Chapter 5 - Success And Failure
Lin Mu’s hand was pulled into the rift. He felt as if it was dipped in water, yet it did not feel right; it was neither cold nor warm leaving him unable to tell what kind of substance it was. He moved his hand around, trying to pull it back out, but it felt like it was stuck. Lin Mu could move it around inside the rift with no restrictions, but could not pull it backwards.
His mind was going crazy at not understanding the situation he was in. Never having seen or heard about such a thing, he thought his hand may become stuck there permanently if he did not pull it out quickly. He tried shouting for help, but was very far from the town and there were no people nearby. He could only hope that a hunter passes nearby and hears his cries.
’How do I pull my hand out!? I can’t just keep it like this, and it doesn’t look like anyone will come help me anytime soon. I’m much too far from the town and hunters don’t come to this section of the outskirts to hunt either, since there aren’t any beasts worth their time here. I’ll just have to keep trying.’
Lin Mu was unaware that if any other cultivator saw his condition, they would be even more shocked than him. The spatial rift that was swallowing his hand could have barely even been opened by a Dao shell realm cultivator with the help of a spirit treasure and all their strength. Yet, here he was not even a cultivator and had barely just reached the fourth stage of the body tempering realm.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.
Neither did he know that tens of thousands of kilometres away from where he was, in the Sky Precepts sect, the star catching peak’s disciples were in an uproar trying to find the location of the spatial disturbance they were detecting; since it had already been ten minutes after they detected it and it had not disappeared yet.
Lin Mu kept on moving around his hand in the rift, struggling to pull it out, when he felt his fingers touch something; being the first time he felt something solid in the rift. He tried to touch the object again but could not find it. It had now been fifteen minutes since his hand had been stuck inside the spatial rift and now he could see that the rift was getting narrower as if it was closing. Getting even more worried, he thought if he did not pull his hand out now it may be severed.
Frantically struggling, Lin Mu did all he could to try to save his hand when he felt his hand touch something once again. This time, he gripped the object firmly. As he held the object in his hand, he felt the hold of the spatial rift on his hand getting loose. Taking the initiative, he pulled violently one last time with all the strength of his body and finally his hand was pulled out.
"You all are not at fault here. This was a very difficult task. Whatever the anomaly was, it could evade the world border. It’s already a miracle we were even able to keep the formation active for fifteen minutes. I’ll report everything to Elder Han myself, I’m sure he’ll understand our circumstances."
The other disciples also stood up and cupped their hands in gratitude to the head disciple Li Jing.
Li Jing pulled out his communication jade and contacted Elder Han about their failure in determining the location of the spatial disturbance and also informed him of the approximate area in which the disturbance may have originated.
At this time Elder Han was in the mission pavilion, talking to the pavilion elder in-charge about issuing the new mission to the disciples and also to select suitable disciples who would be going to investigate the spatial anomaly. Elder Han felt the communication jade hanging on his waist buzz again.
He held it and listened to the report from the Star catching peak’s Head disciple Li Jing and his apology for not being able to find the exact location. Honestly, he was surprised they could even keep the formation active for as long as fifteen minutes and still be able to detect the fluctuations.
Although all the disciples of the star catching peak were at core condensation, with the head disciple being at the peak of core condensation realm, controlling the star catching peak formation array for so long would have completely drained all the disciples of qi. He told Li Jing not to worry about any punishment and told him that they did well. Even though the approximate area they narrowed down was still three-fourths the size of the northern lands, it would still reduce the time required to investigate the anomaly.
Neither elder Han nor the star catching peak disciples knew that the formation stayed active for over fifteen minutes not because of the disciples effort but because the spatial rift that tore open lasted for that long, otherwise they may have found nothing at all.
Lin Mu, completely oblivious to the machinations happening tens of thousands of kilometres away from him at the top tier sect of the Great Zhou Empire, was currently deep in sleep. As Lin Mu slipped into deep sleep, he once again found himself in a familiar dark space.
"...Why am I here again?"