Just like this the system would continue to send out spirit qi wisps at regular intervals and would record the data. This lasted for a couple of hours until Shirong continued his cultivation session.

~Huu~

Shirong let out a breath of foul qi as his body relaxed. The cloud of spirit qi dissipated, and he opened his eyes.

"Hmm, what was that? There was… something different before." Shirong said as he tried to remember the feeling.

He checked his dantian and sensed for any abnormalities. But even after a few checks, he was unsuccessful.

"Was that my imagination?" Shirong wondered.

Just as he said this, the door of the courtyard was opened. Five people walked in and Shirong instantly recognized them.

"Young master, we are ready. Everything has been set up." Ye Dai spoke.

Shirong nodded to him and looked at Bei Wen.

"My task is underway to completion as well, young master. The men are on it as we speak." Bei Wen replied.

"Good!" Shirong said with satisfaction. "And these three will be assisting us, I believe?"

"Yes, Young master. I followed the requirements that you set and these three will be the perfect candidates." Ye Dai answered.

Lin Wu was confused about what they were talking about and felt like he had missed a lot of things during these few day's perhaps. He looked at the three men and tried to remember if he had seen them anywhere, but he couldn't recognize them.

"Young master, the progress of the clans has also reached near the end. Do you believe they will interfere?" Bei Wen asked in a concerned tone.

"Hmm, that is a possibility of around fifty percent, I believe. But even if they do, we still have our scapegoats set up." Shirong assured.

Bei Wen nodded in response before speaking, "Then shall we head off?"

"Let's go," Shirong said before waving his hand over his face and creating a tiger face mask.

"What is this?" Lin Wu uttered with surprise, seeing a new technique.

Then the two followers Bei Wen and Ye Dai did the same thing, producing similar looking tiger masks on their faces. Only the three additional people that they had brought stayed the same. In fact, they seemed to be rather still.

"Are they fine?" Lin Wu questioned.

He then realized that while their expression was calm and seemed relatively normal, their aura was not. He couldn't really perceive a spirit qi fluctuation from them. At first, Lin Wu thought they were not cultivators, but then when everyone started running he saw their speed.

"They're definitely cultivators or they would have not been able to keep up with them like this." Lin Wu said with intrigue.

Young Master Shirong, Ye Dai and Bei Wen were running at great speed through the city passing from roof to roof, hidden in plain sight. It was still day time, yet it was as if no person was able to see them. Eventually, they reached a building that looked like an old temple.

Lin Wu could see the faded markings on the walls of the temple and even the guardian gods that had been painted onto the doors. But all of these things were of the past, and now only a fragment of their beauty was left.

The temple was not that big, perhaps of about a hundred square meters. Lin Wu remembered he had seen a much bigger temple back when Shirong and the two men had first come to the Deer Wood city. But that one was still functional unlike this, which seemed to be abandoned.

Shirong on the rest of the group stopped on the roof of a house that was a few tens of meters away from the temple.

"We wait here now," Shirong ordered.

The two followers nodded while the other three men simply kept on looking. Their expression had not changed one bit ever since they had started running behind them.

"Are they puppets or something?" Lin Wu wondered.

He then felt like he remembered something and went through the list of items that were present in the ring.

"Not this… not this either… Umm, here it is!" Lin Wu spoke.

Lin Wu had found a name on the list which belonged to a certain type of pills.

"Three palaces puppet pill." Lin Wu read the name of the pills.

~Ding~

——

DESCRIPTION: Three palaces puppet pills are said to control the three innate palaces of a cultivator- the mind place, the soul palace and the qi palace. Each of the palace refers to an aspect of the cultivator and once they are controlled, the consciousness of the cultivator can be fully controlled by the person who uses the complementary technique on them.

——

Looking at the condition of the three men and the effects of the pills, Lin Wu was sure as hell that they were under their effects. He then tried to find the bottle which contained the pills and could not find them.

"Hmm, there were about eight pills in them, weren't there? Then that means… there are five more of them somewhere." Lin Wu said.

'The ones that Bei Wen was referring to must have been the other five men. Seems like Shirong put them to a certain task, but what?' Lin Wu thought.

The group waited there for about an hour, during which no moment seemed to have occurred between the three controlled men. Lin Wu was focused on them, but then he heard the voice of Ye Dai calling out to Shirong.

"Young master, they are ready on the other side." Ye Dai spoke while holding a jade slip in his hand.

"Perfect, now to just wait for the priest." Shirong stated.

It didn't take them long as within five minutes Bei Wen also took out a jade slip and said the same thing to Shirong.

This time Shirong did not react and simply kept his eyes on the temple.

"This is strange, the priest should have left by now." Ye Dai said with concern.

Shirong furrowed his brows and clenched his fist.

"Let's proceed, anyway. The man has to die today."