Walker Of The Worlds

Chapter 3944: Deception Beyond Deception

”Oh?” Lin Mu looked around and saw that a small shack stood around him.

It was old or rather, extremely old. And the structure was so ordinary that anyone looking at it for the first time would probably assume it had been built by a mortal farmer somewhere in a remote village.

The roof was made from straw, the walls were wooden planks covered with mud, the floor consisted of roughly broken stones, and there was no impressive entrance.

There were no shining immortal formations, no grand palace and certainly no towering pillars that one might expect from some kind of hidden inheritance or tomb. Everything about the place screamed ordinary.

Lin Mu stared at it for several seconds then his expression slowly changed.

”Interesting.” He crouched down and touched the floor as his finger brushed against the rough black stone.

A faint smile appeared on his face. ”This is Immortal Grade Black Sandstone.”

He looked toward the wooden wall. ”Immortal Grade Mahogany Wood.”

His gaze moved toward the roof and the straw appeared to be dried and brittle.

Lin Mu reached up and plucked one of the strands before his eyes narrowed. ”Imperial Grade Parchment Reed husks.”

He slowly straightened as he realized something.

The shack looked crude but the materials were anything but. Lin Mu understood the contradiction immediately. Someone had deliberately constructed this place to appear worthless.

The deception went beyond the formation. Even if someone managed to bypass the array and reach this location, they would probably overlook the shack because of its appearance.

A cultivator might see an old wooden hut and assume it had belonged to some mortal. Perhaps they would even wonder why anyone had bothered hiding something so insignificant.

But that would be the mistake as every component of this shack was beyond what ordinary cultivators could handle. Immortal Grade Black Sandstone was extremely durable as shaping it required tremendous strength or the use of Immortal Qi.

Ordinary mortals could never carve it and even peak Spirit Realm cultivators would struggle to damage it.

The wood was equally extraordinary.

Immortal Grade wood possessed its own resilience and vitality. Cutting it cleanly required considerable force, and shaping it into walls without proper tools would be extremely difficult.

The roof was even more interesting.

Imperial Grade Parchment Reed was not something that could simply be gathered and woven together by hand. The husks were tougher than they appeared and their surface contained natural fibers that could withstand enormous amounts of pressure.

Lin Mu gently rubbed one between his fingers. ”It really is an Imperial Grade material.”

And imperial here did not mean being used in some immortal empire either. Instead this was something used in the Immortal court especially for documentation and decrees. It was used for this because the reed could actually register the writer’s intent within it.

Even if someone changed or modified the contents later, or someone tried to forget something, the intent of the user would be captured within it. This was especially important for something that functioned at the level of the Immortal Courts’

Knowing all this, Lin Mu could hardly believe how casually the creator had used it.

A mortal looking at this shack would see straw. A cultivator with insufficient knowledge would see old, dried grass. An ordinary immortal might recognize that something was unusual. But only someone with enough knowledge would understand the true value.

Lin Mu slowly stood and his gaze became deeper.

”This place was built by someone who understood concealment extremely well.” The thought excited him.

The hidden formation, the mathematical encryption, the use of the surrounding soil, the artificial change in physical properties and now... A seemingly worthless shack constructed from precious materials.

Everything pointed toward the same conclusion.

Whatever had been hidden here mattered a lot. Lin Mu slowly approached the entrance and saw that there was no door. Only a dark opening beneath the wooden frame. He stood there for several breaths before he stepped inside.

The interior was even simpler as there was a small wooden table, a crude chair, a stone platform that could perhaps be used as a bed and a few shelves lined one wall. Rather basic for a hut.

There were no decorations, paintings and certainly no obvious treasure. Still, Lin Mu’s Immortal Sense swept through everything. And as he did that his expression slowly became serious.

The interior was empty.

At least... It appeared empty.

His Spatial Perception immediately followed. The shack itself was completely different from its appearance. Every wall contained hidden spatial fluctuations. They were extremely faint and almost impossible to detect.

Lin Mu’s eyes narrowed. ”Another layer?”

He carefully examined the walls. The formation outside had merely hidden the shack but the shack itself appeared to contain another structure. That discovery made Lin Mu’s heartbeat increase slightly.

He had finally found something that could genuinely be connected to the Wild Peak. The crest outside had already proven that and the formation had confirmed it further. But now... This shack might finally provide the answer he had been searching for.

Lin Mu slowly extended his hand toward the wall and his fingers stopped a few inches away. He did not touch it immediately. Instead, he carefully scanned every inch as a hidden formation existed inside the wall.

Its structure was extraordinarily subtle and Lin Mu’s eyes narrowed further.

”This isn’t a simple concealment array.” He could feel another layer beneath it.

Perhaps storage, perhaps spatial distortion, perhaps a passage, or perhaps... Something far more important.

Lin Mu’s expression became solemn. He had entered this place searching for the Vault of the Virtuous Calamity Daoist and while he still did not know whether the vault was here, he had found clues at the very least.

He had found people who possessed traces of the man’s legacy and he had found a crystal that had preserved an ancient settlement. He had even discovered a formation connected to the Wild Peak, and now he had discovered this shack.

Considering all this, Lin Mu felt that he was genuinely close.

He slowly smiled. ”Let’s see what you’re hiding.”