Holding the Mid Grade Immortal Essence Crystals in his hands, Lin Mu felt the rapid infusion of Immortal Essence into his body.

The amount entering his body was easily several times the amount from a Low Grade Immortal Essence crystal. And not just that, but he could actually feel a change in the Aperture.

‘It can actually grow already?’ Lin Mu was surprised.

In the Aperture Creation Realm, one progressed by first opening their Aperture and then expanding it. But this took a lot of effort, and didn’t happen right away. It wasn’t an issue of resources either, but rather one of time.

One needed to give some time before the Aperture would be fully ready to expand. If one tried to rush, they could fail and their Aperture could easily get damaged. But much to Lin Mu’s surprise, the Aperture was expanding on its own.

‘Is this normal?’ Lin Mu didn’t know, thus he focused on his Aperture.

He observed it closely, ensuring there were no issues and that the Aperture stayed stable. And after absorbing the entire mid grade Immortal Essence crystal Lin Mu had confirmed it, there really was no damage to it.

‘Huh… according to Senior Xukong’s advice, it wouldn’t expand until much later… how’s it doing it now?’ Lin Mu was confused.

He decided to test it a few more times before asking Xukong though. He wanted to see if it was just a one time thing or if this was really how it was going to stay.

Lin Mu thus picked up another mid grade Immortal Essence crystal and absorbed all the Immortal Essence wisps in it. The mid grade Immortal Essence crystals took longer for him to absorb, roughly more than a minute. This was several times more than the low grade Immortal Essence crystal, which was gone in seconds.

Six mid grade Immortal Essence crystal later, Lin Mu was sure of it.

“There really is no damage, and the Aperture is stable…” Lin Mu confirmed,

He measured the size of the Aperture and saw that it had grown by a very small number. This growth might seem too small to be considered significant, but it was still big enough to make Lin Mu worried.

“Senior, how is my Aperture able to grow already?” Lin Mu questioned, unable to figure it out himself.

But what he didn’t know was the fact that Xukong was in the same dilemma. He had been observing Lin Mu for a while and had not been cultivating. After all, Lin Mu was in a critical juncture and thus he wanted to be there to face any issues there were.

Still, Xukong had no idea how it was possible for Lin Mu’s Aperture to expand already.

‘This does not fall into the purview of the technique… it isn’t even a question of talent either… this is just the basic tenet of the technique, one cannot expand it until some time later.’ Xukong went over the technique in his own mind.

He tried to see if there were any mistakes or if he had forgotten something. But even after a few attempts, he was sure that he had all the facts about the technique.

“Senior? Are you there?” Lin Mu asked again, since Xukong had not responded.

“I… don’t know.” Xukong decided to respond.

“You don’t…?” Lin Mu had not expected this.

“No… this isn’t according to anything I’ve seen so far.” Xukong admitted.

“Then… what—” Lin Mu didn’t even know what to ask.

“All I can say is that we’ll have to wait and watch. It doesn’t seem like it is a bad thing either, so you can continue as it is.” Xukong stated. “Though I would say, don’t rush through all your mid grade Immortal Essence crystals.” He added.

“I shouldn’t?” Lin Mu asked.

“No… at most, use half of them and keep the other half for emergencies. Who knows when you might need them.” Xukong replied. “Plus, your appointment with the Alchemist will be soon too, so you should be able to get something better.” He reminded.

“Ah yes!” Lin Mu realized he had almost forgotten about the slot he had booked. “Wait! How long has it been?” he wondered.

“It’s been over two months.” Xukong answered for him.

“Two months… wasn’t the Grand Sky Pavilion supposed to book it for me a month ago? Did I miss it?” Lin Mu wondered.

He checked the jade slip and saw a message on it.

He had given the Grand Sky Pavilion his contact so that they could tell him, but it was now too late.

~Sigh~

“Guess I got carried away…” Lin Mu shook his head.

“It’s not an issue. You can still go and check in person. It’s not like they’ll want to miss a good paying customer.” Xukong stated.

“That’s true… Besides, I didn’t pay anything extra for the slot either. They gave it as a complementary addition.” Lin Mu recalled the transaction.

“Yes, so you should be able to get it again.” Xukong spoke. “And even if the next slot is a month or two later, it doesn’t matter as much to you, does it?” he added.

“Mmhmm, I can just continue cultivating. The months pass by very fast when I do that anyways.” Lin Mu agreed.

With that done, he returned to absorbing the mid grade Immortal Essence Crystals. It was night time right now, so Lin Mu reckoned it was best to go in the morning.

Lin Mu had over forty mid grade Immortal Essence crystal left, so it took him about an hour to absorb all of them. Sensing the change in his Aperture, Lin Mu could tell that it had grown by about five percent.

‘Nine hundred low grade Immortal Essence crystals plus fifty mid grade Immortal Essence crystals only showed this much growth… if I extrapolate from there, then won’t I need about… a thousand mid grade immortal essence crystal if I include the deviations?’ Lin Mu calculated.

A thousand mid grade immortal essence crystals were worth about a thousand high grade immortal stones.

This was an amount that would be massive to most cultivators, and while Lin Mu could still afford it, he didn’t know if he should continue spending it like this.

“Hmm… I’ll wait for a bit.” Lin Mu decided to think about it later.

For now, he still had a few hours till morning, thus he decided to practice making some formations. He had already tested and made some minor Diamond Mountain Talismans before and wanted to make the higher ranked version.

He spent his time doing this and managed to successfully make five lesser grade Diamond Mountain Talisman in this time. This was good progress for him, as he had over two hundred failed talismans.

Thankfully, the materials needed for it were basically nothing to him and Lin Mu had no issues with that. Plus, it also helped him improve his control by making runes and formations, improving his skills more and more.

~huu~

Taking a deep breath, Lin Mu stood up and walked out of the room.

With how long the room had been closed for, there should have been dust everywhere, but with the formations set up in the courtyard, this would never happen.

~CREAK~

The door of the room opened and Lin Mu saw the figure of Little Shrubby seemingly in the middle of doing something.

Eight balls of fire were floating above his head and were moving in different directions. From time to time, they would come together and take a peculiar form. Lin Mu thought that it vaguely looked like a hand.

Five of the fire balls were elongated and took the form of fingers. One of them was big and took the form of a palm while the other two were mid sized and took the form of a forearm.

Little Shrubby seemed to be controlling these fireballs to assemble and dissemble the form of a hand rapidly.

But that wasn’t all, as Lin Mu sensed that the fireballs weren’t just any fireballs.

“They’re… condensed from Fire Dao Traces?” Lin Mu finally sensed.

This made it a lot more complex than just normal fire.

After all, to Little Shrubby condensing fire made from spirit Qi or even immortal Qi into any shape was as easy as breathing at this point. But doing the same to Fire Dao Traces was an entirely different concept.

It needed a deeper level of comprehension as well as a certain level of talent.

Talent was something Little Shrubby directly got from his Bloodlines, while comprehension was something he was actively trying to improve by doing the exercise.

“Master?” Little Shrubby sensed Lin Mu and turned to face him.

~poof~

This caused the fireballs to dissipate and the exercise to fail.

“Sorry, did I disturb you?” Lin Mu asked.

“No!” Little Shrubby rushed into his arms. “I was bored. So I was waiting for you anyways.” He said coyly.

“Ah, I see.” Lin Mu stroked little shrubby’s head.

While doing this, he noticed the leaf like patterns on the back of Little Shrubby’s head had gotten darker. It also looked like more leaf veins had appeared on it.

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