Chapter 201 - Banter

Unknown to both Lin Mu and Duan Ke, five minutes had already passed. The hall was littered with pieces of broken weapons and even a few cuts, and scratches could be seen on the floor. Although the floor was made to be resistant to damage, it had still been slightly damaged from their attack, which said a lot about the strength that they had used.

But soon enough, under the influence of the formations in the hall, the damage started to recover. A few seconds later the entire hall was back to its former appearance, save for the fragments of broken weapons everywhere.

Lin Mu saw this and was amazed by this. He had not expected that the hall even had a feature like this. While the formations had activated, Lin Mu had observed them with his spirit sense and had found them to be different than that of those he had seen before. Evidently, these formations had different functions and thus had different designs. 

'This is rather amazing.' Lin Mu thought.

"Indeed, but not so much. There are far too many things that can be done with the use of formations. This is but the tip of the iceberg." Xukong spoke in Lin Mu's mind.

Lin Mu's eyes lit up even more after hearing about this, and a flame for learning was born in him. He had already seen the formations on the Myriad Armament Canopy Abode and had seen how versatile and complex those were.

"If only a pseudo immortal rank tool is this complex, then what are the higher ranks like?" Lin Mu wondered to himself.

"Well, you just need to explore them yourself. The time will eventually come." Xukong spoke with a chuckle.

Meanwhile, Jing Wei was gazing at Lin Mu and Duan Ke intently. He could see that Lin Mu's eyes were more lively than before and just attributed it to his win, unaware that it was for a completely different reason. He then looked at Duan Ke and saw the wronged expression on her face, which soon disappeared.

'Ahaha, she's still the same as before, my little Ke'er.' Jing Wei thought to himself as he briefly reminisced his memories.

Duan Ke herself was looking at Lin Mu with a complex gaze. She felt too many emotions, and the mixture of them only made her feel confused. She felt angry since she had lost and how she was unable to inflict even one wound on Lin Mu.

That was another shocking thing that bothered Duan Ke. During the entire fight, although she fought with all her might, she was still unable to hurt Lin Mu and the same was for Lin Mu. Although they were not going to gravely injure each other, Jing Wei had already told Lin Mu that all injuries could be taken care of by them so he could fight without restraints.

Still, Duan Ke knew that she would not be injured anyway since she had a defensive treasure on her that would block hits from even Nascent Soul cultivators, not to mention Lin Mu who was not even at the core condensation realm.

Duan Ke could not believe the force that was packed within each of his strikes, and not only that she realized that he was actually improving the more they fought. His flaws were slowly getting reduced and his accuracy was increasing.

Duan Ke did not know that Lin Mu had not even used the full potential of his skills and was only using the weapons with his spirit qi. Even Duan Ke had not used any martial techniques, but that was more because she was restricted by the area.

Most of the martial skills she knew were for long range and to be used in a bigger area. As for the others, they were either defensives skills or for other investigations. Duan Ke knew that she was not a genius, but even then her skills were easily comparable to that of the disciples of the top sects.

After all, she had trained in the skills of her clan under the tutelage of her grandfather. While her sword skills were not top notch, they were not to be scoffed at either. Besides, the biggest reason was that Lin Mu had defeated her at his lower cultivation realm. This was the biggest blow to her.

'What kind of master does he have? In the span of few months, he's reached the level of an inner sect disciple of a top sect.' Duan Ke thought to herself.

'Even his cultivation base… I can't tell if it's really as he said it is. He should have been exhausted much earlier if that was true, not to mention his vital energy, I can't even sense that anymore.' Duan Ke wondered.

Both of them finally snapped out of their thoughts when Jing Wei spoke up.

~Ahem~

"Good… very good, I am satisfied with your skills. While there are still many flaws, they are nothing time and practice can't fix." Jing Wei praised while looking at Lin Mu.

He then turned his gaze to his granddaughter before giving her a gentle smile.

"Don't be down Ke'er, you were disadvantaged from the start; you couldn't use any of your martial techniques. Your specialization is not in combat anyway, you still did well. And it wasn't a dishonor anyway. What you lost against was our clan's technique." Jing Wei consoled.

Duan Ke felt a little better after hearing Jing Wei's words, but then felt confused at his latter words.

"Our clan's technique? What do you mean?" Duan Ke questioned.

"Umm…" Jing Wei uttered with a mixture of realization and embarrassment.

It was then that Jing Wei realized. Back when he had given Lin Mu the manual for the Thousand armament blade scripture, Duan Ke and he had been in a bad condition. Duan Ke was even more severe and needed immediate care. Thus he had forgotten about that completely.

Even now he was only thinking of how Lin Mu had learned the technique but had forgotten to inform his granddaughter in these entire few months!

~Sigh~

"Ah~ It seems this man is getting truly old." Jing Wei spoke in a self-deprecating manner.

Lin Mu felt a little strange at this, but still felt that the old man was funny. His earlier imposing demeanor was nowhere to be found.