Everything was going fine in the West ocean sect until chaos abruptly broke in the formation array control hall of the sect.
"ELDERS! THE ARRAYS! THE ARRAYS ARE FAILING!" A senior disciples shouted.
"WHAT? HOW!?" The elders were stunned.
They had been cultivating as they normally would while the disciples handled the day-to-day tasks. Only when some issue arose would they act. And now they were given a rather rude shock.
They looked at the screens and saw the runes that were going haywire.
"This… this isn't a failure… the arrays are shutting down!" The elders realized.
"Shutting down?" the disciples were confused.
He could understand the arrays failing due to some damage or error, but them shutting down was not possible unless it was done manually.
"Did any of you mess with the activation formation?" one of the elders asked, his eyes blood shot.
That was the only way it could happen if someone accidentally closed the formation.
"N-no elder… we can't even access that part." The disciples said, feeling scared.
"DON'T YOU DARE LIE!" The elder shouted, startling the disciples.
"Wait, the disciple is not lying." Another elder spoke.
"What? How is that possible if these imbeciles didn't mess up something?" The enraged elder asked.
"Look at the sensory formation… the concentration of spirit Qi… it is almost gone." The elder answered, his voice shaky.
The enraged elder looked at the said formation and was stunned. It was all true, the concentration of spirit Qi had almost reduced to zero. Now it was barely a fraction of what one percent output would give them normally.
"This is impossible! Utterly impossible!" the enraged elder yelled.
The other elders were trying to analyze the problem, but were unable to come up with anything.
"Won't this only happen if… if… if the spirit stone mines were depleted?" an elder spoke while stuttering.
The very thought of it was terrifying to them. But at the same time, it seemed absurd to them as they knew very well, the spirit stone mines wouldn't be depleted like this. Even with the rate of mining they were doing, it would take decades before any issue happened.
And that was IF they did unreserved mining and damaged the source vein of the mines. Usually the core of the mine would be left untouched, so that the spirit stones could grow back again.
This way, the sect could rotate among the three mines over multiple years and ensure that they didn't mine too much.
"ALERT THE PATRIARCH! WE NEED TO GO TO THE DEPTHS!" The enraged elder ordered.
…
Lin Mu was unaware that his actions had caused utter chaos in the West ocean sect. Though that was part of his goal in the end too. He wanted to remove the pests that had gotten troublesome and remove their base.
"That should be the last of it." Lin Mu said as he stored another large chunk of source vein into the ring.
He had cleared out all three mines and along with it the other resources that were present there too. After all, spirit stone mines didn't just contain spirit stones, they actually nurtured other materials too.
For example, any metal ores or gemstones that were present in the area round the mine would be affected by the rich spirit Qi and transform over time. This was the case for materials that already existed.
Along with this, new materials such as spirit jades that were used in various spirit tools like communication jade slip were also born in the mines.
With this done, Lin Mu decided on his next course of action.
"This should remove the base of the West ocean sect and weaken Gu Yao's influence." Lin Mu said, "but its not enough!"
His eyes gazed up at the ceiling and his spirit sense pierced through it all, directly going into the sect. Without caring for all those that sensed it, Lin Mu scanned everything, every location that was in the sect, and everyone that was there as well.
From an unranked servant all the way to the very patriarch of the West Ocean sect, Lin Mu probed them all.
"WHO DARES!!!!!!" A loud shout was heard echoing across the sect.
The shout came from the great hall of the sect that was located on the water.
"WHAT AUDACITY!" The other elders felt it too and were enraged.
In their sect, only those higher ranked them could probe them like this. And if that happened, they would know. But there was a limit to that. Especially since even the patriarch was probed.
~BOOM~
An explosion happened as an old man wearing blue, and white robes appeared from the great hall. He had just gotten the report that the formation arrays of the sect had stopped working and had tired of contacting the miners down there.
But he received no response from them. This gave him a very bad feeling, and he was about to order some elders to go and check it out when he felt the spirit sense. It came out of the depths and spread all the way around the sect.
It both enraged and alarmed the patriarch, for he knew what it meant. If there was someone this bold as to use their spirit sense in the sect, they would need to have the strength to back it up.
The west ocean sect's area wasn't that big and even some of the elders could cover the area with their spirit sense, so that wasn't the problem either.
"What is happening?"
"Why are the elders enraged?"
"Was that the patriarch!?"
The disciples were all startled and running around like headless chickens.
While all this was happening through, the suspect behind it all had already left his previous location.
"This should be the vault of the sect." Lin Mu said as he appeared in the middle of a secured room. It was located in the great hall of the west ocean sect and was several floors below the main court.
"WHO!?" The guards noticed a stranger appearing and were startled.
