"Please, I do not dare to display my mediocre skills and dishonor myself. I do not want to lose face for the sect in front of the other peers. Besides, I heard some skilled people have been invited by the mayor to entertain people with their chess skills." Pei Lao spoke in a humble tone.
"Ha ha ha! Junior brother is shy, but do not worry about losing face. The elders wouldn’t mind something . After all, this is merely a friendly competition and we are just participating for the wedding." The disciple who seemed to be the senior brother replied.
’Oh? So there will be more elders coming here from the Tri cauldron peony sect.’ Lin Mu thought after hearing their words.
"Wu Hei did not say that there were going to be more than one elder from the sect coming. Seems like even he did not know this." Lin Mu internally noted.
He then scanned the area ahead and luckily found it to be empty. From what he had seen from the roof, the quarters of the disciples should be to the left of the current area, and the area in front of him was the main hall of the courtyard. This was where the meeting and dinner would be conducted.
Here was where Lin Mu’s luck shined. He saw that the main hall was elevated from the ground by half a foot.
"Good, I can hide there." Lin Mu said to himself.
He then looked at the three disciples and waited for their attention to shift a bit. The next area was out of his range of teleportation and he would have to move ahead a bit in the open. As long as he kept his head close to the ground, he shouldn’t be easily noticed.
The three disciples continued their banter for a few minutes before focusing on the chess game again.
’Now!’ Lin Mu internally shouted and shot ahead.
If someone looked at him right now, it looked as if a rock was moving fast. Because his head was covered with a black cloth and it was rather dimly lit, he appeared similar to a rock in appearance.
"Huh? What’s there?" The disciple who was observing the chess game suddenly spoke up and looked around.
Pei Lao and the Senior disciple looked at the alert man and inquired.
"What’s the matter, brother Tie Dan?" Pei Lao questioned.
Tie Dan looked around with sharp eyes for a bit and scanned the area with his spirit sense, only to find nothing.
"Nothing, brother Pei. I was mistaken." Tie Dan spoke.
"No, no, your concern is valid brother Tie. Please do tell us what you felt was here." Senior brother asked.
"I thought as if I saw a rock moving." Tie Dan answered.
"A rock?" Pei Lao tilted his head.
They then looked around the area for rock and saw that they were simply lying there with nothing moving.
"Did any rock really move?" Pei Lao questioned in confusion.
"Hmm, I can’t tell either. I didn’t really pay attention to the positinoning of rock in the area." The senior brother stated.
"Let it be brothers. Perhaps, I’m just mistaken. It’s not like any animal can enter here." Tie Dan spoke.
The three of them sat back down and returned to their chess game.
"Almost got caught!" Lin Mu took a breath of relief.
The position that Lin Mu was currently in was very sensitive. He was at a mere foot’s distance from the disciple name Tie Dan. His head was of course hiding in a rock again, but this rock did not belong to the garden, rather Lin Mu had taken it out of the ring at the very last moment that he was detected.
This was one of the random items he had obtained from the spatial rifts and had been deemed as trash by senior Xukong. Lin Mu had seen the lesser void and knew that there was no lack of random chunks of rocks and debris floating around in there.
Lin Mu once again confirmed that they were not looking at him, before moving a bit more and the using blink to appear beneath the crawl space of the main house. Now it had become rather convenient for Lin Mu to move around as he could keep his head hidden while using his spirit sense to look around.
Lin Mu moved all around the buildings from there and got an estimate of the number of people that were in the courtyard. In all there were forty two people in here; twelve servants, twenty nine disciples and one elder.
Lin Mu could tell that the elder was at the peak stage of the core condensation realm, just from the dense spirit qi fluctuations that were coming from his body. The elder was in a separate room from the rest of the disciples and was currently meditating.
He was also wearing different kinds of robes than the disciples and looked to be older as well. Looking at his appearance Lin Mu felt he was in his late thirties, but the true number was probably much higher than this.
The rest of the disciples were also in their quarters currently and were cultivating or doing certain tasks like writing and refining.
"Hmm, where should we go first?" Lin Mu wondered.
"Perhaps you should go to a place where there are letters and documents placed. But do not go to the elder’s room, he will find you easily. His spirit sense is much stronger than yours currently, and you will not be able to fight against him either." Xukong suggested.
Lin Mu nodded and chose the disciples that were writing something. They were sitting in a room that had some furniture such as a low study table, bed and wardrobes placed around. The disciple was sitting on his knees while writing something on a sheet of paper.
To the side of him, a shelf was kept on which a few rolled up scrolls were kept. Lin Mu made his way to the room and popped his head in to take a look. The disciple was at the late stage of the qi refining realm and was fully focused on writing.
"This should be easy..." Lin Mu muttered.