1496 The Leafless Dead Forest

With the successful opening of his Second Aperture, the whirring sound of the spinning ring stopped and Lin Mu could feel the rise in his strength.

Even though he hadn't infused any Immortal Essence into his limbs, he could already sense the change that was happening. The Aperture would slowly released small amounts of Immortal Essence into his body, allowing it to adapt to it.

At first, it wasn't as much since he only had a single Aperture. But now with the 2nd Aperture that had almost doubled.

Of course, this was the passive infusion that happened and was one of the characteristics of the Three Apertures invoking technique. The main strength of the technique laid in its active power increase when one infused Immortal Essence directly as well as the Large storage of Immortal Essence that it provided.

~Crack~

Lin Mu clenched his fist lightly and felt the significant change.

"If I combine my body cultivation and the Qi cultivation, I should have no issues matching up against a fourth tribulation stage immortal, right?" Lin Mu wondered.

Once again, his body cultivation had exceeded his Qi cultivation and was now equivalent to that of a Second Tribulation Stage immortal. While his Qi cultivation was at the First Tribulation Stage of the Immortal Realm.

Lin Mu had not expected to progress this quickly in his body cultivation, but was pleased with it nevertheless.

'Though it is mostly due to the pills. Just the Tri Essence pills can boost my cultivation base this fast, what will the Hundred Vicissitudes Immortal Pill be like?' Lin Mu couldn't help but feel hopeful.

If he had just depended on the Immortal Essence Crystals, there was no saying just how many he would need. But with the pills, the gain was simply amazing.

Of course, it could also be attributed to Lin Mu's stomach that was nurtured due to the Nameless Technique of the Lost Immortal. Without it, he wouldn't be able to absorb all of the Immortal Essence from the pills.

In fact, it wasn't unusual for a cultivator to lose 90-70% of the Immortal Essence from a pill only being able to absorb a fraction of it. The reason was either them being unable to absorb it fast enough or even if they could absorb it, they weren't able to handle it causing them damage.

But for Lin Mu, both options were solved by his stomach. It held all the Immortal Essence within it, preventing it from escaping as waste energy and also absorbed the excess for later.

Then there was the Three Apertures invoking Technique itself, which was mostly focused around absorbing massive amounts of Immortal Essence and storing it in the Apertures. This took care of the issue of storage which many body cultivators had.

After all, for most cultivators, storing Immortal Essence within their bodies was almost impossible without it adapting. It was the same case for Lin Mu and the immortal essence wisps would try to escape if they were directly infused into his body.

Only after being modulated by the Apertures did they became tamer and were able to be used by Lin Mu.

"I now have extra assurance in going against the experts now… There are bound to be several of them striving to obtain the Violet Mystic Life Tree." Lin Mu muttered to himself.

A few hours passed after Lin Mu's breakthrough and his body had fully adapted to it. His energy fluctuations has also stabilized, and Lin Mu could now contain them within his body once more.

"Master! Look!" It was at this time that Little Shrubby called out.

Lin Mu opened his eyes and gazed in the distance.

Unknowingly he had already arrived at his intended destination.

"The Leafless Dead Forest…" Lin Mu muttered.

This was the name of the location and described the place perfectly. There were millions upon millions of barren trees that looked to be dead. Lin Mu could turn his head from right to the left and all he would see were these dead trees.

Their trunks had long since turned a dull brown from age and some had even taken on a red tone. It was evident that years of being in the Desolate blood battlefield had changed them greatly.

But in all this, Lin Mu could tell that the trees weren't exactly 'dead'.

"They actually have vitality within them… its just the appearance that looks to be dead…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

It was certainly a marvel about the area. But this just made Lin Mu's next task a little difficult.

"The ruins are supposed to be hidden somewhere in all this and the Violet Mystic Life tree too…" Lin Mu said looking around.

If one thought about it, a living tree that too with violet leaves should have been easily visible in a forest of dead grey trees growing on red soil. But it wasn't so, since the tree was actually hiding within illusions.

The illusion was set up to hide the ruins originally and had gotten weaker over time. There would be periods where it would be at the weakest and reveal all that was hidden within it.

That was also the reason why the Violet Mystic Life Tree had been discovered. If not for the illusory array weakening, perhaps it would have never been found.

"Let's start from there, Little Shrubby." Lin Mu pointed towards the left. "We'll circle around and see if we can find any cultivators camping there." He added.

From what he had heard from Alchemist Ruoxian, the cultivators who had discovered the Violet Mystic Life Tree might be camping near it. Since they didn't know how the things were around it and they still needed back up, they might have already gone there.

~WHOOSH~

Little Shrubby burst into a sprint and started to run across the dead forest. It was one of the largest areas of the Desolate Blood Battlefield and would take them quite some time to comb through.

Three hours passed like this before Lin Mu realized something.

"Why are we back at the same place?"