The surprised shout of Hei Wen attracted the attention of a few people, including Hei Bao who was following from the back and was apparently heading towards the same location as them.
"What did you say?" Hei Wen asked with a perplexed expression.
Lin Mu had thought that the Hei Corpse must have known about old man Jing as well, since they had information about all of the cultivators that were in the town.
By now Hei Bao had also come close and seemed to be interested in their conversation.
"What happened here?" Hei Bao questioned.
"Captain, I think we missed some intelligence about another cultivator that lives in the town and Lin Mu here knows about him." Hei Wen replied.
Hei Wen was wondering if their intelligence collection ability had really fallen so far behind that even a kid knew more about things now.
"What cultivator are you talking about?" Hei Bao asked again.
"Old Man Jing." Lin Mu stated.
Hei Bao's expression suddenly fell upon hearing the name, and cold sweat appeared on his forehead. Hei Wen saw the changes on Hei Bao's face and wondered if something wrong had happened.
"Is there something wrong, captain?" Hei Wen asked with concern.
"No, nothing. As for the cultivator Lin Mu's talking about, I know about it." Hei Bao answered after taking a deep breath.
"You do?!" Hei Wen questioned in surprise.
"Yes, I've known about it and so does the lord as well." Hei Bao answered.
"Why did we not know about this then?" Hei Wen asked curiously.
"Well… He… He's in the same category as Lin Mu. We were strictly warned not to be involved him." Hei Bao answered while wiping the sweat off his brow.
"We've been having so many difficult scenarios lately, don't you think that we should have been informed. Who knows if this cultivator could have been involved in it." Hei Wen protested.
"I can guarantee that he's not." Lin Mu declared after hearing the conversation.
~sigh~ "Considering our current situation, I'll ask the leader to brief you about it in the morning when she comes." Hei Bao spoke.
Hei Wen still seemed dissatisfied, but then looked at the unwilling faces of Hei Bao and Lin Mu. Even if he could protest against his captain's orders a bit, he couldn't do the same for a person like Lin Mu. Hei Wen took a deep breath and calmed down before thinking for himself.
'If this person called old Man Jing is in the same category as Lin Mu, then his status must be nothing to scoff at. While we still don't know Lin Mu's exact background, it does not seem the same for Old Man Jing. Captain Hei Bao seemed rather alarmed, and he's unfazed by most things.' Hei Wen thought.
Lin Mu saw that Hei Wen had gone still for a few seconds, thus understood that he must be thinking. He let him be for a minute before interrupting him.
"Hei Wen?" Lin Mu called out.
Hei Wen then snapped out from his thoughts and looked at Lin Mu.
"Ah yes, let's go." Hei Wen replied.
Hei Wen then guided Lin Mu to the room used for resting. The room was very simple and only had a few beds along with some chairs and tables. Lin Mu looked around the room and assessed it. The room had the same brick walls as before, but when Lin Mu used his spirit sense to probe them he found that the walls were free standing and did not have anything behind them.
The back of the walls was completely hollow and was unlike the passage where there was a rock wall behind the brick wall. The brick walls themselves were only about a foot thick. Lin Mu could not gauge how far back the rock walls must be as his spirit sense was dampened after traveling through a foot of solid wall.
"Is this place a cave?" Lin Mu muttered.
Hei Wen was still a little involved in his thoughts thus could not hear what Lin Mu said properly.
"Did you say something?" Hei Wen asked.
"Oh no, nothing." Lin Mu answered, not wanting to bother with it for now.
Hei Wen just nodded and gestured towards the beds.
"You can take whichever bed you want for resting. The leader should be here in the morning, or if we're lucky before daybreak." Hei Wen answered.
Lin Mu nodded and then thought for a second before asking,
"What more can you tell me about this leader of yours?"
"Honestly, I don't know much other than that she's a woman and is the closest person to our lord. You can ask her yourself in the morning when she comes, until then just wait." Hei Wen asked while shrugging his shoulders.
Lin Mu nodded and just picked a bed randomly to rest on. He did not choose to sleep but instead just decided to cultivate till the morning. He sat down cross-legged on the bed and started chanting the severing heart sutra.
Over the few weeks, Lin Mu's control over his spirit Qi had increased, and now he could actually control it without the use of the severing heart sutra. But even so, chanting the severing heart sutra increased the efficiency by multiple times.
By now Lin Mu had also understood what kind of effect the severing heart sutra had on other people. It would erase their emotions instantly, which caused them to enter a dazed state. People needed time to adapt to this emotionless state, thus they kind of 'Shut down' when they were targeted by the severing heart sutra.
Though Lin Mu still thought that there were more methods to use the severing heart sutra than just this. He just had to figure them out. Lin Mu also thought that he needed to increase his proficiency with the sutras more.
He had also seen the effect of the Calming heart sutra on other people and knew that it was not as useful to use it on other people for now. It was just that he could not think of many situations that would warrant the use of the calming heart sutra.
He knew what had happened to the town when he entered the enlightened state, hence knew what the full potential of the calming heart sutra could be like.
While Lin Mu was chanting the severing heart sutra and cultivating, Hei Wen was observing him. He could hear some esoteric chants that were coming out of Lin Mu's lips and did not know what to make of it. The chants seemed mysterious to him, and he could not understand them at all. Instead, if he focused on the words that Lin Mu was chanting, Hei Wen himself started feeling very nervous.
It was as if he was forbidden from hearing the chants and something bad would happen to him. But Hei Wen was curious and wanted to know more about Lin Mu. He wanted to provide his lord with as much information as he could. Thus decided to try anyway and started to listen to Lin Mu's chants with full focus while closing his eyes.
At first, Hei Wen only felt uncomfortable, but soon the feeling started intensifying. Five minutes later he no longer just felt uncomfortable, but instead felt as if there were needles poking on his skin. He gritted his teeth and continued focusing on the chants while bearing the pain from the illusory needles.
Fifteen minutes passed and at this time, Hei Wen seemed to have lost himself in his mind. He was still feeling the needles on his skin, but could not open his eyes anymore. It was as if something had trapped him in his own mind. He tried to escape this state but could not.
Thirty more minutes passed and by now Hei Wen felt as if he was going insane. He wanted to end this state and was cursing himself for choosing to do this. The feeling of needles on his skin had long since disappeared, but now there was something much more worse.
Hei Wen's vision suddenly returned, and he could see again.
"What is this?" Hei Wen said as he looked around.
Hei Wen could tell that his eyes were actually still physically closed, and he was just imagining this. Though he was still hearing the esoteric chants in his ears as well. Hei Wen then saw a mystical fog appearing in front of him. The fog started moving in different ways and then congealed to form innumerable swords.
The swords danced in the air and moved to form various images. Hei Wen could see some vague figures in these images, but could not tell who they were. He tried to get closer so that he could see it clearly, but this seemed to have annoyed the swords. The swords danced and formed an image of a man with unrecognizable features.
This man formed by the sword images seemed to have noticed him and became angry. He then pointed at Hei Wen and shouted,
"SEVER!"
The swords that were dancing suddenly stopped and pointed at Hei Wen. Hei Wen saw this and got terrified.
"No!NO!NOO! Stop this." He shouted but to no avail.
The swords rushed towards him at the speed of light and split him into millions of pieces. These million pieces then were again split by the swords into billions of pieces. This kept on going till not even a single trace of Hei Wen was left behind.
