Lin Mu’s spirit sense reached his dantian and it was then that he witnessed it. The sight was strangely beautiful and he even stopped eating for a brief moment. It was as if he was looking at a beautiful painting and he was the person in the painting that was sitting on the side of a pond.
The shimmering pond of liquid spirit qi and faintly glowing wisps of spirit qi looked amazing to him. It was now that he noticed it.
"My dantian... It has... doubled in size? And what’s this even the drops of the liquid spirit qi have merged. This looks beautiful..." Lin Mu muttered in his mind.
While Lin Mu was witnessing this scene, Xukong was doing the same through Lin Mu’s mind.
’Indeed, it increased as I expected. He even managed to form the qi pool, that’s good. His progress should be even more faster now. But this hunger... it is abnormal even when considering the nameless technique. Did his training finally push him over the limit or is it something else?’ Xukong thought.
"Only time will tell..." Xukong muttered to himself before looking towards the eternal altar that was in a calm state.
Lin Mu had finally gathered his wits and drew his attention back from his dantian to focus on eating. In the time that he had spent observing his body, he had already finished another beast. But now he could finally feel a reduction in his hunger.
Lin Mu took labored breaths between each bite.
’This is too much. If it increases more, it would take me even more meat to satisfy the hunger. I just hope it doesn’t flare up again for a while.’ Lin Mu thought to himself, feeling helpless.
Lin Mu ended up finishing one more beast for a total of four beasts before he was able to stop.
He could not move anymore and simply laid down on the ground surrounded by a pile of bones and scraps of the meat. He slowly blinked and looked around in the room. The room was now quite messy, to say the least, and it would take him quite a while to clean it again.
"How long is this going to take this time?" Lin Mu spoke to himself as he waited for his strength to return to him.
He closed his eyes and took a brief nap, and when he woke up, he was feeling energized. He felt like a river of energy was coursing through him, and an inexplicable sense of comfort filled him. The vital energy within his body thrummed in harmony and similarly the spirit qi circulated within his meridians automatically.
Lin Mu stood up, and the joints in his body crackled and pop. He could feel the strength that was coiled in his body. It was as if it was packed to the brim, yet there was still a desire for more. Lin Mu clenched his fist to test and immediately felt the difference.
"This increase... it almost double of my previous strength..." Lin Mu said in a shocked tone.
"Seems like your body has finally started to acclimatize with the spirit qi in your body," Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu was confused upon hearing Senior Xukong’s words and was wondering what he meant as he had not heard of anything such as this before from him. In fact, in all that he had learned about cultivation, he did not know of anything that was similar to this.
"What do you mean, Senior?" Lin Mu questioned, feeling curious.
"What you are experiencing right now is nothing but your foundation getting deeper. You see, when a person cultivates they accumulate spirit qi in their body, but even if they have large stores of it, they can’t utilize it perfectly. This becomes even more apparent when there is a difference between the cultivation realms.
Another great factor in this was your body tempering realm cultivation. You remember when I said that the body cultivation realm was important, right? This was the reason. While one can have spirit qi, they still need a strong vessel to be able to contain and control it. Reaching the eighth stage of the body tempering realm puts you at the very minimum requirement level that is needed to contain the spirit qi.
The higher your cultivation gets, the more difficult it would be for your body to handle it. For cultivators who only cultivate spirit qi and not the vital energy, they need to spend much longer to stabilize their foundations and need an extensive amount of resources as well.
While the time taken to do the same with body tempering realm cultivation is longer at the start, it results in a big difference later. Your body has harmonized with the spirit qi, and now you should be able to use a much larger amount at once without harming yourself.
This was the reason I wanted you to continue with body tempering realm cultivation." Xukong explained.
After hearing Senior Xukong’s words, Lin Mu felt quite enlightened and grateful. He was lucky that he had met Senior Xukong or he would have probably gone on the wrong path and end up regretting it later. Or worse, he would have never even found out that he was wrong.
As a great sage once said, "Knowing about a mistake and regretting it is better than never knowing you made a mistake at all."
"I am grateful for your guidance, Senior Xukong." Lin Mu spoke in a content tone.
"Hmm," Xukong hummed in response before continuing, "Once you reach the peak of the body tempering realm though, I have something that would help you go even further, much further than this world has seen."
Lin Mu was curious about it but decided that it would be best for him to wait patiently till Senior Xukong tells him himself. He now knew that Xukong had much more experience than anyone in this world and his guidance was priceless.