Lin Mu felt enlightened at the revelation and felt a bit silly as to how he did not realize it himself. But after understanding this, many other ideas popped up in his mind. Though he did not know how many of them were actually valid.
Lin Mu then remembered that while Senior Xukong had told him about the abundance of spatial qi, he hadn't told him how to get it exactly. Still, he could guess that perhaps he wanted him to find out on his own and perhaps wanted to test him.
Lin Mu didn't mind this and took it up with confidence. He actually felt more satisfied when he accomplished and completed something on his own. But he put these thoughts aside for the moment as he needed to head back to his house.
He was at the very edge of progressing into the next stage of the qi refining realm and thus wanted to go bask as soon as possible. Not to mention with all the basic qi pills he now had, it would take him quite a while to finish them.
Lin Mu finally left the courtyard and appeared in the shop. But upon leaving the back room, he saw that there was actually someone in the shop. At first, he was taken aback and thought that someone had either mistakenly wandered in or had just come to buy things.
It wasn't like there were no customers other than Lin Mu that came to Jing Wei's emporium. There were actually some random people that came here a couple of times a month. Still, the shop was relatively unknown to most people.
But then Lin Mu suddenly remembered something.
'The illusory formations are still active!' He thought, and medianly became alert.
Lin Mu's spirit sense spread around and he immediately observed the person, trying to find out their cultivation base. He inferred that if they had been able to enter the shop despite the illusory formations, they must defiantly be a cultivator and that too a strong one.
The person in front of Lin Mu was a man that seemed to be in his early thirties and was wearing the clothes of a commoner. This only made Lin Mu more alert as he thought that perhaps the man was hiding his identity while disguising like this.
But after Lin Mu probed the man's body, he was a little surprised.
"He's… a commoner?" Lin Mu muttered.
Still feeling unsure of it, Lin Mu sensed the body tempering realm cultivation of the man, finding it to be at the fifth stage of the body tempering realm.
'That confirms that he's not a cultivator, but then how did he get in?' Lin Mu thought, feeling perplexed.
During this entire thing, the man had not noticed Lin Mu as barely five seconds had passed. Everything had happened quite fast, and Lin Mu's enhanced reflexes only helped this.
The man turned around and saw Lin Mu, who was standing behind the counter.
"Ah, are you the shopkeeper here? I was looking for you, I wanted to buy something." The man said.
Lin Mu took a look and saw that the man was standing near a shelf that had some miscellaneous objects placed on it. He wanted to tell him that he was not the shopkeeper but before he could do that the man spoke again.
"I wanted to buy this," the man said as he pointed towards what looked like a set of maintenance and polishing kit that was used for tools and weapons.
Lin Mu walked forwards and looked at the kit, ensuring that it was something normal and nothing precious. He couldn't help but feel suspicious that perhaps this person was sent by someone else to get this or something like that.
But after observing the maintenance and polishing kit, Lin Mu found it to be as mundane as it could be.
'Is he genuinely a normal customer?' Lin Mu thought and then extended his spirit sense towards the door of the shop.
His spirit sense easily pierced the door and went outside. There he saw that the illusory formation was not working, and the shop was fully revealed to the outside, and even the alley was visible.
'Huh, the formations stopped?' Lin Mu wondered.
He then discreetly withdrew the communication jade and contacted Jing Wei, who thankfully had not entered seclusion yet. Jing Wei simply told him to sell the kit and that the formation was stopped because he was repairing the other ones.
~Phew~
'I was worried for nothing…' Lin Mu thought as he took a breath of relief.
"Umm excuse me? How much is it for?" The man asked Lin Mu, seeing that he had not responded yet.
"Oh yes! It's worth about one silver and ten copper coins." Lin Mu answered, telling him the price that Jing Wei had quoted.
Though Lin Mu doubted the high price and was pretty sure that Jing Wei had just said it from the top of his head.
The man was a bit surprised after hearing the cost, and his expression turned serious. He stroked his forehead while thinking and it looked like he was having a hard time deciding.
"I'll take it…" The man said while gritting his teeth.
"Uh, okay…" Lin Mu replied and took the money from the man's hands.
The entire time the man seemed quite hesitant about handing him the coins.
"If you don't mind me asking, why do you need this kit?" Lin Mu asked curiously.
"It's a good quality kit and has proper tools. Even if it's expensive, I think it's worth it if I can get the job at the army camp." The man replied.
"Oh? What kind of job?" Lin Mu questioned.
"You don't know? A lot of people are looking to apply for the new jobs that are opening up temporarily at the southern town." The man answered.
Lin Mu was confused by this as from what he knew, while the southern town was mostly an army base, they had their own workers and blacksmiths. If this man was buying a maintenance and polishing kit that too an expensive one like this then it meant that it was something major.
"How are there jobs opening up there? The soldiers there don't need much as they don't really fight.." Lin Mu asked.
"You don't know? The son of Wu Lim city's mayor is coming soon."