Upon hearing the name from Lin Mu's mouth, the Wild man suddenly turned red, even more red than his face was previously.
"DON'T CALL ME THAT! Only Grandfather can call me that!" The Wild man said, feeling embarrassed.
Lin Mu saw the loud reaction of the Wild man who he now confirmed to be the grandson of Jing Wei.
"Call me Jing Luo." The Wild man stated.
"Okay… but wait… weren't you supposed to be dead? Jing Wei said you died from the experts of the sects." Lin Mu asked, feeling confused.
Lin Mu had withdrawn his hand by now and eased up a bit. Jing Luo was the same and could relax a bit now. But just as Lin Mu did this, he was reminded of something important. He had forgotten about Little Shrubby in the heat of the moment.
"Little Shrubby!" Lin Mu said before flying away in the direction he had seen him being launched.
Jing Luo was also a bit lost and went after Lin Mu. The two men flew for about a minute before reaching the place where Little Shrubby was. It was not hard to find him, as he had created a long path of destruction as he had passed through the forest.
Upon finding him, Lin Mu hurriedly checked him for injuries with concern.
"Huh? He's fine?" Lin Mu muttered with surprise.
"That spirit Qi rain should have allowed him to heal himself." Xukong who had been silent since Lin Mu arrived here, spoke.
"Senior Xukong? You're awake?" Lin Mu replied.
"Yes, I've been awake the entire time," Xukong stated.
"I thought you were deep in cultivation or something happened to the connection once I arrived in this Minor Plane." Lin Mu replied.
"No, I've just been observing everything. You fought well against Jing Luo. I think this is the first time you were able to use all your abilities at once and even got Little Shrubby to assist you." Xukong spoke.
"You were observing, I see. Then you must have some idea about that man, right? Do you really think he's Jing Luo? If he was, then why did he attack me and continued to do so?" Lin Mu asked, feeling confused.
"I've been observing everything closely from the start and I can tell one thing for sure. That man was never intending to kill you. He had always been increasing his power in response to your own." Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu nodded his head for now, and wanted to focus on checking Little Shrubby's condition. He probed his body with his spirit sense and saw that his Dantian was filled to the brim. Not only that, but his core was also about to be saturated.
"That rain… it pushed Little Shrubby to the limit." Lin Mu muttered.
"If he continues to cultivate here for a bit more, he is likely to break through to the Nascent Soul realm." Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu watched on with concern for a bit before letting out a sigh.
"Give him more of the beast Qi, that should speed up the process. His wounds have already healed due to his body using the liquids spirit Qi rain to repair it, so his progress should be fast." Xukong suggested.
Lin Mu nodded his head and quickly chanted the Nurturing heart sutra. Jing Luo, who had been following Lin Mu, saw the state of the beast and was surprised too. He was sure his punch should have at least broken a few bones of the beast, but it seemed to be fully fine.
'No wait, its aura got stronger too.' Jing Luo thought.
But the next moment he saw Lin Mu do something. Since he was watching from the back, he did not see Lin Mu chanting the Nurturing heart sutra, but he did see him drawing out a string of energy from his body.
"What is that?" Jing Luo felt confused.
He could very well tell that it was not spirit Qi and neither was it Vital energy. It was also not the pink energy that he had seen Lin Mu use in his attack. Jing Luo then saw Lin Mu injecting that string of energy into the beast.
~shua~
As soon as that was done, Jing Luo could feel the aura of the beast explosively rising for a second before calming down again.
"What did he do? What was that energy?" Jing Luo muttered to himself. His voice though, reached Lin Mu, making him turn around.
"Just something that will help him…" Lin Mu said mysteriously.
Jing Luo didn't know if he should ask more and just decided to keep silent. He had after all beaten up the man's pet and he would probably beat him up if he pissed him off more. Even though Jing Luo knew he was above Lin Mu in terms of cultivation base, the man had defeated him.
And now that Lin Mu was in the Nascent Soul realm as well, he highly doubted he would be able to last against him.
"You were gonna tell me what happened with you before… Jing Wei said you were dead." Lin Mu spoke.
"Ah yes… I did nearly die. I was being pursued by multiple experts from different sects. Eventually, I ended up in the borders of the Ripple mist sect, where I got trapped. I could not leave the barrier the experts had set up, so I decided to make my final stand here.
I ended up detonating one of the prototype spirit tools I was making. That spirit tool killed most of the experts that were chasing me but it also pushed me to the brink of death." Jing Wei answered.
"How did you survive, then?" Lin Mu questioned, feeling curious.
"The same way that beast did… I got a lot of spirit Qi to heal myself with. And I got that when I ended up here." Jing Luo answered.
"Here? This minor plane?" Lin Mu spoke.
"Yes… well, not exactly. We are technically in the Sacred Grounds of the Ripple Mist sect." Jing Luo revealed.