Chapter 333 - Sneaking In
It didn't take Lin Mu more than a few seconds to calm down as he could not afford to take any longer time. He was in a sensitive situation and needed to act quickly. He spread his spirit sense around again to check for anyone else that could be in the area and found there to be no one in the twenty meter radius.
Having confirmed this, he switched to a single tendril of spirit qi and scanned a wider area of a hundred meters. This time a few people appeared in his range. Lin Mu had been careful while using his spirit sense, as he did not want to alert them by letting it touch them.
Lin Mu had used a different method and had sensed the faint fluctuations of spirit qi coming off their bodies instead. While this allowed him to see that there was a person there, he couldn't tell their appearance as he wasn't actually touching them.
While this would allow him to also get a rough estimate of their cultivation as well, but if someone was deliberately hiding them, it would make it hard for Lin Mu to know. Still, this was the best he could do right now and he was fine with it.
Lin Mu had sensed five people in the range. Three of them were people with very faint spirit qi fluctuations being at the early stage and were similar to the servant that he had accidentally killed. Seeing that he was in the servant quarters, it was obvious that they were servants.
The other two though were at the mid stage of the qi refining realm and the spirit qi fluctuations coming from them were more rhythmic.
"Those should be the disciples of the Tri cauldron peony sect." Lin Mu muttered.
From what Lin Mu had heard from Hei Wen and the Lord Wu Hei before, there were originally ten disciples of the Tri cauldron peony sect here. But it had increased to twenty five in the recent days and would be increasing even more, apparently.
The mayor had given them special permission because of which the disciples of the Tri cauldron peony sect could freely enter the Wu Lim city. It would have been fine usu sally, if not for the fact that they had been hiding their identity as well.
While their names were recorded while entering, it was not actually spread to the guards. Only a certain few knew about that, and this was not revealed. Just from this, Lin Mu was suspicious about them. If they were secretly gathering their people then it was likely that they wanted to hide their power.
Lin Mu moved from the back of the latrines and got to the next section. Walking through the walls using the third skill Phase made it quite easy to avoid the servants. Still, Lin Mu realized that not all of the walls were passable using phase.
There were some walls, such as the main ones that separated the servant and the main section of the courtyard that had formations placed on them. This prevented Lin Mu from using the third skill Phase on them. He couldn't use Fade either as his spirit sense was restricted either and he did not want to end up right in front of someone.
He crossed another small section and appeared in the part where the two mid stage qi refining realm cultivators were standing. He looked at their robes and saw that they were indeed the disciples of the Tri cauldron peony sect. The servants were wearing different clothes compared to them.
Both of the men were standing at the entrance of the servant section as if acting as guards and watching who passed from there.
"Seems like these guys don't trust their servants either." Lin Mu muttered.
"This is cautious behaviors as these servants are likely not part of their sect and are merely assigned here to take care of the courtyard," Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu only had one way, and that was to pass from the exit, but the two disciples were blocking it. He then looked at what was beyond it and saw that there were a few statues there. They were decorative ones and were just in the range of his Blink.
He thus used the second skill blink and teleported to the statues and phase to stand inside them. He peeked at the two disciples and saw that they were none the wiser. He then looked at the next location that was possible to go and blinked there.
Now Lin Mu was completely out of their sights. But he scanned ahead using his spirit sense and found three more disciples sitting around. This area was the garden area and a few stone tables and chairs were set up here. Two disciples were playing chess, and the third one was observing.
The area in front of Lin Mu was wide open, and there wasn't anything he could hide behind. The only things were some stones that were placed on the ground, but they were not that big, being a size larger than his head.
Lin Mu remembered his earlier excursion of the caves and used phase to enter the ground only to meet resistance after two feet.
"Dammit, the formations extend into the ground as well." Lin Mu coursed.
"This should be an encapsulating type barrier formation. This one prevents enemies from digging through the ground and attacking the residents." Xukong explained.
Lin Mu had no choice but to improvise and enter the ground. After having sunk down for two feet, Lin Mu crouched and moved that way. He went to the closest stone and hid his head inside it.
"This is quite difficult…" Lin Mu internally muttered.
"Impressive move, brother Pei Lao." One of the disciples praised.
"Ah, this is nothing Senior. I merely learned some skills from watching the elders playing the other day." The disciple named Pei Lao replied.
"Perhaps you should take part in the chess tournament in the coming days. Sister Ye Zi Jin's wedding was delayed, so they added that as well in the pre-wedding entertainment. I'm sure the elders will appreciate it too." The third disciple that was observing commented.