175 The Escaped Beast

"We've seen the beast before, it's none other than the Great slumber bear." Xukong Finally answered.

"That… does seem likely now that I think about it." Lin Mu replied.

"Indeed, it would work since a Great slumber bear cannot be found in a low leveled world like this. Also, the three markings on the beast storage treasure prove that it's from a higher level world, it would make sense that the beast came from there.

Though this gives rise to another question, whether the beast was brought by the same person that brought the Invader, or perhaps it was the invader that is behind this." Xukong said in an unsure tone.

Lin Mu pondered on it for a bit and found it to be too much of a coincidence for it to not be related.

"We will just have to wait and see, I guess. The clues should turn up soon." Lin Mu stated.

Suddenly Lin Mu remembered another thing.

"Senior, should I… tell them about the beast storage treasure?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Hmm, you can tell them that it's a beast storage treasure, but I don't think they will believe you if you tell them its rank. I think it's better that you just tell them that its one and not its capabilities." Xukong suggested.

"Yes senior, I'll do that." Lin Mu replied respectfully before opening his eyes.

During the entire conversation that Lin Mu had with senior Xukong, fifteen minutes had passed. Upon opening his eyes, he saw that Hei Wan and Hei Bao were still talking, but the topics they were talking about were unknown to Lin Mu.

Lin Mu did not speak up abruptly but rather chose to wait for them to finish their conversation as the current topic of their conversation was a little interesting to Lin Mu.

"The celebratory tournament went well, apparently. A lot of hidden talents and black horses were discovered during that." Hei Wan spoke.

"Oh, are there any that we knew of?" Hei Bao asked.

"Just the usual ones from the top sects. All the others were a surprise to us. But that was expected too, our network is not that strong beyond the upper three countries of the Northern lands." Hei Wan replied in a dismissive tone.

"Who won it this time? I mean, which top sect won it? The sky precepts sect, the rainbow pill sect, or the Centennial sword sect?" Hei Bao questioned in an interested tone.

"Surprisingly, it was not a disciple from any of the three top sects." Hei Wan spoke, but was then interrupted by a shocked Hei Bao.

"What! How is that possible? There's no way any of the top three sects would let go of a chance such as this to raise their prestige. They always like to flourish their strength." Hei Bao spoke.

"Yes, I was surprised by that too. Even the lord had not expected such an outcome. For some reason, all of the disciples of the top three sects chose to not fight in the finals. The one who won in the end was a disciple from the fourth ranked top sect, Unity wind sect." Hei Wan replied.

Hei Bao was lost in thought after hearing about this and wondered what could have caused them to do such a thing.

While Hei Bao was thinking this, Lin Mu was curious about the tops sects. This was the first time he was actually hearing the names of any of the top sects. In the past, they were so beyond him that he had never bothered to know more about them. But now that he had heard, he wanted to know more.

But just as he was about to speak, he was interrupted by senior Xukong.

"Are you forgetting that they are still mistaken that you are a disciple of a sect? If you ask them about the name straight away, they will be suspicious." Xukong advised.

"Ah yes! You're right senior." Lin Mu replied in a grateful tone.

He thought about how to frame the question for a moment before asking, "Umm, what were the rankings of the other sects in the competition?"

Hei Wan and Hei Bao turned to look at Lin Mu who had just spoken. All this while when they were talking, they had forgotten that there even was a third person in the room with them; they were that engrossed in their work. Both of them felt a little awkward about forgetting Lin Mu.

Hei Wan forcefully suppressed her embarrassment, which was easy since her face was hidden behind a veil, anyway.

"The rankings were as follows, the Unity wind sect came first, Ivory sable sect came second, Sky precepts sect came third, Centennial sword sect came fourth, Rainbow pill sect came fifth, Cloud mountain sect came sixth, and the eighth position was taken by Starry jasper court.

As for the seventh, ninth and tenth positions, they were taken by cultivators that did not belong to the sects. The seventh position was taken by a lieutenant from the vermilion legion, while the ninth position was taken by a prince of the Eastern Ming dynasty.

We do not know who took the tenth position though; they were a nameless cultivator, and they left soon after the competition. They did not even take their prize." Hei Wan explained.

While Lin Mu was not able to find out about all of the top ten sects, he was still fine with being able to find out about seven of the top ten sects. Before this, he had never heard of any of them. Though still out of the ten winners, he recognized one name.

"The vermilion legion, huh?" Lin Mu muttered with a little surprise.

"Oh, what the problem?" Hei Bao asked after seeing the hint of surprise in Lin Mu's voice.

"Nothing, it's just that I didn't expect to hear that name." Lin Mu replied.

"Whys that?" Hei Bao questioned, and even Hei Wan looked on in curiosity.

"I thought the vermilion legion never moved from the frontier. Isn't a lieutenant a very high position in the vermilion legion?" Lin Mu replied.