"And why were the soldiers here, exactly?" Lin Mu asked.
"They were looking for some clues. Apparently, a wanted person used to live in the house and had a lot of things hidden there. They upturned the entire house but didn't find anything.
Not feeling satisfied by the lack of the evidence, they went ahead and ransacked the other two houses too. Of course, the people living there opposed them, but they were beaten up and taken away by the guards.
We never saw them again and didn't dare to ask around either. A few months after that, the place was pretty much dug out and they supposedly found something hidden underground. There was even a cave inside." The man answered.
Hearing it all, Lin Mu knew for sure that it was the work of Gu Yao. Or was done under his command.
'Seems about right. He wouldn't care for a few commoners. Shame that they had to die for it though…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
"Here you go." Lin Mu tossed the gold coin to the man and rose up into the sky.
"Huh? He can fly?" the man was left stunned, the gold coin falling from his hands.
~CLANG~
A crisp sound was heard as the coin struck the ground.
Lin Mu flew to the north, intending to finish up a couple more things.
This time, he didn't use Little Shrubby to travel through. Instead he flew on his own while Little Shrubby sat on his shoulder. He did this because he didn't want to alert a certain group of people.
"They shouldn't have gotten that far even if it has been two days… with the supplies they took, they should be a bit slow." Lin Mu reckoned.
The people he was looking for were none other than the deserter prince of the Shuang Qian Kingdom and the soldiers he had taken with him. Lin Mu could have just let him go and let others handle it, but since he was going to the frontier anyway, he reckoned he might as well check it out.
'Perhaps I might find something else too…' Lin Mu wondered.
Lin Mu flew for about three hours and continued to use his spirit sense to track the whereabouts of the caravan. There were clear tracks on the path, which let him know that they weren't even bothering to hide.
'They are definitely in a hurry… or they would have at least attempted something. Just the fact that the took so many soldiers along seems strange. If he is running away, he should have kept his party as small as possible.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
After a few more minutes, Lin Mu finally spotted something in the range of his spirit sense.
"There they are… why is their numbers this low though?" Lin Mu questioned, seeing only ten men.
While Lin Mu was in the north, the alliance was working on the war plan in the east.
Two days had passed since Lin Mu had met up with Jing Luo and Wu Hei. Right now meeting was currently ongoing in the Light Harmony sect. This was the place selected for the meeting since they were the closest to the Shuang Qian kingdom from here and could head to the border quickly.
In attendance were the patriarchs of the alliance, as well as all their high elders and other important members such as the clan heads of the Fenlong kingdom. There were even some independent figures that didn't belong to any power, the best example being none other than Jiao Fang.
He had officially joined up with the alliance shortly after meeting Lin Mu.
But in among all these, the most important person was currently missing, it being none other than the leader, Lin Mu himself.
"Elder Jing Luo, where is Lin Mu? I thought he was with you before?" Patriarch Hua asked.
"With the war close ahead, Lin Mu has decided to do his own preparation. He said he is going to tie up some old ends and also getting some more allies." Jing Luo replied.
"More allies? I thought we already had everyone possibly covered." Mu Tao the current head of the Mu clan, asked.
He had safely entered the Nascent soul realm and was the strongest member of the Mu clan currently. Not only that, but his mastery over the Mu clan's puppets was next to none and could easily go against a Dao Shell realm cultivator just on his own.
The others looked on in interest as well, wondering who else Lin Mu was going to contact.
'More allies? Just how does he get them?' Jiao Fang thought to himself.
"I don't know either." Jing Luo shook his head.
"Do you know where he is, though? We can probably guess from that." Patriarch Yi You asked.
"He's probably in the Kong plane." Jing Luo answered.
"The Kong plane?" Wu Hei was surprised. "There are no new allies there, though? Only we can access it after all." He said in confusion.
Everyone now had the same questioned as to who Lin Mu had gone to look for but there were on answers.
"I don't know about that either. He'll be back soon anyway. We just need to focus on our work." Jing Luo said after a bit.
"He's right. We have far more important matters at hand. If Lin Mu gets more allies, it's all the more good for us." Patriarch Mingliang stated.
Many of the people nodded their heads in agreement and went back to the discussion. There were far too many fronts they would need to handle and many situations that could arise.
Wu Hei and Jiao Fang were the ones that were contributing the most about the Northern Tribes since they had the most contact with them.
The first meeting between Wu Hei and Jiao Fang was also rather stunning to them. Wu Hei realized he had been kept in the blind by Gu Yao about Jiao Fang's identity the whole time. It only made him hate the man even more, but was also thankful that Jiao Fang was ultimately on his side.
