Having gotten the confirmation from Lin Mu, King Hong certainly felt better than before. He just hoped that it would never come to the point where Gu Yao would act before them and they would be left as sitting ducks.
"That's good then. We have one less thing to worry about." Adviser Liu said in a relieved tone.
"We can't get complacent though. If Gu Yao finds something he's unable to control something, he would rather have it eliminated permanently. You will have to watch out for that.
Though for now, the best would be to stay hidden and get stronger. Those that have already taken the oath will keep the secret, thus King Hong can still run his kingdom while here.
The only thing you mustn't do is appearing in front of the public.. Your appearance… well, it's more than enough to catch a lot of attention. Plus, your vitality… you need to learn how to control it." Lin Mu stated.
"My vitality?" King Hong questioned and looked at himself.
"Indeed, King Hong… your vitality is quite oppressive." Hua San spoke.
King Hong closed his eyes and focused on his body. After about a minute, the pressure exuded by him reduced considerably.
"That was slightly more difficult than I had expected." King Hong muttered.
"That's good. You'll get a better hold over it soon enough." Lin Mu spoke.
"Thank you for your help again Senior Lin Mu." King Hong said with gratitude.
"It's fine. We just need to focus on the upcoming events now." Lin Mu said before discussing some matters with everyone.
An hour later, the other members of the court appeared too and they were shocked to see King Hong to say the least. A cacophony of cheers was heard once they learned the fact that King Hong was a Nascent soul realm cultivator and even had a unique physique.
Every cultivator had heard of bloodlines and physiques and thus it was quite intriguing for them that their King had one as well. While they didn't speak of the details of his bloodline, King Hong did tell them that it was something that needed to be kept secret.
Everyone agreed instantly and even gave suggestions by which they could keep the public suspicion and external suspicion to the lowest. Quickly, solutions were given to hide the red pillar of light that had appeared when King Hong forcefully dissipated the heavenly tribulation clouds.
It was then decided that they would attribute it to the appearance of a natural treasure. The treasure was powerful enough that it wiped out the trees in a radius of five kilometers and thus that's why the area is barren now.
While it was bound to bring some attention to the kingdom from the sects, it was still far better than letting them thinking that someone broke through to the Nascent soul realm there.
To further solidify the claims, they would even send out searching squads to look for the said 'natural treasure' and allow other cultivators to come and search for them if they wanted to do so.
The suggestion got approval and was quickly approved. It was announced the very next hour, much to the excitement of the commoners. Even if they weren't cultivators, this was an exciting thing in their normal and mundane lives.
Cultivators on the other hand, were excited and wanted to go search for the natural treasure which was allowed by the kingdom. In fact, they even decided to announce a reward for whoever finds the natural treasure and an appropriate compensation if they so choose to sell it to the kingdom.
There was of course, no actual natural treasure, but this served to further solidify their claims. In the coming weeks, this proved to be useful, as the news had spread rather quickly to the nearby areas and then into the other kingdoms.
Two weeks after the breakthrough of King Hong, multiple cultivators from different sects arrived. Most of them were from unranked or low tier sects, with a couple from mid tier sects.
It was also during this week that Lin Mu finally revived the news that he had been waiting for.
"Master, I found it! I found the wandering sinkhole!" Little Shrubby sent out a message through their link.
Lin Mu who was deep in cultivation, woke up immediately as his aura spiked for a few seconds. He quickly controlled it and responded, "where?".
While Lin Mu could sense the approximate direction of Little Shrubby, it was still hard to pin point the exact location. Lin Mu could of course, fly in that vague direction till the link got stronger and he could find the exact position, but with the characteristics of the wandering sinkhole, there was a specific time period that they needed to keep up with.
"Two hundred kilometers to the south from where we met the weird herb." Little Shrubby answered.
"I'm coming!" Lin Mu said before flying out from the courtyard.
A gust of wind ran through the city as Lin Mu left at a very high speed. A lot of commoners complained about the strange winds that came from time to time, unaware that it was actually caused by a cultivator.
As for the cultivators, they could not see Lin Mu either as he would end up using blink in addition to flying. Plus, his speed was simply too fast for them to observe easily, anyway. While on the way there, Lin Mu informed King Hong and the rest that he was leaving and that the wandering sinkhole had appeared.
They had already been informed how he would be acting upon the appearance of the wanderer sinkhole due to the time limitation and were fine with him leaving without telling them before this.
Lin Mu also contacted Jing Luo, who was now on the western border setting up the formation array there.
"Little Shrubby found the Wandering sinkhole." Lin Mu informed.
"Excellent! Keep an eye out for some other useful resources and be careful about the dangers. I hope you can come back as soon as possible." Jing Luo replied.