Fifteen minutes before the arrival of the leader.
Hei Wen had taken a brief rest and was now feeling a bit better. Even still, the thoughts of the nightmare that occurred before haunted him. He could even remember the pain of being cut to pieces by millions of swords, clearly.
Hei Wen wondered what kind of cultivation technique or skill Lin Mu practiced that even his mere presence caused him to experience this kind of a backlash. Just him hearing the esoteric chants was enough to defeat him.
Though after experiencing this, Hei Wen did not completely regret it.
'At the very least, I'll be able to inform the Lord about this. That way he won't be at a disadvantage.' Hei Wen thought.
With this thought in mind, Hei Wen went to find Hei Bao. Hei Bao had already asked him to come to meet with him after resting, so this just met his purpose. Hei Wen soon found Hei Bao in his personal room. He saw that the door was already open, thus he just walked in. Hei Bao was currently sitting on his desk while reading a report from a scroll in his hand.
'Preparing for the arrival of the leader, I see.' Hei Wen inwardly said.
Hei Bao noticed Hei Wen's footsteps, thus looked up to see him enter.
"Are you feeling well now?" Hei Bao questioned.
"Not completely, but better than before at least." Hei Wen replied.
"You should just rest more then. The leader won't mind your absence, I'll inform her of your condition." Hei Bao replied with concern.
"Yes, I'll do that. But I need to tell you about what happened to me before that." Hei Wen interrupted.
Hei Bao nodded in response and spoke,
"Go on ahead then."
Hei Wen then started to tell Hei Bao of what happened from the very start. How he saw Lin Mu speaking some esoteric chants and how he got curious and listened to them. He then told him what he felt after that and then how he was trapped in his mind and experienced the nightmare of being chopped into innumerable pieces by a million swords.
Hei Wen also told Hei Bao, how he had also heard Lin Mu speak similar chats during the battle with the culprits, and how those chants seemed to have immobilized the culprits until they were killed by Lin Mu.
The more Hei Bao heard, the more shocked and concerned he got. Hei Bao knew that there were as many cultivation techniques in the world as there were drops of water in an ocean. There were common cultivation techniques that were similar to each other, and then there were cultivation techniques that were completely unique.
Hei Bao had heard rumors or more like legends about forbidden cultivation techniques that only a chosen few could cultivate. These cultivation techniques were highly attuned to their user and would cause a backlash for others that tried using it.
But even then, he had never heard of a cultivation technique that could harm another person if he was just in the presence of one. From the vivid descriptions and the expressions of Hei Wen, Hei Bao could tell that this was no mere exaggeration and was truly what he said it was.
'If just his presence is this dangerous, then what would it be like when he actually attacks someone with his full strength.' Hei Bao thought.
Hei Bao could tell that Lin Mu did not use his full strength during the previous battle either. He now understood how lucky they were that Lin Mu chose to join their side and was not their foe, well at least not now.
'I can't let this happen though, who knows what kind of background that boy has. For all we know, his history could all have been faked and he must've been trained by hidden experts.' Hei Bao thought.
After Hei Wen was done with his explanation, a slight expression of relief could be seen on his face, as if a burden was lifted off of his mind. Though what he didn't know was that this burden had not disappeared, instead it had just transferred over to Hei Bao and had even increased in size.
"Thank you for informing me of this, it was wise of you to do so. You should go and rest now, I'll take care of the rest." Hei Bao spoke.
Hei Wen simply nodded and left the room to go and rest again.
"The leader should be arriving soon. I better gather the others and wait at the entrance." Hei Bao muttered.
Hei Bao stored the scroll that he was reading back into a drawer and then left the room as well.
"Gather at the main hall Hei Corps, the leader should be arriving any minute." Hei Bao shouted out.
*****
Present time at the storage room inside the safe house.
Hei Bao had just finished telling the veiled woman who was the leader of the Hei Corps about Lin Mu. After hearing his entire explanation, the veiled woman was fully shocked and could not help but praise their luck. Though she still could not tell whether it would turn to misfortune in the future or not.
"We better take this one step at a time. The most basic thing would be to avoid conflict with this boy 'Lin Mu' and to prevent any enmity." The Veiled Woman concluded.
'Perhaps the lord should personally meet this boy.' The veiled woman thought.
"As you say, leader." Hei Bao responded.
The veiled woman then nodded and spoke again.
"The others will go and try to gather more clues about the culprits. In the meantime, we should go and meet up with this Lin Mu."
Hei Bao gestured for the veiled woman to follow and then led her to the room where Lin Mu was currently residing in. They reached the room in a minute and Hei Bao opened the door. He walked in first and looked for Lin Mu. He instantly spotted Lin Mu as he was still sitting in the same position on the bed.
Lin Mu was not as focused on cultivating right now, thus was easily able to detect when the door of the room opened. His eyes snapped open, and he saw Hei Bao entering the room, with another person in tow. This person had a veil on their face that hid their features, but Lin Mu could tell that it was a woman.
"The leader of the Hei corps," Lin Mu softly muttered.
"Keep your spirit sense alert, she may try to probe you," Xukong ordered.
"Yes, Senior." Lin Mu replied in his mind.
Following senior Xukong's words, Lin Mu extended his spirit sense and kept it alert. In the next moment, Senior Xukong's words came true as he sensed the collision of another spirit sense with his own. This was his first time experiencing the spirit sense of another person except for senior Xukong, Duan Ke, and Old man Jing.
Lin Mu saw the distance between them and estimated that the range of the spirit sense of the veiled woman should be a little less than ten meters, most probably at nine meters. Lin Mu could also observe the difference between the veiled woman's spirit sense and the other spirit senses he had experienced. It was much weaker than any of the other ones he had observed.
Of the spirit senses he had experienced before, Senior Xukong's was the strongest, while Duan Ke's was the weakest. But even still, the veiled woman's spirit sense was at least ten times as weaker than that of Duan Ke's. Lin Mu even had the confidence that he would overtake the veiled woman in a few weeks' time.
Similar to Lin Mu, the veiled woman had also thought of trying to estimate Lin Mu's cultivation base. But when she felt her spirit sense probe being blocked by Lin Mu's own, she instantly retracted it. She could feel the density of Lin Mu's spirit sense and did not want to probe further, as it could end up offending him.
'His spirit sense is already denser than mine, and his range should be wider than mine as well, he must just be restraining it.' The veiled woman thought.
'He should be at the very peak of the Qi refining realm, the same as me. But his cultivation technique should be much stronger and superior.' The veiled woman pondered.
Lin Mu could not have imagined that in the brief moment their spirit senses collided, the veiled woman would have thought of so many things and even had overestimated his cultivation by a long shot. He didn't mind the spirit probe the veiled woman used and was fine with it as she instantly withdrew it after meeting his.
The veiled woman came close and stood in front of him.
"Greetings, I'm Lin Mu." Lin Mu greeted the veiled woman with cupped hands, as was the proper etiquette.
In a surprise to him, the veiled woman actually reciprocated his greeting.
"Greetings, fellow cultivator. My name is Hei Wan." The veiled woman replied respectfully.
Hei Bao was also surprised by this, not because of how the veiled woman greeted Lin Mu respectfully, as it was already expected; but because of the tone of her voice. The leader who was always cold and straight with her tone had suddenly switched it for a mellow and genial tone that was bordering on the realm of sweet too!