Chapter 259 - The Two Souls Of A Cultivator

"The Nascent soul realm cultivators are different than the cultivators in the Qi refining realm and the core condensation realm in that they have two souls," Xukong spoke.

"Two Souls?! What?" Lin Mu asked with a surprised tone.

"Yes, two souls, although they are of different kinds. You see, the soul which everyone has and is born with is called as the True Soul. This is the soul which forms the very basis of your existence and without it, you cannot live nor reincarnate.

The True soul is what undergoes the cycle of reincarnation and is also the soul which accumulates karma. It is the soul whose destiny is dictated by Fate.

The Nascent soul meanwhile is a construct born from the Spirit Qi Core of a Core condensation realm cultivator. When a Core condensation realm cultivator reaches the peak of the core condensation realm, they undergo a heavenly lightning tribulation which allows them to hatch a Nascent soul from their spirit qi core.

With the spirit qi core as the egg, the Heavenly lightning as the life spark and the Dantian as the incubator a nascent soul is born." Xukong explained.

Xukong stopped and let Lin Mu digest this information first before continuing. He had not told him the actual circumstances behind the creation of a Nascent soul realm cultivator before and knew that the information was a bit complex to understand.

"The difference between the True soul and Nascent soul is in that the True soul cannot leave the mortal body under normal conditions. Thus, the nascent soul acts as the secondary vessel for the consciousness and allows the cultivator to leave his body.

This can even allow the cultivator to escape death and live on in the form of a soul. And if the cultivator is fortunate enough, they will even find a suitable vessel and be able to take over it, allowing them to be reborn.

This is the reason I warned you, Nascent soul ream cultivators can leave behind remnants of their soul on the remains of their body upon death. These remnants can latch onto the body of an unfortunate person and allow the nascent soul to find that person to take over them.

In some cases, the nascent soul may even stay back in the remains of their dead body, waiting to chance upon a passing person to take over. Thus, unless one is strong enough or is sure that there are no soul remnants on a corpse or dead remains, they should avoid all contact with it." Xukong continued.

Hearing the entire explanation from senior Xukong made Lin Mu feel a bit fearful of the nascent soul realm cultivators. But he knew that this was inevitable, and one day he would have to fight with one. All he could do right now was to take precautions and be extremely sure of whatever he was to do.

He closely looked at the skeleton and spotted something on the other hand of the skeleton. This hand's fingers were slightly covered with dirt and Lin Mu had not fully uncovered them as senior Xukong had warned him before that.

But now that he saw them again, his eyes caught the glint of some kind from there.

"Senior, there's something on its finger!," Lin Mu spotted "it's a ring of some kind perhaps." 

Xukong focused on the hand and indeed saw the faint outline of a ring there.

"How do I proceed Senior?" Lin Mu asked, desiring to check out the ring.

"Hmm, looking at the state of decay, this man has probably died over a year ago. Considering the time frame and the environment, it is impossible for the nascent soul to survive this long. That is, if it was also not destroyed at the time of its death. 

But seeing that the Brown Shrubby Forest cat was able to approach it before without any problem, it is likely the Nascent soul left the skeleton behind or was destroyed.

You need to check the skeleton with your spirit sense, use the same method you used to break the trap. That way you should be able to overcome the repelling from that Skeleton." Xukong instructed.

Lin Mu nodded in response and took a step back before using his spirit sense to probe the skeleton. The result was the same as before, and his spirit sense probe was repelled. But Lin Mu did not lose hope and tried again, this time with more power than before.

The spirit sense tendril came in contact with the repulsion layer of the skeleton and hovered there, unable to proceed. A strange equilibrium had been reached, and Lin Mu knew that now was the time. He started channeling the spirit qi into his spirit sense tendril and pushed further into the repulsive layer.

For the first minute, no change was observed but after another minute a small depression seemed to be forming as Lin Mu's spirit sense pressed on. 

Ten minutes passed by and Lin Mu's forehead was covered in sweat by now. He had depleted a good chunk of his spirit qi wisps by now and barely had four hundred left. His progress was also evident though as the repulsive layer was nearly gone by now.

~Pop~

Another five minutes later, Lin Mu finally breached the repulsive layer and it dissipated but in exchange, Lin Mu was now left with only fifty wisps of spirit qi in his dantian. Of course, there was still the liquid spirit qi there too, he had not touched them yet.

~Phew~

"That certainly was exhausting, I didn't expect it to take so much spirit qi from me." Lin Mu stated as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

His back was covered in sweat too making his clothes stick to it. 

"Rest and recuperate your spirit qi. Only after your stores are back to the top should you proceed, there can be some unexpected surprises so it's better to be cautious." Xukong advised.

"I understand, Senior." Lin Mu responded before sitting down to recuperate his spirit qi.