It had been twelve hours since Lin Mu had left the Capital city. Along the way, he had met quite a few blockades and checks that the kingdom had set up. He now saw the reality of how much the kingdom was anxious about the Northern Tribes.

A few bandit groups had also risen up in the recent months to take advantage of the presence of Northern Tribes. The strange thing was, people were only speculating that the Northern Tribes had arrived in the Empire.

Most commoners did not even know for sure if this was true, only the king and the other nobles knew the truth currently. Yet, a strange belief had settled in their hearts after hearing countless rumors.

Now it was a fact for them that the Northern Tribes were in the empire and in that way the Shuang Qian kingdom. Even if the tribes had not spread to the entire empire, it was likely that they were in the Shuang Qian Kingdom, as it was located right near the border of the continent.

If one went north from the Shuang Qian kingdom and went beyond the northern forest, they would reach the Pear's belt which was the great wall the divided the Great Zhou continent from the forbidden northern continent.

The pressure was also exerted on the vermilion legion that guarded the pear's belt. But they were used to this and were able to take it well. They had increased the security and had even increased their numbers with recruitment drives.

But this posed a question to the people; if the vermilion legion was guarding the pear's belt, how were the norther tribe people entering the empire?

Right now the people that questioned this were in the minority. But it wouldn't be long for it to spread to the majority. And if any problem was caused by the northern tribes and it was found out, it was likely that the commoners will be blaming the officials.

All of these were the points that Lin Mu had analyzed while traveling. He was reading through the records he had collected from the mercenary union and some things that Wu Hei had provided him. It was obvious that there were a lot of conspiracies and schemes in the background as well.

~Sigh~

"The nobles and the aristocrat just can't get enough, can they?" Lin Mu said in a tired tone.

"The human greed is boundless, but it also drives them further. It is up to you how you perceive it and how you use it." Xukong reminded.

Lin Mu nodded his head in acknowledgment and looked ahead. He was now nearing a small town called Dust Mill town. 

"We should take a break. Little shrubby, you can recover your stamina till then." Lin Mu said.

"Okay," Little Shrubby agreed.

He had been running at his full speed for over twelve hours now and it was already nighttime. Even when they came across blockades Lin Mu didn't stop as he just used the severing heart sutra to daze the soldiers or the guards, before passing quickly with Little Shrubby.

Not only was this helping him hone his proficiency with the serving heart sutra, he discovered that his control over his spirit sense was also increasing. In fact, in these past twelve hours, he had been able to increase his spirit sense's range all the way to 380 meters.

Such a fast increase was rather surprising to him, but it was bound to happen as his cultivation base was already quite far. Once he reached the Nascent Soul realm, it wouldn't be a problem for him to have spirit sense that extended all the way to 1000 meters. 

In fact, there was a chance that Lin Mu may end up exceeding it before that. But he knew that the difficulty would only get more with each 100-meter increase in range. Every hundred meter was like a bottleneck that took a lot of effort to overcome.

~Whoosh~

Little Shrubby paused near some trees outside the town, and Lin Mu got down from his back. He then spread his spirit sense and checked the town.

"Hmm… there isn't much here. Even the population seems less than it should be…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

He had seen the houses, but when he checked the people using his spirit sense, he found them to be lesser than he had expected. At least 40% more people could be accommodated into these houses.

After leaving little Shrubby outside, Lin Mu walked into the town. At the end of the town a hill could be seen, on which an old mill was built. The mill looked quite old, but it was still operational from what Lin Mu read about the town.

Since it was already nighttime, most people were sleeping in the town and there were barely any lights lit up. Lin Mu was only stopped by the guards at the entrant for a couple of minutes before he was let in.

"The security is rather lax too… they just asked me what I was here for, not even the name…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

He soon found a restaurant that was still working and stepped in.

"What would you like, sir?" The waiter asked.

Lin Mu saw that the restaurant was mostly empty and the workers were just sitting around.

"Hmm… get me one of every dish you have." Lin Mu spoke.

The waiter looked at Lin Mu for a few seconds longer, but did not question him.

"Alright, sir. Please take a seat and I'll be with you in a moment." The waiter spoke before leaving.

Back in the kitchen,

"We have another traveler, he ordered one of each dish." The waiter spoke to the cook.

"Huh? Why would he want that much food?" The cook asked.

"I don't care as long as he pays. He looks decently dressed so shouldn't have a problem paying. I even saw some jewelry on his hands so he should be fine." The Waiter responded.

~Sigh~

"Alright. We have to do whatever since the business is dying, anyway." The cooks replied.

"Yeah… I can't believe the kingdoms won't listen to our pleas that the people are disappearing. If they are all gone, how would we do business." 

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