In the middle of the night, Lin Fan flew into the sky on the back of Igneel.
Since this was a town that wasn't as developed, there were many empty spots for him to take off from.
From these spots, there wasn't a single person that noticed the large dragon that suddenly flew into the air.
Igneel of course went too high for most people in the town to follow, it was only those experts that protected the town that might be able to find him, but it wasn't as if they were looking for Lin Fan and Igneel in the first place.
After leaving the town, Lin Fan headed off in the direction of the Winding Stream that was near the town.
Even before he landed, he found that there was indeed something strange happening near the stream.
There were some people that were here hunting for nocturnal creatures to sell, but that wasn't the strange thing that he noticed. The strange thing that he noticed was that there were these strange figures that were floating on the stream.
There were people that saw them, but they immediately turned in the opposite direction after seeing them.
It didn't seem like anyone wanted to get involved with these floating figures on the stream.
However, that wasn't strange since to most of these people, these floating figures were like ghosts.
People had a fear of the supernatural, even if this was a cultivation world.
So it wasn't as if people would be charging at ghosts even if they were cultivators.
The unknown was scary and people wouldn't just head towards something that was scary for no reason. So there was no one that went towards the figures that were just floating there over the stream.
Even if it meant having to let the prey that they were chasing escape because these ghosts were in their way.
From above, Lin Fan could see the entire situation.
He could see that the ghosts were just floating there without doing a thing.
With the view that he had from flying above it all, he could also see the layout of the ghosts as they floated there. There was a specific way that the ghosts were spread out across the stream that made it clear that they weren't there for no reason.
It was clear that there was someone controlling these ghosts as they floated on the stream since they were spread out in a way that prevented people from heading to a certain area.
It seemed like whoever was controlling these ghosts were using them to keep people away.
But what they were keeping people away from...that was what Lin Fan didn't know.
He could see from above that it seemed to be an area in the center of the stream that they were keeping people from.
This stream didn't seem like it was that deep in the first place, so it wasn't as if there was anything that could be hiding at the bottom of the stream.
That meant that there should be something above or near the top of the water in the area that they were surrounding.
However, Lin Fan wasn't able to see a single thing.
It really didn't make sense when he saw this since he couldn't figure out the reason why the ghosts were acting this way.
Flying up in the sky for a bit, Lin Fan finally decided to go down to the ground to see what was special about this place.
It was only because the stream was shallow that he sent the rats down in the first place.
They were summoned with the precious DP given by the system, so it wasn't as if he would just sacrifice them that easily.
When the rats dived into the water, he found...
There was nothing special about this place either.
It seemed that there wasn't a single thing special about the area that the ghosts were surrounding at all.
Whether it was above the water or below the water, this place couldn't seem more ordinary.
So why were the ghosts surrounding this place?
No matter how Lin Fan thought about it, it didn't seem like he was able to figure out a thing. It just confused him more the more that he thought about the actions of whoever was behind these ghosts.
When his head was starting to hurt, Lin Fan decided to give up thinking about this and was planning to leave.
But all of a sudden, he thought of something.
When he looked at the spread of the ghosts from above, he remembered that there were some ghosts that were in the middle of the area that the ghosts occupied. It didn't seem to make any sense to have ghosts in the middle of this area if they were just trying to keep people out.
So instead of being stuck on the thought that these ghosts were here to keep people out, perhaps he should be thinking of a different reason why the ghosts were here.
"A net?" Lin Fan couldn't help suddenly saying to himself.
The more that he looked at the ghosts that were there, the more that this seemed likely.
It was as if they were there to form some kind of net to make sure that nothing escaped from their grasps.
But why would they need to form this net?
Unless...
There was something upstream.
When this thought passed through his mind, he immediately went after it.
After moving a bit upstream, Lin Fan had Greeny send one of the rats into the water to see where it would come out.
As expected, the rat came out where the ghosts were.
The stream was quite strong when they went upstream, so it actually pushed the rat under the water. If the rat hadn't been able to hold its breath long enough, then it wouldn't have been able to last that long underwater.
When the stream finally relaxed and allowed the rat to surface, it found that it came out where the ghosts were.
The ghosts didn't seem to care at all that the rat had popped out of the water, as if it wasn't what they were looking for.
But the fact that the ghost did turn to look meant that they were waiting for something to come out of the water.
That meant that whoever was controlling these ghosts was most likely even further upstream.