Chapter 222 - Returning To Seclusion

"This is the main entrance of the courtyard. It opens in the shop so you can enter and leave from there. Don't use the method you used to enter before, I do not want you to accidentally damage the formation arrays of the courtyard. Even though I'm not sure if you are capable of doing that, still this would be the safe choice." Duan Ke explained.

Lin Mu nodded to show that he understood and entered the small building. Once they were inside there, he could see a lamp that was hanging from the roof, but the room was dark overall. The lamp was unlit and seemed to be filled with oil. Duan Ke walked up to the lamp and snapped her fingers.

As soon as she did, the lamp lit up and the room changed to a different look. There was now a door on the opposite side of the room and the door from where they had entered disappeared.

"This is the method to use the gateway lamp. Light it to return to the shop and snuff it out to enter the courtyard." Duan Ke explained.

They then took the sole door in the room and appeared in the dusty old shop that was the Jing Wei's emporium.

"Goodbye." Lin Mu bid Duan Ke farewell before leaving the shop and heading out to the alley.

But when he appeared in the alley, Lin Mu was greeted by a bright light shining on him. 

"It's already day time?" Lin Mu spoke as he looked up at the brightly lit sky.

"Since the courtyard is separate from the main world, the time of the day in there can be set to whatever they want. According to my estimation, you spent about six hours there." Xukong replied. 

Lin Mu nodded in acknowledgment before continuing on the way. As soon as he left the alley though, he felt the difference. It was as if the walls behind him merged and the alley disappeared. Taking a brief look at it, Lin Mu started walking towards his house.

Along the way, he could see the people going about their daily life. Lin Mu unknowingly let out a sigh as he contemplated this.

'All these people live their lives while completely being in the blind about what happens in the world. I do not want to be like this ever again.' Lin Mu thought to himself with determination.

Fifteen minutes later he reached his house and directly went to the bedroom to cultivate. Lin Mu now wanted to see what the difference will be if he uses the basic qi pills to cultivate. 

Wanting to test this out, he withdrew one of the boxes that had them and opened it to take a pill out from it. He looked at it for a moment before consuming it. Lin Mu had expected for there to be some kind of taste to it, but it was not so. Instead, the pill was rather bland in taste, as if it was water.

A few seconds later the pill melted in his mouth and he swallowed it down to his stomach. When the liquefied pill finally reached his stomach, it started. Wisps of spirit qi were released from the liquid and started being absorbed by Lin Mu's body.

Lin Mu quickly chanted the severing heart sutra and guided these spirit qi wisps into his meridians and from there into his dantian. 

Lin Mu's dantian was rapidly starting to fill up. He estimated that his speed of absorption of spirit qi from the basic qi pills was more than twice compared to when he cultivated normally. Ten minutes passed and Lin Mu had finally absorbed all of the spirit qi that was contained within the basic qi pill.

~Huu~

Lin Mu let out a breath as relaxed a bit. He observed his dantian and saw that it was now completely filled to the brim. That one basic qi pill was enough to replenish the depleted part of his dantian. He tried to calculate and came to the conclusion that he had obtained nearly five hundred wisps of spirit qi from the pill.

"This is rather nice. Still, I do not know how much qi does a low grade spirit stone give. I've used the defective mid grade spirit Stine's before, but they already had a majority of their spirit qi depleted. I should check it." Lin Mu thought out loud.

Still, to do this Lin Mu would have to deplete a part of his spirit qi to make more space, thus that's exactly what he did. Lin Mu then started to further refine the spirit qi wisps into liquefied form. An hour passed after which Lin Mu had depleted ever two-thirds of his entire dantian. And in exchange for that, he was able to obtain three drops of liquefied spirit qi.

Lin Mu then pulled out the pouch that contained the spirit stones and took one of them from it before holding it in his hand and starting to absorb it. Unlike the basic qi pill though, the speed of absorption was rapid and a large amount of spirit qi rushed into his meridians. 

It wasn't as large as when he absorbed the mid grade spirit stone, but it was still quite large. It didn't even take him three minutes before the spirit qi within the spirit stone was completely depleted and it crumbled into dust.

'Let's see how much spirit qi did I obtain from this.' Lin Mu thought to himself before peering into his dantian.

To his surprise, he actually obtained around six hundred wisps of spirit qi from the spirit stone, which was slightly more than the basic qi pill.

"Senior, why is there a difference such as this? I thought they would have the same quantities of spirit qi." Lin Mu questioned.

"The amount of spirit qi in all spirit stones is never the same. There are always some differences, some may have more while some may have less. But usually, a low grade spirit stone is able to provide you with at least four hundred wisps of spirit qi. Similarly, with the basic qi pill, some of them may have more or less spirit qi." Xukong answered.

"I see… but then how much spirit qi does the other grade of spirit stones provide?" Lin Mu questioned with curiosity.

"A mid grade spirit stone is about ten times more potent than the low grade spirit stones while a high grade spirit stone is a hundred times more potent than a mid grade spirit stone, which makes it a thousand times more potent than a low grade spirit stone." Xukong answered.

Lin Mu had a slightly confused expression on his face as he compared the grades of the spirit stones and then realized that Senior Xukong had not spoken about the highest grade spirit stone that was the peak grade spirit stone.

"Then Senior, what about peak grade spirit stones? How do they compare?" He asked.

"The peak grade spirit stones are rather special. Unlike the other spirit stones, they do not provide you with spirit qi wisps… Instead, they directly provide you with liquefied spirit qi which makes them incredibly rare.

In fact, in a spirit stone mine, only five percent of all spirit stones are peak grade spirit stones, while the high grade ones are at fifteen percent, mid grade at thirty percent and low grade being the majority at fifty percent." Xukong explained.