"Elder Niji told me about the humans, I've come to get them." Lin Mu informed the six scouts.
"Oh that's good. We were getting tired of watching them." The Haima scouts replied.
"They are being bothersome?" Lin Mu asked.
From what he could see the Haima scouts were all at the Dao Shell realm. It was easily enough to overpower two human cultivators.
"Yeah, they keep ongoing further and further. One of us has to always keep an eye to ensure we don't miss them while cultivating." One of them spoke.
"Yeah, this is making it hard for us to cultivate calmly." Another one of them said.
"Ah, I see…" Lin Mu had almost forgotten that all the Haima members had now become obsessed with cultivation.
Putting them on a observing and protecting mission like this was the worst for them. It prevented them from fully focusing on their cultivation and made them slower compared to their peers.
Right now, the competition among the Haima warriors had gotten rather huge. Even if there was no actual prize to this, they still wanted to be the strongest among the tribe.
And since this was serving as further motivation to them, Elder Niji also didn't think of it as detrimental and let them do as they please.
"Don't worry, you shouldn't have to bother with them any longer." Lin Mu assured.
"That's good! Thank you Noble Lin Mu." The Scouts said with gratitude.
"Now can you point me to the two humans are?" Lin Mu questioned.
"They are right there, Noble Lin Mu." They've dug a hole and are hiding there.
"Oh?" Lin Mu was a little surprised. 'How did I not sense them?' his spirit sense swept over the area a couple times but didn't sense them.
"Are you sure they are there? I can't seem to sense them." Lin Mu asked again.
"Yes, they are there. We missed them a couple times before too, but they are indeed there. We don't know how they are hiding like this though." The scouts said.
Their spirit sense wasn't as long as the Elder or Head Warrior Kulo, thus they had never actually used it to observe the humans. They were always using their eyes to observe them. If they had used their spirit sense, perhaps they would have realized the unusualness of the situation.
"Let me take a look then." Lin Mu approached the hole where the humans were hiding with light steps.
'This is a good opportunity to test out my Dao Comprehension too…' Lin Mu didn't forget his new ability.
He closed his eyes for a second and opened them. Now he could see the tiny brown specs of light around him. But their numbers were a lot less than they were in his residence.
'Hmm, just as I thought. They are concentrated in the Tribe underground. Not as many in the air,' Lin Mu thought before looking down.
In the ground, he could see ten times as many of the brown specs. Each of those were Dao Traces of earth and Lin Mu could clearly sense them now.
"Perfect. Let's see if this method of hiding works." Lin Mu took a deep breath and willed the True Earth Heart to work.
Within his Dantian, the sound of heartbeats could be heard, but outside his body there was absolute silence. Only invisible waves of energy were being released by the True Earth Heart Dao Embryo.
These waves of energy directly interacted with the Dao Traces and mobilized them.
The Dao Traces in the air moved before being pulled towards Lin Mu. The same happened with the Dao Traces in the earth and they soon covered his entire body.
To a normal person or even a cultivator, there was nothing surrounding Lin Mu. Only those at the Dao Treading realm might be able to see faint energy fluctuations around him. But even those would be hard to sense.
~shua~
This only lasted for a few seconds, though, as soon after Lin Mu's appearance changed. He now looked like a rock!
All his aura had been hidden away and even his spirit sense fluctuations would not be felt.
And if someone tried to use spirit sense and probed this 'rock' they would only find it to be normal.
'Let's see if this is worthy of being a stealth skill…' Lin Mu sped up his approach.
Due to how the Dao Traces were linked up to the earth, one wouldn't even think that the rock was moving. Instead, it felt like the rock was already there.
One would easily miss it even if they tried to pay attention.
Lin Mu could have easily used his ring's skills, but he reckoned he may as well test out his new abilities.
…
"Hey Kunzi, what do you think those four-legged freaks are?" Within a hole, a man spoke.
The hole's top opening was only wide enough to let a two men stand in it, but if one looked inside they would see that it was rather wide. Four or five men could easily sleep in this hole, which could even be called as a small cave at this point.
"Who knows? We just need to stay away from them. You've heard the stories about the land of Exile. There is danger everywhere." The man named Kunzi spoke. "You've already seen the other two die from those strange beasts. Don't tell me you want that to happen too, Little Gian." He continued.
"Of course not. I'm just curious as to what they are. They are clearly intelligent creatures." The man named Little Gian replied.
"Mmm… just focus on keeping an eye out for now. We don't know if they will sneak up on us." Kunzi stated.
"Won't you find them with your spirit sense though?" Little Gian asked.
"You fool, what if they have some skill that can allow them to hide? We are in the blind here, so need to be careful." Kunzi replied. "Now stay alert! I don't want a repeat of last year. If you had been alert, we wouldn't have been caught." He scolded.
