1563 Troubled Longing

Having had the revelation that the Ring was behind his desire, Lin Mu felt conflicted.

On one hand, it had certainly allowed him to get stronger and on the other hand it had made him suffer. Having to live with that desire was not good at all for Lin Mu. Had it not been for his mentality that had grown strong over the year, it might have ended differently for him.

After all, Lin Mu knew that such an intense desire could turn into an obsession, which could further lead to many problems for a cultivator.

Falling into a Qi deviation would be the least of his worries, as there was a high chance that an obsession like that might just end up giving birth to a Heart Demon.

That was something that Lin Mu certainly did not wish for. Living with a Heart Demon was not an easy task, and he knew this very well, having read the memoirs of the lost immortal.

In his memories, the man had always said that one should do everything they could to avoid forming a Heart Demon. While the Head Demon of the Lost immortal had helped him fulfill his goal eventually, it had come at the price of his own life and being.

~huu~

Lin Mu thought over all this for a few minutes, as he directly laid down on the ground. He didn't care for the dirt and rubble that was now covering his body. Not to mention, he was quite tired too.

The way he had managed to stand all this while was simply due to the level of shock he had been feeling.

But now that he had his ring back, that too a transformed one, Lin Mu couldn't help but feel the fatigue fill his body once more.

Tilting his head, Lin Mu gazed at the two layered ring.

'This design… it still has five spurs… it can't be that it's still incomplete, right?' Lin Mu wondered.

That thought alone was terrifying to him.

While he knew, the rings contained a lot of power, using it came at a cost too. After all, it had taken Lin Mu years before he was fully able to utilize the grey ring. And seeing the skills that the Eleventh Prince had used, he was quite sure that they had come from the ring as well.

"Just learning the skills of my first ring took me years… and even then, I wouldn't say I've truly mastered them. Adding the second ring and the skills that might come with that… looks like it's only going to get tougher from here." Lin Mu muttered to himself.

It was a strange feeling that was a mixture of longing and anticipation.

While Lin Mu could guess that the ring would grant him more power, and that excited him, it would also take him a lot long before he would be able to use it to an optimum level. Using it at a low proficiency was not something that Lin Mu liked.

It could lead to mistakes during a battle, not to mention he would need to change the flow of his skills as well.

There were many things for him to consider and he hadn't even gotten the new skills yet.

'The ring seems to be adjusting to me.' Lin Mu guessed, seeing that the transformed ring had not fully calmed down.

It hadn't triggered anything either, which meant that there was more for it to do than just merge together.

'It does make sense if it needs time. Other tools that can merge or ones that have multiple components need time to synchronize too.' Lin Mu had quite a bit of information about this topic due to the documentation and books that Jing Luo and Jing Wei had given him.

There was so much information he had obtained from the libraries that he was yet to finish reading them all. Not to mention, there was additional knowledge that had been added from the library of the Deep Sapphire Island.

Lin Mu had only taken a few looks through it and knew that it was even deeper than he had thought.

He was sure that reading all the books might take him a hundred years or so alone.

~Sigh~

"And this is just the work I have pending… the ring might add more." Lin Mu let out a sigh.

He had a gut feeling that the ring was not complete yet. If its shape was anything to go by, it was highly likely that there was at least one more part left.

'Now the question is if the ring would give me a desire like that again…' Lin Mu wondered to himself.

"That might really be it." Xukong spoke, having seen Lin Mu's thoughts.

He too was in shock, having seen that the ring had another component to it, and had been silent since then. Xukong needed to understand it too and wondered what it all meant. Even with his entire life's experience, he had not seen anything like this.

The energy wave that had been released by the ring during its merger was great too.

Lin Mu might not know its depth, but Xukong surely did.

'An energy that might even catch the attention of those old monsters, if the addition of one component has caused this, what will more do?' Xukong too thought that there were more parts to it.

And his intuition was telling him that there was more than one.

"You think there are more parts to the ring?" Lin Mu asked, his tone a bit tired.

"Yes… perhaps more than one too." Xukong replied.

"That… if I've to search for those too. It might be a long time." Lin Mu muttered.

Xukong could understand the overwhelming feeling that Lin Mu was feeling. It was something that was common in younger cultivators that had gained a high cultivation base. They had a long lifespan ahead of them, and it just seemed big to them.