so far. The only living creatures he had even seen were normal insects with no cultivation base whatsoever.
If it weren't for the fact that Little Shrubby could still smell the lingering scents of the other beasts, he would have thought that this entire forest was a dead zone.
"This is certainly not normal." Lin Mu frowned as he came to a halt.
"The Scent is still the same." Little Shrubby informed. "It still feels like they are far, and I can't feel any other change." He added.
"No change in distance… we aren't coming any closer to them." Lin Mu furrowed his brows, trying to figure out why this was happening.
Lin Mu and Little Shrubby had been wandering in the forest, trying to find the right spot to settle down and cultivate. But to ensure that he wouldn't be disturbed, Lin Mu had thought that it would be appropriate to eliminate the beasts from around him.
Plus, little Shrubby wanted to obtain more of the beast meat which Lin Mu would need too.
As such, they had been looking for beasts. But he hadn't thought that doing this would lead him to another dilemma.
They couldn't find beasts even if they wanted to. Even with Little Shrubby's sense of smell telling that the beasts were in a certain direction, they never chanced upon them. At first, Lin Mu thought that the beasts might be moving in the same direction as them, keeping the distance between them the same.
But after a day passed, and they had sped up, Lin Mu was sure something else was going on.
"We can't go on like this… We need a better field of view to analyze the issue." Lin Mu understood. "To the sky!"
~WHOOSH~
Lin Mu and Little Shrubby rose up, and headed to the skies.
Second after second passed and the segments of the Evergreen Bamboo went down.
"This…" it didn't take long for Lin Mu to realize something wrong. "SPEED UP!"
~SWOOSH~
Lin Mu and Little Shrubby rose at an even greater speed and flew for about a minute. But despite that, they were still not in the sky. The green pillars were everywhere around them and it felt like they had barely reached halfway point.
"We can't go to the sky either?" Lin Mu's frown deepened.
For something to prevent them from heading to the sky only meant it was rather powerful.
It was also something Lin Mu was familiar with, and yet he hadn't sensed it at all.
"A formation array… it's definitely a befuddling array too, but of a much, much higher complexity." Lin Mu muttered. 'Since it prevents one from even going up, it's definitely much stronger than the Natural Befuddling Array I encountered in the Leafless Dead Forest.' He analyzed as the two landed back on the ground.
In his last encounter, Lin Mu had overcome the Natural Befuddling Array of the Leafless Dead Forest by using Fade and bypassing the effects of the array.
"I need to try something. Wait here, Little Shrubby." Lin Mu said and directly used Fade.
~shua~
Lin Mu appeared in the parallel world and looked around quickly, finding it to be mostly desolate. The ground was a bony grey in color, while a few rocky protrusions were scattered around.
'As empty as before.' Lin Mu thought and looked up. "Let's see if this works."
~Crack~
Lin Mu stomped on the ground and shot to the sky, quickly rising. In the time that Fade was active, Lin Mu was sure he had reached a high enough distance.
'This should at least be a kilometer high.' Lin Mu thought as the skill ended.
~shua~
And sure enough, Lin Mu's conjecture was correct and he was now hovering in the sky.
The Evergreen Pillars Forest could be seen below him, as well as extending in all directions around him. Though in the south, he could see even taller Bamboo plants that exceeded the height that he was standing at. They looked like a giant green barrier that prevented one from looking any further.
But as Lin Mu gazed at the forest below him, he felt his head getting dizzy.
"Ugh!" Lin Mu held his head and closed his eyes, feeling a bit nauseous.
A couple of seconds later, the feeling faded away, prompting him to open his eyes again.
"Was that due to the array, too?" Lin Mu wondered as he tried to observe the forest below him.
But just five seconds later, he felt a wave of nausea along with dizziness. This time around though, he kept his eyes open, knowing that he needed to know more.
'This is only getting worse…' Lin Mu felt his vision getting worse and worse, and soon a headache appeared too. 'I can't falter this easily!' wanting to continue, he chanted the Calming Heart Sutra.
~Humm~
The effects of the Calming Heart Sutra soothed his mind and head, relieving the effects of the Natural Befuddling array.
"I need to be quick." Lin Mu's eyes darted around, taking in the positions of the bamboos.
There were millions upon millions of them, making it almost impossible to tell how they were structured. And when so many of them were growing so close together, making out matters was also very difficult. Multiple patterns seemingly could be made out, and Lin Mu could find several arrays that would be working here.
'It can't be that all these arrays are active… there are far too many for it to be viable. There would be a clash otherwise.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
He managed to stay there for five minutes, after which the effects of the Calming Heart Sutra were unable to keep the effects of the array at bay.
"I have to go down." Lin Mu gave up and descended from the sky.
He felt like if he stayed any longer, he might just pass out from the effects.
