After hearing the next sentence of the disciples though, he realized what they were here for.
'Are they here for the marriage of lieutenant Wu Teng? Then that means… this Yi Ze Jin they talked about that's the fiancee of the mayor's son.' Lin Mu thought.
Lin Mu would have used his spirit sense to take a closer look at the four disciples but knew that since they were from a cultivation sect, there was no way they would not detect his spirit sense. Thus for the time being Lin Mu just decided to watch using his spirit sense.
As Lin Mu could not use his spirit sense, it also meant that he would not be able to tell the cultivation bases of the four disciples, not to mention that he was too far to be able to detect the passive fluctuations of their spirit qi.
"Eldest brother, I still do not understand why we have to find a gift here in the forest? I mean, can't we just get something from the sect by exchanging some resources. I reckon there would be better items in the sect than this place." Spoke the Junior brother.
"You idiot, do you really think sister Yi Ze Jin even needs our gifts? With Elder Yi Deng being her father, there isn't anything she's lacking. We are here to find something unique for her as a marriage gift. Even if it's not that precious, it will be fine, it's the effort that we went through that she values." The disciple called as the eldest brother explained.
"Oh! I see now." The junior brother replied.
Suddenly the Senior brother yelled for the three of them.
"Look, someone dug out something from here! The bangle is pointing towards this place too." Spoke the Senior brother.
The three of them then gathered around the hole that had been dug from where Lin Mu had excavated the skeleton of that deceased nascent soul realm cultivator.
The four of them had not seen it as it was behind the tree, not to mention that the grass had grown over the hole as well, hiding it nearly completely.
"Hmm, there was definitely something buried here. There are fluctuations of spirit qi here, but what?" Spoke the eldest brother.
"Junior elder Fa Shiu, you are the strongest here please can you tell me what was here?" Spoke Senior brother.
"An elder? That to here… Hmm, this doesn't seem good to me." Lin Mu muttered himself.
The man who was called Junior elder removed his hood and closed his eyes. Lin Mu was finally able to see that the man had dark brown hair that was tied up in a bun, as a lot of cultivators did. He saw him close his eyes for about thirty seconds before opening them.
"Looks like we missed out on something good here. There were definitely some spirit stones buried here and from the faint traces of spirit qi that have been left behind it seems like they were mid grade spirit stones at the very least." Junior Elder Fa Shiu spoke.
~Sigh~
A sigh escaped the lips of Senior brother, but he didn't mind it as much.
"Junior elder, do you know how long ago this was taken away? Perhaps it was dug out by a beast and taken to its nest." Spoke Senior brother.
"From the faint traces, I can estimate that they were taken at the very least a month ago though I can't tell if it was a human or a beast.." Junior elder Fa Shiu answered.
"Let's just continue our search then, hopefully we find something good soon." The Eldest brother spoke before starting to walk in the direction that was opposite to that of Lin Mu's
After the four men were gone, Lin Mu did a quick sweep of the area, ensuring that there was no one close by. He then walked up to the hole and looked at it.
"I didn't expect that they would be able to sense the faint traces of the spirit stones that were once buried here. Though their estimate on their grade was rather wrong." Lin Mu spoke.
"It should be obvious, I doubt there are many cultivators who have even seen a peak grade spirit stone before," Xukong added.
Lin Mu nodded in understanding and looked around the area again. He still wanted to continue his hunt and knew that it would be better if he took a different direction from the four disciples. He thus went a bit right to the place that the four disciples had gone and continued his journey.
Lin Mu had his spirit sense already extended as he wanted to be ready for any danger. Another hour passed by and Lin Mu was wondering if he should give up for today, but then he suddenly heard a faint groan coming from the depths of the forest.
The groan was rather unique and seemed as if something was cackling. Lin Mu immediately became alert and extended his spirit sense in the direction that the groan had come from.
Lin Mu tried to remember if he could recognize the sound from any of the records, but was unable to do so. He thus decided to continue onward and soon reached the location that the cackling groan had come from.
"What kind of beast is that?" Lin Mu wondered.
The beast in front of Lin Mu seemed to have the body of a cow but the head of a tapir. It had brown blue fur and seemed to be making those cackling sounds while it ate a dead beast from the ground. Lin Mu could not recognize the dead beast as it was pretty much minced up.
Lin Mu used his spirit sense and probed the cow like beast with the tapir's head. The beast seemed to have sensed him as it immediately turned towards Lin Mu's direction and sniffed the air.
Upon observing the beast with his spirit beast, Lin Mu became both nervous and excited. Nervous because the beast in front of him was an early stage core condensation beast, his second one. Excited because the beast seemed to have an unusual spirit core.
"Seems like you're in luck. That is definitely a beast with an awakened bloodline. It's a trunk-faced cow that naturally awakens their bloodlines when they reach the core condensation realm." Xukong informed.
