It took Lin Mu a little over four hours to reach the buildings. They looked closer than they appeared, and at a certain point, Lin Mu was even wondering if he was moving forward or not.
He also observed quite a lot of beasts roaming the forests. There were common beasts all the way to the core condensation realm beasts. Lin Mu even saw three Peak stage core condensation realm beasts in the forest.
"This is definitely no common forest…" Lin Mu muttered.
He avoided the beasts and continued his journey to the sect. But once he reached there he quickly hid underground using phase and moved to check the area. Along the way, he had not detected any formation array, which was a bit shocking to him as well.
He was sure that a sect would have a large formation array around it. Especially a sect like this, which was even larger than the Tri Cauldron Peony sect in size. Lin Mu was sure it was a mid grade sect if not higher.
Lin Mu spread his spirit sense around to observe things and saw quite a few people moving around. They were dressed in plain Grey blue robes and were doing menial tasks like cleaning, chopping wood, carrying water, and such.
"Seems like they are servants of the sect." Lin Mu guessed.
He checked their cultivation bases and discovered that nearly everyone was at the eighth stage of the body tempering realm, if not higher.
"Damn, if the servants are at this level then this is no common sect." Lin Mu reckoned.
He spent an hour gathering information and eventually discovered where he was.
"The Ripple mist sect…" Lin Mu muttered.
The sect that was in front of Lin Mu was actually one of the top ten sects of the World, The Ripple Mist sect!
It was ranked seventh in the rankings and came under the alliance of the Zither Wind sect. Which meant that it was likely to be under the influence of Gu Yao as well. And if it was so, then Lin Mu knew he would have to tread carefully.
"Little Shrubby ran over three entire kingdoms in that time…" Lin Mu said, feeling shocked.
The Ripple Mist sect was located south east of the Northern Lands and was over fifteen thousand kilometer from the Shuang Qian Kingdom's border. This showed how far Little Shrubby had come.
"Getting back to the Shuang Qian kingdom will be quite difficult… unless Little Shrubby is able to use the Seven Beasts Burst again. But I doubt we want him to use it again... unless it is absolutely necessary." Lin Mu spoke.
"That's right, I think you'll need to make a different plan from here," Xukong said.
Lin Mu nodded his head and moved to the other mountains that were closer to the main area of the Ripple Mist sect. Along the way, he heard the conversations of the disciples and learned quite a few things.
"So my actions at the Tri Cauldron peony sect have already spread till here, huh…" Lin Mu muttered.
"Well, what you did was truly quite a lot. A robbery of that level will cripple most sects." Xukong said.
"That's fine but why would they give me that name…" Lin Mu said, feeling a bit embarrassed.
"Well, I guess it does suit you a bit. After all, you didn't only steal the sect's resources… you also stole Bilao's Tribulation lightning." Xukong said with a chuckle.
~Sigh~
"I guess the 'Lightning Thief' is not so bad." Lin Mu said.
In the month, Lin Mu had been sleeping, his deeds had already spread across the sects. First was the fact that he had robbed a sect and the second, he had actually stolen a tribulation lightning bolt as well. It was something that was never done before, and now all the sects were wary.
They had beefed up their security and made sure their identity badges were working properly. There were extra checks on who entered and exited the sect while their vaults were on day-long supervision.
~Sigh~
"If it's like this, then the plan Wu Hei made would not work even if I went back." Lin Mu muttered.
"It does seem like that now," Xukong replied, unable to help Lin Mu with much.
Lin Mu put it at the back of his mind for now and investigated a bit more. He also realized why he had not felt any formation array upon getting closer to the sect. It was because the entire mountain he was in before and beyond that came under the sect's territory.
That was the reason why no formation triggered. He was within the limits of the formation from the very start!
Apparency the Ripple Mist sect had expanded their borders after the news about the Tri Cauldron peony sect spread as a precaution and the mountain where Lin Mu was sleeping, was not part of it originally.
Since they expanded it later on, they never detected Lin Mu or little Shrubby who were in there. Then came the detection function of the formation array. Since there were a lot of beasts in the forest around the sect, including the core condensation realm, their movement would probably trigger the formation.
So to prevent false alarms, they made it so that all the beasts that were within the limits of the formation at the time of expansion were considered part of the sect by default.
Hearing this gave an idea to Lin Mu and he decided to do something daring. He deactivated phase and resurfaced. He then stole some disciple's robes and switched into them before trying to pass through one of the automatic checkpoints.
"Just as I thought…" Lin Mu muttered after going through the checkpoint.
There was no reaction at the checkpoint at all. It was as if he was not there, which was strange as when other disciples passed the formation lit up for a bit.
"The formation array… it now considers me as a beast too…"