The Crown Prince stood at the edge of the observation deck and looked at the island in front of him.
The island had a couple of hills on it with one side of it ending in a tall cliff. The other side had a freshwater lake surrounded by trees and other plants. Most of the island was filled with dense trees that were quite tall, and hid its insides well.
The island did not have any sandy beaches though, with most of it being rocky shore or cliffs.
The place where the ship was docked was at a shallow bay that had a rocky shore, which was at the edge of the cliffs. This gave a perfect place for the ship to anchor, and people could get off with ease.
"Hmm… He's hiding his presence well." Crown Prince Feng Shun spoke.
Normally, he should have seen them right away, but he couldn't. ~shua~
"Looks like I'll have to take a deeper look." The Crown Prince muttered, extending his immortal sense over the entire island.
Within seconds, the entirety of the island was within the scope of his senses. He could sense every tree, every rock, and insect that was present on the island. But soon he realized that the things he saw weren't exactly accurate.
"A decent illusory formation array." Another voice was heard from behind the Crown Prince.
He turned around and saw Lin Mu approach along with Crown Princess Shang.
"You can sense it?" the Crown Prince asked, since he didn't feel Lin Mu's immortal sense there.
"It is faint, but there are indeed traces of an illusory formation." Lin Mu replied. "They managed to hide them on the island well enough, but they forgot one place." He said before pointing to the sky.
There were a couple of small clouds that could be seen. They were floating calmly and seemed to be normal.
"What about them?" The Crown Prince asked.
"They're moving." Lin Mu replied. "But there is no wind." He smiled.
Hearing that, the Crown Prince couldn't help but raise his brows. "You knew that without using your immortal sense?' He was intrigued. "How?" he inquired.
"We both practiced the same school of techniques." Lin Mu replied. "Storm King Shirong's techniques." He added.
"Oh?" the Crown Prince was surprised. "You have an affinity to wind and lighting elements too?" "No, I don't." Lin Mu replied. "I just learned one of the preliminary techniques, The Bending Will Fists, so that I could sense wind better and utilize it in my other skills." He explained. Content © 2024.
"Ah, no wonder." Crown Prince Feng Shun said with a look of realization. "Still, for you to sense whether there's wind blowing that high up without using your Immortal sense… your sensitivity to wind has become quite good." He praised.
"Thank you. Though it's nothing compared to your attainments." Lin Mu replied. "I'm sure you would be able to do the same too, if you were a formation master as well." He added.
"True… You do have an advantage in that aspect." Feng Shun nodded. "He doesn't offer praise like this easily." Crown Princess Shang chuckled. "Perhaps you should ask him to teach you the Storm King's techniques." She suggested.
"Oh? Is that possible?" Lin Mu asked. "I can indeed pass you some of the techniques that are available openly. But the ones from the inheritance cannot be passed on." Crown Prince Feng Shun answered. "If you wish to obtain those, you'll have to go to one of his inheritance grounds." He added.
"I see… I'll be fine with whatever you give me." Lin Mu wouldn't mind getting more techniques to learn. "Sure, but before that." The Crown prince said before taking a pause. "Why don't you show me where the people who invited us are?" he asked in an amused tone.
"A little test?" Lin Mu didn't mind.
"You can consider it that." The Crown Prince chuckled.
"Very well." Lin Mu replied before looking at the island.
~SHUA~
In the next second, his immortal sense covered the island too. The Crown Prince sensed Lin Mu's immortal sense and found it to be quite refined.
'Better than ninety nine percent of other immortals… especially those at his cultivation base.' The Crown Prince judged. 'Wait… what's he doing?' but a moment later, he found something strange.
Lin Mu's immortal sense didn't move like what one would normally expect. Instead of scanning the island in one go using a long tendril of Immortal sense, Lin Mu instead turned it into thousands of threads.
These threads then interwove and turned into a massive net!
The net then wrapped around the entirety of the island as if it were a fish. Then, from each of the intersecting nodes of this net, tens of immortal sense threads grew out. These threads joined up with the threads on the other end and formed a link.
Faint waves of immortal Qi spread out from this intricate network, forming a highly detailed three-dimensional structure in Lin Mu's mind.
"Found them." And not even thirty seconds later, Lin Mu spoke up.
He pointed with his finger and shot a small ball of immortal Qi. The Qi was just pure and wasn't offensive in nature, so it just went straight through the illusory formation and struck a particular point in the air.
~HUMM~
But that small ball of Qi caused a chain reaction. Runes suddenly appeared in the air and a formation array flickered into existence.
The formation was apparently covering the entire island, but was invisible. "Huh… It was actually this big?" The Crown Prince was surprised. "I thought it was just the lake and its shores." "That's the trick." Lin Mu replied. "It invites you in and gives you an obvious target to look at." He explained.
"Hiding in plain sight." Crown Princess Shang stated.
"Indeed." Lin Mu agreed. "Why don't you guys come out now?" he asked out loud.
~SHUA~
In response to that, two people soon flew out from the Island and landed on the deck.
"Greetings Crown Prince." The man in the lead spoke.