"This… is way larger than was mentioned…" Lin Mu said in surprise.
In front of him stood ancient ruins that were spread in an area of tens of kilometers.
"Was this a city or something?" Lin Mu wondered.
According to the information that he had gotten from Alchemist Ruoxian, the cache of the immortal essence crystals was supposed to be hidden under barren land. Thus the presence of a ruin didn't match that accurately.
"Unless… the area is further ahead?" Lin Mu wondered.
There were far too many discrepancies in the information and with the Natural Befuddling Array of the Leafless Dead forest, they only kept on increasing. Lin Mu wondered just how many more he would encounter.
'It wouldn't be unusual if the people that Alchemist Ruoxian were lost in the Natural befuddling Array too…' Lin Mu guessed. 'As for the others that came to look for them, it is normal that they wouldn't find the right traces. After all the array would erase them too.'
One could even see that the people who had taken the mission from Alchemist Ruoxian earlier were unfortunate.
"But then… how did the others see the Violet Mystic Life tree? If they managed to see it, that means the array wasn't activated back then." Lin Mu realized another uncertainty. 'But if the people sent by Alchemist Ruoxian were lost, that means the array was activated long ago.'
His brows were furrowed as Lin Mu thought in depth. The mystery kept him scratching his head and unable to calm down.
"Wait… what was that?" But while he was doing that, he saw something from the corner of his vision.
He turned his head to the left, looking for the object that had appeared.
"Is that, the tree— it disappeared!" Lin Mu had just seen the faint image of a large tree in the distance but it had suddenly disappeared.
Lin Mu stared at it without moving this time, not even blinking his eyes. He stayed like that for five minutes before witnessing it again.
"There it is! The tree is actually there!" Lin Mu saw the tree clearly now.
The Violet Mystic Life Tree was finally present in front of Lin Mu. The tree was about fifty meters tall and was filled with violet leaves. Its crown was spread in an area of thirty meters and looked dazzling.
"Wait… it disappeared again!" The large and colorful tree seemingly vanished in front of Lin Mu's eyes.
By now Lin Mu was sure that there was something else happening. He immediately activated his Spatial Perception and observed the place where the Violet Mystic Life Tree was at. But strangely enough, Lin Mu still couldn't see through it.
"Wait what…" it was not often that Lin Mu wasn't able to see through the space. "A barrier?"
While Lin Mu was able to use Spatial Perception to see through the space itself, it wasn't absolute. There were still formations and barriers that could block it. And since the three had vanished several times and reappeared, Lin Mu was sure it was the work of some kind of a barrier formation.
'That might not be it either… there might be an entire array there.' Lin Mu guessed.
He decided to take a careful approach and first did a survey of the area around the ruins. The ruins were quite vast anyway and allowed several spots for people to hide.
"I need your help Little Shrubby, but stay in your small form." Lin Mu brought out little Shrubby.
"What is it?" Little Shrubby asked while staying in his cat form.
"Can you smell any people here?" Lin Mu asked.
Little Shrubby lifted his nose and sniffed the air a few times.
"Yes, there are several people here." Little Shrubby replied. "Their scents are mixing but there are at least fifty or more people around the area." He stated.
'Fifty… they should be the original group of cultivators that had found the Violet Mystic Life Tree along with the people that arrived later.' Lin Mu guessed. "Can you tell where they are?" he asked next.
Using his Immortal sense could alert the others, but Little Shrubby's sense of smell wouldn't do the same.
"Yes!" Little Shrubby replied
The two of them sneaked around the area while Little Shrubby pointed out the places where the cultivators where staying at. Lin Mu sneaked closer using Phase and hid underground, only to get a sense of the experts that were present there.
There were people of varied cultivation bases here, with the weakest being a first tribulation stage immortal realm cultivator.
As for the strongest cultivators?
There were two cultivators that were at the fourth Tribulation Stage of the Immortal realm present there. The only difference was that they were in two different camps and thereby belonged to different groups.
'That makes it a bit better. At least I won't have to deal with both camps together if a conflict arises.' This was the first concern that Lin Mu needed to deal with.
As long as he had assurance that he'd be able to handle all the experts that came his way, he would have no issues in doing whatever he wanted. After all, if they couldn't stop him there was no use in considering them.
It took Lin Mu a couple of hours before he was able to assess just how many people he was up against potentially.
"Fifty-four cultivators belonging to six different groups out of which two have the Fourth Tribulation Stage Immortal realm experts." Lin Mu muttered to himself. 'They also seem to be from the stronger powers. Though it's hard to tell which ones.' He thought.
These were the biggest groups too and had fifteen people each. The rest of the groups had an unequal amount of people distributed amongst them and they seemed to be mostly itinerant cultivators.
Though Lin Mu also knew that these were just the ones who had managed to reach here first. There were bound to be others that will arrive, and the competition will only more.
