~Shing~

~Slick~

~Thud~

A large beast's head rolled on the ground as blood splattered to the sides. Lin Mu gestured with his fingers, and his short sword returned to his scabbard.

~Sigh~

A sigh escaped Lin Mu's lips as he witnessed another failure. About four days had passed since Lin Mu set the formation array and bade farewell to Jing Wei and Duan Ke. The two of them had left the town the very night when Lin Mu had met them.

He had not seen them leave but could sense it due to the communication jade that he had. Jing Wei had told Lin Mu had as long as they were within the distance of about a thousand kilometers the communication jade would work. But last night it had finally stopped working and the connection it had was broken.

It was evident from this that they had long left the town or even the kingdom itself, depending on the direction they went.

The day of the competition was getting closer and Lin Mu was still not able to complete one of his smaller goals, which was to practice refining a bloodline to prepare it for assimilation. He had hunted nearly about seventy beasts and was still unable to find a beast with an awakened bloodline.

Still, he was not totally disappointed as another one of his smaller goals had been fulfilled yesterday as well. Yesterday was the day when the large shipment containing the beast meat had arrived for Lin Mu. Hei Wen had sent him a message and had asked him to meet somewhere outside the town.

This was done as the shipment was rather large and they did not want people to know and talk about it, especially with the current political climate. When Lin Mu met yesterday with Hei Wen, he also got to know of some new undercurrents that had arisen in the current situation.

The mercenary union had officially blamed the mayor of the Wu Lim city, Wu Xun for mishandling the incidents that occurred and also for falsely accusing the mercenaries that 'HE' himself had recruited. The mayor had of course tried to flip the directive onto the mercenary union, but the head of the mercenary union did something which was completely unexpected.

He used the royal decree which was issued to them for the services they had rendered to the kingdom. Because of that decree, they now had the support of the king of the Shuang Qian kingdom, and even the Tri cauldron peony sect could not do anything without disturbing the delicate political ecosystem even more.

Of course, this also meant that the wedding had to be forcefully delayed as the mayor was now called in for questioning at the Royal court of the Shuang Qian kingdom. Investigators were also sent to the Wu Lim city and they would be making their rounds around the four towns as well, getting the people's perspective.

Another ironic thing that happened was that the battalion that lieutenant Wu Teng had brought with him had now been ordered by the king to assist in the very investigation. Wu Teng being the son of the Mayor was not allowed to participate under any circumstances and another officer would be sent to take authority over the entire battalion for the time being.

Of course, lieutenant Wu Teng was not punished he was merely asked to restrain himself till the investigation would be completed.

The people had even expected that lieutenant Wu Teng would be infuriated and would not comply easily seeing that his marriage was being delayed. But it was not so, instead he very jovially accepted it and just took it as a vacation.

The last report Hei Wen heard about him, spoke of him enjoying his time at one of the pleasure pavilions of Wu Lim city, much to the displeasure of his fiancee and the tri cauldron peony sect. The other powers were able to guess certain aspects from this and realized that the relationship between the mayor and the Tri cauldron peony sects wasn't as good as he was showing it to be.

Frankly, Lin Mu was a bit overwhelmed by hearing the entire thing and did not know why Hei Wen was even telling him this. But then Senior Xukong explained an obvious fact to him.

He said,

"The background that they think you have, certifies you to receive all this information and they think they have the responsibility to tell you this. This is something you will experience more in the future; when one has power, people flock to him and would do him favor just to get a little bit of his approval.

"

This was another reminder to Lin Mu about how his situation had changed greatly, and he was not the same orphan he was in the past. He was a cultivator now, a cultivator that had been ordained by the world's will.

The subconscious thinking that chained Lin Mu to his previous lowly identity of a peasant was slowly being broken down.

Another thing that Lin Mu had heard was that even if the wedding was delayed for the time being, the other ceremonies associated with it were not fully stopped. The ones such as the competition would still take place, albeit at a slightly later time.

When Lin Mu has asked Hei Wen till when it could be expected, she told him that he should consider ten days as the minimum time period. She told him to be ready, as there were likely to be even more people at the competition due to the investigations that the mayor was undergoing.

This was because the nearby Powers wanted to put the mayor and all the people related to him under a close scrutiny and what better way was there than to examine them during a marital competition where they would be giving the demonstration of their strengths.

The additional people that were now coming were not coming uninvited, but rather they were just changing their previous decision to not attend the wedding. Due to how the politics worked in the aristocratic circle, mayor Wu Xun had to send invitations to each and every power that he knew of, including the ones that he had a bad relationship with.

Even if the powers declined it, that was fine. But if he were to never send an invitation, they would take this as a sign of disrespect and would then try to stir up trouble for him. Such was the world of the aristocrats and nobles which Lin Mu was now starting to clearly dislike.

Hearing Jing Wei's story had made him dislike the hypocrisy of the cultivation sects, and now hearing Hei Wen's report had made him dislike the bureaucracy and facades of the so-called nobles.

~Sigh~

Another sigh escaped Lin Mu's lips as he reminisced over the events of yesterday. He tried to not think over them but for some reason the harder he tried the harder it was to do that.

"Hahaha! Seems like you are in a dilemma, huh.

" Xukong said with a chuckle.

"I am indeed Senior. What is this strange conflict in my mind, which seems to be even more mysterious than cultivation?

" Lin Mu replied.

"That my child is another truth of the universe. Wherever there are sentient beings, their schemes will appear too. Trust me when I say this, no being in the universe whether a mortal or an immortal had escaped this and all they can do is to learn the game and get better at it.

"