Lin Mu took a deep breath as he looked at the new layer of armor that had now formed on his skin. This was the third stage of the mortal strengthening scripture and it had taken half a box of the earth elemental herbs for him to reach it.

The stone like patterns had now disappeared and it was as if Lin Mu was wearing a brown plate armor. Lin Mu couldn't tell how much the difference had increased by but could sense the dense earth attribute spirit Qi that was packed into it.

He tapped on the armor layer and found that his arm easily passed through it and it was as if it didn't exist.

"Only an attack would cause it to harden…

" Lin Mu muttered to himself before raising his hand and punching his other hand.

~bam~

The sound of collision could be heard as his arm hit the brown armor layer. It easily defended against it and Lin Mu felt nothing but knew that the power in the attack was enough to break the bones of a Qi refining realm cultivator.

"Well… that didn't take as many resources as I had expected. I still have a lot more left for the next stage.

" Lin Mu said.

"Don't forget the requirement only increased exponentially after each stage. You may barely be able to reach the fourth stage with all this here.

" Xukong replied.

Lin Mu nodded his head before meditating for a bit and optimizing his condition. Practicing directly after a breakthrough could make their cultivation base unstable and thus it was better to let it stabilize for a bit.

Lin Mu spent an hour like this before starting his practice again. He started eating the rest of the herbs and continued the process. And just as senior Xukong had said, even after finishing all the boxes of the earth elemental spirit herbs, Lin Mu was unable to have a breakthrough to the next stage.

But while he had not seen any progress in the mortal strengthening scripture, he did get a different surprise. He looked at his spleen and saw that its refinement had actually increased a little bit.

After his spleen was fully refined, he would reach the first stage of the Five treasures realm and just his body alone would have strength equivalent to that of a peak core condensation realm cultivator.

'Perhaps if I'm able to finish the first stage of the Five treasures realm before I reach the Nascent Soul realm, I may even be able to compete against the Nascent Soul realm cultivators.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

During his time in the Sleepscape, he had read about the Body cultivators in the Memoirs of the lost immortal. The lost immortal himself was not one and was a true Qi cultivator, but during his life, he had seen a lot of body cultivators himself.

Their power was not something that normal Qi cultivators could compare to. Just progressing in one stage of the five treasure realms would put them at the same point as that of a peak stage cultivator of that equivalent Qi realm.

Another thing was their terrifying bodies which were durable and had better resistances than normal Qi cultivators. Overall, it seemed like their advantages over the Qi cultivators were many, but in reality, it was balanced.

Body cultivators couldn't use Qi skills and would have to use their bodies to directly fight as common martial artists would do. While they could use the spirit Qi in their bodies and with vital energy, emitting it out of their bodies was often difficult for them.

Another thing was that the effort needed to progress for the body cultivators was immense, such that ten normal Qi cultivators would be able to cultivate at the same time that was required by them. The resources needed also increased by quite a bit.

While body cultivators were rare, what was even rare was someone who cultivated both the body cultivation path and the Qi cultivation path. The people who were successfully able to do both were considered to be rare than a Qilin's horns or a phoenix's feathers.

While some people did practice a little bit of body cultivation along with Qi cultivation, they only did this to increase the strength of their bodies and would not fully focus on this path. Doing so would only cause them to waste their potential.

He spent the rest of the night in eating all the herbs and practicing the mortal strengthening scripture and had to stop as he had run out of the herbs. He looked at the pills and picks out the lowest quality ones first.

They were all sorted according to their quality, just as Lin Mu had asked from the shopkeeper and thus he had an ease of use. He wondered if he should start using them, but was then interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Senior, would you like some breakfast?

" A Tongguo Bing asked from outside.

~Rumble~

And just as he heard the word breakfast, his stomach gave him the answer.

"I may as well eat now…

" Lin Mu said before opening the door.

"Sorry to disturb you senior, but we got some food and was wondering if you would like some.

" Tongguo Bing asked.

"Alright,

" Lin Mu said, and the girl gave him a tray of food that she had already prepared for him.

Lin Mu looked at the quantity and knew that this would barely fill the gaps in his teeth. Still, he accepted the food and finished it rather quickly before thinking of eating more.

"Do you… want more food, senior?

" The woman questioned.

"Yes…. How about you go buy me some, I'll give you the money?

" Lin Mu replied.

"SURE!

" Tongguo Bing replied with a smile.

"Alright, get me as manly dishes as you can that have spirit beast meat and spirit herbs in them.

" Lin Mu spoke before handing her ten gold coins.

She happily skipped away and Lin Mu went back to the library.

"At least I'll save time this way…

"