Chapter 192 - The Spirit Qi In The Courtyard
'So she does have a spatial storage treasure as well.' Lin Mu thought to himself as he continued walking behind Duan Ke.
Along the way, Lin Mu kept on smelling the sweet fragrance of the flowers. It was the first thing that he had felt upon opening the portal to this courtyard and was still smelling it. The fragrance was calming and helped him feel a bit relaxed.
Lin Mu could only imagine how stressed Duan Ke must have been, considering she had access to a relaxing place such as this. Not only this, but Lin Mu could even feel the faint spirit qi in the air. While it was still faint, he could sense it very well.
It was different from the other places. The concentration of the spirit qi was higher than the real world, and it was easy for him to sense it as well. Even without using his spirit sense or the severing heart sutra, Lin Mu could sense it.
In fact, he felt as if he could even absorb the spirit qi straight from the air. Feeling curious, he tried that very thing.
~Whirl~
The sound of wind blowing was heard, and Duan Ke abruptly halted. She knew that wind never blew in the courtyard unless the formation array artificially did that. But looking at the status of the formation array, no such thing had been triggered, which made her think of only one thing.
She immediately turned around and saw the wind swirling around Lin Mu. She could clearly sense the wisps of spirit qi in the wind as they were absorbed by Lin Mu. This was already surprising to her, but with the ease that Lin Mu was absorbing the spirit qi only made her more shocked.
Duan Ke knew this courtyard inside out and knew of every formation array that was placed on it. There were in fact around a hundred formation arrays placed in this courtyard, which were in turn composed of many more individual formations.
One of those formation arrays was a Qi gathering formation array which absorbed the qi from the atmosphere and ground of the real world and channeled it to this courtyard. There was another special function that was added to it with the virtue of another formation array.
This formation array was a kind of identification array and helped verify the identity of persons. The way it did it was with the qi signature of a person. A qi signature was basically the unique traces that appeared in every person's qi due to the cultivation technique that they practiced.
A cultivation technique not only gave a person's spirit qi a unique signature, but the person themselves would add small traces of their individuality to their spirit qi. While this was of little use most of the time, in situations such as these it was very important.
When a qi gathering formation array was layered with an identification array, they combined to give a completely new effect. The effect was such that the qi that was gathered by the qi gathering array could only be utilized by the persons whose identity was registered in the identification array.
If their identity was not registered, they would not be able to absorb the qi no matter what they did. But clearly, in front of Duan Ke a big exception was present. Somehow Lin Mu was absorbing the spirit qi in the air and that too without much effort.
With the casual way he was walking, Duan Ke could tell that it was very easy for him. Even she herself could not do anything such as this and would have to sit down to properly cultivate. But then more questions popped up in her mind.
What kind of effect would it have on the formation array if the spirit qi was forcefully absorbed even if the person was not registered in the formation? A lot of negative ideas Pope up in Duan Ke's mind and her face fell.
Not wanting to take any chance, she hurriedly spoke up.
"Stop! Don't absorb the spirit qi." Duan Ke ordered.
Lin Mu was astonished and snapped out of his own thoughts. He was engrossed in the feeling of spirit qi and had not noticed when Duan Ke turned around. Since this was the first time he had absorbed spirit qi with such an ease he wanted to revel in the moment.
In fact, in the few tens of seconds that Lin Mu had spent absorbing spirit qi, he had already gained over a hundred wisps of spirit qi. The only time he had even gained spirit qi this fast was back when he absorbed the spirit qi from the spirit stones when he was helping Hei Yingjie.
"Huh? Is there a problem?" Lin Mu questioned feeling confused.
"Yes, there is a problem. You can't just absorb the spirit qi here without our permission." Duan Ke answered, feeling slightly angered.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have consulted you before." Lin Mu apologized immediately.
~Humph~
Duan Ke harrumphed before speaking, "Don't do it again," and then turned around to continue walking.
Lin Mu rubbed the back of his head in helplessness and followed behind her. Along the way, he got a closer look at the flowers that were planted in the gardens. He could now tell that the fragrance was actually coming from these flowers and he could even sense something else.
Lin Mu extended his spirit sense and observed the flowers with them. But when he did, he was surprised to find them filled with dense spirit qi.
"These are… spirit flowers?" Lin Mu muttered to himself.
"Yes, they are indeed spirit flowers and looking at their numbers it's an entire garden of them," Xukong spoke in agreement.
Lin Mu was amazed at them, as this was the first time he had seen them. The only other thing that he had seen that was rich in spirit qi like this was the purple grape sized fruit he had eaten in the past. Still, the density of spirit qi in that fruit was unknown to him as he did not have spirit sense back then. He could only estimate that it was perhaps on the same level.
Eventually, both of them reached the entrance of the large mansion where an old man was standing.