The masked man seemed completely out of breath and it was as if this little task took him more effort than the entire Battle that he had just gone through. The masked man could not bear it anymore and collapsed down onto the ground while breathing heavily.
'What happened to him?' Lin Mu thought.
Lin Mu then extended his spirit sense and checked the condition of the masked man. When he saw the spirit qi of the masked man, he got shocked as it was completely depleted. Not a single wisp of it was left remaining inside his dantian.
"He's in a severe state of qi exhaustion," Xukong spoke.
"How did he deplete it all, though? It didn't look like he used much of it during the Battle either." Lin Mu wondered.
"Hmm, it seems like that small tube he's holding is not simple," Xukong replied.
"Was that perhaps his method of contacting his superiors?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Hey! Are you alright?" Lin Mu asked with concern.
The masked man did not reply and only continued to pant. It seems that the qi exhaustion was much severe than he thought.
"Why is he so severely affected by this senior? When I had qi exhaustion before I was tired but not this bad." Lin Mu questioned.
'Of course, you would not be tired. With how vastly that ring is modifying your constitution, it would be a feat to become that exhausted.' Xukong thought but did not express it.
"You are at a higher stage of Body tempering realm than him, and you practically also have a superior method of cultivating qi. Your standards are greatly different, so you can't really compare it." Xukong answered Lin Mu.
Silently nodding to senior Xukong, Lin Mu decided to wait for the man to rest a bit.
"You know, you can give the masked man one of your spirit apples. It will help him recover faster and you will also be able to observe its effects on him." Xukong suggested after waiting a minute.
Lin Mu had eaten a couple of spirit apples that grew on the spirit apple tree that was inside the garden of karma. It tasted good to him and also helped him restore a small amount of spirit qi. The last time he ate a spirit apple, it restored about twenty-five wisps of spirit qi for him.
Senior Xukong had told him that it would not be the same for another person as everyone's constitutions varied and even their metabolism was different. Lin Mu had wanted to try feeding a spirit apple to a normal beast, but senior Xukong told him that it would not do much except for killing them, perhaps.
Lin Mu would have to capture an eighth stage body tempering beast in order to be able to test it. But senior Xukong then told him that, for him to analyze a beast's constitution would be difficult, as their physiologies were vastly different than humans. He would have to have a higher cultivation level as well as better spirit sense to even attempt that.
Now that Lin Mu had this chance to test it on a different person, he wanted to take it. As for whether the masked man would suspect where he got a spirit apple from, that would be rather useless as he had already revealed much more shocking secrets.
Something as simple as this would not matter at all, besides there was an entire orchard of spirit apples in the Northern town, he may as well have bought it normally. He did have the sufficient capital for it.
Having made up his mind, Lin Mu withdrew a spirit apple from his ring and put it towards the masked man. The masked man turned to look up and saw the spirit apple in Lin Mu's hand.
"Go on, take it. It will help you restore your spirit qi." Lin Mu spoke.
The man slightly nodded while panting and took the spirit apple from Lin Mu's hand. His mask was already lifted from his mouth, thus he did not have to make the effort again. He placed the spirit apple at his mouth and took a bite.
The sweet and tangy juices from the spirit apple spread in his mouth and gave him a little taste of heaven. He chewed for a little bit before swallowing it. As soon as the morsel of the spirit apple reached his stomach, it instantly started releasing the spirit qi stored within it.
The wisps of spirit qi started being absorbed from the masked man's stomach and were being pulled into his meridians. The spirit qi wisps traveled through the man's meridians while nourishing his body and relieving his fatigue bit by bit.
Feeling the effects of the spirit apple taking place, the masked man no longer hesitated and started devouring the rest of the spirit apple. Bite by bite, the entire spirit apple disappeared into the masked man's stomach. He did not even leave behind the core and ate it all without wasting anything.
Soon the spirit qi wisps that were circulating inside the masked man's meridians started settling inside his dantian. A few minutes later the spirit qi had calmed down and the man's dantian was replenished with spirit qi once again.
While all this was happening Lin Mu was closely observing the masked man's condition. Right from the moment when the masked man had taken the first bite of the spirit apple, Lin Mu had started studying it. His spirit sense was sensing every single wisp of spirit qi that spread inside the masked man's body.
Lin Mu learned multiple things from this test. Firstly, he saw the difference between his own dantian and another person's dantian. The difference he found was extremely vast. He found out that the capacity of his dantian was nearly thrice that of the masked man's.
The second thing he learned was the meridians of the masked man. He was able to learn the masked man's qi cycle pattern. Lin Mu knew that a cultivator's qi cycle pattern varied depending on the kind of the qi cultivation technique that cultivator was using. This meant that if Lin Mu was able to obtain the breathing technique of the masked man, he may be able to replicate his entire qi cultivation technique.
The third thing he learned was the actual effect of the spirit apple itself. While a spirit apple was able to restore around 25 wisps of spirit qi for Lin Mu, it was much more different for the masked man. The spirit apple restored around 80 wisps of spirit qi for the masked man. This difference also surprised Lin Mu.
Having learned all this, Lin Mu felt rather satisfied and did not think that he had wasted the spirit apple.
The masked man also seemed to be a little surprised by the effect of the spirit apple. He sensed his dantian and found that his store of spirit qi had been replenished by eighty wisps. It had only been ten minutes, and he had restored such a large amount.
If he cultivated normally, it would take him nearly two hours to replenish the same amount on his own. The effectiveness of this spirit apple was surprising to the masked man. He had eaten a spirit apple before and had experienced its effect.
'This does not seem like a normal spirit apple. It has more than double the amount of spirit qi in it.' The masked man thought.
The masked man then looked up at Lin Mu with a strange expression that was hidden beneath his mask.
~sigh~ 'A person with such a distinguished identity as his was bound to be different. Even a normal spirit apple is so much more potent.' The masked man spoke to himself.
"Thank you." The masked man said after taking a deep breath.
"It's fine, the quicker you recover, the better it will be. We don't know if more of those men would come." Lin Mu replied.
The masked man remembered the severity of the current situation and nodded.
"You're right. Though we may not have to worry as much, my companions should be here soon." The masked man spoke while looking outside the warehouse.
Lin Mu then looked at the strange tube-shaped necklace hanging in the masked man's neck and thought about it.
"Is that necklace a spirit tool that's used to contact your companions?" Lin Mu curiously asked.
The masked man turned around after hearing Lin Mu's question and sighed again.
"No, it's not a spirit tool… Well, not completely. But it does allow me to contact my companions." The masked man answered.
Seeing that the masked man was unwilling to explain further, Lin Mu did not probe either. But he did ask senior Xukong about it.
"It may be some kind of primitive spirit tool, seeing as it did consume his entire store of spirit qi," Xukong answered.
Hearing about a new term, the curiosity within Lin Mu was ignited once again. Xukong instantly understood this and started explaining it before Lin Mu even had the chance to ask. Xukong was rather satisfied by the curiosity Lin Mu showed. It was good that he had a penchant for learning.
"A primitive spirit tool can simply be considered to be an incomplete spirit tool. While a primitive tool may have the structure of a spirit tool, it does not have the necessary formations and the qi circuits placed on it." Xukong explained.
Lin Mu nodded after hearing senior Xukong's words and walked ahead to stand with the masked man. He joined the masked man in looking out of the door of the old warehouse.
The night sky was lit up with the moon and the stars, spreading their luminance all across the town. Lin Mu soon observed a group of masked figures running across the roofs of the buildings.
