Please read author note at end.

----

Lin Mu opened his eyes and found himself in front of the ethereal altar within the mysterious ring.

The last thing he remembered was the stream of liquid spirit qi filling into his dantian and his total stores reaching about one thousand eight hundred drops of liquid spirit qi. He knew that he had refined a lot of drops of liquid spirit qi but had never expected that it had reached such a large amount.

This was completely incomprehensible to him, and he did not know how he had even done this. When he was looking at the stream of liquid spirit qi before it looked much smaller to him, being only eighty times bigger than a normal drop in size.

But when that very stream had been added to his dantian, it turned out to be three hundred drops in total instead. This had instantly pushed him through the bottleneck between the late stage and peak stage of the qi refining realm.

Lin Mu had expected that the mysterious ring would do something the moment broke through the late stage of the qi refining realm into the peak stage, and now that he was in the mysterious ring his expectations were fully confirmed.

~Huu~

Lin Mu took a deep breath and relaxed his tense body. While he could finally perceive the changes in his body, he knew that it was not the right time to explore them. Right now he needed to see what the mysterious ring had called him here for.

He looked around but could not see Senior Xukong nearby. But he could also see a faintly glowing barrier in the distance that surrounded him and the altar completely.

"So this is the barrier senior Xukong was speaking about before. Looks like it separates the altar from the rest of the ring and has a special function.

" Lin Mu muttered to himself as he walked to the altar in the very middle.

He reached there in a minute and saw that it was thrumming with waves of energy. He found them to be similar to before and now knew what he was going to receive.

Lin Mu placed his hand on the altar as it was beckoning to him and closed his eyes. A flurry of runes appeared out of the altar, turning into streaks of light entering into Lin Mu's head. Soon information started etching itself in Lin Mu's memories. What Lin Mu was receiving right now was none other than the next skill.

Lin Mu had received the first skill 'Flicker' and the second skill 'Blink' when he first became a qi cultivator. He then obtained the third skill 'Phase' when he broke through the late stage of the qi refining realm.

From the consumption of spirit qi that these skills required, Lin Mu could estimate that every new skill was only granted to him when he satisfied a certain condition. For the first two skills, all he needed was spirit qi wisps, thus they were directly granted to him at the very start when he became a cultivator.

Lin Mu then received the third skill 'phase' when he satisfied the condition which was none other than liquid spirit qi. Once that condition was fulfilled, he obtained the third skill.

But according to this logic, it didn't seem right that he was getting a fourth skill now. If liquid spirit qi was a requirement, he should have received it a long time ago. There was perhaps another condition that was needed.

Lin Mu didn't have to think for long before he realized what it was. It was a very recent thing and he would have easily missed out on obtaining this skill had it not been for what he had done. The hidden condition needed for the fourth skill was none other than the spatial attribute qi that he had absorbed from the tear in the barrier.

Lin Mu sensed that the cloud of spatial attribute qi was nowhere in the ring, thus came to the conclusion that perhaps it was used up by the ring to give him the fourth skill.

After the process was done, he opened his eyes that momentarily shined with a silvery glow.

"So it's like this…

" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

He then started walking towards the barrier of the altar and left its confines. The ethereal alter behind him dimmed down to its previous brightness and settled down.

Upon leaving the barrier, Lin Mu soon noticed a grey orb of light flying towards him with great speed. This orb came to a stop in front of him and was none other than senior Xukong. It was evident that he had been waiting for Lin Mu to finish the process and come out of the barrier.

"Seems like you succeeded,

" Xukong said in a content tone.

"Indeed Senior, I even exceeded what I had expected of myself.

" Lin Mu replied.

"Good… Very good. Cultivation is going against the very heavens; if you can't even exceed your own expectations, how can you exceed the will of the heaves.

" Xukong spoke in a sagely tone.

Lin Mu nodded confidently, as he had fully realized this fact by now. He also knew that as long as he pushed himself, exceeding his limits was nothing. He wanted to even beyond that and keep on going till he reached another limit. Then he would find a method to overcome that limit and keep on going.

"So, what did you receive this time?

" Xukong asked.

"I received the fourth skill from the ethereal altar. It is called as 'Fade'.

" Lin Mu revealed.

"Hmm, 'Fade' that's a rather unique name. Do you know what it does? Or do you still need to test it out?

" Xukong questioned.

"I already have a certain idea of what it can do, but to properly confirm it I would still need to test it. Though I can tell that this skill is quite different than the other three skills.

" Lin Mu answered.

"Oh? Why do you say so?

" Xukong asked curiously.

"This skill has more information than all the other three skills combined. I believe that I'll still need to comprehend it a bit… I Umm… have a headache.

"