Lin Mu and Little Shrubby walked into the grotto while keeping an eye on things. Even if they had already checked the area with their spirit sense and didn't find any danger didn't mean that it wasn't there.

Even if there were no dangerous beasts, there could be other forms of danger that they could not detect. There could very well be plants or dangerous substances here. Lin Mu and Little Shrubby took an hour to check every place in the grotto and only after that did they relax.

~PHEW~

"Finally, a safer place here." Lin Mu said.

Lin Mu picked one of the trees and sat down with his back against it. Little Shrubby, on the other hand, was responsible for guarding this time and would prevent any beast from coming into the grotto.

Well… most beasts would avoid him anyway due to the bloodline suppression, but if there were Dao Shell realm beasts wanting to come here, Little Shrubby would be able to hold one back for at least a minute. 

And if not that, he could very well alert Lin Mu through their link. 

~HUU~

Lin Mu took a deep breath and mediated for a few minutes to reach his optimum condition. Once that was done, he began his work. He needed to break through to the third stage of the Five Treasures realm and finish refining his heart.

As for getting the wood? That was something that could be done at any time. Lin Mu just needed to place his hand, and the entire tree would be stored into the ring. And it was not like the tree that Lin Mu used for cultivating would become useless.

Its wood and other parts could still be used and if left on its own for several years, it would regain the energy that it had lost.

Lin Mu started using the Embrace of Hong Lin and followed its method. His consciousness sank into the tree and sensed the pockets of fire elemental energy within them. 

He focused on them and little by little they started getting sucked into his body through his back. The warm energy felt like water to him and was quite pleasant. Lin Mu felt as if he was sitting in a tub of warm water now.

The energy moved through his skin, into his muscles, and then into his blood. The blood swiftly took it all the way around his body, and eventually reach its destination… the heart. Lin Mu felt a wave of heat spreading through his chest and felt a bit uncomfortable now.

It was a sudden change, but knew that it was just his heart's cells changing little by little. It wasn't exactly painful this Lin Mu could withstand it easily. Hours passed by in the blink of an eye as more and more energy was absorbed by Lin Mu.

His progression in the refinement of his heart was moving at a slow pace. He didn't know how long it would take, but he knew that with the number of thousand year old Hong Lin trees he had; it was just inevitable.

'If I didn't get these thousand year old Hong Lin trees, I doubt the hundred year ones would have even made a dent at this point. Their energy content was just getting too low for my body to make use of.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

The first day passed quickly and when the second day arrived, Lin Mu had finished using up all the energy of the Hong Lin tree.

~huu~

Lin Mu opened his eyes and took a breath.

"It just gets slower and slower huh… no wonder even the first King didn't practice it beyond the Body tempering realm…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

He stood up and went to the next tree before sitting down below it with his back to the tree. The same process began and Lin Mu spent the rest of the day absorbing all of the energy from the thousand year old Hong Lin tree.

Soon this tree was empty as well, and Lin Mu switched to another one. He kept on repeating this as more of his heart was refined. Within his chest, a different scene could be seen right now.

Lin Mu's heart had several fine lines on it that spread in a unique manner. These lines were seemingly demarcating the tissues of the heart that had been refined and the ones that were yet to be refined.

The color difference was also quite obvious, with the part that was refined being rather vibrant and the one that was not, being dull. With each tree, that line of demarcation was increasing and after about a week, it finally reached the 75% mark.

It was now that Lin Mu felt a change in his body. Before he felt like there was a slight hesitance in his body, that slowed down the speed of absorption. But now it was gone and his speed of absorption increased.

~SHUA~

The same tree that would have taken an entire day to absorb was done in less than ten hours.

"Huh? What exactly is this? Did my body get attuned to it now?" Lin Mu wondered.

Even though he was a bit confused, he was happy as well. As this just meant that he would break through faster. Lin Mu continued his task and went from tree to tree absorbing its energy.

But even the increased speed was not helping him as much after a few days. Even though his absorption speed was high, his refinement speed wasn't increasing and had instead slowed down.

"Ninety percent complete… just need some more and I'll reach the end." Lin Mu said to himself.

He didn't lose motivation and kept it up. Finally… an entire month had passed since Lin Mu had arrived at the grotto and started absorbing the energy of the Hong Lin trees. His progress had slowed down to a snail's pace, but he was now at the very edge.

"Just a little bit more… 99.9%!" 

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