What Lin Wu had done was something he was not fully sure that it would work. Even the system had only told him of a fifty percent probability of success. He had not actually healed Shirong in the complete sense, rather he had used the Unknown energy as a shackle.

Lin Wu had asked the system whether it would be possible to create a unique function that could control the unknown energy and manipulate it while still keeping it in Shirong's core. The system had told him this would be possible, but Shirong may find out about Lin Wu.

But Lin Wu figured since his senses were restrained, this would not matter too much. And even if he did find out that Lin Wu was fully sentient, Lin Wu would easily be able to kill him in his current condition. The interface that the system had created already allowed Lin Wu to leave the ring if he wanted to do so.

Seeing that the benefits outweighed the risks, Lin Wu went ahead with the plan and ordered the system to initiate the process. His bet turned out to be good as he had succeeded, albeit with a few injuries to Shirong. Which to be honest didn't matter to Lin Wu.

The function that Lin Wu had asked the system to create had multiple properties. Not only would this function mask the operation of his spirit sense from Shirong, it would also make his own perception skewed in terms of things that pertained to Lin Wu.

There was also a spirit qi stealing property that Lin Wu asked the system to make. This would allow him to obtain around 1% of all spirit qi that Shirong cultivated and refined. Lin Wu kept the percentage low since he did not want to push Shirong to the very brink.

If Shirong got spooked and decided to get to his clan for help, he would have to kill him. The current situation was more beneficial for Lin Wu as he could reap the benefits for a long time. Besides, the best thing for Lin Wu in terms of benefits was none other than Shirong's identity and knowledge.

Still, not all of the properties of the new back door function were active currently. Only the one that hid his spirit qi was active. The other properties would be activated once the system verified that everything was stable.

The biggest variable currently that forced Lin Wu to do this was none other than the unknown energy. While the system could absorb and manipulate it to a certain extent, they still didn't know what exactly it was. Neither did they know what kind of effects it could have.

Thus erring on the side of caution, Lin Wu decided to observe it for the time being. He had also asked the system to absorb around half of the unknown energy for its own analysis. But even then, the half portion that was in Shirong's core was enough to harm him.

Lin Wu merely had to 'loosen' the restraints a bit and 'punish' Shirong.

He also looked at the Host data window and saw that the new entry had been created in it.

~Ding~

——

VITAL ENERGY STORAGE: 0 units

SYSTEM ENERGY STORAGE: 4980 units

UNKNOWN ENERGY: 2 units (wisps)

——

Seeing the amount, Lin Wu was a bit surprised. He had not expected that such a small amount of it was enough to harm Shirong to this extent.

"Wait, a minute! This energy is in wisp units!" Lin Wu uttered with absolute shock.

"This means… merely four wisp units were enough to overpower thousands of drop units…" Lin Wu stated.

'The energy was formed from the combined strength of over thirty people and Even then it is so low, how? What kind of form was this changed into?' Lin Wu wondered.

"System, do you have more information on it, now that you've absorbed a portion?" Lin Wu questioned.

~Ding~

——

ANSWER: The system's preliminary analysis shows that the energy was modified by the effect of the three guardian statues. What they did is currently beyond the understanding of the system, but it can be assumed that it had been refined and condensed to a great extent to turn into this kind of a form.

——

Lin Wu was astounded by this and couldn't help but think of the story that Shirong had said to his two followers before about the three guardian beasts.

According to it, the three ancient clans had awakened the relics that they had found and summoned the beasts. They had then fought with the invaders and protected this world. In turn, the religion was established.

"Seems like there is more to these statues than I thought…" Lin Wu muttered.

Then another idea came to his mind.

"If there are so many temples, then these statues should be made by someone, right? Perhaps the manufacturers know more about this energy, because if there is something that can refine spirit qi to this extent then it should be quite valuable.

Perhaps it is a formation or a material of some kind?" Lin Wu said.

Meanwhile, Shirong was thinking about the unknown energy too in the real world.

'What kind of energy is that? But I'm lucky the spear was able to restrain it or I would have likely died.' Shirong thought to himself.

He looked inside the ring and saw that the Green crystal spear was still the same, floating around in the spatial dimension. Unknown to him, the new back door function was already working. Even the few spirit qi fluctuations that Lin Wu was intentionally emanating were hidden to Shirong's perception.

"It is a 'Backdoor' indeed…" Lin Wu muttered to himself.

Shirong looked at the spear for a bit before finally withdrawing the spear from the ring. He felt it to be the same weight as the last time, but there was something strange about it. He felt as if his connection with the spear was both closer and farther at the same time.