The man that was holding the pill kneeled down and held out the pill towards Lin Mu.
"Here, take this pill, Senior. It's a healing pill." The man spoke.
Lin Mu didn't take the pill instantly, but instead looked at Hei Yingjie and saw that the others had given him a pill as well. Taking a breath of relief, Lin Mu took the pill from the man. He popped it in his mouth and swallowed it.
It was surprisingly bland, and Lin Mu did not taste anything when he ate it. But when the pill was swallowed down into his stomach, he could feel a strange warmth radiating from it. The warmth soon turned into intense qi that was absorbed by his body.
The medicinal effects were absorbed and Lin Mu's injuries started to visibly heal. Even the men that had given him the pill were shocked by the quick effect.
"Does this pill work so fast?" One of the men asked.
"I don't know either, the Leader gave us a few of these pills before we left. She didn't explain much but just said that they were healing pills." The man answered.
Lin Mu moved with difficulty and sat in a cross legged position. He circulated the remaining amount of spirit qi he had and assisted the effects of the healing pill. A few minutes later he was completely healed, but the exhaustion of spirit qi was still there.
Lin Mu chanted the severing heart sutra and peered inside his dantian. He observed that he barely had fifty wisps of spirit qi left in his dantian from the previous 1500. The single drop of liquid spirit qi was also there at the very bottom of the dantian.
Previously it was hard to spot due to the sea of spirit qi wisps, but now that his dantian was nearly empty it was rather easy to see it. It would slightly gleam every so often and look like a drop of morning dew.
Lin Mu withdrew his attention from his dantian and opened his eyes. He saw that the men were no longer near him and were now cleaning up the battlefield. Some of the ones that were more injured had also taken some pills and were recuperating.
They had put on bandages and could be seen piling the steel back wolf corpses in a corner. There was barely any space left to freely walk, since you would stumble on a random corpse. Lin Mu looked for Hei Yingjie but couldn't find him anywhere.
'He's probably in a tent.' Lin Mu thought.
His sight was then pulled towards the massive corpse of the Alpha steel back wolf. It was still lying where it was before, and his short sword was still stuck where it was in its skull. Evident the other people had not touched it or had tried to move it.
"Senior Lin Mu!" One of the men shouted.
Lin Mu turned his head to the side to look at the person calling out to him. It was the same man that had given him the healing pill. The man was laking towards him and came to a stop in front of him.
"Senior Hei Yingjie is in the tent, if you're looking for him." The man spoke.
"Alright, take me to him." Lin Mu replied.
The man nodded and gestured for him to follow. He then brought him to the previous tent that Hei Yingjie was in. Lin Mu entered and saw the unconscious Hei Yingjie. He was still injured, unlike Lin Mu and his wounds were not completely healed.
Lin Mu extended his spirit sense and observed the condition of Hei Yingjie. He saw the internal injuries that numbered in the tens. There was blood pooled in his viscera and there were tiny clots that were hampering his circulation.
Lin Mu then checked Hei Yingjie's meridians and saw that while they seemed to be fine for the most part. There were still some areas where there were cracks and fissures. The meridians were also rather dry and barely had any spirit qi circulating through them.
Lin Mu then checked Hei Yingjie's dantian and saw something different. There was no spirit qi wisps in his dantian, instead what was inside his dantian was a small sphere that was pale white. It was about the size of a pea and was suspended in the center of the dantian.
'So this is the spirit qi core of a core condensation expert.' Lin Mu thought as he closely observed it.
"Oh? This is a rather small core." Xukong spoke in Lin Mu's mind.
"It's small? Is the core supposed to be bigger?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Not always. The core of an early stage core condensation expert usually starts off like this. But from what we've seen, Hei Yingjie was at the middle stage of the core condensation stage. His core should have been at least twice this size." Xukong answered.
"Umm, did he regress perhaps?" Lin Mu suggested.
"I thought so too, at first. But from what I see, it does not seem likely. Even if a core condensation realm cultivator's cultivation base regresses, the overall size of their core wouldn't decrease. It's just the density of the core that would decrease. Instead of a solid sphere that you can see right now, it would instead become translucent." Xukong explained.
"That what happened to him?" Lin Mu asked.
"I can't tell exactly. We need to observe the core of other core condensation realm cultivators. Only after seeing a few more samples will I be able to determine the problem." Xukong replied.
"Ah! The Alpha steel back wolf. It's at the core condensation realm too, we can maybe check it." Lin Mu suggested.
"Yes, we can do that. Although the results won't exactly be accurate as it's a beast and not a human, I can still guess somethings from it." Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu was about to turn around and go outside the tent when Xukong spoke again.
"I think you should recuperate your spirit qi first. Also, this man's condition seems to be worsening."