Lin Mu placed his hands on the old man's chest gently while keeping an eye on whether he would respond or not. Usually, cultivators such as these that entered such a deep seclusion would only wake up in times of distress.
Thus there was a chance the old man might still wake up if Lin Mu touched him, but surprisingly, he did not.
'He's far deeper in this…' Lin Mu thought and used his spirit sense to check the body of the old man.
There he could see the years of damage and aging. Over sixty percent of his meridians were damaged and the spirit Qi flowing within them was weak. His muscles had already degraded to a dangerous level and there was no chance of them getting healed.
The same could be said before his skin and bones, which had turned weak. His blood vessels were also blocked with hundreds of small clots that obstructed the blood flow and prevented proper circulation.
While Lin Mu was checking the old man, the others were observing him. They didn't know what he was doing, but for now, Lin Mu was the best option that they had at getting out of this situation.
After about five minutes of a detailed check, Lin Mu finally decided to peer into the man's dantian.
'Huh? Why is it like this?' Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder.
The old man's Dantian was like a stone and it was hard for him to enter it. But with Lin Mu's spirit sense, he did manage to penetrate it, of course. Finally, in the Dantian he could see a dried up spirit Qi sea, which was more like a small pond now, and a Nascent soul that looked similar to the old man floating above it.
Seeing the scene, Lin Mu understood that this might be one of the effects of the Decay of Mortals. But having observed it all, Lin Mu now had an idea of how to use the healing technique.
This would be the third time he was using this technique, but compared to the last time, his cultivation base was vastly different.
~shua~
Lin Mu started injecting gentle streams of spirit Qi into the old man's body and they entered his meridians. There they started to first clear up some of the blockages made from injuries and impurities gained over the many years.
Lin Mu had to take it slow to ensure that no extra harm was brought to the old man. Bit by bit, his meridians recovered and by the time he was done, the old man's meridians were about seventy percent functional.
While they were not fully repaired, it was still far better than before. Lin Mu then moved on to his other tissues and muscles, trying to fix as much as he could using the spirit Qi that circulated within the old man's body.
Due to being old, the man didn't have much of his own vitality left. That was what the technique used to heal a person, but in this case, Lin Mu had to supply some of his own vital energy to the man.
Hua San and Hua Wu, that were watching Lin Mu were shocked at this point.
"Is he… Is he healing him?!" Hua Wu said in shock.
"What? That's not possible. Adviser Chu's injuries aren't direct but due to his age. They aren't something that can be healed with a pill or something like that." Adviser Liu said, unable to comprehend that a technique like the one Lin Mu was using even existed.
The king though kept his silence and let Lin Mu do whatever he was doing. An hour passed like this and by the end of it, the observers could certainly see some differences between the previous state of adviser Chu and the current state.
While his body was still old and wrinkled, the skin had eased up a bit and the age spots on his skin had also reduced.
~Huu~
Lin Mu took a deep breath and lifted his hands from the old man's body.
"How is it senior Lin Mu?" Hua Wu questioned.
"I've done all I could. Now the rest is up to him. He is in a deep slumber caused due to his body slowly shutting down. I managed to heal some parts, thus he should at least be able to wake up." Lin Mu answered.
"How long will it take?" Adviser Liu asked.
"Can be anywhere from an hour to a day." Lin Mu replied.
"I see…" Adviser Liu muttered.
"A day is nothing if we can get something out of this and get to talk with former adviser Chu." King Hong nodded.
"Exactly," Lin Mu said and sat down on one of the cushions that were lying around.
Lin Mu noticed one thing: that this hall was clean, unlike the other ones. He spread his spirit sense around and found the reason for it; there was actually a cleaning formation embedded into this hall as well.
Lin Mu remembered his own cleaning formation that he had placed in his old house in the northern city. While he had abandoned that place now, he had taken away the graves of his parents and thus his home could be wherever he wanted it to be.
The others also sat down and waited for the old man to wake up. The spirit Qi on the floor was concentrated and thus it was not like it was uncomfortable for the others. They could very well stay here for days if not months here with no problem.
Lin Mu took this time to observe the area in better detail. Last time he was afraid that the old man might wake up and thus he had not used his spirit sense as much, but now he had the full freedom to do so.
Though what Lin Mu was looking for was any old records or documents that might come to his use here. Seeing how old the former adviser was, Lin Mu reckoned there must be something.