Chapter 514 - Yulong And The Inheritance
~Sigh~
"Such is the world of cultivation…" Lin Mu muttered to himself, unable to really put Fang Jiao at fault.
If it was him in the same position and he did not have the mysterious ring, he probably would have done the same thing.
"You will see far too many similar things in the future. The fortunate encounters are there for those that want to risk it and sacrifice for it. Those who hesitate will fall and never come out on top." Xukong spoke.
~huu~
"I understand senior." Lin Mu said.
"Good, now you should continue reading the thing to see what else he experienced," Xukong replied.
Lin Mu nodded his head and flipped the page. The rest of the entries were not as detailed as before and were kept brief. Lin Mu reckoned that this was probably due to the altered mental state of Jiao Fang and his guilt.
After having killed his companions, he returned to his sect but not before hiding the five spatial storage rings full of treasures some place safe. At the sect, he reported the death of his companions and fabricated a story of how they were killed by the Scale Backed storks.
The sect didn't have a hard time believing something like this as disciple dying in difficult missions like these was not that uncommon. Besides, all of them were outer court disciples who were not as much worth to the sect.
If the sect wanted, they could have ten times as many outer court disciples as they had right now recruited within a couple of days. It was their own choice that they didn't want that many people so as to not lower the quality of disciples too much.
Still, there was some scrutiny that Jiao Fang had to undergo to verify the things. Thankfully, the sect was leaning on the fact that what Jiao Fang was telling was the truth and thus they didn't question him that much.
Jiao Fang also did not act unnaturally and stayed within the sect for about a year. His cultivation base also did not improve, and he just did some menial missions to get by. When another year passed and the incident was completely over, Jiao Fang finally decided to act.
He took back the treasure and slowly started to grow his cultivation base so as to stay away from prying eyes of suspicion. Over the years, he would explore the other locations mentioned in the books and gain more clues.
Each location that he went to was an inheritance site and Jiao Fang was able to overcome them due to the help of the now-dead nascent Soul realm cultivator. Apparently, he had already prepared all the things that would be needed to overcome the different sites and had actually scouted them out beforehand.
It was evident that the man had been preparing all this for a few years now, perhaps even decades; only for him to die due to a mistake.
With the tools having been handed to him on a silver platter, Jiao Fang was able to gain the inheritance from three more locations before he came upon the final inheritance ground. This inheritance ground was said to be bigger than all of the previous ones combined and was hidden in a secret location.
The coordinates of that location were split into multiple books made by different authors and only when they were combined would a person be able to find the final clue.
But after another decade of search, Jiao Fang discovered that this was another test by the owner of the inheritance which revealed his identity and the final clue would be revealed after getting the final clue which was hidden in the book called Yulong's Mnemonics.
"So the expert that this all belonged to… he's Yulong." Lin Mu muttered as he tried to recall about this man.
There wasn't much information about this man except that he was an elder of the Zither Wind sect in the past and was at the Pseudo Dao Shell realm. This man had disappeared about thirty years ago and is said to have already died.
"He's from the zither wind sect, huh… then perhaps the location of the inheritance ground is also there?" Lin Mu guessed.
Lin Mu read more and finally finished the entire diary. Having read it, Lin Mu was able to place a time frame on all the things that had happened.
"So Jiao Fang found that cave over twenty five years ago and Yulong had died five years earlier to that. Not a long span of difference though." Lin Mu stated.
Lin Mu thought for a few minutes, and a few ideas appeared in his mind. On how to deal with Jiao Fang.
"You're going to blackmail him, aren't you?" Xukong guessed.
"Yes… it seems to be the simplest way. But it's not my first choice. I'll first ask him to cooperate and if he still does not listen, then I can threaten him with this. That way he will be reluctant to reveal my identity to others as well." Lin Mu said.
"Alright, plan well. Besides, it's not like he can truly hurt you now with your strength vastly surpassing his." Xukong said.
"Hmm… that's true. But it is also the point that makes me doubt him. If he had all these treasures, why did he not use them properly? I mean they should have been enough to push him to the nascent soul realm quite easily." Lin Mu replied.
"Seeing his character from the diary, I'd say it's because of his fear and cautiousness. He is a man who would patiently wait for a century to reap the profit." Xukong answered.
"Keeping the suspicion off him, huh… I don't know if I'd be able to wait this long if I was in his position." Lin Mu said.
Taking another look at the carefree expression of the sleeping Jiao Fang, Lin Mu decided to wait for the morning. Once Jiao Fang left the residential area, his plan would begin.
Phasing out of the house, Lin Mu went to make some preparations.