Carefully stepping out into the next area, Lin Mu spread his spirit sense as much as he could. 

'At least they can't sense us either. Even if we might have made a little noise, it can still be attributed to the other beasts here.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

On the map, they could see several beasts here as well. Their sizes varied and Lin Mu could determine that they were mostly Black Blue crystal beasts with a couple of Black Navy blue crystal beasts spread around.

The only difference was that the humans that were in the area seemed to have set up a strange kind of a barrier that was hiding them from the beasts. Only because it was a solid barrier could the True Sound Dowsing rods even detect them. 

Lin Mu and the rest didn't know if these people were friendly or not. For all they could know, it could be some other beast that might have a humanoid form and the spirit tool detected them as humans.

After all, the True Sound dowsing rods could only detect it based on the size and shape of the object, other than that they could not tell if the thing was alive or not. If there was a statue of the same size, they would have looked the same.

Though Jing Luo confirmed that it was indeed a living thing since the markings had moved a little during the making theft map, creating a slight blur effect. 

Lin Mu was fully alert at this point and had his focus at the peak. 

"Wait here," He whispered to the others.

Then in the next moment, he blinked to to the next room and Phased into one of the walls.

"Phasing here is difficult too… the walls are interfering with it." Lin Mu took note.

He went up the to ceiling and then peeked out below. There were several torches and some spirit tools burning in the hall. Lin Mu narrowed his eyes as he finally saw the people who were here.

"Who are they?" Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder upon seeing their attire.

They were wearing thick wool clothes and animal furs on their body. Their skin was also lighter than most of the people that Lin Mu had seen till now. Various ornaments were hanging on their clothes as well, and their hair was long.

Some of them kept their hair braided and had accessories in them as well, while some kept it in a simple ponytail. Their eyes were blue, unlike most of the people of the Great Zhou continent, and they were tall as well.

It didn't take Lin Mu more than a few seconds to recognize who they might be.

"The Northern Tribes…" Lin Mu whispered.

Lin Mu's fist clenched, and a vein popped up on his forehead. If it weren't for his mind telling him to stop, his body would have already descended and started a slaughter. 

'I can't do that… need to find out why they are here first…' Lin Mu thought to himself and chanted the calming heart sutra silently.

A few seconds later, he felt the volatile thoughts fade and he could focus on the situation again. He noted the faint spirit Qi fluctuations that were coming from them and found that all of them were at the Nascent Soul realm.

'Twenty nascent soul realm cultivators… that's a lot and unusual.' Lin Mu thought.

The assumption they had till now was that Elder Liqiang had accidentally been pulled into the ruins. But now Lin Mu couldn't help but think otherwise. It was far less likely that all twenty of the men would be pulled into the ruins at once.

"Do they have something to do with the ruins?" Lin Mu wondered.

But this thought also gave him a little anxiety, as it would mean that the Northern tribes had more knowledge about this place than they did. And the one thing Lin Mu had learned from Senior Xukong the most was that knowledge was power.

It was why he learned everything he got his hands on and was always curious about new things. 

Noting all of the men here, he moved to the other hall where more people were located. The True Sound Dowsing rods weren't fully accurate, and it was better for Lin Mu to check the area himself.

After all, the sound could get dampened by the multiple walls and barriers that came in the way. And in the next hall, his conjecture came out to be true. There were ten more Northern Tribe members here, though one of them was a woman this time.

She seemed to be far older than the rest of them and had while hair that was tied into multiple braids. But the most eye catching thing was the spirit Qi fluctuations that were emanating from her.

"Dao Shell realm… that too at the Shell completion stage at the very least." Lin Mu estimated.

The spirit Qi fluctuations coming from the woman were many times stronger than Elder Weimin's. The only one who could come close to it was perhaps Elder Liqiang himself, but he was at the Shell Genesis stage.

This made Lin Mu assume that she was definitely above him. He looked around and saw another man in the hall. He was greatly injured and was bleeding from all over his body. His legs seemed to be broken and he was slumped against the wall.

"Hehehe! Are you ready to speak now?" The old woman suddenly spoke.

The man who was lying on the ground opened his bloodshot eyes. Anger could be seen in them and perhaps if it were not for his injuries, he might have already killed the woman. 

~BOOM~

Suddenly, the man moved and flew at great speed towards the old woman. 

~CLANG~

But before he could reach halfway to her, a barrier sent him flying away and made him crash back into the wall. 

~Cough~

The man spit out blood and struggled to look at the woman.

"NEVER!" He yelled.

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