Chapter 135 - The Reward Arrives
Lin Mu had not expected that he would be getting to taste such an exquisite tea today. More so, it was a tea that was infused with spirit qi. He could only imagine such a luxury in the past, but now here he was experiencing it first hand.
~Haa~
Lin Mu let out a breath of satisfaction as he opened his eyes. He looked at the faint green tea in his cup and took another sip, this time finishing the cup in one go. Another wisp of gentle spirit qi was absorbed by his body and entered his dantian.
This was strange to him as whenever he had consumed food rich in spirit qi, he had to consciously assimilate it. If he did not, it won't be properly absorbed or would just dissipate. He was surprised but this effect of the tea.
Hei Yingjie witnessed every change of expression on Lin Mu's face and could get a grasp on what he was thinking.
"Ah, brother Lin Mu's likes my tea, it seems." Hei Yingjie spoke.
Lin Mu looked at him and nodded.
"Yes, I do. It is indeed quite exquisite." Lin Mu replied.
"As it should be. This is the Frost leaf jasmine tea, and it is a native specialty of the snowy mountains of the Black Dawn kingdom. Even the cultivation sects have a hard time procuring this, I was lucky enough to encounter a tree on my journeys, thus was able to acquire it." Hei Yingjie explained.
Lin Mu was rather surprised with this revelation and now wondered about the abilities of the man in front of him.
"Then I thank you for your hospitality and for giving me this opportunity." Lin Mu spoke respectfully.
"Hahaha, brother Lin Mu you don't have to stand in formality. This is nothing worth compared to your friendship." Hei Yingjie spoke in a flattering tone.
Lin Mu was now starting to feel strange. The man's words and mannerisms with him seemed to be a little too overtly flattering for him. It seemed as if he wanted to become close to him at all costs.
"It is not that he wants to establish a friendly relation with you, but rather that he has to. Your earlier demeanor and acts until now have now helped you establish a dominant presence." Xukong suddenly spoke.
Lin Mu didn't respond to senior Xukong's statement, but instead just nodded. Hei Yingjie thought Lin Mu was nodding to him, thus he let out another laugh, while in reality, Lin Mu had nodded in response to senior Xukong.
"Now then, I hope you didn't face any difficulties these past days." Hei Yingjie spoke, wanting to continue the conversation.
"Ah, no. None in particular." Lin Mu answered.
"Oh, is that so? I thought I heard some commotion earlier outside. What was that about Hei Bao?" Hei Yingjie spoke and then turned to Hei Bao.
Hei Bao felt cold sweat appearing on his back as soon as he heard Hei Yingjie's question.
"Our companions made a mistake and pulled out their weapons at brother Lin Mu when he arrived." Hei Bao honestly answered.
"Did they? Hmm, what should we do about this? What do you bother Lin Mu?" Hei Yingjie asked with the same gentle smile on his face.
"I don't mind it. I already forgave them." Lin Mu answered, not wanting to draw out the matter.
Hei Yingjie stoked the tea cup in his hands a couple of times before speaking.
"If brother Lin Mu deems it, let it be. But still, make sure they know of brother Lin Mu's generousness." Hei Yingjie spoke.
Hei Bao hurriedly nodded in response to Hei Yingjie's words.
"As you command, lieutenant." Hei Bao replied before leaving the room.
After leaving the room, Hei Bao wiped the sweating off his forehead. He knew his subordinates had just escaped a dangerous situation.
'If it were not for brother Lin Mu, heads would have rolled today. Who gave them the intel about him, anyway? Did they not describe his appearance?' Hei Bao thought.
Back in the meeting room, Hei Yingjie had just poured Lin Mu another cup of tea, which Lin Mu gladly accepted, unaware of the thoughts of Hei Bao and how he had just spare the lives of multiple people.
"Brother Lin Mu, I believe you requested certain weapons?" Hei Yingjie questioned.
"Yes, I did. Hei Wan wanted to give me a reward." Lin Mu answered.
"Of course, brother Lin Mu definitely deserves a reward for all the work he has done. You revealed a conspiracy which was hidden for heavens know how long." Hei Yingjie replied.
"So what about it?" Lin Mu further asked.
"Well, the shipment just arrived today and is waiting for you. Hei Wan should be here soon, she will take us to it." Hei Yingjie spoke with a light chuckle.
"Where is she right now? Is she at the town center?" Lin Mu asked.
"Yes she is, she just has some final adjustments that needed to be done before we start our plan." Hei Yingjie replied.
Lin Mu nodded at this reply and just continued to drink the tea. He had just finished another cup of tea when the door of the meeting room opened.
"Forgive me, I've been a little late." Hei Wan spoke upon entering.
Lin Mu and Hei Yingjie turned to look at her and then spoke in unison, "It is fine."
Hei Wan approached the table and stood in front of them.
"I believe we can leave now. Everything is set and done." Hei Wan spoke.
"Good. We will take brother Lin Mu to get his reward first and then we will continue on to the briefing." Hei Yingjie replied while nodding.
"Ah, we won't have to go out for the reward. I already had it put in the storage room." Hei Wan spoke.
"That's better, lets get to it right away." Hei Yingjie spoke as he stood up.
Lin Mu stood up along with him, and Hei Wan guided them to the storage room. This was a different storage room than the one Lin Mu had been to before and was much smaller. It was just past the room where he had rested before.
Hei Wan opened the locked door and let them inside. Hei Yingjie and Lin Mu walked in to see large boxes of weapons kept there. Lin Mu was a little stunned, even though he knew about the number of weapons he had ordered.
'Finally, I can continue practicing the Thousand blade armament scripture.' Lin Mu thought.
"Go on, check them." Hei Yingjie spoke with a smile.
Lin Mu nodded and proceeded ahead. There were around ten large boxes kept in the room, which had individually packed weapons kept in them. Lin Mu opened the first box, and the first thing that came in front of his eyes was a pair of slim swords.
They were sheathed, yet one could still see that they were thin. Lin Mu picked them up and unsheathed them. A pale, gleaming blade appeared in his vision as he glanced over its craftsmanship. He took a look around the room and made sure that there was enough space.
Hei Yingjie and Hei Wan understood this immediately and took a few steps back to give him more space. Seeing that they were accepting of this, Lin Mu held the sword and took a breath as he closed his eyes. He then slashed out in front of him as a faint humming sound was heard.
Even though there was nothing to be cut, the illusion of a cut still appeared in the air. What Lin Mu had just done was use his understanding of the Thousand armament blade scripture to use the slim sword. While he had never used them before, he had been improving upon his understanding for the past month, thus only needed the new slim sword to progress it.
His demonstration only proved to him that the reason he had reached a bottleneck in his practice was due to the lack of the weapons and not because of his own effort. Feeling excited by this, he checked the other weapons in the box and tested out the ones that looked interesting to him.
While most of the weapons in his list were common ones, there were still some that had abstract designs and were considered to be unorthodox. One of such weapons was a long spear that had a scythe like blade attached to it at the base of its point.
Such types of weapons were rather unfamiliar to Lin Mu, thus he didn't try them out here. He had decided that he would check them all out later. In fact, he couldn't wait for night to come so that he could practice with them.
Having decided on it, Lin Mu quickly started storing all of the weapons in his ring one by one. Although the speed of putting them in the ring was quick, it still took Lin Mu over fifteen minutes to store them all.
In total, there were three hundred and seventeen weapons.
But while he was storing the weapons, the expressions of Hei Wan and Hei Yingjie were getting more and more serious. Hei Yingjie gulped and then turned to Hei Wan.
"This… this is way beyond what we thought." He whispered.
Hei Wan was now feeling a little nervous hearing the tone of her lieutenant. While he was stronger than her, she was still their leader because of her skills. She had faith in her subordinates and knew that they wouldn't act like this unless it was dead serious, especially her lieutenants.
"What do you mean?" She questioned in a low voice, making sure to glance over to Lin Mu and ensure that he was not paying attention.