Chapter 2036 The Missing Members

Once Mei Nienzhen was gone, Lin Mu met and talked with the other people that were present here.

Since they were all headed on the expedition together, he reckoned there was no harm in getting to know them. But once Lin Mu talked to them a bit, he realized that a majority were actually from the tournament too.

Of course, not all of them were people that Lin Mu had fought, but there were certainly others that he had seen in the matches, such as Xiong Guo and Fu Xiaoling. But none of Lin Mu's close companions were present in the group.

He could already guess why Ming Aolian and Ming Dandan were not present there, as they had left the Rust Sky World along with their master.

'They did say they'll go in search of more beasts.' Lin Mu thought to himself. Qian Wen was out of the question too as he was part of the Imperial Army and would be busy handling the matters, especially after the events of the Tournament. Not to mention, Yao Changying was still missing and the search for her was on.

This was part of the army's duties and was necessary.

Luo Liqin on the other hand, wasn't exactly meant for an expedition like this. Lin Mu didn't mean ill will towards the man, but he knew that his companion was a bit too weak to be here.

This finally left Lu Xu.

"Strange that Lu Xu isn't here." Lin Mu muttered to himself.

Daoist Chu who was standing next to him, heard and replied, "your companion, I assume?" "Yeah, you met him too." Lin Mu nodded.

"Ah, I do recall Crown Prince Feng Shun inviting him." Daoist Chu spoke.

"Oh? He was invited?" Lin Mu was surprised. "Why's he not here then?"

Lu Xu was the most qualified among Lin Mu's companions from the tournament and was also decently strong.

"I'm afraid Lu Xu is far too busy handling his business in the Capital." Daoist Chu replied. "After receiving land as reward from the crown prince, he spent no time waiting and quickly set up a few shops on it. And since they are new, he's busy managing them until the work stabilizes." He explained.

"Or at least, that's what he said in his rejection letter." Daoist Chu added.

"Huh… That does fall in line with what he wished for." Lin Mu recalled Lu Xu saying that he wanted to set up a great business empire.

Even if he was decently strong, his goal actually wasn't just his own strength, but also the strength of wealth. And what better way to acquire it than to set up multiple businesses?

"Though he isn't the only one that rejected the invite. Most of the good prospects we invited from the participants of the tournament actually rejected us," Daoist Chu stated. "Then there were those that had already left the Dao Wind Continent as they belonged to other empires or even the Rust Sky World entirely." "I see… Guess it is mostly the mid to lower tiered cultivators from the tournament now." Lin Mu replied.

"Indeed. The ones here are the best among those that we had originally picked from." Daoist Chu replied. After learning this, Lin Mu conversed with Daoist Chu and the other members a bit more before deciding to explore the ship.

'May as well see how the ship is constructed as well as the formation arrays that are present on it.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

He had already seen the first floor below the deck which was the meeting hall with the formation screen. Below this was the floor with living quarters. It was linked with a long corridor which then branched out into a smaller corridor.

Along these smaller corridors were individual rooms that were all secured with both isolation as well as defensive arrays. This would make it so that the people inside would have no issues in cultivating.

In addition to this, each of the doors had a rune on it that would change, depending on whether the room was occupied or not, as well as the name of the person inside. Anyone could take an empty room, and use the formation to change this.

"Hmm, not bad." Lin Mu said as he observed the arrays.

He even checked out one of the empty rooms and saw that it was rather comfortable. There was a bed, along with a tea table, desk and chairs in the room. The rooms seemed to be about four by four meters in size and even had a formation screen on the wall that functioned as a virtual window.

Lin Mu hadn't seen any windows on the ship from the outside, which was probably due to a defensive measure. But the use of formation screens made that a non-issue. One could see the sea of clouds from the virtual window that extended on all sides of the window.

"Would this show an underwater scene if this ship was sailing in the sea?" Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder. "Or would it show the scene from the top?" He left the room and walked through the corridor, finding all other rooms to be exactly the same. Lin Mu then went down to the third floor, which was also filled with more rooms. The only difference was that these rooms were smaller and only had a bed and a table with a smaller formation screen in them.

All of the rooms were empty though, as the better rooms in the second floor were more than enough for all the members of the expedition. Though the third floor had three times as many rooms as the second floor.

'Are all the floors residential after this?' Lin Mu wondered and went further down.

The fourth floor wasn't residential in nature and was instead a large storage hold. Of course, the storage hold was empty as there was nothing to store there.

It was evident that the ship was meant for exploration with a large crew.