Lin Mu was circling the black crack with curiosity. It was completely unlike anything he had seen before. The wind which brought along leaves and dust spun around the black crack and then disappeared after a few seconds, depositing the leaves and dust below it.
Lin Mu watched the black crack for thirty minutes and observed that a few gusts of wind would come every few seconds and disappear after swirling around the black crack a few times. After 30 minutes he saw that a small pile of dust and leaves was created below the black crack.
'This is rather peculiar.' Lin Mu thought.
Lin Mu then searched the surrounding area to see if there are any more black cracks. He searched a radius of 200 meters yet could not find any more of them. He was intrigued by the black crack and was lost in thought.
'I'll wait and observe this black crack for some more time. I want to gain a certain level of understanding before I try to do anything to it.' Lin Mu decided.
Lin Mu then returned to the hunting shack and sat down to chant the severing heart sutra. Lin Mu cultivated for four hours, during which he first restored the spirit Qi that he had depleted in opening the spatial rifts and then increased his overall store of spirit Qi.
At the end of his cultivation session, Lin Mu measured the spirit Qi within his dantian and estimated that it had increased to around 600 wisps.
Lin Mu then cooked some meat for his dinner and ate it. While eating his dinner, Lin Mu once again saw the small four-legged silhouette spying on him from the bushes.
Determined to catch the silhouette this time, Lin Mu strengthened his legs with spirit Qi and shot towards the small silhouette. It only took Lin Mu three seconds to cross a distance of 100 meters, yet to his surprise, the small silhouette seemed to react much faster than him and disappeared into the forest.
"That beast is very fast for its size. Though it doesn't look very strong." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Lin Mu then returned back to the shack to continue eating his dinner. After he was done with that, he sat down and chanted the calming heart sutra. This time it only took him ten minutes to assimilate all the vital energy from the beast meat, even though he had increased the meal's portion.
Lin Mu did not feel much difference in the vital energy within his body. It was as if he had finally reached a bottleneck and would need a long time to progress any further.
After Lin Mu was done assimilating vital energy, he thought about how he could increase his proficiency with the new skills. Although he knew how to use them instinctively, he still won't be able to use them at the right time during a battle.
'I need to make a training regimen, to increase the proficiency of my skills.' Lin Mu thought.
"The primary use for the first skill 'Flicker' is to dodge attacks. So I need to somehow simulate attacks." Lin Mu spoke to himself.
After tackling some ideas, Lin Mu finally decided upon a method he could use to train the skill. The first thing he needed to improve upon was to get the timing of the activation right. As the skill only lasted for a second, it was absolutely necessary that Lin Mu triggers it at the right moment.
The idea Lin Mu thought upon was that he could make a few swinging dummies that would simulate attacks by slamming into him. He would then have to avoid them by activating the skill at the right time.
After figuring out what he was going to do tomorrow, Lin Mu felt tired and decided to sleep. He laid down on the bed and rested his head on the soft bolster.
'This bolster is proving to be pretty useful.' Lin Mu thought.
After a few minutes, Lin Mu fell asleep and entered the Sleepscape. When Lin Mu appeared in the Sleepscape, he was facing the spirit apple tree. He observed the spirit apple hanging on it and saw that it had fully grown.
'So it takes around two days for a single spirit apple to mature.' Lin Mu thought.
Lin Mu jumped up and plucked the spirit apple, storing it into the ring. He then withdrew his weapons and started his training. He trained with the ten weapons he had bought. He left out the two shields, as he would need a partner to practice using them.
"Wait, I can use the swinging dummies for practicing with the shields." Lin Mu spoke out loud.
Lin Mu continued his practice for a few hours until he felt mentally tired. He was just about to leave the Sleepscape and enter normal sleep when his gaze wandered over to the spirit apple tree.
Lin Mu walked over and saw that another spirit apple had already started growing on one of the branches. The spirit apple was completely green and quarter the size of a fully grown spirit apple.
'That was fast.' Lin Mu said with raised eyebrows.
After this Lin Mu thought about leaving the Sleepscape and slept normally. In the morning Lin Mu was woken up by a chilly wind that had risen out of nowhere. He rose from the bed and saw that the door of the hunting shack was completely open and the wind was blowing in from it.
"Did I forget to close it last night?" Lin Mu wondered.
Lin Mu stood up and walked outside to a frosty morning. Although it was not snowing yet, the temperature had fallen a few notches and the dew on the grass was frozen.
'I guess winter will be here any day now.' Lin Mu thought.
Just as Lin Mu was about to turn around to cook his breakfast, he saw a sight that left his jaw wide open. An enormous pile of leaves and dust along with some small twigs and feathers could be seen below the black crack.
The pile was two meters tall and around four meters in diameter. It was almost touching the floating black crack too.
'How did the pile increase so much in just one night?' Lin Mu wondered to himself.
Lin Mu first set some meat to cook before going to check the black crack. He observed the floating black crack and saw that it was the same size as before. It did not change its location either.
As he was looking at the black crack, Lin Mu noticed that he could not see any black dots nearby.
'Where did all the black dots go?' Lin Mu wondered.
By now the breakfast was ready, thus Lin Mu went back to eat it first. After finishing the breakfast, Lin Mu assimilated the vital energy and then went on to search for the black dots.
Lin Mu searched around a radius of 200 meters and did not find any black dots. Thinking that they had just not regenerated again, Lin Mu walked towards a direction in a straight line. He kept searching for the black dots, yet could not find one, even after walking for a thousand meters.
"Is it because of the black crack that all the black dots disappeared?" Lin Mu pondered.
Wanting to investigate further, Lin Mu walked up to the floating black crack. He got a similar feeling to that of a black dot, from the black crack. He understood that it was the ring telling him that he can expand the black crack into a spatial rift.
Lin Mu moved the pile of dust and leaves from below the black crack and extended his right hand. Then the spirit Qi started draining from his dantian but didn't stop after 10 wisps like normal.
"What's happening?" said Lin Mu with confusion.
Ten wisps, twenty wisps, fifty wisps, hundred wisps, two hundred wisps, the spirit Qi kept on being consumed. With every wisp of spirit Qi that was consumed, Lin Mu got more and more nervous.
When five hundred wisps of spirit Qi were depleted, the mysterious ring shone and the black crack suddenly started expanding. The sound of air being torn could be heard by Lin Mu. It was a shocking sound for him and hurt his ears a little.
The black crack kept expanding and was soon five times bigger than Lin Mu in size. Unlike the spatial rifts, which were about one meter in diameter and circular or oval in shape; the expanded black crack was of an irregular shape and could be described as a hole in a broken window.
Suddenly a massive suction force came from the expanded black crack and sucked Lin Mu inside it, along with a ton of dirt and debris from the surrounding.
"NOOOOOOO!!!" Screamed Lin Mu, as the expanded black crack swallowed him.
Lin Mu fainted and woke up after an unknown amount of time. He stood up and looked around, trying to get a sense of things.
"Where am I? What is this?" Lin Mu questioned himself in confusion.
Lin Mu looked at the floor and saw that it seemed to be made out of a certain kind of translucent substance. He looked up and saw silvery grey streaks of light flickering in the sky. If one could call it 'sky' as the rest of it was pitch black.
Even below his feet, he could still see the silvery grey streaks of light through the translucent floor.
'Those streaks of light look similar to the ones I saw inside the ring. But these ones are much smaller.' Lin Mu thought.
Lin Mu looked ahead of him and saw countless white pillars of different thicknesses crisscrossed across the entire area.
The thinnest ones were smaller than a hair, and the thickest ones were as thick as a hundred men combined. Lin Mu touched the pillars and found them to be soft at first, but then the pillars turned translucent and his hand passed through them.
Lin Mu withdrew his hand in alarm and saw that the pillars returned to solid after a few moments.
"Bizarre." was the only word that came to Lin Mu's mind.
Lin Mu continued forward on the path and observed that the white pillars only got more dense and complex as he walked further.
While walking, he suddenly felt a gaze on him and looked around for the source but could not find it. A frightening idea abruptly struck him, and his face turned pale.
With great courage and dread, he looked up, only to find ten golden yellow eyes staring at him. The ten eyes were of different sizes, but even the smallest was thrice as big as Lin Mu.
Lin Mu swallowed his saliva as he cursed the heavens.
"F*CK."