Lin Mu was currently sitting down cross legged in the hall. His lips lightly moved as he chanted the Calming heart sutra in a low voice.
He was trying to see if the sutra could return his body to the normal again. He chanted the Calming Heart sutra for about an hour before he could feel any effect. At first, the change was very minor and unnoticeable.
But in just five more minutes, it was rapidly increasing. Lin Mu's body started to shrink and his skin color returned to normal. His nails retracted and became the usual white-pink color while his fangs changed to normal teeth.
His eye's also changed back to the usual black color and his muscles nearly returned to their original mass. After about an hour, Lin Mu had mostly returned to his normal looks, though his body still seemed a bit bigger than before.
Namely, his muscles that were far bulkier than before. He was more on the slender side before, but now he was a bit buffer. Though this was more noticeable right now, since his body was bare.
The top half of his robes had been torn and only his legs and waist had managed to keep their shape. Lin Mu looked at his body and saw that the few injuries he had before had healed over as well.
Though along with this, he got a different feeling as well.
"The hunger… it is returning…" Lin Mu muttered as he felt his stomach signaling to him.
He was a bit worried about it as he knew this would not be the normal hunger he had. It would be the painful starving hunger that he got a couple of times before. It was a very difficult state to be in and made thinking difficult.
'It's still a while away, but I'll need to deal with it soon enough.' Lin Mu thought.
He was also estimating just how much the transformation had taken out of him if it had drained all the vitality and nutrients that had been stored in the past year or so. Lin Mu had eaten a lot of beasts and herbs that contained copious amounts of vital energy.
It was that which assisted in his transformation along with healing his wounds. Technically, Lin Mu had eaten several hundred times his body mass in spirit beast meat. But even then, the entire store had been consumed in that single transformation.
"Will this be the normal now? Can I transform back into it or not…" Lin Mu wondered.
And just as he said this, another voice was heard.
"Finally! I can contact you again." Xukong spoke out loud.
"Senior?" Lin Mu responded. "What happened?" he asked.
"Your state was unstable and our link was suppressed. I couldn't contact you, no matter how much I tried. That state you were in… it was overflowing with malice. Your thoughts kept on spilling into the common mind space, but I couldn't talk to you at all.
It was like swimming against the river current, and your thoughts were the river." Xukong replied.
"I… I didn't know that." Lin Mu muttered.
"It was certainly unexpected, but it did lead to some gains for you." Xukong stated.
"I guess it did. But this form… it does not seem safe." Lin Mu said with concern.
"Perhaps now it is like that but once you gain a better understanding of it, you will not feel like that." Xukong replied.
"Hopefully it is as you say, senior. But the change in the burning heart sutra… It wasn't like this before." Lin Mu said feeling doubtful.
"When you used it, I could feel the aura of the Demonic path in the ring again. There were even hints of some Demonic Qi back then. I reckon it triggered the same strength increase you normally have, but due to the furious state you were in, it increased it even more.
But then the bloodline of the Great Slumber Bear interfered. After all, when you were being suppressed, the effect reached all the way to the bloodline. This only infuriated the bloodline aspect and made it awaken.
It is not something that should be possible for a human most of the time but it did for you. And when it did, it responded to the call of the Demonic path, letting to transform further and amplify the strength to a previously unseen level." Xukong explained his interpretation.
Lin Mu thought over Senior Xukong's words and found them to be making sense.
"So the Burning heart sutra can do more than just the normal strength increase… though it is certainly reliant on the vital essence rather than spirit Qi. Maybe my increase in body cultivation also influenced this new form." Lin Mu guessed.
"That is very likely. And if it really follows this, then you may see more changes the further your body cultivation increases." Xukong agreed.
"Hmm… it is really powerful. But the cost of using it is also dangerous. Losing control of myself in the middle of a fight isn't necessarily good. It could only lead to more problems." Lin Mu said after thinking for a bit.
"That's correct, and it's exactly why you need to gain control over it. Once you have that, you won't need to be worried about it at all." Xukong added.
Having understood this now, Lin Mu decided to call the others. He still needed to explore the rest of the tomb and see what was hidden there. Plus, he needed someone to keep an eye over the old woman as well.
Lin Mu could only hope to extract as much information as they could from the old woman. He knew that with her ranking; she had most, if not all information about the northern tribes and their plan.
But Lin Mu didn't call them right then and there. First, he meditated and made sure his condition was fully normal and changed into a new pair of robes. While he knew he could trust his companions, he reckoned it was still better if he didn't let others find out about his transformation.
~Sigh~
He let out a deep sigh before returning to the third floor.