The two cores grew simultaneously as Lin Mu observed them closely.
'I guess this confirms, two cores can be refined with the Omnicore Ascendancy at once and there are no problems with it… at least if there is just pure elemental energy in the herbs and nothing else.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
He already knew that having other 'impurities' like the poison could harm him and affect the rate of absorption. Thus it was better that he only used herbs with pure elements when doing more than one core at once.
'For now it's best I just limit myself to that. Perhaps once I get more acclimatized to it, I can do more cores.' Lin Mu reckoned.
With that done, Lin Mu used a few more herbs of a hybrid type until he was out of them.
~huu~
There were now just two days left, and Lin Mu wondered what he should do.
"Should I go outside?" Lin Mu wondered.
This was the longest he had been within the ring and it was something which had been impossible before. But as he grew in his cultivation base as well as his own comprehension of the spatial element, it became possible for him to stay longer.
Though he also wondered if the addition of the second ring had contributed to this or not.
'High chance it did… My control over the ring's inside has also improved greatly since I got the second ring.' Lin Mu remembered.
~shua~
But it was now that a figure approached him.
"Senior." Lin Mu saw Xukong.
"I'm guessing you had some progress?" Xukong asked, observing Lin Mu.
"Yes… I managed to get started on the Wood Core and the Water core." Lin Mu nodded.
"Hmm… I can't sense anything from the outside." Xukong replied.
"You can't?" Lin Mu raised his brows. "I guess that's a good thing. Even I was having a hard time sensing them. Though I wonder if it's just because of their size." He said before sharing the memories with Xukong.
The spider saw the mung bean sized cores and nodded.
"It could be due to the size, or perhaps it's just how their properties are." Xukong stated. "I've no idea about this technique, as such, these are all completely new discoveries." He added.
"Indeed. We'll need to observe and study them further." Lin Mu said. "Though I don't sense any benefit from them either." He added.
"According to the technique they will only grant you the affinity to the elements once a core is fully formed, so it isn't unusual for it to be like this." Xukong replied. "Though considering the number of herbs you used, the growth is indeed a bit underwhelming."
"Yeah, I didn't expect even nine hundred kilograms of precious herbs would only result in this much. The compression is quite a lot." Lin Mu said, before turning to another direction. "Thankfully I still have other things I can use."
Xukong followed his gaze to the section where all the raw materials and beast materials were piled up.
"Ah, yes! You can use any elemental material… You've only used herbs so far." Xukong recalled.
"Yeah. I've used the herbs in ascending order of quality. I intend to do the same for the other resources too." Lin Mu nodded his head. "I also have the fruits, but I'll keep them for the last. They are still useful for other things after all." He added.
Unlike the herbs, the spirit fruits and Immortal fruits could be consumed directly without having to be refined like most herbs. Fruits also had higher potency usually and could be used for a lot of things. Trading them was also a ready option, and as such Lin Mu didn't think he should use them right away for Omnicore Ascendancy.
At the very least, he thought of waiting until he was out of other materials.
Xukong paused for a second before suggesting something.
"Why don't you try out some of the materials?" He asked. "You still have two days left."
"Hmm, I guess that won't hurt." Lin Mu answered after thinking.
With that said, the two left the herb pillar and shifted to the section with the raw materials.
Most of the materials here were piled up, rather than being kept in shelves due to their sheer quantity. There were almost three thousand piles, which varied in size from mountains to hills. There were metal ingots, ores, various kinds of woods, gemstones, crystals, minerals as well as beast materials here.
Every time Lin Mu and Little Shrubby butchered beast corpses, they would separate out the usable materials like the fur, hide, claws, teeth, and bones. In the case of bones, Lin Mu sometimes ate them whole, but he still did store away the majority of them.
And with how much they ate, there was no lack of such beast materials.
"Let's see…" Lin Mu spread his immortal sense and scanned all the materials, figuring out which ones he should get started with.
Similar to before, his gaze landed on the 'mortal' materials.
Particularly the wood from many trees that Lin Mu had somehow ended up gathering during his time in the Xiaofan world. These weren't even spirit trees, but rather just normal trees that would grow everywhere.
It would be fine if it was whole trees or timbers, but there were actually more of broken wood chunks and splinters that were piled up.
"Oh wait… these are all from the cleanups." Lin Mu realized.
Whenever he practiced his skills, he would often leave a trail of destruction in the forests. Sometimes he would leave it be, but when he thought it was not right to leave his mess behind, he would actually clean it up.
And over the years, he had gathered enough wood, both whole and fragmented that he could probably compare it to a few forests in quantity.
"I guess this is as low as I can go with it." Lin Mu reckoned starting with a pile of wood splinters that were a victim of his many uses of Boulder Collapsing Fist.
