1576 Swallowing Souls
Seeing the Remnant soul in front of him, Lin Mu had several questions appearing in his mind.
The remnant was basically what was left off from a True soul that had already passed off into the afterlife. A Remnant soul wasn't a complete existence and didn't really have anything significant within it either.
At most, it might have a few random thoughts that were left behind after the death of the creature that it belonged to.
It didn't have any energy either, as it wasn't a remnant soul that was formed from a Nascent soul.
Even among Remnant souls, there were two types. Those that were formed from a Nascent soul and those that were formed from a True Soul.
Usually those formed from a Nascent soul were more substantial and had some Qi left in it. The more 'fresh' they were, the more information and energy they would contain. Of course, even if they were fresh, they were merely the leftover parts of a Nascent soul that had deteriorated over time or had been destroyed.
Even if someone came in contact with a Remnant soul that was formed from a Nascent soul, they wouldn't feel much. Only in rare cases would a remnant soul be able to taint a cultivator and become a parasite on their body.
But even the remnant souls made from Nascent souls would weaken over time and their Qi would be lost. At that point, they would only have the remnants of a True soul left behind in them and their form would become even more distorted.
At this point, they wouldn't even be able to affect anything.
They would exist unknown to most before eventually dissipating with the passage of time.
Lin Mu felt curious as to how, or even why, was he able to see the remnant souls now?
"Can it also allow me to touch it?" Lin Mu wondered and extended his hand.
His finger lightly touched the remnant soul, passing through it just like it was air.
~SHUA~
But then a moment later, the dark purple aura behind him moved and swooped on the remnant soul.
"What?" Lin Mu barely blinked and the Remnant soul had been swallowed up by the aura.
Narrowing his eyes, Lin Mu gazed at the aura surrounding him, finding no change in it.
Confused about this, he moved onto the next presence he had felt. A minute later, Lin Mu reached the location and found it to be a remnant soul as well. It was in a similar condition to the one before and was close to dissipating.
Lin Mu touched it took and saw his aura swallowing it up.
Once again, he observed his aura, but found no change in it.
"There's definitely something happening." Lin Mu said to himself.
Lin Mu went to each presence that he had detected and found all of them to be remnant souls. He touched all of them, letting his aura swallow them. In less than five minutes, he had ended up finding over fifteen remnant souls, and all of them had been swallowed by his aura.
"There's finally a change…" Lin Mu muttered, sensing a little growth.
The size of his aura had grown by a tiny fraction.
'So the new sutra allows me to see remnant souls and absorb them into my aura? That does not seem enough though,' Lin Mu reckoned.
His guess was that it wasn't just remnant souls that he could see. He should be able to see fresh souls too.
"I need to test it myself." Lin Mu spread his senses and tried to search for a beast nearby.
He had to roam around for a couple minutes before he finally found a beast that looked like a red gerbil.
~SQUEAK~
Lin Mu pulled out the rodent that was over a meter in size from the ground. The rodent struggled in his hand and tried to scratch him, but Lin Mu's body was too tough for it.
The beast might be helplessly struggling in Lin Mu's hand, but it wasn't weak at all. It was actually at the Dao Treading realm!
"Only one way to test this…" Lin Mu stabbed the gerbil's head with Afternoon Pine, ending its life.
He made sure to not damage the Nascent soul though, and let it come out of the body normally.
~SHUA~
A few seconds later, a glowing wisp of light rose out of the beast's corpse. It hovered over the corpse for a few seconds as it condensed its form that looked like its original body.
"Nascent souls can be seen by other cultivators too, though. What I need is the True Soul…" Lin Mu said and pointed at the Nascent soul, letting a wisp of Metal Immortal Qi shoot out.
~RING~
The Metal Immortal Qi shot forward like a needle and poked into the Nascent soul, causing it to break apart. Lin Mu had ensured that not too much power was exerted as he didn't want to totally destroy the Nascent soul either.
He merely wanted to destroy the 'shell' that the Nascent soul actually was.
And once this shell was broken, the True Soul was hidden inside it appeared.
"I can really see it…" Lin Mu muttered in surprise.
The True Soul of the Gerbil was lacking energy, but he could still sense a 'consciousness' within it.
Wanting to test further, Lin Mu extended his hand, touching the True Soul of the Gerbil.
~SHUA~
In the very next second, his dark purple Aura swallowed the True Soul, showing a rapid change. It actually grew visibly this time!
If before it was about two meters tall, it had now added another centimeter of height to it!
"It's actually growing like this…" Lin Mu said in understanding.
A few more thoughts appeared in his mind, and he flew away in search of more beasts.
Fifteen minutes later, Lin Mu had killed six more beasts and absorbed their souls using the aura. This time he learned a few more things, such as the fact that if he absorbed a Nascent soul to, he would gain a part of Qi back!
