Hearing Senior Xukong's suggestion, Lin Mu decided to do exactly that.
"I have a good hunch where the formation array's spirit Qi source is…" Lin Mu said before he looked towards the other end of the floor.
While it could not be seen directly from here, Lin Mu was dead sure that the runes should definitely link up with other runes in the corridor and then they finally reached the sphere that was located on the other side.
Lin Mu used his spirit sense to check all the runes in this room before finding the layout for the spirit Qi channeling formation that was included in it. Though the moment Lin Mu figured it out, he felt angry.
"Dammit, other than the direct links on the surface, all the rest are hidden and melded with the ruins." Lin Mu said.
While it was not an absolute sign of failure, Lin Mu could still figure out a certain pattern to them and he reckoned if he spent a certain amount of time with them, he will figure them out.
~Sigh~
"Let's see what it really is like on the other side." Lin Mu muttered and moved like the wind through the corridors.
A short while later, he ended up facing the dark blue sphere. Here the uncomfortable aura was many times stronger and he felt the hair on his hand stand up. He chanted the calming heart sutra and wiped away the feeling before taking another look at it.
This time his eyes could perceive the fine runes that joined up with the dark blue sphere, but it seemed more like multilevel clothes. If you wanted to remove one layer, he would have to remove the topmost layer.
While Lin Mu was analyzing the formations and runes, Xukong was focusing on the dark blue sphere.
"Just what is this… A Dao Crystal? Epiphany Crystal or… An Ascendancy crystal." Xukong went through a few options.
Other than the Dao Crystal, Lin Mu had no knowledge about these things. Besides, they were not something Lin Mu could learn at this point in time, either. He had neither the cultivation base nor the basic understanding to learn about them.
Xukong would certainly not let this be known to Lin Mu and didn't think he should burden him with it.
"For a world like this, the options are quite less. Other than those three, nothing makes sense. What could cause some power to seal and hide it away?" Xukong wondered.
Lin Mu spent a few hours doing this and the longer he went, the deeper he fell into the mystery of the formations. He unknowingly started chanting the calming heart sutra as a means to get better focus and found a certain node of the formation that seemed to be the most accessible.
Lin Mu's spirit sense extended at that moment and touched that node. The moment he did that though, he felt a string of memories entering his mind. His vision turned blank before something else had replaced it.
Instead of the fifth floor, Lin Mu found himself what could only be somewhere underground outside of the ruins. But what Lin Mu saw surprised him. Below the ruins, there were thousands if not tens of thousands of beasts hidden.
All of them were seemingly asleep and all of them had a crystal on their bodies. They were faintly absorbing some kind of an energy and growing. The most shocking thing was their cultivation speed.
Lin Mu saw what were just a handful of pill worms turning into a dog sized beast before condensing a crystal in their forehead and continuing to grow into a ferocious beast, the like of which Lin Mu had seen before.
Lin Mu focused on their crystals and could estimate their cultivation bases from them.
'Core condensation, Nascent soul, and Dao Shell realm beasts. Though there is something strange here.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
Continuing his observation, he soon found the biggest beast of them all. It had very Dark Pupils and had a body that was massive. It had a purple core embedded in its head and was emanating a killer aura.
"Dao Treading realm beast!" Lin Mu muttered.
He looked at the other places that were suppressing the beasts and preventing them from waking up as well. Lin Mu's mind traveled wide, and he saw the outer part of the ruins.
The entire ruin was built on top of a pillar of strange beasts. Seeing this, a few thoughts came to Lin Mu.
"Doesn't this mean… the reason why the ruins appear and disappear is due to the beasts? If their numbers increase and reach a certain point, the ruins rise and appear on the surface.
Once the cultivators kill a certain number of beasts, the ruins fall back down. And that Dark Blue sphere… it's the condensed aura and energy that has leaked out from all the beasts this entire time." Lin Mu analyzed.
Having learned this all, Lin Mu felt a bit anxious and knew that he needed to leave this place.
~shua~
His connection with the formation was severed, and he returned to the real world.
"Did you find something?" Xukong questioned, having sensed the change in Lin Mu.
"Yes, I did senior. Please take a look." Lin Mu answered.
Xukong checked the memories and saw the massive number of beasts being suppressed beaten the ruins. Their aura and energy would leak to the top before being used by the teleportation array and other formations to work.
"It is certainly more than we expected. But our initial hypothesis turned out to be true. This is not an inheritance ground, it is a seal to stop some evil beasts from appearing here." Xukong replied.
"Yes. Guess we need to leave quickly now." Lin Mu said before he moved to the room with the teleportation array.
His gaze was like a sharp knife and it felt like it would cut anything. Lin Mu's spirit sense quickly isolated the formation he needed to sever and in the next second, it was done.
~shua~
~HONG~
Soon, great changes started in and around the ruins.