For a feat as extraordinary as summoning the Xian Sword Spirit, an act that had defied the very will of the heavens, the price Lin Mu had paid seed far too small.
He had slept for five years and awakened weakened, yes, but such a penalty felt trivial compared to the magnitude of what he had done.
Lin Mu sat on the terrace of the temple one evening, the crimson glow of dusk spilling across the marble floor. He gazed at the horizon, his hand resting lightly on the sheath across his back.
The Sword Cradle Divine Sheath had returned to his Dantian when he fainted after the battle, and though the Xian Sword Spirit within it seed dormant now, the sheath itself still responded to him faithfully.
When his fingers brushed against it, he could sense its faint hum, the quiet acknowledgnt between Dao Embryo and master.
But the spirit itself remained silent.
He had tried communing with it several tis, yet there was no answer, no flicker of consciousness within. It was as if the Xian Sword Spirit had gone into a deep slumber of its own.
Lin Mu sighed. "Just what did I really lose that day?" he murmured.
He thought back to the healers, the transcendents, and even the Celestial Saintess and the Lotus Spirit who had examined him in detail after his awakening.
Each of them had concluded the sa thing: there were no lingering effects beyond his temporary weakness and extended sleep.
So had speculated that this was the price itself, years of unconsciousness and a temporary return to mortality. If it were any other person, it could be very dangerous. After all, Lin Mu was surrounded by allies, if he was alone in a perilous place, he would be left helpless and could be easily killed.
But Lin Mu could not accept that answer.
It was too simple.
Too easy.
As he sat there lost in thought, a sudden ripple passed through his consciousness. His mind stirred, and a familiar voice echoed faintly within his
head.
"I have your answer."
Lin Mu froze. He knew that voice imdiately. "Lin Mo?"
He closed his eyes and entered his mind space.
The dark expanse of his consciousness opened before him, endless and vast. There, floating lazily in the air, was Lin Mo... the devilish reflection of himself. His black robes fluttered like shadows, his violet eyes glinting with mischief and knowledge.
Lin Mu crossed his arms. "You said you know what the price was?"
Lin Mo smirked. "Of course I do. Though before we get to that, let's talk about sothing strange."
"What do you an?"
"The sleep," Lin Mo said, his tone more serious than usual. "It wasn't just you who was unconscious. I was asleep too."
Lin Mu's eyes widened slightly. "You were... asleep?"
That revelation startled him.
From what he understood, even when his physical body was unconscious, Lin Mo, being a fragnt of his own consciousness, remained active. When Lin Mu had been trapped in the Astral Dinsion, Lin Mo had been awake. When he had been near death, Lin Mo had still been conscious.
This was the first ti he had ever heard him say otherwise.
Lin Mo floated closer, his crimson eyes glowing faintly. "Exactly. No matter what happens to you physically, I'm always awake within the mind space. That's how it has always been. But this ti was different. I was out cold. Not a flicker of awareness. Not a dream. Nothing. One mont, I felt the Xian Sword Spirit awaken. The next, everything went dark."
"That ans..." Lin Mu began slowly, "whatever price I paid affected you too." "Correct," Lin Mo said with a faint grin. "Which is precisely why I know what it
was."
Lin Mu waited silently.
"The sleep and the weakness were part of the price, yes," Lin Mo began. "But that wasn't all of it. You also lost a portion of your longevity."
Lin Mu's expression hardened. "Longevity?"
It was a reasonable theory, one that had already crossed his mind before. In fact, it had been one of the leading guesses among those who had examined him. But every check, every scan of his soul and body, had revealed no signs of shortened life.
"How's that possible?" Lin Mu asked. "The Saintess, the Lotus Spirit, even the Abbot examined . None of them found any trace of lost years."
Lin Mo chuckled softly. "That's because they were looking at the wrong baseline."
"The wrong baseline?"
"Yes," Lin Mo said, smiling slyly. "Think about it. You're still less than a hundred years old. But to everyone else, well... everyone except the Saintess, you appear as an immortal who has lived for thousands of years.
When they examined your longevity, they assud that your natural span was asured in millennia, not decades. They were comparing the wrong numbers." Lin Mu frowned. "Then why didn't the Saintess notice? She knows my true age!"
Lin Mo's grin widened. "Ah, but she was fooled by sothing else entirely, the Violet Mystic Life Tree Fruit you consud years ago. Rember what it granted you?"
"An extra thousand years of life," Lin Mu said slowly, realization dawning in his
mind.
"Exactly," Lin Mo replied. "That fruit didn't just extend your lifespan, it added its own type of longevity essence into your being. It's passive, invisible, and nearly impossible to asure until one nears the end of their natural lifespan. Only when your natural longevity runs out, will it kick into effect. When the others examined you, that added longevity masked the difference. It's like trying to asure how much the ocean recedes when you take away a single
cup of water."
Lin Mu fell silent, his brows furrowed. "So the reason no one noticed..."
"...is because your or rather our... lifespan is absurdly high," Lin Mo finished for him. "Between your Qi and your Body cultivation, you already had over eighteen thousand years of natural longevity. The Violet Mystic Life Tree Fruit added another thousand. So, in total, nineteen thousand years."
Lin Mu exhaled slowly. "Then how much did I lose?"
Lin Mo's smile softened slightly. "Not much. Just a hundred years."
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