Gu Yao who had a cold and calm expression on his face, looked at the three Dao treading realm Gu Legion members.

"And what are you doing for that?" Gu Yao asked calmly.

"We… we tried to repel some of the Long Cloud Alliance people, but we failed. For some reason, they always know where we are hiding and there are no signs of our intel being leaked out either." One of the Dao Treading realm members replied.

"We even investigated whether there was any spy among us, but there are none. After all, Lord's control over everyone simply makes it impossible." Another man replied.

"Hmm…" Gu Yao rubbed his beard, thinking to himself. "And what of the top three sects?" He questioned.

"They… they're against us now. We can no longer make use of our previous pawns to hide our origins. All of them have been captured and interrogated. I've even heard that the Sky Precepts sect has authorized the use of Soul Searching Techniques." The third Dao Treading realm member answered.

"So it has finally come to that…" Gu Yao said as a smirk appeared on his face.

"My lord…" The three Dao Treading realm felt nervous with Gu Yao's expression.

"What… should we do? Should we call the tribal council?" One of them asked. Belongs © to .

Gu Yao stayed silent though, and only after a minute did he speak.

"No… there is no need." Gu Yao replied.

"B-but, my lord… if we don't then…" The others tried to speak, but were interrupted by Gu Yao.

"I said there is no need!" Gu Yao raised his voice. "I'm close to success anyway. Just stay put for now, we shall have the final laugh soon." He added.

~gulp~

The three Dao treading realm Gu Legion member's gulped down their saliva and nodded their heads.

"If you say so Lord Gu Yao." They said. "What should we do in the meantime then?" one of them asked.

"Just stay put and get the rest of the members ready. My previous orders of making more Dao Treading realm cultivators are still in effect. With the Zither wind alliance gone, we will need them more than ever." Gu Yao answered.

"We are already at a saturation point though my lord. If we increase the refinement rate of the pills anymore, we will drain the the entire source we have accumulated." The Dai Treading realm Gu Legion members spoke.

"That is not an issue anymore. Use all that we have left! Drain all the pools of Yin Qi! We are going all in from this point onwards!" Gu Yao stated firmly.

"AS YOU COMMAND MY LORD!" The Dao Treading realm members said.

"Go off now, I'll prepare for my part now." Gu Yao dismissed them.

~SHUA~

He waved his hand and a formation array suddenly appeared.

"Huh?" Lin Mu was startled by it and realized that it was a teleportation formation.

'Where is he going?' Lin Mu frantically tracked the traces of spatial disturbance caused due to it and saw that it was actually going deeper into the ground.

'Of course he would keep it down there. That's just his style at this point.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

He glanced at the Dao Treading realm Gu Legion members who left and focused back on the task at hand. They weren't as important right now and the main goal was to stop whatever 'success' Gu Yao was looking forward to.

Lin Mu waited for a bit till the Dao Treading realm Gu Legion members left, before going deeper into the ground.

But at a certain point, Lin Mu ended up getting blocked.

"What?" Lin Mu was surprised.

Carefully using his spirit sense without alerting anyone, Lin Mu realized that he was blocked by several barriers that had been set up in rows.

"One… two… ten… twenty… thirty? He set up thirty barriers?!" Lin Mu was shocked.

It wasn't just the number of barriers that surprised Lin Mu, but also the quality of them. Each of them was as tough as the main sect protecting barriers and even with his full power would take several attempts to break.

The number of barriers that had been set up would certainly take a ton of resource to build as well.

'Now we know one of the uses that Gu Yao made of all the resources he seized…' Lin Mu thought to himself as his brows furrowed.

He let his spirit sense wander and go around the entire barrier, discovering that it was in the shape of a sphere.

"This'll be hard to get into…" Lin Mu muttered to himself as he tried looking for other avenues of entering.

~SHUA~

And just as he was doing this, he felt a wave of energy appearing from somewhere.

"Wait a second…" Lin Mu's spirit sense moved to track the energy and discovered that it was actually entering the barriers.

"How can it enter it?" Lin Mu wondered and observed it.

After about a minute, Lin Mu saw that the runes were actually operating in a rather different way. Instead of blocking the energy, they were letting it enter and replace the spirit Qi they were composed of.

This energy moved layer by layer, getting milder with each layer.

"Is he… filtering this energy?" Lin Mu guessed.

The energy that was coming was certainly strong, but also impure. Lin Mu could tell that there was both Yang Qi and Yin Qi mixed into it.

"He's really doing as we suspected. And this must be the catalytic method he devised for it." Xukong stated.

"Indeed… but we can't let this progress." Lin Mu said as he raised his fist.

"Wait," Xukong interrupted Lin Mu.

"What senior?" Lin Mu paused.

"Don't break the barriers right away. It will take Gu Yao a while to absorb it all. Why don't you take advantage of it? The Pool of Yang Qi should be nearby." Xukong suggested.

Lin Mu's eyes glowed lightly, as he knew exactly what to do.

He tracked the energy waves and soon appeared in another section that was located half a kilometer away.

"So this is the Yang qi pool…" Lin Mu muttered, looking at the large reddish orange pool.