Chapter 39：Testing The New Skills (1/2)

The second part of the Nine divine heart sutras was finally unlocked. The esoteric chants of the Severing heart sutra were currently being carved in Lin Mu's mind. As the chants resounded within his head, a sharp stabbing pain accompanied them.

For Lin Mu, it was as if every passing second was equal to a day. When the entire process was complete Lin Mu could not figure out how much time had passed, for the intense pain had robbed him of his sense of time.

When the pain subsided, Lin Mu could see that the ethereal altar had dimmed down considerably. It was still pulsing, but not as intensely as before. He once again felt like he needed to touch the altar, and that's what he did.

Lin Mu had braced for the next bout of pain that could be arriving, but it did not. Instead, a very gentle stream of energy was released from the altar that travelled to the mysterious ring and then to Lin Mu's head. Once the energy entered his head, additional new information appeared in his mind.

There were only two things that were transmitted to him, and these two were skills. They were called 'Flicker' and 'Blink'. Lin Mu understood that the mysterious ring had transmitted the information about these skills to him and had told him that these were some of the innate skills that originated from itself.

”Why would I receive these skills only now and not before? Could it be because of spirit qi?” Lin Mu wondered.

After receiving the skills, the ring hummed again, expelling Lin Mu into the hunting shack. He looked around and confirmed his location. Lin Mu had experienced too many shocks today, thus he sat down to chant the calming heart sutra again to get his thoughts in order.

After half an hour, Lin Mu was able to make the heads and tails of the entire situation.

”I unlocked the Severing heart sutra, and the ring imparted the two skills called Flicker and Blink to me.” Lin Mu concluded in one sentence.

The first thing Lin Mu wanted to test was the Severing heart sutra. He wanted to see how it compared to the calming heart sutra and if it could help him in his cultivation. So, in order to test it, Lin Mu sat down cross-legged and began chanting the severing heart sutra.

The chants of the severing heart sutra were different from the calming heart sutra. While the calming heart sutra made one feel tranquil, the severing heart sutra made one empty.

The closest way Lin Mu could describe his feelings was as, nothing. He felt completely devoid of everything. He did not feel any desire, nor did he feel any emotions. He focused on the vital energy within his body and found it to be the same as before. It did not enhance his perception as it did with the calming hear sutra.

Lin Mu then tried sensing the spirit qi within his dantian. Before he was able to control a single wisp of spirit qi with the help of the calming heart sutra, but he could not exactly measure how much spirit qi he had in his dantian. But once he used the severing heart sutra, he found that he only had around five percent of his dantian filled with spirit qi.

He tried to count the number of spirit qi wisps he had and estimated them to be around 100. He could not get an exact number as the spirit qi mixed and melded together.

'If only five percent of my dantian is filled then, it means that I can store nearly 2000 wisps of spirit qi.' Lin Mu thought.

After this, he tried to control a wisp of spirit qi and was able to do it successfully. He tried going further and controlled the spirit qi to move towards the meridians. He willed it, and the wisp of spirit qi entered the first meridian.

Getting the spirit qi into the meridians was the hard part for Lin Mu. Now that it was in the meridians, it only had one path to follow. Soon under the control of Lin Mu, the wisp of spirit qi completed its first complete circulation cycle.

After Lin Mu successfully completed the first cycle of qi circulation, he could feel his body's pores open, as a tiny amount of energy was absorbed from the air and refined into a new wisp of spirit qi that settled down in his dantian.