Chapter 695 - Peculiarities Of The Hong Lin Trees

Having learned of the identity of the spirit herb, Lin Mu felt a bit satisfied. It was as if an itch he was unable to scratch for a long time was finally relieved. And it was not any normal itch, it was the itch of curiosity which could only be satisfied by knowledge.

"What do we do it now? Are we not going to eat it?" Little Shrubby questioned.

"Oh we will, but not so fast. It is still not fully grown, when it does it will have a flower on top of it." Lin Wu spoke.

"A flower? Then will it get a fruit too?" Little Shrubby questioned as drool started to drip from its mouth.

"Um… I don't know. The book doesn't mention it since the author never got to see a Wood Spirit Tulip that was beyond that stage. But perhaps it can grow beyond that and grow a fruit." Lin Mu spoke.

"Okay," Little Shrubby replied.

"We'll just have to wait and see." Lin Mu said before storing the Wood Spirit Tulip that was whipping around back into the ring.

"That was getting annoying…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

With that out of the way, Lin Mu decided to focus on the task at hand.

"Oh yeah, did you find anymore Hundred year old Hong Lin Trees?" Lin Mu questioned.

"YES! Yes, I did! I found two of them when I saw this spirit herb." Little Shrubby answered.

"Excellent," Lin Mu praised while patting his head, "where are they?" He asked.

"Follow me," Little Shrubby said and the two of them flew away.

Little Shrubby went back to the north and brought Lin Mu there to a tree that was hidden between tens of similar. If it were anyone that passed by, they would find it indistinguishable from the others.

But to Lin Mu who used his spirit sense, he could tell that it was hundred year old Hong Lin tree.

"Yup, this is a Hundred Year Old Hong Lin Tree alright." Lin Mu said as he placed his hand over the tree's trunk.

He could sense the vital essence deep within the tree and the warmth that was hidden in it as well.

'Is that fire attribute spirit Qi as well?' Lin Mu wondered, but didn't pay much attention to it.

He didn't have any particular skill that needed fire attribute spirit Qi and thus he didn't really care for it as much. Perhaps in the future when he got more of it he would, but at that point, Lin Mu reckoned he may as well refine the fire attribute spirit Qi himself.

Lin Mu had learned that once his Spleen was fully refined into a five treasured Organ, his rate of refining earth attribute spirit Qi had increased substantially. Thus, with that in mind, he reckoned that each organ that is refined would increase the rate with which elemental spirit Qi can be refined.

Overall it was a rather pleasant surprise to him and he knew that cultivating the Five Treasures realm was a truly good decision. Not only did it increase his body cultivation, but it also boosted his spirit Qi cultivation.

'Body cultivation really was the progenitor of cultivation methods for all humans…' Lin Mu thought to himself. 

With that done, he sat down with his back against the Hong Lin Tree and used the cultivation technique to absorb the vital essence. The First King who had made this cultivation technique had named it the 'Embrace Of Hong Lin' and it really was like that.

Not only could the Hong Lin Trees help one in the body tempering realm by providing Vital energy and vital essence. From reading further ahead, Lin Mu knew that one could also cultivate using the fire attribute spirit Qi.

Although the spirit Qi aspect of this technique was far weaker than that of the body cultivation one. There were very few techniques in the world that covered both the body and Qi cultivation, and the 'Embrace Of Hong Lin' could be considered one of the rare few.

Though it wasn't fully efficient seeing as how the spirit Qi that could be obtained from it was less than 10% of the vital essence.

Time passed and when an hour was finally over, Lin Mu had finished absorbing the vital essence from the Hong Lin tree. 

"Hmm… the amount this time is less. Barely above a percent taking it to a total of 33% now." Lin Mu muttered to himself.

He then stood up and looked at Little Shrubby, who had been patiently waiting for him.

"Where's the next tree?" Lin Mu asked.

"Follow me," Little Shrubby replied, and took him to the next location.

This one wasn't that far from the previous tree and was at mere minutes' distance. This tree though, was different from before.

"Huh… seems like someone tried to cut this one before." Lin Mu said upon seeing the Axe marks on its branches and trunk. 

Although whoever tried to cut it was not strong enough to do it since the tree was still here. 

"Perhaps they gave up after being unable to cut it…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

He then looked at little shrubby and spoke, "go ahead and find more of them. I'll continue here."

"Okay~" Little Shrubby said before flying away.

Following the same method as before, Lin Mu began his cultivation. This time it took him over two hours to finish absorbing all the vital essence. This wasn't because there was more vital essence in it, but rather because sucking the vital essence was harder.

It was like some debris was stuck in the pipe through which he was trying to pull it. 

'Is this due to the damage? Doesn't seem like it could penetrate this deep…' Lin Mu thought to himself.

He stood up after absorbing it all and saw that the refinement had reached the 34% mark now.

"Hmm… if I keep this up, I'll need at least 66 more trees to do this. And that is if they all have the same amount of vital essence in them." Lin Mu said to himself.

He then sensed the location of Little Shrubby and went to find him. This time, Little Shrubby wasn't that far from him and he reached his location in about five minutes.

"Little Shrubby," Lin Mu called out.

~Grrr~

Lin Mu heard the growl of the beast and saw him hidden below the large crown of a Hong Lin tree.

"Here! It's this one." Little Shrubby spoke.

Lin Mu landed and saw that this Hong Lin Tree was far bigger than the ones he had seen till now.

"Is this the only one you found?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Yes, I looked around, but this one seems to be the only one in this area." Little Shrubby answered.

"I see…" Lin Mu said, wondering if it was something to do with the tree's size.

He placed his hand on it and sensed the vital energy within the tree.

"WHOA! That's a lot of vital essences." Lin Wu said upon feeling what looked like a lake of vital essence deep within the Hong Lin tree.

This Hong Lin Tree was about two and a half times as big as the normal Hong Lin Tree and contained a similar amount of vital essence. 

"I'll go search for more." Little Shrubby stated, understating his part now.

Lin Mu nodded his head in response and got to work. Sitting down with his back to the large Hong Lin Tree, Lin Mu could feel the faint warmth on his back. This was strange to him since his body was protected by the armor of the Mortal Strengthening scripture.

Even when he had touched the Grey Egg, he was unable to tell if it was cold and hot. This meant that even now he should have been unable to tell the temperature correctly. 

"This is peculiar…" Lin Mu muttered.

He was curious about it, but decided to finish absorbing vital essence first. Lin Mu spent five hours in absorbing the vital essence from this Hong Lin Tree. Unlike the other trees, he realized that this one had the vital essence distributed in multiple small and separate pockets throughout the tree.

Getting to them one by one took a little more effort than normal and he had to make routes to them individually. But when he was finally done, he realized that he had obtained far more vital essence than before.

"39%… this one had enough vital essence to increase my refinement progress by over five percent. If I can find more trees like this, I'll be able to reach full refinement very quick." Lin Mu muttered to himself.

Lin Mu opened his eyes and flew towards the direction of Little Shrubby, hoping that he had found more trees such as this.. And even if they weren't like this, Lin Mu was fine with it as he knew that him reaching the peak of Heart Refinement was inevitable.