About two months had passed since Lin Mu had appeared in the Sleepscape. His practice was going quite well and he had finally finished the entire Thousand Armament Blade scripture.
While he wouldn't say he was fully proficient in all of the weapons from the scripture, he could very well say that he was able to use them all. And was also proficient in about ten percent of them.
It could not be helped, as the total number of weapons in the Thousand Armament Blade scripture was over three hundred. Lin Mu being able to become proficient in even ten percent of them was quite a lot.
Lin Mu had also furthered his understanding of the Dao Script during his lessons with Senior Xukong and could read far more characters than before. He also read more from the memoirs of the Lost immortal and gained some wisdom from them.
Overall, it was a rather productive two months and Lin Mu's strength had become more refined than before.
"My cultivation base has also increased by quite a lot…" Lin Mu muttered.
"How far along are you?" Xukong who was calmly floating on the side, asked.
"I should be close to breaking through to the Child Stage of the Nascent Soul realm soon." Lin Mu replied.
"That's good, hopefully the spirit Qi in the Minor plane has also started to reduce by now." Xukong stated.
"I can't really tell that accurately right now. But if I correlate it with the increase in my cultivation base, I would say it is at the same rate as it was about a month ago." Lin Mu spoke.
"Yes, but that is in addition to the spirit Qi you were constantly using as well. If you were just absorbing spirit Qi during this time, I reckon you would have already broken through to the Child Soul Stage of the Nascent Soul realm." Xukong estimated.
"That's true, but doing that would have made my foundation unstable. At least this way I have a steady increase and my body gets used to it as well. Plus, I'm still improving my strength in other ways." Lin Mu said in an understanding tone.
Xukong nodded in appreciation. He was feeling content with how far along Lin Mu had come and how his understanding of cultivation had also increased. He did not doubt himself as much as before either, and had gained confidence.
But while thinking of all this, Xukong was suddenly reminded of a certain thing that had been lying near a certain glowing altar.
"Have you checked up on that egg yet?" Xukong suddenly spoke.
"Egg?" Lin Mu repeated before his eyes went wide.
"THE GREY EGG OF THE SNAKES!" Lin Mu remembered and hurriedly withdrew the egg from his ring.
The egg appeared in his hand and he looked at it closely, examining all of its sections, ensuring that it was fine. He then scanned it with his spirit sense and except for it being a bit too calm, there did not seem to be anything wrong with them.
~phew~
"It seems to be alive." Lin Mu said, feeling a bit relieved.
He felt like it would be a shame if the egg died just because he had forgotten about it and neglected it for the most part. Ever since he had gotten the egg, he had only taken it out twice, and that was when he was in the Minor plane with Little Shrubby and Jing Luo.
Lin Mu had even shown Jing Luo the egg and had questioned him what he thought about it, or if he could tell what kind of a beast would come out of it. Jing Luo simply answered he didn't know. He stated that his expertise in spirit beasts was quite less and that Lin Mu definitely knew a lot more than him.
The only beasts that Jing Luo knew well enough about were those that he used as ingredients for Weapon refinement and formations. As for the others, he did not really care for them as much.
Lin Mu could only sigh to himself at that time and let time reveal the identity of the spirit beast that was in this egg. The strange thing was that even if Lin Mu tried to scan it with his spirit sense, he could not tell much.
Observing the egg using spirit sense was like looking at something through a white sheet. The image was hardly visible and the details could not be made out. All that could be told was that there was something in the egg.
"I still can't see anything in the egg though." Lin Mu stated.
"Hmm… It is probably too early for you to see anything in it. The embryo should still be forming and thus the beast would only look like a mass of fluid right now." Xukong explained.
"Ah, I see. Though how long would this beast take to hatch?" Lin Mu questioned.
From what Lin Mu had read in the beast records, the eggs of the Black Water Snake took about two months to hatch, while the eggs of the Fire Fang Snake took a little over three months to hatch.
If he compared the time since he got the egg, it had been nearly four months. Even taking the hatching time of Fire Fang snake, which was the longest, the egg should have already hatched. But since he could not see an embryo in it, he didn't know what could be the problem.
"Seeing as the beast is a mix of two snakes and has also absorbed Beast Qi from the mother, it is hard to tell. The most likely thing is that it is also mutating and its bloodline has yet to adapt. Once the bloodline is stabilized, the embryo should start developing." Xukong explained.
"I see…" Lin Mu muttered.
He looked at the egg for a while more when he suddenly got an idea.
"Since the egg is still adapting the bloodline which is probably mutating… what will happen if I give it Beast Qi?" Lin Mu wondered.
