What the mole beast had said was exactly what Lin Wu had originally wanted to do. But he had seen the monkey beasts when he met the two ape kings and knew that recruiting them on that day would be hard.

If he asked them to give him a few monkeys he would have definitely been rejected. Thus he wanted to wait for the right opportunity.

"I did have that idea, but haven't gotten the chance for it." Lin Wu stated.

"There are a lot of monkey beasts in the outer three rings of the forest, but I doubt they are intelligent enough to learn this." The swan beast thought out loud.

"Indeed. Well… anyways you all can go about your way." Lin Wu said.

"Master, do you still want me to keep an eye on the Olive Viper king?" the mole beast questioned.

"No, there is no need now. I have other sources of information." Lin Wu said.

This was one of the things he had added in agreement for the cooperation with the slim arms ape, demon spine ape and the split thorn horn beetle kings. They did not mind something like this and had their subordinates watching the snake anyway.

This was a better and more efficient method for Lin Wu as it would get him more information. Lin Wu returned to cultivation and returned his mind to his avatar.

"Hmm, I should be able to upgrade my cultivation base in two more weeks." Lin Wu muttered to himself after seeing the window.

~Ding~

——

AVATAR CULTIVATION BASE: Peak stage of the core condensation realm

-Spirit Qi required to upgrade = [8416/24,000] units (liquid spirit qi)

——

Shirong had left the Deer Wood city a day after Lin Wu had his battle with the Demon Spine ape.

He was now close to the capital city of the Ling Kingdom and would reach it in an hour. Originally he was going to directly fly there but then decided to take a carriage instead. The reason for this was some new information that he had obtained.

Shirong had asked Clan Head Lu to send out his people to search for more information on his two followers Ye Dai and Bei Wen who had gone missing. Apparently, they were seen being taken by some group which had been found to be involved in human trafficking.

This group operated in between the routes going to the capital city and was said to be quite strong too. They were said to have plenty of Core condensation realm cultivators and were rumored to have a nascent soul realm expert as their backer.

The clan head and Shirong knew that they were definitely not the ones who had made the plan to take Shirong's two followers and there was another party behind them. But these people would be the key to getting to them and thus Shirong made a plan.

He would disguise himself as a rich nobleman and travel by carriage. He would intentionally have low security and make it as if he was a good target for these 'bandits'.

But just this would not have been enough and it was known that they only targeted specific people who were vulnerable and rich. They were also smart and would not just fall into a trap like this directly.

Because of this, Shirong had to plot a very long route to the capital. That way there was a greater chance of encountering these bandits. He even got the clan head to spread the news that the young master of a noble clan who had never gone out into the world before was visiting the capital for the first time.

This was to incite the bandits to take action. They knew that there was still a large chance they would not succeed but Shirong was still willing to take it. The route they had taken went through multiple villages and towns, making sure that they covered the more 'desolate' parts of the routes too.

But it seemed like Shirong's luck was not as good and they did not encounter any of those 'bandits' They had been traveling for six days now and there was no progress in their plan.

Usually, it would have taken a person two days to reach the capital of the Ling kingdom by a carriage but even after expanding this journey to six days, their plan seemed to have failed.

"What should we do now, young master?" One of the servants asked.

Shirong had been assigned a few servants to act as the part and they were all cultivators who were hiding their cultivation base as well. Shirong looked out of the window and sighed, feeling a bit lost.

"Seems like our journey was in vain. These rats are way more cautious than we thought, or they moved to some other place at the last moment." Shirong spoke.

"Indeed. Our scouts have also reported that there have been no recent bandit attacks on any of the carriages or caravans traveling." The servant spoke.

Shirong simply nodded his head without answering. He had gotten bored at this time as he barely had anything to do. Since they were traveling to the capital city, most of the paths were well developed, and rarely did any beasts get near this.

And even the ones that did, were quickly killed by the guards. After reaching the Nascent Soul realm, Shirong wanted nothing more than to fight and test his new skills, but he was not having the chance.

Even if he did do that, there was a great chance his cover would be exposed and their plan would just fail. And now finally after all this time, they were close to the capital city.

'Seems like I'll just have to get onto my mission first…' Shirong thought.

He spread his spirit sense fully for the first time in days and checked the area. In the few days, while he was in the carriage, Shirong had taken the opportunity to further refine his spirit sense. His spirit sense had now reached a radius of about three hundred meters.

But just as he did that, he spotted something he had been waiting for.

"So they have been hiding here all this time…"