1293 Reaching The Dao Comprehension Stage
Lin Mu had entered a trance and had no sense of time.
While this was a little troublesome, it was also beneficial to him at the same time. His Dao Embryo that was floating in the Dao Shell in front of him kept on expanding slowly. Millimeter by millimeter it, grew.
Such was the Embryo Growth stage of the Dao Treading realm.
The more one's Dao Embryo grew in this stage, the better their comprehension of the Dao Traces would be. And the more they comprehended the Dao Trace the more their Dao Embryo would grow.
It was a looping cycle that started slow but sped up the longer one managed to maintain the state.
Lin Mu was in that condition. Perhaps it was because he was in a high leveled Immortal world that was on the precipice of World Ascension, the Dao Traces were very active. Lin Mu was progressing at a shocking pace and so was his cultivation base.
Two months passed like this and Lin Mu's Dao Embryo had nearly doubled in size now. It was now the size of a human head and looked very lively. The aura of earth spread from it, covering Lin Mu with a brown glow.
Only when this glow faded away did Lin Mu open his eyes.
~huu~
Lin Mu exhaled, and brown colored Qi escaped his mouth. This Qi was heavy and directly sank to the ground.
"Earth… Heart… and Truth…" Lin Mu chanted.
"Find the Truth of Earth and make it like one's heart… Comprehend the Dao of Earth and encompass the world…" A strange mnemonic appeared in Lin Mu's mind.
~SHUA~
Spirit Qi surged like a tide and drowned out Lin Mu's entire residence in one go.
The Haima Tribe members that were nearby all felt the sudden rise in spirit Qi and almost knelt on the ground. To them it was like they were suddenly pushed into a deep lake and the water was making it hard to move.
But this was just the start.
The spirit Qi started to surge into Lin Mu's body, but this didn't reduce the pressure of the people around. Instead, the pressure of the spirit Qi was replaced by a heavy aura. This aura expanded from Lin Mu's body and kept on growing.
First it was only spread in a two meter area around him, but then it covered the entire residence. Spreading further, it took in the nearby houses within its grasp and then the entire neighborhood.
Ten minutes later, the Haima Tribe was covered with the heavy aura and each member felt like their weight had doubled. Fine cracks could even be seen developing on the ground, and the Earth Fixing Array was working hard to fix it.
The Array too was changing under this aura.
At first it was unaffected, but then the runes on it started to flicker. This changed to the array suffering under the aura, before adapting and being strengthened by it instead.
~TREMBLE~
Right now if one looked from the sky, they would see a mountain rising up from the ground.
This was the same mountain that was formed by the Earth Fixing array, but now it was growing too. Every second, its height increased by one foot.
What was basically hundreds of years of phenomena was finished in mere seconds. The Mountain rose into the sky, becoming nearly five thousand meters tall!
At this point, it was as if a bottleneck had reached and it could no longer rise.
The rise had not just come with a height increase either, but also a width increase. The mountain which only covered the ground surface above the tribe, was now five times as wide.
The prison cell Lin Mu had made for Huyun Chuan with a formation array was also included in this and was seemingly assimilated by the Earth Fixing Array.
"What the hell is this?" Huyun Chuan didn't know the situation.
All he knew was that his body was incomparably heavy and that the illusory cell walls had suddenly turned corporeal. Instead of prison bars made out of illusory runes, they were now made out of solid rock.
The entire prison cell looked to be carved out of a single piece of large rock, looking aesthetically pleasing.
Huyun Chuan though didn't have the time to appreciate it as he was rather uncomfortable. His cultivation base was sealed which meant that he had to bear the brunt of the increased weight himself.
Even breathing was hard to him right now, and if it weren't for the fact that he had fallen on his back, he might have just choked to death lying on his chest.
The Broken Chasm which was originally quite some distance away from the mountain was now a couple hundred meters away. The area around it also seemed to have naturally merged with the mountain.
If one looked at it right now, they would think that it had always been there and hadn't just grown in a short period of time.
Perhaps even Immortals might not be able to tell the difference.
Back inside the tribe, the only ones who were still standing rights now were the members who had reached the Dao Shell realm.
As of now, there were less than fifty such members which included Elder Niji, Head Warrior Kulo and several Scouts.
"Elder Niji… Noble Lin Mu is…" Head Warrior Kulo didn't know what to think.
"He is having a breakthrough again… It is certainly a bit troublesome." Elder Niji said with furrowed brows.
"Then the tribe…" head Warrior Kulo said with concern.
"The tribe will be fine, they can endure this much. Perhaps they might even get to learn form this." Elder Niji stated.
"Still… isn't this a little extreme? Even your breakthrough wasn't like this." Head Warrior Kulo said with doubt.
"That is true. But at the same time, while both Noble Lin Mu and I are in the Dao Treading realm, we are in different stages. I'm merely at the Embryo birth stage." Elder Niji replied.
"What about Noble Lin Mu? What stage has he reached?" Head Warrior Kulo asked.
He was quite interested as he himself had reached the Dao Treading realm recently, becoming the second person to do so. The more Dao Treading realm cultivators there were in the Haima tribe the better it would be for them.
Not to mention, with their breakthrough they would be able to record important information and then guide their junior tribe members with it. With the lost history of the Haima Tribe, this was a very important thing.
Lin Mu had instructed them to record every bit of their progress too. Even the smallest tips in cultivation were very important after all. And despite Lin Mu's research into cultivation techniques for the Haima Tribe, there was a lot of uncertainties left behind.
Only by collectively learning would they be able to find new heights in cultivation.
Elder Niji thought about Head Warrior Kulo's question for a minute before determining.
"There is no doubt… he had broken through to the Dao Comprehension Stage of the Dao Treading realm." Elder Niji stated.
"Really? Doesn't the Embryo Growth Stage along take hundreds of years to cover?" Head Warrior Kulo inquired.
This was something they had heard not just from Lin Mu, but Huyun Chuan had also confirmed this for them. The human nobles that progressed fast only did so by birthing familiar embryos that their clans or elders had grown as well.
Basically, they were copying other's path and were being guided ahead. Their progress was bound to be faster than someone who was basically exploring and searching for their own path.
"That might be so for the average person, but Noble Lin Mu is far beyond that." Elder Niji said before looking towards the direction of Lin Mu's residence.
Head Warrior Kulo had a solemn look on his face as he looked at Lin Mu's residence too.
"Take this opportunity to observe. Perhaps we'll have an easier time later." Elder Niji advised.
Head Warrior Kulo merely nodded in head, while the others in the room could only do so whit their eyes.
They were transfixed and simply waited for the situation to pass.
Though deep within their bodies, fine changes could already be seen happening. Spirit Qi surged before being weighed down under the heavy aura. This resulted in it being condensed further, and increasing its quality.
This was something that only happened for those below the Dao Shell realm though. The one's above it had already concentrated their spirit Qi enough to make it incompressible for now.
Unless they reached the Dao Shell realm, they wouldn't be able to condense it further.
Back at Lin Mu's residence, the source of all this was calmly observing it all.
"So this is the Dao Comprehension stage…" Lin Mu muttered before raising his hand.
~SHUA~
Earth spirit Qi gathered within his hand and condensed into a small pebble.
"It truly is marvelous…" Lin Mu praised before controlling the aura and retracting it back into his body.
