Appearing in the library again, he shut the doors and got ready. He sat down cross legged and took out the Dark soil pill. Its glassy exterior glittered in the sunlight that was coming from one of the windows.
After looking at it for a moment, Lin Mu put it in his mouth, swallowing it down. Unlike most of the other pills which turned into liquid when put in mouth, this one stayed solid. Even when it was in his stomach it stayed in the solid form.
'Why is it not showing any effect?' Lin Mu wondered.
And just as this question appeared in his mind, it happened.
~boom~
It was as if an explosion had happened in his stomach and the pill started releasing its efficacy. Dense earth elemental spirit Qi was released from it that was rapidly absorbed into Lin Mu's body.
The spirit Qi coursed through his meridians putting pressure on them. This was the first time in a long while, Lin Mu was feeling such kind of a pressure on his meridians. Ever since his meridians had expanded and he had reached the Five treasures realm, he had not had any problem bearing the spirit Qi.
This showed just how much power was contained within that little pill. Lin Mu got over the initial shock after a second and hurriedly practiced the Mortal strengthening scripture. The earth elemental spirit Qi, traversed the meridians and followed the Qi circuit of the moral strengthening scripture.
Unlike before, the brown armor layer did not appear on his skin right away. It took him fifteen minutes before he had even absorbed the initial wave of the spirit Qi. Lin Mu took a look at the pill in his stomach and saw that it was barely 10% dissolved.
'This is definitely way more powerful than any other pill I've taken…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
~shua~
Finally, he had gone past the limit and the brown armor layer appeared on his skin again. The plate like patterns on it started expanding as the armor started to get thicker. The earth elemental spirit Qi kept on pouring into it and hours passed in the blink of an eye.
About half of the Dark Soil Pill's efficacy had been used up by Lin Mu and he had still not broken through to the next stage. He looked at the armor which was now two inches thick. If one looked at Lin Mu right now, they would think that some barbarian that was wearing a thick armor was sitting there instead.
The armor masked Lin Mu's appearance and he looked like a very bulky man instead. From afar it looked heavy but in reality, it was weightless. More time passed and then the communicator jade slip hummed.
Lin Mu paid no attention to it right now though, and simply continued practicing the mortal strengthening scripture. Finally, the armor could not absorb any more of the earth elemental spirit Qi and reached a peak.
~Crack~
The armor shuddered before cracks started spreading all over it. Bit by bit they covered the entire surface of Lin Mu's body until it finally shattered.
~Tremble~
A wave of aura was released by Lin Mu's body and spread all across the area. All the people who were currently in the Mercenary union and the district that it was located in felt tremors.
"What! Is it an earthquake?" Tongguo Bing who had been doing her work said in shock.
The other clerks rushed out and saw her. They were in the same condition and felt that there was an earthquake too.
Outside the building, the people were all going about their business. But a lot of them suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground.
"What in the name of heavens!" They exclaimed.
~thud~thud~thud~
Some of the stalls and shops that had things hanging on display fell down and the guards became alert.
"Inform the captain, we have an earthquake incoming!" The guards spoke.
But what they didn't know that this entire occurrence was only confined to this area. In fact, when they stepped out of a certain radius they felt calm. There were no tremors here and it was as if everything was normal.
Yet when they turned around and looked back at the road, they could still see the things moving and people trembling. All of them had question marks on their faces and couldn't explain this stager occurrence.
This didn't last for long though and within two minutes everything had calmed down. It was as if nothing had happened, but the marks of those tremors could still be seen everywhere. Some of the buildings and shops had cracks in their walls and a few trees had collapsed.
Even the lamps that hung from the poles along the streets spilled the oil from them. While the ones that were a bit more unstable directly fell to the ground. Thankfully, it was daytime and the lamps were extinguished, or fire would have likely started in the area.
Lin Mu who was the source of this, sat completely unaware and was fully focused on himself.
A new layer had appeared on Lin Mu now. This one did not look like armor and rather like scales. They were brown and were attached to the surface of his skin. Each scale was symmetrical and about two centimeters in diameter.
Now it didn't look like Lin Mu was wearing an armor. Rather it looked like he was wearing tight lizard skin clothes instead. His robes that he was wearing had been shredded in the process of the previous armor expanding and now Lin Mu was left sitting, wearing tattered rags.
He finally opened his eyes, that glowed with a fierce look.
~huu~
"I succeeded…" Lin Mu muttered to himself before taking a look at his body, which had changed once again.
He touched the layer which was rather springy instead of stiff like before. But this was not all, as when he took a look inside his body he received another surprise.
