Having dealt with the situation at the Iron Bull city, Lin Mu headed to the Fell Coal Village immediately. As much as he wanted to help them a bit more in calming the chaos, he knew that he didn't have the time for it.
'I'll have to let the alliance handle them later. Thankfully, Tie Niu told me about the token and its uses.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
Lin Mu had taken the command tokens from Tie Niu's ring. There were several of them with a different level of authority. The one that was the highest one gave one the same authority as that of Tie Niu and would be considered the mayor.
Other than Tie Niu, no one could hold it unless the current mayor was dead. And Since Lin Mu was holding it back then, the guards all considered him on the same level as Tie Niu.
As for the one that he had shown the shopkeeper: Old Lu, that was a rank below the highest one. It was the highest ranked token that could be given to others, and only a couple of Tie Niu's trusted people had that.
And both of those people were killed by Lin Mu's hand, giving him those as well. He had gotten a sufficient amount of fortune from the people he killed today here and it would seem that they were getting a lot of resources from Gu Yao, considering their position.
Though Lin Mu was only that much anxious about it.
'If Gu Yao can continue to provide these many resources, then there must be a source. Did them crippling their supply lines not work?' Lin Mu wondered.
He continued to fly according to the location he had gotten and reached the Coal Fell village soon.
"So this is Coal Fell Village…" Lin Mu gazed upon the village from far up, not finding anything unique about it.
His spirit sense swept the village and checked for anything suspicious.
"Nothing here… the people are all commoners, with just a couple of warriors reaching the sixth stage of the Body tempering realm." Lin Mu confirmed.
Having checked this, Lin Mu went to look for the location that was more important, the old coal mine.
Lin Mu found the coal mine about twenty kilometers away, tucked away in a barren patch of land. This coal mine was directly on the ground, with no hill or mountain attached to it.
From what Lin Mu could see, it went down in a spiral pattern, and any coal that was dug from it was brought up on these spiral paths. Though there was also a pulley tripod in the middle of the hole which was broken for a long time.
The coal mine had been depleted for the most part, and the empire had stopped mining here. Now only the nearby villagers mined there for coal that they needed for their daily use. Which also made it the perfect place for someone to hide.
Till a few years ago, there were bandits that would make this place their hideout, but the empire would regularly wipe them out. But now, it seemed like Gu Yao had done his magic and no one checked there.
'Though it might also be the stronger cultivators… those bandits would never hold a candle to these experts.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
Lin Mu's spirit sense scanned the coal mine and felt the formation array that was protecting it.
"Two illusory formations, one to mask and one to misguide, one defensive formation array and one… self-destructing formation?" Lin Mu identified.
Seeing the presence of the self destructing formation made Lin Mu a bit cautious. Not because he was afraid of getting harmed, but because it meant that whatever was hidden in the mine was worthy of being destroyed rather than being revealed.
His spirit sense couldn't go into the mine either due to the defenses of the formation array, but Lin Mu quickly got to fixing that.
"Let's see… shouldn't be that hard." Lin Mu muttered as he gazed upon the invisible formations.
His spirit sense touched them and revealed the hidden runes. Lin Mu closed his eyes and chanted the calming heart sutra, increasing his concentration to the peak as his fingers started to move.
The touched, they tapped, they dragged, and they tore… holds © this.
Fifteen minutes later, a faint flicker wave spread across the formation array and a hole two meters wide appeared in front of Lin Mu.
"Perfect." Lin Mu said before he descended down the hole.
He didn't set foot on the ground, sensing the alarming formations that were laid there. He kept on floating in the air as he continued onwards. He wanted to catch the Gu legions people unaware and also learn what was actually being done here.
His spirit sense split apart into tens of tendrils and went into all the tunnels of the mine. In just a few seconds, Lin Mu grasped the layout of the mine as well as learning where everyone was.
"Huh? The people here… they're not that strong." Lin Mu muttered with furrowed brows.
While there were over a hundred Gu legion members here, there were only three that were even at the Nascent soul realm, and even from them, two were at the Infant Soul stage and one at the Child soul stage of the Nascent soul realm.
To current Lin Mu, they were no different from dry grass that could be ripped and burned as desired. His spirit sense kept exploring and discovered a couple of areas that were blocked off for it.
"That must be what they are keeping hidden here. If there are specific isolating formations here for them, then they should be rather important." Lin Mu reckoned.
~shua~
He then waved his hands and summoned thirty three spirit weapons. They were nothing special and weren't ones that Lin Mu usually used. It wasn't like Lin Mu needed great power here anyway. What he needed was swift and concise action.
"Go!" Lin Mu said before the spirit weapons were sent forth to slaughter.